The Hit (33 page)

He eyed his GPS. He was looking for a certain street, and he hoped it was the right one. The computer told him it was a mile or so out of the downtown area.

Marshall Street. As in Ryan Marshall, the senior field agent who showed me and Reel how to stipple our pistol grips. Something only the two of us would know.

Robie had loaded in a specific number address on Marshall Street. It could have been one of two possibilities. He had inputted the one he’d chosen on the flip of a coin back at his apartment. However, in such a small place he figured Marshall Street couldn’t be that long if he had to run down the second choice.

He slowed the car after he’d left the town and reentered a rural area. He made the right on Marshall and drove straight back until the road cut sharply to the right. There didn’t seem to be any street numbers here, because there were no houses. He had just started to fear that his trip had been for nothing when he cleared another
curve and saw it up ahead. It looked like a motor court of some sort, dating back to maybe the fifties.

Robie pulled his car to a stop in front of a small office that had a large plate glass window in front. The building formed a horseshoe with the office at the center. It was two stories high and dilapidated.

Robie didn’t focus on that. His gaze went first to the street number painted on the front of the building.

Thirty-three.

The same number as the rounds in Reel’s Glock’s oversize mag.

The other number that Robie had considered was seventeen, the model number of the Glock.

Thirty-three had obviously been the correct one. His coin flip was a winner. But it also made sense. The 17 model was standard. Reel had modified it with the extra-long mag.

His gaze next went to the sign in front of the motor court. Its background was painted white, with narrowly drawn black concentric circles emanating from the center, and the perimeter painted a bold red. The name of the motor court was the Bull’s-Eye Inn; the sign represented the bull’s-eye.

Cheesy, thought Robie, but maybe it had been original and catchy when the place was first built.

The red edge was what had drawn his attention, however.

He held up the photo he’d found in Reel’s locker. The picture of Reel and the unknown gent. The edge of red on the right side of the photo could be from the sign, if they had been standing next to it. More confirmation that he was in the right place.

Robie parked the car and got out and headed to the office. Through the plate glass he could see an elderly white-haired woman sitting behind a waist-high counter. When he opened the door a bell tinkled. The woman looked up from her computer, which was old enough not to be a flat-screen but still had the bubble butt the size of a small TV. She rose to greet him.

Robie looked around. The place didn’t appear to have been changed since opening day. It looked frozen in time from well before a man had walked on the moon or JFK had been elected president.

“Can I help you?” the woman said.

Up close she looked to be in her eighties. Her hair was delicate, cottony, her shoulders rounded and bent, and her knees didn’t look all that sturdy. The metal nameplate on her blouse read “Gwen.”

Robie said, “I was just driving through and saw this place. Quite something.”

“Original owner built it right after WW-Two.”

“Are you the new owner, Gwen?”

She grinned, showing capped teeth. “Honey, there’s nothing ‘new’ about me. And if I were the owner, I wouldn’t be sitting here trying to use a computer. I’d hire someone to do it for me. But I can always phone my great-granddaughter. She tells me what button to hit.”

“You have any rooms available?”

“Yes, we do. Not exactly the busy season for us. Most people come here to get closer with nature. But it’s a little cold to be with nature right about now. We do the best in the summer months, and late spring is pretty good too.”

“Is Room 17 available?”

She looked at him with a quizzical expression. “Room 17? We don’t have a Room 17.”

“But it looks like you have more than seventeen rooms.”

“Oh, we do. But it was the quirk of the original owner. He started with room 100 and worked up from there. Guess he wanted the place to sound a lot bigger than it was. We have twenty-six rooms, thirteen on each floor. That’s unlucky, come to think of it. Thirteen. But we’ve been here a long time, so I guess no harm, no foul.”

Robie had taken a shot in the dark with the number 17. If Reel had left him hidden clues he wanted to try all of them.

“Well, then give me whatever room you have available.”

She slid out a key for Room 106 and handed it to him after he paid for two nights in cash.

“There’s a pretty good place to eat in town called Palisades. That’s the nice restaurant anyway. You know, tablecloths and napkins made of something other than paper towels. They got stuff on the menu I’ve never heard of and couldn’t cook myself to save
my life. But it’s real good if you got the money to spend, which most folks around here don’t. Now, if you’re economy-minded you can try the Gettysburg Grill one block over from Palisades. It’s just plain comfort food. Burgers, pizza, and fries. I’m partial to the Neapolitan shake they do. It’s real nice and only costs a buck.”

“Thanks.”

Robie was turning to go back to his car and get his bag when her words made him stop.

“Of course, there is a Cabin 17.”

He turned to face her. “A Cabin 17.”

“Guess I forgot to tell you about our cabins.”

“I guess so,” said Robie, looking at her expectantly.

“But it wouldn’t have done you any good.”

“Why is that?’

“Well, if you had your heart set on Cabin 17, I couldn’t have rented it to you.”

“Why not?”

“It’s already rented. Has been for a long time.”

“A long time. By who?”

She pursed her lips. “Well, that’s confidential, isn’t it?”

“If you say so,” replied Robie with a smile. The last thing he needed was her calling Titanium’s police on him for being overly curious. “Thing is number 17 is the one I wore when I played football in college. Best years of my life. So wherever I go, I always try to stay in number 17. Stupid, I know, but it’s important to me.”

“Hell, honey, I play the same numbers on the lottery every week because they’re my wedding day, 11, 15, and 21, my age when I got married. My big ball Lotto numbers are the year I was born, which I won’t share with you because you’d know I was over twenty-one. Hard to know just by looking at me, right?”

“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.

C
ABIN 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.