“Right,” said Robie, with another grin.
“So I don’t begrudge you your 17.”
“Thanks,” answered Robie. “So where are your cabins?”
“Oh, we have twenty of them. I know, almost as many as the rooms we have. But that was the original owner’s idea again. Let you get communal with nature. They’re set back in the woods. Very rustic. That means one room with a bed and a toilet and sink, a woodstove that’s also a cookstove, and running water when the pump’s working. So, R-U-S-T-I-C.”
“How about a shower?”
“You can use the one here. We have it designated for cabin renters. Or you can just use the sink in the cabin for a quick one. Most folks renting cabins don’t have personal hygiene high on their priority list. Hell, I never see most of the folks. They come and go as they please.”
“Other than Cabin 17, any others rented?”
“No.”
“Anyone in Cabin 17 now?”
“I wouldn’t know. Like I said, they come and go.”
“They. Two people?”
“Well, aren’t you the curious one?”
“Always have been. Gets me in more trouble, so I’ll just stop right now.” Robie gave her another grin, which he hoped was disarming. He had the sense he had just pushed too hard. He hoped he didn’t regret it.
She eyed him. “Look, honey, you want to trade in your room for a cabin? Number 14 is all ready to go. It’s got a nice view and a new toilet. Well, new in the sense that it’s less than five years old and works more often than not.”
“Hey, why not?” said Robie. “I like communing with nature as much as the next person. How do I get there?”
“About a quarter-mile walk from here. The cabins are spread out in the woods, but there’re signs posted telling you where each one is. You can leave your car in the lot out front and walk back there. The trail starts right behind the center of the motel.”
A few minutes later Robie was walking on the trail toward Cabin 14 with his knapsack over his left shoulder.
And his Glock in his right hand.
CHAPTER
55
CABIN 14 WAS EXACTLY AS Gwen had described it. Rustic. He set his knapsack down on the bed that was barely more than a cot. It was shorter than Robie was tall.
Woodstove in the corner. A table. A chair. A toilet and sink behind a makeshift enclosure. Two windows on opposite walls. He went to one window and looked out.
There was no cabin in sight, just trees. People who rented them must want their privacy. He would have to do a walk around to get the lay of the land.
He had seen the sign for Cabin 17. It was to his left. He just didn’t know how far. He was so deep in the woods now that he could hear no cars, no people talking. No TVs or radios.
He could be alone with nature.
Only maybe he wasn’t alone.
He sat in the one chair, facing the door, his Glock in his right hand. With his left hand he slid the book on World War II out of his knapsack. It was the last unsolved clue.
Everything she did had a purpose.
She was linear.
I like to begin at the beginning and end at the end.
He opened the book. He had looked through it before, but not all that carefully. It was a long book and he just hadn’t had the time.
Now he felt like he had to make the time.
The light was rapidly diminishing and the cabin was not wired for electricity. As he slowly turned the pages and it drew darker, he put his gun aside and used a small flashlight to illuminate the page.
However, he kept glancing at the door and windows. The latter had curtains, but he was aware that his light made him a target. He had moved the chair to a point in the room where he was in no direct sight line from outside.
He had pushed the table in front of the door after locking it. He figured if someone burst in he would have enough time to douse the light, grab his weapon, aim, and fire. At least he hoped so.
He slowly turned the pages, taking in every word. When he came to the middle of chapter sixteen he stopped.
The section was entitled simply “The White Rose.”
Robie read swiftly. The White Rose was the name taken by a resistance group of mostly college students in Munich during World War II who worked against the tyranny of the Nazis. The group had taken its name from a novel about peasant exploitation in Mexico. Most of the members of the White Rose were executed by the Nazis. But pamphlets they had printed were smuggled out of Germany and dropped by the millions from Allied bombers. After the war the members of the White Rose had been hailed as heroes.
Robie slowly closed the book and set it aside.
Once more adopting Reel’s obsession with order and logic, he went through the ordeal of the White Rose and tried to graft those elements onto her situation.
The White Rose had fought against Nazi tyranny.
They had felt betrayed.
They hadn’t killed anyone, but they had attempted to stoke anger against the Nazis in order to see them stopped.
They had been killed for their troubles.
Robie slowly turned this over in his mind and then moved forward in time.
Reel had been fighting against something.
She had felt betrayed.
She had taken action to stop whoever was against her, and that included killing. But that’s what she did. The woman was no college student writing pamphlets.
The jury was still out on whether she would sacrifice her life or not.
Then Robie thought back to DiCarlo’s words.
Personnel missing.
Equipment moved.
Missions that never should have been.
And Blue Man. According to him a different dynamic seemed to be in place.
DiCarlo had been distrustful of people within her own agency. She’d had only two bodyguards with her because of this. And she’d been both proved right and paid the price for such limited protection.
Allegedly, Reel had gone off the grid and murdered two members of her own agency. If she’d done so, again according to Blue Man, it might have been because they were on the wrong side and Reel was on the side of right.
If all that was true, then the agency was full of traitors, and they went very high in the pecking order. At least as high as Gelder and maybe higher.
And then there was the matter of Roy West.
He had been with the agency. He had written some sort of apocalypse paper. He had joined a militia. He was now dead.
Robie picked up his gun and checked his watch. He had not come here simply to read a book.
It would soon be dark, and darker still where he was, with no source of light other than the stars, which were now hidden behind a gauzy veil of clouds.
He opened his knapsack and pulled out his night optics. He put them on and fired them up. They worked fine, turning the invisible to visible.
Robie’s plan was simple.
He was going to visit Cabin 17.
The darkness would be both a benefit and danger to him.
If it wasn’t occupied, Robie would find what he could. If the cabin yielded no clues he would have wasted a lot of time and come away with nothing.
He wondered what his next step would be if that turned out to be the case. Go back to D.C.? Go back on the grid? After what he suspected? That his agency was compromised and corrupted?
His last text exchange with Reel had without doubt been picked up by others. They would want to know what Robie had deduced. They would want to know where he had gone. They might want him dead, depending on his answers.