CHAPTER
51
REEL WAS STARING AT HER PHONE. On the screen was a familiar face, at least from a distance.
Will Robie looked back at her.
She knew she should have told him more during the standoff in Arkansas. But in truth she had been stunned to see him there. She had convinced herself that somehow the agency had been able to follow her and sent Robie in for the kill. That had rocked her, made any faith she had in him disappear. That faith had been restored when he hadn’t killed her, of course. But now she was afraid for him.
If the agency found out he had the shot but hadn’t taken it, Robie would be in serious jeopardy. And if she tried to communicate with him again and he agreed to work with her, something she had thought she wanted, then he would be in even graver danger. Killers would be sent after him. And he hadn’t prepared to go on the run like she had. As good as he was, he wouldn’t survive. They had too many resources.
I have to go this alone.
She pulled the white paper from her bag and read through it again.
Having now met Roy West, she would have hardly expected the man to be capable of piecing together a plan of such complexity. Unfortunately, his decision to plot mass murder against his fellow citizens to fuel his bizarre rage against the government was entirely in keeping with the essence of his white paper. It and he were insane.
And anyone who subscribed to what was in that paper was insane as well. And dangerous.
West was dead. He couldn’t harm anyone ever again. But there were others out there far better placed to execute the Armageddon outlined in his paper.
Country by country.
Leader by leader.
The perfect jigsaw puzzle.
If death and misery on a massive scale had a face, it could be West’s perverted masterpiece.
And then there was the unknown. The person who she felt certain had to be out there. The three levels above West. The top-top-secret clearance. The person who had wanted the paper. Who had wanted to know the master jigsaw puzzle.
Roger the Dodger. Who was he? Where was he? And what was he planning right now?
The attack against Janet DiCarlo was predictable, but Reel had never seen it coming until it was too late. DiCarlo was alive, but for how long? Reel would have loved to sit and talk with her old mentor. To find out what and how she had discovered something that had led to her nearly dying.
But that wasn’t possible. Reel had no idea where DiCarlo was. And she would be heavily guarded. And yet if the attack against her had come from the inside, how safe would she be wherever the woman was?
Reel looked down at her phone again. Should she chance it?
Without stopping to think about it anymore, she pecked the keys and the message was sent to Robie, despite her having just decided not to communicate with him again. But it was a different sort of query, one that they couldn’t hold against him.
She didn’t know if she would get an answer. She didn’t know if Robie trusted her or believed her. She remembered being part of his team early in her career. He had been the most professional among a group of consummate pros. He had taught her things, without really saying much. He sweated the little details. They were the difference, he told her, between making it or not.
She had learned some of what had happened to him earlier in the year. He had done the unthinkable for people in their profession. He hadn’t pulled the trigger. He had disobeyed orders because he believed them to be wrong.
The average citizen would think there was nothing special in that. If you thought something was wrong, why not disobey? But it wasn’t that easy. More even than regular soldiers, Robie and Reel had been trained to follow orders without question. Without that unbreakable chain of command, without that devotion to authority, the system simply didn’t work. Nothing could interfere with that.
But each of them had disobeyed orders.
Robie had refused to pull the trigger. Twice. The second time was the only reason Reel was still alive.
But she had pulled the trigger. She had killed two men who worked for the government. Both constituted crimes punishable by long imprisonment or even death.
Reel wondered if Robie was still coming after her. She wondered if right now he regretted not killing her.
Her phone buzzed. She looked down at the screen.
Will Robie had just answered her.