“Go on.”
“I’ve also been to Reel’s cottage on the Eastern Shore.”
Tucker nodded. “And almost gotten burned to death for your trouble. I’ve watched the SAT footage. I think you need to elevate your game, Robie. Or else she’s going to kill you too. You come highly recommended. But we don’t need to find out down the road that she’s better than you are.”
Robie coolly appraised the man sitting behind his desk in his fine house with his guards and barricades all around. Robie knew about Tucker. He’d been a politician, then came over to the intel side. He’d never been a field agent. Never worn the uniform. Like Jacobs he was never there. He got to watch long-distance on SAT screens as others died violently.
Robie knew that drone technology ended up saving lives because you didn’t need to send in an entire team and put them in harm’s way. It was only the target at risk of dying. But sometimes computers and satellites and drones weren’t enough. That’s when Robie got called up. And he did his job. What bugged him was the desk grunts thinking that what they did was exactly what he did. It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
“You think I’m being unfair?” said Tucker in a patronizing tone.
“The issue of fairness has nothing to do with what I do,” replied Robie.
“That’s good to hear. It saves us time.”
Robie looked around. “Since we’re in a SCIF, sir, perhaps you can give me your opinion of why this is happening.”
“Reel has turned. Someone turned her.”
“Who do you think that is? The agency must have some idea.”
“You have info on her last four missions. They took place over the better part of a year. I would say the answer would lie there.”
“Might the answer lie with the man she didn’t kill?”
“Ferat Ahmadi, you mean?”
Robie nodded. “Sometimes the simplest answers are the right ones.”
“That explains Jacobs. It doesn’t explain Gelder.”
“Let’s explore that. Did Gelder have a role in the hit on Ahmadi?”
Tucker looked around, his expression saying the SCIF wall suddenly wasn’t sturdy enough to contain the weight of this conversation.
Robie said, “If you don’t think I’m cleared for it, we can discontinue the discussion.”
“It would be quite stupid to bring you into this and not think you’re cleared for it.”
“So did Gelder have a role?”
“To my knowledge—” began Tucker, but Robie held up a hand like a cop directing traffic, which was actually what he felt like right now.
“With all due respect, sir, prefaces like that do me no good. You’re not testifying on the Hill. I need a complete answer or none at all.”
“Gelder headed up the clandestine operations, but he had no direct involvement in the Ahmadi mission,” said Tucker as he sat up straighter and seemed to look at Robie in a new light.
“So if we discount Ahmadi, where else do we look? We need some connecting dots between Jacobs and Gelder.”
“Has it occurred to you that Reel might just be targeting individuals at the agency based on some paranoid template in her own mind? She was working with Jacobs. She could set him up easily. He’s dead. Gelder is the number two man. She takes him down and it does catastrophic damage to the agency and helps our enemies. There could be no more rhyme or reason to it than that.”
“Don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Tucker said sharply.
“Anybody could do that. Reel isn’t just anybody.”
“I didn’t think you knew her that well. The file says you’ve had no contact with her for over a decade.”
“That’s true. But the contact I did have with her was pretty intense. You get to know a person under conditions like that. It’s like you’ve known them your whole life.”
“People change, Robie.”
“Yes, they do.”
“So what exactly is your point?”
“She has a plan. And the plan is of her own making.”
“And you’re basing that on what? Your gut?”
“If she were working for someone else, she would not be communicating with me. The standard rules of engagement preclude that. Her employers would be monitoring that, just as you are monitoring my communications. She wouldn’t risk that. I think this is personal.”
“She could be playing you. Taking you off your game. She’s an attractive woman. Her record indicates that she’s used all her assets to successfully complete her missions in the past. Don’t get sucked in.”
“I’ve taken that into account, sir. Still doesn’t add up.”
“Then if she has an agenda, what is it? We’re talking in circles.”
“I have more homework to do. The connection between Gelder and Jacobs is where I’ll start.”
“If there is one.”
“A word of caution, sir.”
Tucker looked at him. “I’m listening.”
“Reel has gone from low-level to high in one step. She could be doing a zigzag route to throw us off.”
“That presumes she has more targets.”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt of that.”
“I hope you’re wrong.”
“I don’t think I am.”
“And your word of caution?”
“What if she decides to keep moving up the agency’s hierarchy?”
“Then there’s only one slot left. Me.”
“Right.”
“I have security.”
“So did Jim Gelder.”
“My security is better.”
“But so is Jessica Reel,” replied Robie.
“Pretty damn ironic that this country gave her the skills she’s now using against us,” grumbled Tucker.
“You gave her another set of skills, sir. The most important one she already had.”
“And what skill was that?”
“Nerve. Most people think they have it. Almost all of them are wrong.”
“You have that skill too, Robie.”
“And I’m going to need it now. Every bit I’ve got.”
CHAPTER
17
THE DRIVE BACK TO HIS apartment took Robie only about thirty minutes at this time of the morning, but it felt like thirty hours.
He had a lot on his mind.
What he had said to Tucker and what Tucker had said back to him had commingled in his brain like a soupy mess. He really didn’t know what to make of the meeting with the DCI.
The texts from Reel had convinced Robie that she was working alone. This was personal to the woman. You don’t miss your adversary and then say you’re half glad that was the case. It was clear, though, that she was trying to get inside his head. Her subtle references to right and wrong, advising him to watch his back, were classic manipulation techniques to make him doubt both his mission and his trust in the agency. She was good—there was no question about that.
Robie and Reel had received the same level of training, come up through the same systems, the same ranks, had the same protocols grafted onto their professional souls. But they were different. Robie would have never once thought of texting an opponent like that. He usually took the more direct route to his goal. Whether it was a gender thing or not he didn’t know and didn’t care. The differences were real, that’s what was important.
It was possible Reel could have changed. But then it was also possible she was exactly who she had always been.
He got back to his apartment building, parked in the underground garage, and rode the elevator up to his floor. He checked the hallway for anything unusual, then unlocked the door and punched in the disarming code on the security panel.