The Innocent

Chapter





23


THE MEETING PLACE and time was arranged and Robie slowly put away his phone. He looked through the gap in the hedge as the cab rolled into the gas station parking lot. Julie came out of the station with a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of juice.

She has ID showing she’s eighteen.

She climbed into the cab and it immediately drove off.

Robie set off and took up a tracking position roughly fifty yards back in traffic.

He was not concerned about losing her. He had slipped a digestible biotransmitter into her scrambled eggs. It would be good for twenty-four hours and then it would wash out of her system. His tracking monitor was strapped to his wrist. He looked down at it and fell back even more. No sense letting her know she had a tail if he didn’t have to risk it. She had already proven that she possessed better than average observation skills. She might be young, but she was not to be underestimated.

The cab turned onto Interstate 66 and headed east toward D.C.

Traffic was heavy at this hour. The morning commute into D.C. from the west was routinely abysmal. You rode in with the sun in your eyes and you rode out the same way in the evening along with thousands of other pissed-off commuters.

Being on the Honda allowed Robie to be more nimble than in a car, and he was able to keep within sight of the cab. It rode 66 in, crossed the Roosevelt Bridge, and hung a right at the fork, which took it over to Independence Avenue. They quickly moved from the touristy monument area of D.C. to less beautiful parts of the capital.

The cab stopped at an intersection where a number of old duplexes were located. She got out, but must have told the cab to wait. She walked down the street and the cab followed slowly. She stopped at one duplex, took out her small camera, and clicked some pictures of it. She took pictures of the surrounding area, then climbed back in the cab and it sped off.

Robie made note of the address of the duplex and took up his tail once more.

About ten minutes later Robie realized where she was headed, and part of him couldn’t believe it. The other part of him could understand it, though.

She was heading back to the location of the bus explosion.

The cab had to let her out a couple of blocks from her destination because roads were closed off by police barricades. Robie looked around and saw cops and Feds everywhere. This blast had taken everyone by surprise. Robie could imagine lots of Tums were being dropped into federal mouths all over town.

He parked his bike, slipped off his helmet, and took up his pursuit on foot. She was a full block ahead of him. She never once looked back. That made him suspicious, but he kept on. She turned and he turned. She turned again, and so did he. They were now on the same street where the bus had ceased to be. One block over the street was closed to pedestrians as well. The police didn’t want people traipsing through their evidence beds. Robie could see what was left of the bus, even though the police were in the process of erecting large metal frames with curtains on them to shield this sight from the public.

Robie looked at the spot where he had landed after the blast occurred. He still had no idea where his gun was. That was troubling. He looked up higher, at the corners of buildings. Were there surveillance cameras posted here? Perhaps on some of the traffic lights. He looked for ATM machines, which had cameras built in. There was a bank across the street. It would not have recorded him and Julie getting off the bus, because it was positioned on the wrong side of the street for that. Right now no one knew that they were the sole survivors of the explosion.

He spied a woman in her late thirties wearing an FBI windbreaker and FBI ball cap. Dark hair, pretty face. She was about five-six and slender, with the narrow hips and the fanned shoulders of an athlete. She had one-inch Bureau work shoes on, black pants, and latex gloves. Her badge and gun rode on her belt.

Robie saw both special agents and uniformed cops talking to her. He noted their air of deference when addressing her. She might be the special agent in charge of this thing. He pulled back into the shadow of a doorway and continued watching, first the FBI agent, and then Julie. Finally Julie turned and walked down the street away from the bus’s remains. Robie waited a few moments and then followed.