The Hit

Chapter 35

The SUV dropped Robie off in front of his apartment building. The men said nothing to him on the short ride over from the White House, nor did they speak as they opened the door and let him out. Robie watched the vehicle disappear into the early morning rush hour traffic.

Whitcomb hadn’t said much after Robie had told him he believed that Jessica Reel had come to his and DiCarlo’s aid the night before. He had written some things down in his electronic tablet, given Robie a few suspicious glances, and then risen from his chair and left.

Robie had remained sitting until a guard came and retrieved him a few minutes later. It was both a memorable and disturbing visit to the White House.

Now he stared at his apartment building and couldn’t remember feeling this tired before. That was saying a lot, because he had gone days without sleep and not much to eat, laboring under the most intense conditions.

Maybe I really am too old for this anymore.

It was not a concession he wanted to make, but his aching body and tired mind were two stark reminders that there was probably more truth in that statement than not.

He took the elevator up to his apartment, opened the door, turned off the alarm, and closed the door behind him. He had turned off his phone while at the White House because they had asked him to. He now turned it back on and the text popped up on the screen:

Everything I do has a reason. Just open the lock.

Robie sat down in a chair and stared at the screen for a full five minutes. Then he laid his phone down on the table and took a twenty-minute shower, letting the hot water pound the exhaustion out of him. He dressed and had a glass of orange juice. Then he sat back down with the text.

Everything I do has a reason. Just open the lock.

Reel had done many things. Which ones was he supposed to focus on? What was he supposed to unlock?

The killings?

Her coming to his aid?

Her sending this latest text?

All of the above?

He expected to get another phone call from the agency. They would have already read this text and probably had a dozen analysts trying to decipher it. But no call came. Maybe they didn’t know what else to say to him. He thought about texting Reel back, asking her what she meant. But she knew as well as he that the agency would be able to read every word. He decided not to bother answering.

He slipped the phone into his jacket pocket, stood, and stretched. He should try to get some sleep, but there was no time for that.

He suddenly realized he needed to rent a car. His was lying shot full of holes at some secure government evidence lot.

He had run through quite a few vehicles in the past year. He was glad the rental fees were deductible. Sanctioned assassins didn’t get many tax breaks.

He took a cab to a car rental outlet and signed the papers on an Audi 6. The last one he’d driven had gotten shot up too. He wondered if he was on some rental car company watch list of bad-risk clients. If he was, the place he’d just done the deal with hadn’t gotten the message to stay the hell away from him.

He drove off in his new vehicle, toward the hospital where Janet DiCarlo was currently a patient. He’d gotten the necessary info from Blue Man in an email that morning. He arrived there forty minutes later after the weather and rush-hour traffic took their toll on his journey.

He expected DiCarlo’s floor to be surrounded by security. It wasn’t. Robie took that as a very bad sign. That the intensive care unit was practically empty when he walked in was an even worse sign.

When he asked one of the nurses where DiCarlo was, she looked at him blankly.

Okay, Robie thought, they hadn’t been given her real name.

He looked at the room numbers and pointed to one. “The woman in that room,” he said. Blue Man had been very clear: ICU, Room 7.

The woman still said nothing.

“Did she die?” he wanted to know.

Another woman came up to him. She looked like a supervisor of some sort. Robie put the same questions to her.

The woman took him by the elbow and led him over to a corner. Robie showed her his creds, which she scrutinized.

She said, “That patient’s condition and current location are unknown to us.”

“How can that be? You’re a hospital. Do you just let people take critically injured patients out of here?”

“Are you the woman’s associate?”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been working in this area for a long time. And we get all types. And the type that this woman was, I believe, is highly classified. They gave no name. And they came and took her early this morning. They didn’t tell us where. I assume that they have appropriate medical care for her.”

“Who took her?”

“Men in suits with badges and ID cards that scared the hell out of me, if you want to know.”

“What did the badges and ID cards say?”

“Homeland Security.”

It was Robie’s turn to stare blankly.

DHS was involved. CIA and DHS did not play nice together, that was just how it was. But for DHS to get DiCarlo out of this place they had to do so with Langley’s blessing. So the two federal behemoths had defied all odds and were working together.

Robie refocused on the woman. “And they didn’t say where they were taking her?”

“No.”

“Was it safe to move her?”

“As a nurse with twenty years’ experience in the ICU, I would say emphatically no. But they did it anyway.”

“How badly injured was she?”

“I can’t get into that with you. It’s confidential.”

“I was with her last night when she got shot. I was the one who got her away from the people trying to kill her. I was sent here by my agency to check on her condition. You can understand that I’m surprised that she’s not here. I know there’s confidentiality involved, but you don’t even know her name. She was just the woman in Room 7. I don’t see how you would be violating any HIPAA regs.”

The woman mulled over this and said, “It is an unusual situation.”

“No truer words have ever been spoken.”

She smiled briefly. “She was in the ICU. And she wasn’t going to be leaving here anytime soon. The wound she suffered had done a lot of internal damage. The surgery removed the bullet, but it had hit a lot of things inside her. She’s going to have a long rehab. If she pulls through. That’s all I can tell you.”

Robie thanked her and left.

On the way to his car he called Blue Man and relayed this news. He was listening carefully to Blue Man’s reaction. Robie wanted to know—no, he needed to know—if Blue Man was already aware of this.

The man’s next words made Robie feel confident that he wasn’t.

“My God, what the hell is going on?”

“I’ll let you know if I find out,” answered Robie.

He clicked off and got into his car.

There were a number of ways he could pursue this, but only one was the most direct. And right now, Robie needed to be direct.

He punched the gas and cleaned out the fuel injectors on the Audi.

When you wanted real answers, sometimes it was best to go straight to the top.