The Target

Chapter 4

Jessica Reel could not sleep either. And the weather was as bad on the Eastern Shore as it was in D.C. She stared at where her home had once been before it had been destroyed. She had actually done the deed herself. Well, she had booby-trapped the place and Will Robie had triggered the explosion that had almost claimed his life. It was incredible how a partnership could have been born out of such grim circumstances.

She pulled her hood tighter against the rain and wind and continued to tramp over the muddy earth, while the waters of the Chesapeake Bay to the west continued to pound the little spit of land.

She had departed from Robie feeling both hopeful and lost, such an unsettling feeling that she was unsure from which end to work through it. If there was even a way to do so. For most of her adult life her work had been her entire world. Now Reel wasn’t sure she really had a job or world left. Her agency despised her. Its leadership wanted her not merely out of the way but dead.

If she left her employment there she felt she would be giving them license to terminate her in that far more permanent way. Yet if she stayed, what would her future be like? How long could she reasonably survive? What was her exit strategy?

All troubling questions with no apparent answers.

The last few months had cost her all she had. Her three closest friends in the world. Her reputation at the agency. Perhaps her way of life.

But she had gained something. Or someone.

Will Robie, initially her foe, had become her friend, her ally, the one person she could count on, when Reel had never been able to do that easily or convincingly.

But Robie knew her way of life as well as she did. Her way was his way. They would forever share that experience. He had offered her friendship, a shoulder to lean on if it ever came to that.

Yet part of her still wanted to withdraw from such an offer, to keep going it alone. She had not figured out her response to that or him yet. Maybe she would never have one.

She looked up at the sky and let the pelting raindrops hit her in the face. She closed her eyes and a rush of images came to her. Each one a person and each one of them dead. Some were innocent. Others not. Two had been killed by someone else. All the rest had died by her hand. One, her mentor and friend, lay in a vegetative state from which she would never awaken.

It was all pointless. And it was all true. And Reel was powerless to change any of it.

She slipped the medal on its chain from her pocket and looked down at it. It was identical to the one Robie had been awarded. It had been given to her for the same mission. She had performed the kill shot — agency orders. Robie had helped her escape nearly certain death. They had made it back to the States to the chagrin of a powerful few.

It was a meaningless gesture, this medal.

What they really wanted to do was put a hole in her head.

She walked to the edge of the land and watched the waters of the bay spray over the dirt.

Reel hurled the medal out into the bay as far as she could. She turned away before it struck the surface of the water. Metal didn’t float. It would vanish in a few moments.

But then she turned back around and used her middle finger to flip off the sinking medal, the CIA in general, and Evan Tucker specifically.

That was the main reason she’d come — to chuck her medal into the bay. And this place had been her home, to the extent any place was. She did not intend to come back here. She had come to take one last look, perhaps to gain some closure. Yet she wasn’t finding any.

The next instant she pulled her gun and ducked down low.

Over the sounds of the water had come a new intrusion.

A vehicle was pulling to a stop near the ruins of her waterside cottage.

There was no reason for anyone to be visiting her here. The only reason anyone would appear here would be a violent one.

She raced over to the only cover there was: a pile of rotted wood stacked near the water’s edge. She knelt down and used the top log as a gun rest. While she could see nothing clearly, they might have night optics that would reveal all, including her location.

She managed to follow them only by subtracting their darkened silhouettes from the darkness around them. She centered on one spot and waited for their movements to cross that point. By this method she counted four of them. She assumed they were all armed, all commed, and here for a specific purpose: her elimination.

They would try to outflank her, but her rear was not capable of being flanked, unless they wanted to jump into the bay’s cold and storm-tossed waters. She focused on other spots and waited for them to cross. She did this again and again until they were within twenty meters of her location.

She wondered why they were staying packed together. Separating during an attack was standard tactics. She could not follow so easily multiple groups coming at her from different points of the compass. But so long as they stayed together her focus need not be diffused.

She was deciding whether to fire or not when her phone buzzed.

She was not inclined to answer, not with four bogies bearing down on her outgunned butt.

But it might be Robie. As corny as it sounded, this might give her an opportunity to say goodbye in a way that had not been possible before. And maybe he would go after her killers and slay them for her.

“Yes?” she said into the phone, keeping her shooting hand on her Glock and her eyes on the forces coming for her.

“Please hold for DD Amanda Marks,” said the efficient voice.

“What the—” began Reel.

“Agent Reel, this is Amanda Marks, the new deputy director of Central Intelligence. We need you to come in to Langley immediately.”

“I’m a little busy right now, DD Marks,” replied Reel sarcastically. “But maybe you’re already aware of that,” she added in a harsh tone.

“There are four agents currently at your cottage on the Eastern Shore. Correction, where your cottage used to be. They are there simply to escort you to Langley. Please do not think of engaging with them and perhaps doing them harm.”

“And are they planning to do me harm?” snapped Reel. “Because it’s the middle of the night, I have no idea how they even knew I was here, and they’re acting quite furtive.”

“Your reputation precedes you. Hence they are acting with care. As to your location, we determined you were nowhere else.”

“And why do you need me to come in ASAP?”

“That will all be explained when you get here.”

“Is this about a new mission?”

“When you get here, Agent Reel. I can’t trust that this line is secure.”

“And if I choose not to come in?”

“As I told Agent Robie—”

“You called Robie in as well?”

“Yes. He’s part of all this, Agent Reel.”

“And you’re really the new DD?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what happened to the last two?”

“The exact same question Agent Robie presented to me.”

In spite of everything Reel smiled. “And your answer?”

“The same as yours will be. Just get your butt in here.”

The line went dead.