Chapter
3
WILL ROBIE, UNABLE TO SLEEP, stared at the ceiling of his bedroom while the rain pounded away outside. His head was pounding even more, and it would not stop when the rain did. He finally rose, dressed, put on a long slicker with a hood, and set out from his apartment in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.
He walked for nearly an hour through the darkness. There were few people about at this hour of the morning. Unlike other major cities, D.C. did sleep. At least the part you could see. The government side, the one that existed underground and behind concrete bunkers and in innocuous-looking low-rise buildings, never slumbered. Those people were going as hard right now as they would during the daylight hours.
Three men in their early twenties approached from the other side of the street. Robie had already seen them, sized them up, and knew what they would demand of him. There were no cops around. No witnesses. He did not have time for this. He did not have the desire for this. He turned and walked directly at them.
“If I give you some money, will you leave?” he asked the tallest of the three. This one was his size, a six-footer packing about one hundred and eighty street-hardened pounds.
The man drew back his Windbreaker, revealing a black Sig nine-mil in the waistband that hung low over his hips.
“Depends on how much.”
“A hundred?”
The man looked at his two comrades. “Make it a deuce and you’re on your way, dude.”
“I don’t have a deuce.”
“So you say. Then you gonna get jacked right here.”
He went to draw the gun, but Robie had already taken it from his waistband and pulled down his pants at the same time. The man tripped over his fallen trousers.
The man on the right pulled a knife and then watched in amazement as Robie first disarmed him and then laid him out with three quick punches, two to the right kidney, one to the jaw. Robie added a kick to the head after the man smacked the pavement.
The third man did not move.
The tall man exclaimed, “Shit, you a ninja?”
Robie glanced down at the Sig he held. “It’s not balanced properly and it’s rusted. You need to take care of your weapons better or they won’t perform when you want them to.” He flicked the weapon toward them. “How many more guns?”
The third man’s hand went to his pocket.
“Drop the jacket,” ordered Robie.
“It’s raining and cold,” the man protested.
Robie put the Sig’s muzzle directly against his forehead. “Not asking again.”
The jacket came off and fell into a puddle. Robie picked it up, found the Glock.
“I see the throwaways at your ankles,” he said. “Out.”
The throwaways were handed over. Robie balled them all up in the jacket.
He eyed the tall man. “See where greed gets you? Should have taken the Benny.”
“We need our guns!”
“I need them more.” Robie kicked some water from the puddle into the unconscious man’s face and he awoke with a start, then rose on shaky legs. He did not seem to know what was going on, and probably had a concussion.
Robie flicked the gun again. “Down that way. All of you. Turn right into the alley.”
The tall man suddenly looked nervous. “Hey, dude, look, we’re sorry, okay? But this is our turf here. We patrol it. It’s our livelihood.”
“You want a livelihood? Get a real job that doesn’t involve putting a gun in people’s faces and taking what doesn’t belong to you. Now walk. Not asking again.”
They turned and marched down the street. When one of the men turned to look back, Robie clipped him in the head with the butt of the Sig. “Eyes straight. Turn around again you get a third one to look through in the back of your head.”
Robie could hear the men’s breathing accelerate. Their legs were jelly. They believed they were walking to their execution.
“Walk faster,” barked Robie.
They picked up their pace.
“Faster. But don’t run.”
The three men looked idiotic trying to go faster while still walking.
“Now run!”
The three men broke into a sprint. They turned left at the next intersection and were gone.
Robie turned and headed in the opposite direction. He ducked down an alley, found a Dumpster, and heaved the jacket and guns into it after clearing out all of the ammo. He dropped the bullets down a sewer grate.
He did not get many opportunities for peaceful moments and he did not like it when they were interrupted.
Robie continued his walk and reached the Potomac River. This had not been an idle sojourn. He had come here with a purpose.
He drew an object from the pocket of his slicker and looked down at it, running his finger along the polished surface.
It was a medal, the highest award that the Central Intelligence Agency gave out for heroism in the field. Robie had earned it, together with another agent, for a mission undertaken in Syria at great personal risk. They had barely made it back alive.
In fact, it was the wish of certain people at the agency that they not make it back alive. One of those persons was Evan Tucker, and it was unlikely he was going away, because he happened to head up the CIA.
The other agent who had received the award was Jessica Reel. She was the real reason Evan Tucker had not wanted them back alive. Reel had killed members of her own agency. It had been for a very good reason, but some people didn’t care about that. Certainly Evan Tucker hadn’t.
Robie wondered where Reel was right now. They had parted on shaky ground. Robie had given her what he had believed was his unconditional support. Yet Reel did not seem to be capable of acknowledging such a gesture. Hence the shaky parting.
He gripped the chain like a slingshot and whirled the medal around and around. He eyed the dark surface of the Potomac. It was windy; there were a few small whitecaps. He wondered how far he could hurl the highest medal of the CIA into the depths of the river that formed one boundary of the nation’s capital, separating it from the commonwealth of Virginia.
The chain twirled several times in the air. But in the end Robie didn’t fling it out into the river. He returned the medal to his pocket. He wasn’t sure why.
He had just started back when his phone buzzed. He took it out, glanced at the screen, and grimaced.
“Robie,” he said tersely.
It was a voice he didn’t recognize. “Please hold for DD Amanda Marks.”
Please hold? Since when does the world’s most elite clandestine agency have its personnel say, “Please hold”?
“Robie?”
The voice was crisp, sharp as a new blade, and in its undertone Robie could detect both immense confidence and a desire to prove oneself. That was a potentially deadly combination for him, because Robie would be the one doing this woman’s bidding in the field while she safely watched from a computer screen thousands of miles away.
“Yes?”
“We need you in here ASAP.”
“You’re the new DD?”
“That’s what it says on my door.”
“A mission?”
“We’ll talk when you get in here. Langley,” she added, quite necessarily because the CIA had numerous local facilities.
“You know what happened to the last two DDs?” Robie asked.
“Just get your butt in here, Robie.”