The Innocent (Will Robie 1)

He looked at the screen.

It was Nicole Vance’s cell phone.

He hit the answer button.

He knew what was coming.

“Hello?”

“The package will be delivered to your door in thirty seconds.”

“Okay,” said Robie evenly.

“You will do what it says to do.”

“I hear you.”

“You will follow the instructions completely.”

“Uh-huh.”

The connection went dead.

He put the phone away.

Blue Man had already told him, although Robie had figured it out previously.

Vance and Julie had never made it to the WFO.

They had been taken. This was Talal’s fail-safe. All the really good ones had such a plan.

He counted off the seconds in his head. At thirty the manila envelope was slid under his door. He did not rush to it. He would not attempt to capture the messenger. That person would be able to tell him nothing.

He walked slowly to the door, bent down, and picked up the envelope.

He fingered open the clasp and took out the pages.

The first ten were glossy photos.

Him having drinks with Annie Lambert.

Him being kissed by Annie Lambert outside the White House.

Finally, him having sex with Annie Lambert in her bed. He wondered briefly where the camera had been placed for that shot.

Robie dropped the photos on the coffee table and looked at the other pages.

>   He sifted through them. There was nothing surprising here. He had anticipated most if not all of it.

It is still very much about me.

And Talal wants me. He wants me back where it all started.

The offer was crystal clear.

Him for Julie and Vance.

He considered it a fair trade. If Talal could be trusted. Which he could not, of course.

Yet Robie would still have to accept it. There was one advantage. This would render unnecessary the need for him to search the world hunting for Talal. The prince was summoning him right to where he would be.

Robie had already killed the double. He doubted that Talal had another one in reserve. And as much as Talal wanted to end his life, Robie wanted to end Talal’s life even more.

Using Annie Lambert as a vicious tool, Talal had taken something from Robie, something precious, perhaps even inviolate.

He’s taken away my ability to ever really trust myself again.

He took the photos over to where the light was better and looked at them again, one by one. Annie Lambert looked like what she might have been under vastly different circumstances: a beautiful woman with a bright future ahead of her. A nice person, wanting to do some good in the world.

She had not been born a killer. She had been raised to become one. An extraordinary one because he had never once suspected, until he had seen those swollen pupils.

I was not born to be a killer either, thought Robie. But I am one now.

He pulled out a Zippo from a drawer, carried the photos into the kitchen, and burned them to blackness in the kitchen sink. He ran water over them, let the smoke rise up and wash over his face. He watched as Annie Lambert disintegrated into the bowels of his sink. Then he rinsed the residue down the drain.

Annie Lambert vanished.

Like she had never even existed.

And the Annie Lambert he thought he knew never had.

Robie left the kitchen and started to pack.

The instructions had been explicit. He intended to follow them. At least most of them. For certain key elements he intended to create his own rules.

He assumed that Talal would expect this.

He had beaten Robie in Morocco.

Robie had bested him in Washington.

The next two days would determine who would be the winner of the third and final round.

CHAPTER

97

THE COSTA DEL SOL was not as warm as the last time Robie had been here. The wind was chilly. The sky was gray. And there was rain in the forecast.

The ride over in the high-speed ferry was rough, the big boat pitching and swaying until it got fully up to speed. Yet even then the twin hulls of the catamaran were beaten by the heavy waves.

Robie wore a leather jacket, dungarees, and combat boots. If he was going into combat he needed the appropriate footwear, he figured. He had no weapons on him. As always, he had to trust that what he needed would be waiting for him. He sat in a seat next to one of the windows and watched the seagulls fighting the swirls of wind over the choppy water. The gray Med lashed up at the hull of the ferry and spray battered the windows. Robie did not flinch when this happened, as did other passengers around him.

He didn’t react to things that could not hurt him.

Because of the rough water the crossing took longer than normal. When they pulled into Tangier the sky was growing dark. Robie clambered down the walkway of the ferry and joined the crowd making their way to transportation into town.

Unlike last time, Robie boarded one of the tour buses along with a group of other passengers. When the bus was three-quarters full the doors hissed closed and the driver swung the bus onto the road leading away from the port. Robie looked back once at the ferry and wondered if he would be alive to take it back across the strait.

Right now, he wouldn’t bet on it.

The bus ride took about twenty minutes, and by the time it stopped and the doors hissed open again, the rain had begun to fall. While the tour guide took charge of the group, Robie walked off in the opposite direction. His destination had been planned well in advance. There was supposed to be someone waiting for him.

There was.

The man was young, but his features carried the weariness of someone much older. He wore a white robe and a turban and had a jagged scar down the right side of his neck.

It was from a knife, Robie knew. He had a scar too, but on his arm. Knife wounds never healed properly. Serrated blades ravaged the skin too much, tearing up the edges of the flesh so badly that even a gifted plastic surgeon couldn’t fix it completely.

“Robie?” the young man said.

Robie nodded.

“You come here to die,” said the man matter-of-factly.

“Or something,” replied Robie.

“This way,” he said.

Robie went that way. They entered an alley where there was a van.

There were five men in the van. They were all larger men than Robie and looked just as fit and strong as he was. Two wore robes, three didn’t. They were armed.

Two men searched Robie in every possible way that one could search another.

“You came without weapons,” said the young man in an incredulous tone.

“What would have been the point?” replied Robie.

“I thought you would go down fighting,” said the young man.

Robie didn’t answer him.

He was hustled into the van and driven back out of the city.

The rain was falling harder. Robie did not mind the rain. What he did mind was wind, but that had fallen away. The drops fell straight down. But they fell fast. The storm was moving quickly, he thought.

The van kept going,

About thirty minutes later it stopped and passed through a security checkpoint.

It was not the same private airport. That would have been too easy.

The doors to the hangar opened and the van drove straight in.