Reel immediately walked in the opposite direction, eventually turning down a hallway toward the restrooms. She opened the door for the family restroom and closed it behind her. She entered the stall, pulled her gun, and waited. She didn’t like cornering herself in this way, but there wasn’t much choice.
The door opened a few seconds later. Peering through the space between the stall door and wall, she saw who it was.
“Lock the door,” Reel said.
The person locked the door.
Reel came out, gun in hand.
The man looked up at her. He was short, maybe five-six and a hundred and thirty skeletal pounds. Physically he would have no chance against her, even without the gun. But she hadn’t come here to pick a fight. She needed information.
The man’s name was Michael Gioffre. He worked in a GameStop store at the mall, principally because he was an expert gamer and loved the thrill of the competition. He was in his early forties and had never really grown up. He wore a T-shirt stenciled with the title “Day of Doom.”
He also had been a spy. He could talk out of both sides of his mouth glibly and could sell sand to a man dying of thirst. Now retired, he looked out only for himself.
And for Jessica Reel.
Because she had saved his life, not once but twice.
He was her gold card, one of the few she possessed.
Gioffre eyed the gun. “Serious shit?”
She nodded. “Is there any other?”
“Wouldn’t have recognized you without the chin flick signal. Nice plastic surgery, by the way. Very becoming.”
“When someone’s cutting you, only go with the best.”
“I’ve heard the official story. Gelder and another guy dead.”
“That’s right.”
“Your doing?” His expression showed he did not expect an answer. “What can I do for you, Jess?”
Reel put her gun away and leaned against the sink. “I need information.”
“Big risk you coming here.”
“Not as big as three years ago. You’ve been off the grid for a while, Mike. I know where your cover team sets up. They’re not there. In fact, they haven’t been there for six months.”
Gioffre folded his arms and leaned back against the door. “I have been feeling a little naked out there. But I guess they figured I was really retired after all and am officially into my retail gaming career. So no more cover. What information?”
“You knew Gelder?”
He nodded. “Lots of us did. He’d been there a long time.”
“What about the other dead guy, Doug Jacobs? Cover was at DTRA?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“They knew each other. And not just in agency circles.”
“How do you know that?” asked Gioffre.
“Not relevant. But it’s true.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“Nothing, but I need you to do something for me,” said Reel.
“What?”
“Like I said, information. Not anything you know. Something you have to find out for me. And I need it right away.”
“I don’t have many contacts left inside.”
“I didn’t say it was on the inside. At least not anymore.”
CHAPTER
28
ROBIE SAT BACK AND RUBBED his eyes. Janet DiCarlo hadn’t yet sent him new files electronically, so he had gone over the redacted ones several times looking for things that might have escaped his notice before.
But there was nothing.
Reel’s last several missions had all been outside the country. Robie could travel to each of them, but he wasn’t convinced it would benefit his investigation.
He would have to go back the two years in her life that he had set as the outside time parameter. The only problem was, that would take time too.
How many more people would she kill in the interim?
If she kept the body count going, Robie could imagine himself being dismissed from the task of finding her. And maybe that would be perfectly fine with him.
He had called the number DiCarlo left him, but it had gone to voice mail. He wondered about the rose petals and what they might mean. He doubted Reel had left them as symbols of her pious lifestyle. Had she left them as symbols of bloody deaths with funerals certain to follow? That also didn’t make sense to him, which meant he was looking at the issue in the wrong way.
So what was the right way? he asked himself as he poured out a cup of fresh coffee. He checked his watch.
Two a.m. He poured the coffee into the sink.
It was time to go to sleep. Without some shuteye he was going to be of little use to himself or anyone else.
Five hours later he awoke reasonably refreshed. He spent several hours going back over the files he had been given. Even with the redactions he felt there might be something in them that could help.
Again he didn’t find much. He made some calls that were similarly unproductive. He worked out for a quick thirty minutes in the gym in the basement of his apartment building and then snatched a meal, eating it standing up in his kitchen. That’s when he got the call from the agency. They had something for him that might help his search, but he needed to come and get it. He showered, gunned up, and was on his way.
He arrived at a CIA facility that Reel had used during her mission before killing Doug Jacobs. It was about an hour outside of D.C. There was a locker there with a few possessions that Reel had left behind. Considering the redactions and the policed crime scenes, Robie held no hope that the locker would offer any useful details, but he had to check them out regardless.
He was processed through the facility’s security and escorted to the locker. It was opened for him and he was left alone with the contents. They were few, and Robie had no way of knowing if these were the only ones that had been in the locker. Right now he trusted no one.
There were only three items: a photo, a book on World War II, and a nine-millimeter Glock 17 semiautomatic pistol with custom sights. The photograph was of Reel standing next to a man whom Robie did not recognize.
He collected all the items and made the hourlong drive back to his apartment to go over them.
Robie was feeling out of his depth. His specialty was preparing, in a scorched-earth way, to kill another human being and then successfully exiting that situation to live to kill another day. Sleuthing, painstakingly going over minutiae looking for clues, traveling here and there, questioning people simply wasn’t his thing. He wasn’t a detective. He was a professional trigger, but they were expecting him to investigate and so he would.
He laid the photo, the book, and the gun on the table and looked at them one by one as the rain once more picked up and banged against his window.
He disassembled the gun and found it to be simply a gun. From the ease with which the elements came apart and went back together, Robie concluded that the agency had already taken it apart looking for clues as well. He had already checked the mag. It was a super-high-capacity configuration, thirty-three rounds. It was standard ammo that Robie had seen a million times, although the elongated mag wasn’t typical.
Thirty-three rounds to do the job, Reel? Who would have thought?
There was also a titanium safety plunger. It reduced friction, made the trigger pull lighter, and increased your accuracy. Robie used one on his own weapon, although it was probably overkill.
Still, Reel clearly paid attention to the details.
The grip was stippled for better tackiness. It wasn’t merely a slip-on; the frame had been altered with the embossed pattern etched right into the hardware.