In disbelief he watched as a wall of flames rose on either side of him, forming a straight corridor that he had to run down.
This was all by design, of course. The fuel for the fire had to have been carefully piped under the dirt, and the trigger for it must have been tied to the same one that had erupted in the cottage.
Robie sprinted ahead.
He had no choice.
He was heading right toward the small pond that he had seen before. The walls of fire ended there.
An instant later the remains of the cottage exploded. He ducked and rolled again from the concussive force, almost pitching into the right side of the wall of fire.
He rose and redoubled his efforts, thinking that he would reach the water.
Water was a great antidote to fire.
But as he neared the edge of the pond, something struck him.
No scum. No algae on the surface although the ground around was full of it.
What could kill green scum?
And why was he being forced to run right toward the one thing that could possibly save him?
Robie tossed his gun over the top of the wall of flames, pulled off his jacket, covered his head and hands with it, and threw himself through the wall of flames on the left side. He could feel the fire eating at him like acid.
He cleared the flames, and kept rolling, over and over, to beat out any fire that might have attached itself to him. He stopped and looked up in time to see the flames reach the pond.
The resulting explosion threw Robie through the air, and he landed on his back, thankfully in about an inch of water that softened the impact.
He rose on shaky legs, his shirt shredded, his jacket gone. He had no idea where his gun had landed. Thankfully, he still had his pants and shoes.
He looked in his pocket and snagged his car keys. Immediately he dropped them, because the plastic top was searing to the touch.
He gingerly picked the keys up and stood there mutely watching the pond burn.
No algae—although it was growing everywhere else—because of the fuel or accelerant that had been placed in the pond. He wondered why he hadn’t smelled it when he’d made his recon around the small body of water. But then there were many ways to mask such odors. And the smell of the nearby ocean was pungent.
He looked back at where Reel’s cottage had once stood.
Sorry.
Are you sorry, Jessica? Somehow Robie didn’t think so.
The lady was definitely playing for keeps. Robie would have expected nothing less.
He found his jacket and his gun. The gun was okay. It had missed a puddle of water and landed on a pebble path. His jacket was burned up. He felt the lump of metal and plastic inside.
His phone. He doubted the manufacturer’s warranty would cover this sort of mishap.
His wallet was luckily in his pants and not damaged.
He limped back to the car. His right arm and left leg felt so hot they seemed frozen. He got into the car and closed the door, locking it, though he was probably the only human being for miles. He started the car and turned on the interior light. He checked his face in the rearview mirror.
No damage there.
His right arm had not been so lucky. Bad burn there.
He slipped his burned trousers down and examined his left leg: red and slightly blistered near his upper thigh. Some of the pants fabric was embedded in the burn.
He kept a first aid kit in the car. He pulled it out, cleaned the burns on his thigh and arm as best he could, applied salve to the damaged areas, covered them with gauze, and then threw the first aid kit on the floorboard.
He turned the car around and headed back the way he had come. He had no way to contact Blue Man or anyone else. He couldn’t stop to get medical care. Too many explanations and reports fled.
As isolated as the Eastern Shore was, flame balls rising twenty feet in the air would attract notice. He passed a police car, rack lights blazing and siren blasting, on his way back. They wouldn’t find much left, he knew.
He made it back to D.C. in the wee hours of the morning, reached his apartment, retrieved a spare phone, and called Blue Man. In succinct sentences he told him what had happened.
“You’re lucky, Robie.”
“I feel lucky,” he replied. “Part good, part bad. Fill me in on Gelder.”
Blue Man took a few minutes to do so.
Robie said, “So that’s all. Just where and how? No eyes on Reel anywhere?”
“Come in and we’ll see to your injuries.”
“No theories on why she would target the number two?” Robie persisted.
“That’s all they would be right now, just theories.”
There was something in Blue Man’s voice that began to concern Robie. “Something going on between the lines here?” Robie asked.
Blue Man didn’t answer.
“I’ll be in in a few hours. Want to check some things out.”
“Let me give you another location to go to.”
“Why is that?” asked Robie.
Blue Man gave him the address without elaboration.
Robie put down the phone and walked over to the window.
Reel had been in town last night to gun down Gelder. That was officially speculation, but something in Robie’s gut told him it was true.
If so, she could still be out there. Why she would hang around was not easy to answer. Typically, whenever Robie had killed he had left wherever he was immediately, and for obvious reasons.
But this wasn’t typical, was it?
Not for me and not for her.
Robie took off the gauze around his burns, showered, put on fresh dressings and fresh clothes.
Blue Man had told him where the shooting had taken place. The area would be full of cops. Robie couldn’t do much more than observe. But sometimes observations led to breakthroughs. He would have to hope that would be the case here.
As he walked down to his car he knew one thing. He would not be able to survive many more nights like the last one. Reel seemed to be one step ahead at all times. That was often the case with the person being chased and the one doing the chasing.
Reel knew why she was doing what she was doing.
Robie was still playing catch-up.
Maybe that’s all I’ll be doing on this one.
So right now the odds were definitely stacked in Jessica Reel’s favor. Robie couldn’t see any development that would easily or quickly change that state of affairs.
He drove off right as the sun was starting to rise.
Just another beautiful day in the capital city.
He was glad he was still alive to see it.
CHAPTER
14
HE HAD LIVED. Reel had watched it on her laptop.
Inside the outbuilding near her cottage was a camera on a tripod pointed at the cottage and uplinked to a satellite. Through it she had seen Robie drive up, get out, and recon the property.
He hadn’t looked inside the outbuilding, which had been a mistake on his part.
It was gratifying to her that Robie made mistakes.
But then he had done the remarkable. He had figured out that the pond was a trap and risked throwing himself through a wall of fire to survive.
She clicked some computer keys and watched it again, in slow motion.
Robie burst from the house and then her view of him was gone, blocked by the wall of flames. It was designed to lead him right to the pond, which looked like a safe harbor but would be his grave.
Yet under the most intense pressure he had kept his wits, deduced the safe harbor was a trap, and executed on the fly a maneuver designed to keep him alive.