“Today your friend, tomorrow your enemy,” translated Robie. “I get that. I’ve actually lived that.” He put his hands over his stomach. He did so to allow his right hand to inch closer to the gun in his holster. His gaze went to her weapon and then to DiCarlo’s face.
“You want to talk about it?” he said. “If the number two is worried about her security and can’t trust folks outside her immediate protection circle, that’s probably something I should know about.”
DiCarlo’s hand went to her pistol, but Robie got there first.
“I was going to put it away,” she said.
“Leave it where it is,” said Robie. “And don’t reach for it again unless someone is shooting at you.”
She sat back, clearly upset at what she probably deemed insubordination on his part. But then her features cleared.
“I guess if I’m paranoid, why shouldn’t you be?” she said.
“We can agree to agree on that. But why the paranoia?”
“Gelder and Jacobs are dead,” she replied.
“Reel did it. She’s on the outside.”
“Is she?”
“What do you know that makes you think she isn’t? When we spoke last you were more her advocate than anything else.”
“Was I?”
DiCarlo rose and went over to the window. The drapes were closed and she made no move to part them.
Robie began to wonder if there was long-range surveillance out there.
“You tell me,” he said.
She turned back to him. “You’re probably too young to remember much about the Cold War. And you’re certainly too young to have worked for the agency during it.”
“Okay. Is that what we’re back to here, the Cold War? Where people are constantly switching sides?”
“I can’t answer that definitively, Mr. Robie. I wish I could. What I can tell you is that there have been troubling developments over the last few years.”
“Like what?”
She blurted out, “Missions that never should have been. Missing personnel. Money moved from here to there and then it disappeared. Equipment sent to places it should not have been sent to and it also disappeared. And that’s not all. These things happened in discreet quantities over long periods of time. Taken singly they didn’t seem to be all that remarkable. But when one looks at them together...” She stopped talking, seemingly exhausted by her outburst.
“And are you the only one who’s done that?” asked Robie. “Looked at them collectively?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Missing personnel. Like Reel?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What are you sure of?”
She sat back down. “That something insidious is going on, Mr. Robie. I don’t know if it has anything to do with Jessica Reel. What I do know is that it’s reached a crisis point.”
“Does Evan Tucker share your concerns?”
DiCarlo passed a hand over her forehead. She was about to answer when Robie heard the sounds. He pulled his gun with one hand and hit the table light with the other, knocking it off the desk and plunging them into darkness.
He reached across the desk and grabbed hold of DiCarlo’s arm. “Get under the kneehole of your desk and stay there.”
He groped on the desk, found her gun, and handed it to her. “Kept up with your certifications?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
“Good,” he said tersely. “Good.”
The next moment Robie was on the move.
He knew exactly what the sounds had represented. He had heard them many times over his career.
Two muzzle blasts equaled two long-distance rifle shots.
This was followed by the sonic signatures of the rounds in the air.
Two thunks represented the impact of those rounds hitting flesh. The last two thunks were the dead bodies of DiCarlo’s trusted security team hitting the dirt.
Her secure perimeter was gone.
Now it was just Robie between DiCarlo and whoever else was out there.
He thumbed a number on his phone but the call didn’t go through. He looked at the bars. He had four. But the call wouldn’t go through.
Because they were jamming the signal. Which meant there was more out there to confront than a single sniper.
He opened the door to the room, shot through the opening, and moved down the hall.
CHAPTER
30
ROBIE PEEKED OUT THE FRONT WINDOW. Lying facedown in the motor court were the two guards who had admitted him to the house. He backtracked down the hall, through the kitchen, found a hard-line phone, and punched in Blue Man’s number. It rang twice and was picked up.
“Ms. DiCarlo?” said Blue Man, who was obviously seeing the number on his caller ID.
“It’s Robie. I was meeting with DiCarlo at her house when shots were fired. Her security team is dead. I’m the only thing