would glance in Robie’s direction, smile, and then look away as she continued her conversation with another person whom Robie didn’t recognize.
Several times Robie had thought about approaching her. Yet he had left the party without doing so. As he was walking out he’d glanced back at her. She was laughing at a comment made by someone, and never looked his way. It was probably better that way, he’d thought. Because really, what would have been the point?
Robie rose and stared out the window.
It was fall now. The leaves in the park had started to turn. The evenings were chilly. The humidity of summer was sometimes still with them, but its intense edge had measurably eroded. The current weather was not bad for a city that was built on a swamp—and still was a swamp by many people’s estimation, at least the part where the professional politicians nested.
Robie had done his recon in the abbreviated time allotted. The run-throughs, logistically harder in this situation, had still been performed.
And he still didn’t like it.
But it was not his call.
The location would not involve Robie stepping on a plane or train. But the target was different as well. And not in a good way.
Sometimes he went after people intent on global menace, like Rivera or Talal. Or sometimes he simply went after a problem.
You could take your pick of labels, but in the end they all meant the same thing. His employer decided who among the living and breathing would qualify as a target. And then they turned to men like Robie to end the living and breathing part.
It made the world better, was the justification.
Like flinging the planet’s most potent army against a madman in the Middle East. Military victory was ensured from the start. What could not be wholly predicted was what came after victory. Like a morphing chaos you couldn’t escape.
Trapped in a trap of your own making.
The agency Robie worked for had a clear policy on operatives who were caught during a mission. There would be no acknowledgment that Robie even worked for the United States. There would be no steps taken to save him. It was the opposite of the U.S. Marines’ mantra: Everyone in Robie’s world was left behind.
Thus on every mission Robie had employed an exit plan known only to him, in case the operation went awry. He had never needed to employ his personal backup plan, because he had never failed a mission. Yet. Tomorrow was simply another day for something to go wrong.
Shane Connors was the one who had taught Robie this. He had told Robie that he had to use his backup plan once, in Libya, when the operation, through no fault of his, had imploded.
“You’re the only one out there who really has your back, Will,” Connors had told him. That advice had stayed with Robie all these years. He would never forget it.
Robie surveyed his apartment. He’d been here four years, liked it for the most part. There were restaurants within walking distance. The area was interesting, with many unusual shops that were not part of homogeneous national chains. Robie ate out a lot. He liked to sit at tables and watch people go by. He was a student of humanity in a way. That was why he was still alive. He could read people, often after observing them for only a few seconds. It was not a natural talent. It was a skill he had built up over time, as most useful skills were.
In the basement of his building was a gym where he would go to work out, hone his muscles, ratchet up his motor skills, practice techniques that needed practicing. He was the only one who ever used the facility. For training involving weapons and other necessary tools of his trade there were other places he went. Other people he worked with.
At forty years of age it didn’t come any easier.
He toggled his neck back and forth and was rewarded with a satisfying pop.
He heard a door open and close in the hall. He stepped to his peephole and watched the woman walk her bike down the hall. This was the woman from the party, the one who worked at the White House. She sometimes wore jeans on the way to work and then presumably changed into her official duds when she got there. She was always the first to leave the building in the morning, unless Robie had already departed for some reason.