bullet in the head would be his reward for being stupid enough to try to get out that way.
The front of the building was out for a similar reason. Well lighted, one entry—he might as well paint a bull’s-eye on his head when the backup team showed up a minute from now to clean up this mess. That left the two sides of the building. His two options, but Robie had to narrow it to one. And quickly.
He was moving as he was thinking: 201 or 216. The first was on the left of the building, the second on the right. The shooter in the rear of the building could move over to the left or right and thus cover the rear and one side simultaneously.
So left or right?
Robie moved, thought.
The handler would be helping the shooter, feeding him where he thought Robie would go. Left or right? He strained to remember the composition of the area. There was this high-rise building. The alley behind. A block of small businesses, gas station, strip mall. On the other side of that another high-rise that looked abandoned to Robie when he had done his earlier recon. The shooter had to be in there. That was the only sight line that worked. And if the building was abandoned, the shooter would have room to roam, to reset his position and turn his scope to Robie.
So which will it be? Left or right?
His original target, 404, was closer to the left side of the building. The handler might think Robie would go that way because he was closest to that side already. The handler didn’t know that Robie had gone to the third floor to drop off the other kid and then proceeded down another flight. But the handler would figure Robie would have to go down. He hadn’t brought anything to rappel down the side of the building.
Robie thought this through. In his mind’s eye he visualized the shooter sliding his position over to his right—Robie’s left—setting up his bipod, adjusting his scope, and waiting for Robie to appear.
But Robie hadn’t appeared yet when speed was essential. The shooter would take this into account. Robie, he knew, was trying to outguess him. Zig when they expected zag. So to the right instead of the left. That would explain the time that had passed thus far. Not dropping off the second kid.
In Robie’s mind he now slid the shooter to the left, or Robie’s right, on his mental chessboard.
The time for thinking was over.
He sprinted down the hall toward the building’s left side.
Number 201 was empty. Another foreclosure. Small personal miracles sometimes grew from large economic disasters. Ten seconds later he was inside. The apartments all had the same layout. He didn’t need a light or his goggles to navigate. He reached the back bedroom, opened the window, and climbed out.
He gripped the windowsill, looked down, gauged the drop, and let go.
Ten feet later he hit and rolled, cushioning the fall. Still, he felt pain in his right ankle. He waited for a shot to hit him.
None did. He had guessed correctly. He ran at an angle away from the building, hid behind a Dumpster for a few moments, recalibrated his senses to the new surroundings. Then he was up and over a fence and sprinting up the street five seconds later.
They probably hadn’t seen him leave the building or else he’d be dead. But they had to know by now that he’d gotten away. A response team would be searching for him. Grid by grid. Robie knew the drill. Only now he had to defeat it.
For as long as he’d been doing this Robie had known that what had happened tonight was a possibility. Not a distinct possibility, but one he had to account for. Like for all his other missions, he had a contingency exit plan in place. Now it was time to execute the plan. Shane Connors’s advice to him had finally come into play.
“You’re the only one out there who really has your back, Will.”
He walked ten more blocks. His destination was up ahead. He checked his watch. Twenty minutes to spare if the schedule hadn’t changed.
The year-old Outta Here Bus Company had taken over an old Trailways terminal near Capitol Hill. The company obviously didn’t have a lot of start-up capital, and the station still appeared like it was shut down. The company’s buses parked here did not look as if they could pass even a routine inspection. This