The Innocent (8 page)

Number 307. A mother of three, he recalled. He went for it, his feet flying down the hall, touching only lightly on the crappy carpet.

Miraculously, the little one slept on. Robie had not really looked at the child since he had picked it up. He glanced down now.

The hair was wiry, like that of his dead brother. Robie knew the child would never remember the brother. Or the mother. Life sometimes was not just unfair, it was beyond tragic.

He set the carrier down in front of 307. Robie knocked three times. He did not look around. If someone in another apartment looked out they would only see his back. He knocked once more and glanced again at the baby that was starting to stir. He heard someone coming to the door and then Robie was gone.

The child would survive the night.

Robie was pretty certain that he wouldn’t.

R
OBIE WENT DOWN
one more flight to the second floor. He had two options.

The rear of the building was out. The long-range shooter was there. The fact that his handler had wanted him to leave by the fire escape told Robie all he needed to know. A bullet in the head would be his reward for being stupid enough to try to get out that way.

The front of the building was out for a similar reason. Well lighted, one entry—he might as well paint a bull’s-eye on his head when the backup team showed up a minute from now to clean up this mess. That left the two sides of the building. His two options, but Robie had to narrow it to one. And quickly.

He was moving as he was thinking: 201 or 216. The first was on the left of the building, the second on the right. The shooter in the rear of the building could move over to the left or right and thus cover the rear and one side simultaneously.

So left or right?

Robie moved, thought.

The handler would be helping the shooter, feeding him where he thought Robie would go. Left or right? He strained to remember the composition of the area. There was this high-rise building. The alley behind. A block of small businesses, gas station, strip mall. On the other side of that another high-rise that looked abandoned to Robie when he had done his earlier recon. The shooter had to be in there. That was the only sight line that worked. And if the building was abandoned, the shooter would have room to roam, to reset his position and turn his scope to Robie.

So which will it be? Left or right?

His original target, 404, was closer to the left side of the building. The handler might think Robie would go that way because he was closest to that side already. The handler didn’t know that Robie had gone to the third floor to drop off the other kid and then proceeded down another flight. But the handler would figure Robie would have to go down. He hadn’t brought anything to rappel down the side of the building.

Robie thought this through. In his mind’s eye he visualized the shooter sliding his position over to his right—Robie’s left—setting up his bipod, adjusting his scope, and waiting for Robie to appear.

But Robie hadn’t appeared yet when speed was essential. The shooter would take this into account. Robie, he knew, was trying to outguess him. Zig when they expected zag. So to the right instead of the left. That would explain the time that had passed thus far. Not dropping off the second kid.

In Robie’s mind he now slid the shooter to the left, or Robie’s right, on his mental chessboard.

The time for thinking was over.

He sprinted down the hall toward the building’s left side.

Number 201 was empty. Another foreclosure. Small personal miracles sometimes grew from large economic disasters. Ten seconds later he was inside. The apartments all had the same layout. He didn’t need a light or his goggles to navigate. He reached the back bedroom, opened the window, and climbed out.

He gripped the windowsill, looked down, gauged the drop, and let go.

Ten feet later he hit and rolled, cushioning the fall. Still, he felt pain in his right ankle. He waited for a shot to hit him.

None did. He had guessed correctly. He ran at an angle away from the building, hid behind a Dumpster for a few moments, recalibrated his senses to the new surroundings. Then he was up and over a fence and sprinting up the street five seconds later.

They probably hadn’t seen him leave the building or else he’d be dead. But they had to know by now that he’d gotten away. A
response team would be searching for him. Grid by grid. Robie knew the drill. Only now he had to defeat it.

For as long as he’d been doing this Robie had known that what had happened tonight was a possibility. Not a distinct possibility, but one he had to account for. Like for all his other missions, he had a contingency exit plan in place. Now it was time to execute the plan. Shane Connors’s advice to him had finally come into play.

“You’re the only one out there who really has your back, Will.”

He walked ten more blocks. His destination was up ahead. He checked his watch. Twenty minutes to spare if the schedule hadn’t changed.

The year-old Outta Here Bus Company had taken over an old Trailways terminal near Capitol Hill. The company obviously didn’t have a lot of start-up capital, and the station still appeared like it was shut down. The company’s buses parked here did not look as if they could pass even a routine inspection. This trip would definitely be economy class all the way.

Robie had used a fake name to reserve a ticket on a bus leaving in twenty minutes. Its destination was New York City. He paid for the ticket in cash. Once he got to New York he would execute the second step in his contingency plan, which would entail leaving the country. He planned to put as much space between himself and his own people as he could.

He waited outside the terminal. Its location was not all that safe, especially at two in the morning. But it was far safer than the situation Robie had just left. Street criminals he could deal with. Professional killers with long-range rifles were far more formidable.

He looked at the other people awaiting the arrival of the bus that would carry them to the Big Apple, counting thirty-five passengers, including himself. The bus would hold nearly twice that, so he would have some buffer space. It was open seating, so he would try and snag a place away from everyone. Most of the people had bags, pillows, and knapsacks. Robie had nothing except his night-vision goggles, his pinhole camera, and his Glock pistol in an inside zippered compartment of his hoodie.

He ran his gaze over the line of people again. He deduced that
most were poor, working-class, or otherwise down on their luck. It was an easy assumption. Their clothes were old, tattered, their coats threadbare, their expressions tired, beaten down. Most people with even limited financial means would probably not choose to ride to New York City in the middle of the night on a dilapidated bus carrying their own pillows.

The bus pulled into the parking lot in a wide arc and came to a stop near them with a screech of rusty brakes. They all lined up. That’s when Robie noticed her. He had already counted her as one of the thirty-five, but now his gaze came to rest fully on her.

She was young. Maybe twelve, maybe barely a teenager. She was short, skinny, dressed in faded jeans with holes in the knees, a long-sleeved shirt, and a dark blue ski parka without arms. She had on dirty, scuffed tennis shoes and her dark, stringy hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. She carried a backpack in one hand and her gaze was set resolutely on the ground. She seemed to be breathing hard, and Robie noticed that both her hands and her knees had traces of dirt on them.

Robie looked for but did not see the small rectangular shape in her jeans pockets, front or back. Every teenager had a cell phone, especially the girls. Yet unlike most teens, she might have kept it in her jacket pocket. In any event, it was none of his business.

He looked around, but saw no one who could be her parents.

He edged forward in the line. It was not out of the realm of possibility that they would find him here before the bus departed. He gripped his pistol in his pocket and kept his gaze down.

On board the bus he shuffled toward the back. He was the last on, and most people had taken seats nearer the front. He sat in the last row, near the bathroom. There was no one else in this row. He sat next to the window. From here he could remain invisible while still seeing anyone coming, through the gap in the two seats in front of him. The windows were tinted. That would foul any attempted shot from outside.

The teenage girl sat three rows up from him on the opposite side of the aisle.

Robie looked up as a man hustled onto the bus right before the
driver shut the door. He showed his ticket and moved toward the back. As he neared the girl he looked the other way. This was passenger number thirty-six and the very last to board.

Robie sank lower in his seat and pulled his hoodie closer around his face. He gripped his pistol in his pocket and edged the muzzle up and forward so that it was aimed at a spot the man had to cross if he continued to head Robie’s way. Robie had to assume that they somehow had found out about his contingency plan and had sent this man to finish the job.

But the fellow stopped one row beyond the teenage girl and sat in the seat directly behind her. Robie’s hand relaxed slightly around his pistol but he continued to watch the man through the gap.

The girl got up and put her bag in the overhead rack. As she stood on tiptoes to accomplish this her shirt edged up and Robie saw that her waist was tattooed.

The bus pulled off with a grinding of gears and the driver headed out onto the surface street that he would take to the interstate and then on to New York. There were few cars at this hour. The buildings were dark. The city would awake in a few hours. D.C. was not like New York in that regard. It
did
sleep. But it rose early.

Robie’s gaze settled back on the man. He was Robie’s size and age. He had no bag. He was dressed in black slacks, gray jacket. Robie’s gaze went to the man’s hands. They were gloved. Robie looked down at his own gloved hands and then gazed outside. It was not that cold. He saw the man engage the lever to slide his seat back a bit. He settled in.

But Robie’s instincts told him it wouldn’t be for long.

This man was not on the bus simply to travel to New York.

P
ROFESSIONAL KILLERS
were a unique lot.

Robie thought this as the bus motored along. The vehicle’s suspension was for shit and thus the ride was too. They would have to endure two hundred miles of this, but Robie was not focused on that. He stared through the gap, watching, waiting.

When you were on a mission you looked for things that other people would never focus on. Like entry and exit points. Always have at least two of each. Gunsight angles, positions from which others can strike back at you. Sizing up opponents without seeming to do so. Trying to ferret out intent by reading body cues alone. Never let anyone notice you noticing him.

Robie was undertaking all of these tasks right now. And it was totally unconnected with his plight. He had people after him, clearly. But just as clearly the girl had someone after her. And Robie now knew that he was not the only professional killer on board this bus tonight.

He was looking at the second one.

He slipped the Glock from his pocket.

The girl was reading. Robie couldn’t see what, but it was a paperback. She was intent on this, oblivious to all other things. That was not good. Young people made easy targets for predators. Young people were glued to their phone screens, thumbs ramming keys, firing off messages of importance, like Facebook status, the color of their underwear that day, girl problems, hair problems, sport stats, where the next party was. They also always had earbuds in. With the music roaring, they could hear nothing until the lion struck. Then it was too late.

Easy prey. And they didn’t even know it.

Robie lined up his shot between the seat gap.

The other man leaned forward in his seat.

They had been traveling for only a few minutes. They were passing through an even more derelict part of the city.