The Innocent (Will Robie 1)

Robie’s position before Robie had.

He stopped at one door, knocked.

Footsteps came his way. The door swung open.

A man in his mid-fifties with white close-cropped hair stood before him. He and Robie were about the same height. The man was trim, his shoulders broad; he seemed to have retained much of the strength of his youth.

When he shook Robie’s hand, that strength was clearly evident. He ushered him in and closed the door, but not without first taking a look down the hall, ostensibly for any threats. Even here, Robie would have done the same thing. It was just a part of you at this level.

The room was small, efficiently laid out. No personal mementos were evident. The man sat behind his desk, on which was a small laptop. Robie sat across from him, settled his hands over his flat stomach.

“It’s been a while, Will,” said the man.

“I’ve been kind of busy, Shane.”

Shane Connors said, “I know you have. Good work.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Connors cocked his head to the left. “Explain that.”

Robie took ten minutes to walk him through the recent developments. When he was done the other man leaned back in his chair, his gaze solidly on Robie.

“I can get the squad makeup right now. But once you get that, what are your plans?”

“To follow it up. There’s a maximum of seven of them left. Local ones will be the focus, of course.”

“I can see that.”

Connors leaned toward his laptop, hit some keys, and then sat back. “Give it ten minutes.” He continued to look at Robie. “It’s been twelve years for you.”

“I know. I’ve been counting too.”

As though on cue, Robie could hear the tick of a clock coming from somewhere in the office.

Connors said, “Looked down the road?”

“I’ve been looking down the road since the first day.”

“And?”

“And there are certain possibilities. But nothing more than that.”

Connors looked disappointed by this, but he said nothing. His gaze went to the laptop. For the next eight minutes both men stared at it.

When the email fell into the electronic mailbox, Connors hit a few keys and a printer resting on the edge of the desk whooshed. Some papers slid out. He picked them up but did not glance at the pages before passing them to Robie.

“I need a fresh car. Untraceable,” said Robie. “I can leave my bike as collateral.”

Connors nodded. “It’ll take two minutes.”

“Thanks.”

He made a call. Two minutes passed. The computer dinged. Connors nodded again.

“Done.”

They rose.

Robie said, “I appreciate this, Shane.”

“I know.”

Robie shook his hand. As he turned to leave Connors said, “Will?”

Robie turned back.

“Yeah?”

“When you look down the road next time, look farther than a place like this.”

Robie glanced around the office, settled his gaze back on the man, and gave a slight nod. Then he was walking down the hall, the papers clutched in his hand.

CHAPTER

79

BEFORE STARTING UP THE CAR, a trim, tan Chevy, Robie looked at the pieces of paper. There were only three names on them, because of the seven squad members other than Wind, Getty, and Broome, four had died, all of them years ago. That made Robie’s job a little easier. At least potentially. There was something else that made it easier still. All lived locally. Also included were their current addresses and a brief military history of each. The military kept impeccable records.

He slipped the papers into his pocket, started up the car, and raced past the guard on his way out of the small government complex. As he retraced his route back to Virginia, he thought about Connors in his little cage back there. Connors had taught Robie pretty much everything he knew. The man was a legend in the field of sanctioned assassinations. When he’d officially retired and Robie had gone full throttle, operating all over the world, he and Connors had lost contact. Yet Robie could still vividly remember the first mission the two had performed together. After the kill was done, Connors had kissed the barrel of his rifle. When Robie asked him why he had done that, Connors had replied simply, “Because it’s the only thing standing between me being here and me not being here.”

There were a few men who could not be bought under any circumstances. Shane Connors was one of them.

Robie made sure he wasn’t followed and zigzagged the last ten miles of his trip just to be certain.

He got back to the farmhouse early in the morning. Vance was awake with gun in hand and a serious expression on her face. Julie was asleep on a couch in the back room of the first floor.

Vance had seen the car pull up. “Where’d you get it?” she asked when he came into the house.

He held up the pieces of paper. “Same place I got these.”

As they stood in the doorway gazing at the sleeping Julie curled up like a cat on the couch, Vance said, “She didn’t want to go upstairs. I don’t think she wanted to be that far away from me.”

He walked into the kitchen. Vance followed.

They sat, looked over the names and current addresses.

“Three individuals. Two guys and one woman,” said Vance. “How do you want to do this? Split up again?”

“Don’t think so. They’ve been warned by Julie’s comments. They probably know what we’re going to do.”

“So they’ll anticipate we’ll go after these folks and they’ll be waiting?”

“Maybe something a little more efficient.”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe they’ll make all three disappear.”

“You mean kill them?”

“If they kill two, then they’ve done our work for us. They left the one who really matters. If they make all three go away, we’re in the same boat as before.”

Vance set her gun on the table and rubbed her eyes.

“You need to get some sleep,” said Robie.

“Look who’s talking,” she shot back.

“I’ll take the first watch. You can catch a few hours.”

“It’ll be eight a.m. You won’t go to sleep then.”

“I actually feel pretty rested.”

She squeezed his arm.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“Just checking to see if you’re actually human. Despite your ability to bleed.”

He said, “So we go after these people one by one, knowing that they’ll be waiting.”

Vance added, “So they really have the upper hand. Like you said, they could just make them disappear.”

“They could, except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“If they need one of them for some reason to do something.”

“Like what?”