Middle East, but she might have been in D.C. drawing a bead on the man talking to her through a headset. Other things being equal, it probably was Reel who took the shot on Jacobs. If it were Robie, he would want to make sure the kill was done correctly. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone else pulling the trigger.
Which meant he had to go somewhere right now, before he met Vance for dinner.
Robie barely glanced at the three-story building where Jacobs’s life had ended. He knew what had happened there, at the end of the bullet’s path. Now he needed to understand the beginning of that path.
The old town house was only a few failed support columns from collapsing. Built in the late 1800s, the five-story building had been used for many different purposes over the years. These included a private school and a men’s club that had ceased to exist over fifty years ago. But no one famous had ever lived there, so it would never become a historical registry building. In the coming years it would probably be knocked down if it didn’t tumble down on its own first.
Robie gazed up at the building’s front. Staring back at him were aged brick, scraggly vines clinging to the walls, dead grass, and a rotted front door. He walked gingerly up the steps, avoiding the holes in the porch planks. The building had been secured, but stealthily. There were watchful eyes that had already cleared Robie to enter the premises. He used a key he had been given to open the front door and entered. The electricity had long since been turned off, so he pulled a flashlight from his pocket and walked on, clearing piles of rubble and giving a wide berth to missing floorboards.
The building was hundreds of yards from the agency outpost where Jacobs had been working. It was a long-distance shot certainly, but manageable ten times out of ten by a capable shooter.
Robie took the stairs up to the fifth floor. He had already been told that that was from where the shot had come. It was the only position in the town house that provided a clear sight line to Jacobs’s office.
He heard raindrops starting to fall more heavily as he reached the fifth floor landing. He walked down the hall. He felt the chill from the outside reach him through innumerable chinks in the building’s walls. He might be able to see his breath if it weren’t so dark.
He shined his light ahead of him, taking care to avoid weak spots in the floor. It would have been dicey setting up your shot from here, despite the clear sight line. You had no way to know if the floor would collapse under you.
But it hadn’t and Jacobs had died.
Robie slowed his walk as he approached the room. It was in a turret on the right side of the building.
He knew the place had already been gone over by agency personnel, but he also had been told that nothing had been disturbed. And the police hadn’t been told about this building yet, but no doubt their investigation would get here at some point. But for now Robie had a small window of opportunity.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
There was only one spot in the room from where the shot really could have been made. The turret room had three south-facing windows. The one in the middle had the truest sight line to Jacobs.
Robie drew nearer and shined his light around. On the windowsill was a narrow disturbance in the dust pattern. That was where the rifle muzzle had rested. Another disturbance of dust on the floor represented the shooter’s knee.
There was a slight discharge from the rifle on both the sill and the floor. The suppressor would have vented the propellant gas out just about there.
No shell casing had been found, so the brass had been policed, as Blue Man had pointed out. But the dust disturbances could easily have been covered up as well.
Only they weren’t, which told Robie that the shooter didn’t care if the sniper’s nest was discovered.
He picked up a long piece of shoe molding that had broken off, knelt down, and, using the molding as an imaginary weapon, drew a bead on Jacobs’s office.
Fifth floor looking down on third floor. The reverse wouldn’t work, of course, because of the angle of the shot. You couldn’t fire up and nail your target. You had to fire down. If Jacobs’s building