and then fled. The CIA director stared down at it for a moment and then slowly pulled out his wallet.
CHAPTER
37
ROBIE SAT IN HIS APARTMENT, thinking that he needed information in a way that was discreet. Such information was often hard to come by when people were watching you.
Yet he did work in the clandestine division. And thus he had resources and a certain skill set. He intended to employ some of them right now.
He drove to a mall, parked in the covered garage, and went shopping. In one hour he had visited three different shops and carried three different bags.
He got some coffee, sat at a table, and drank it all down. He also had a muffin, even though he wasn’t really hungry.
He got up, threw the empty cup away, and walked on.
He wasn’t certain he was being followed, but he had to assume he was.
He had to believe his interest marker at the agency had gone up significantly. And there were other agencies that might be involved now too.
DHS apparently had Janet DiCarlo. They had a lot of resources available to them, including satellites. Satellites were hard to beat. But there were ways to do so. They could only spy on what they could see. And sometimes what they thought they were seeing wasn’t what it really was.
He checked his watch. As good a time as any. They were really going to have to hustle now.
He didn’t go back to his car. He took an escalator down to the Metro.
He was instantly surrounded by a horde of commuters scrambling to make trains. He wedged in with a group trying to board the train just entering the station. He got on and dropped his bags, which caused a scrum at the entrance to the train.
A voice announced that the train doors were closing. Robie kept walking, down the aisle of the train car. He looked back as he reached the end of the car. Two men were fighting their way onto the car by forcibly pushing the scrum out of the way.
Robie didn’t know them. But he did know what they were.
They were his tail. The signs were unmistakable.
Right before the doors closed, Robie stepped out of the other door.
The train slid away from the station while Robie walked to the exit, invisible within a wall of other travelers.
He didn’t go up the escalator. He slipped through a door that was nearly hidden in the wall. It led to a maintenance area.
Robie ran into two men in the hall inside this area. When they asked him what he was doing there, he flashed his creds and asked for the nearest exit. They told him and he was through it in under a minute.
He flipped his jacket inside out, turning his brown jacket blue. He slipped a ball cap from his pocket and put that on. Sunglasses covered his face.
He hit the street, found a cabstand, and within twenty minutes was on his way out of the city.
He got out of the cab well short of his destination. He walked the rest of the way.
The shoe repair shop was in a blighted area of run-down homes and businesses. The bell tinkled when Robie opened the door. It automatically closed behind him.
He paused, took off his hat and glasses, and looked around. It contained everything that one would expect to see in a shoe repair shop. The only difference was that the gent who owned it did not count on resoling shoes for all of his daily bread.
The man came out from behind a curtain set in a doorway behind the counter. “Can I help—” When he saw Robie he stopped.
Robie came forward and put his hands on the counter. “Yeah, I hope you can help me, Arnie.”
The man was in his fifties with gray hair, a trim beard, and ears that stuck out. He automatically looked over Robie’s shoulder. Robie shook his head. “Just me.”
“You never know,” said Arnie.
“You never know,” agreed Robie.
“You working?” asked Arnie.
“Something different.”
“Gelder?”
Robie nodded. “Could use some help.”
“I’m mostly retired.”
“That’s mostly a lie.”
“What do you need?”
“Jessica Reel,” answered Robie.
“Haven’t heard that name in a while.”
“That status might change. Who were her contacts?”
“Inside you should know, you’re still with the agency,” said Arnie.
“I don’t mean inside.”
Arnie ran a hand along his chin. “Reel is good at what she does. Maybe as good as you.”