“They didn’t find our bodies, Doc. And they can no longer track us. Which tells them we’re onto how we were tracked. You put the sutures in. We found you. You’re out of the loop for a while. If we let you go, you go back to them.”
“I won’t say anything. I promise.”
“That’s not the point.”
“So what is the point?”
“They’ll know you were with us. They’ll interrogate you. And then they’ll kill you.”
Meenan took a step back. “Why would they kill me? I’m on their side.”
“Because they’ll believe you helped us. That would be the only way we would’ve let you go. And your price for that is you die. It’s really that simple. See, to them, you’ll have become the enemy. And like you said, the goal is to kill all of the enemy. And now that includes you.”
“But—”
“It’s not an either/or proposition. So you stay here, you live. You go out there, you die. I’ll let you decide. What’s it going to be?”
Meenan stared up at him and then took a few hesitant steps back before plopping down on the cot and studying the floor.
“Good choice,” said Robie, and then he walked out.
CHAPTER
63
REEL WAS WAITING FOR HIM outside the barn in a new rental. He climbed in, snagged Meenan’s laptop from the backseat, opened it, and started clicking keys as Reel drove off.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“I think she’s starting to see the light. Not that it matters.”
“Just so you know, I’m down to my last fake ID,” said Reel.
“Let’s hope it’s enough.”
“Where to?”
“I’ve got a contact at the FBI I want to work. I got the photos of West and Meenan from her.”
“Special Agent Nicole Vance?”
Robie shot her a glance. “How did you know that?”
“You started out as my enemy. I find out all I can about my enemies.”
“How much did you find out?”
“Julie Getty.”
She looked at him.
“That makes you angry?”
“It doesn’t make me happy. What if someone was following you?”
“Someone wasfollowing you. Vance. And me.”
“Okay, let’s just call a truce on that. We need some info that we can’t get on our own.”
She said, “Don’t be too sure about that. And the more people we involve, the more potential pitfalls we face.”
“We face pitfalls everywhere we turn.”
“Proves my point. What do we need to know?”
“Lots of things.”
“Find anything interesting on Meenan’s computer?”
“I got into her email. She has a varied correspondence. Multiple boyfriends, from the content of some of the emails. A little racier than I would have given the doc credit for. West was probably one of them, but he’s not on there now.” He refocused on the screen. “This might be something.”
“What?”
“Give me a sec.”
He read some more emails, scrolling down the screen.
“What is it, Robie?”
“Cryptic one-word messages. Without context they don’t mean anything. ‘Yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘now,’ ‘tomorrow’—things like that.”
“Who’s the sender?”
“The address looks generic, and is probably untraceable. But there are three letters at the end of the messages, like the writer’s signature. RTD. Mean anything to you?”
Reel was silent for a long minute. “Roger the Dodger,” she said.
“Who?”
“It was the code name of the person West said had requested the white paper. He said the person was at least three levels above him at the time.”
“Did he say anything else that might lead us to the person?”
“Unfortunately, that was about the time I had to knock him out.”
“Roger the Dodger? Odd moniker.”
“I thought so too. But he’s been able to dodge us pretty effectively. So it does fit. What do you think Vance can help us with?”
“Finding the apocalypse. Before it happens.”
“The white paper was pretty explicit. Country by country. Leader by leader. Simultaneously. It’s dazzlingly complex and brutally efficient. It’s all in the timing.”
“But what are the exact details? You never said.”
“Targeting all G8 leaders, except the U.S. president, on the same day at the same time using a coordinated attack, and intelligence–sharing, and buying whatever resources are needed on the inside. They’re all killed. What follows is chaos in the civilized world. The paper goes on to detail what steps the perpetrators of the attacks should take to press their advantage.”
“Okay, but who are the perpetrators?”
“West papered various ones. Not surprisingly, they were mostly radical Islamic fundamentalists. He broke it down to include factions of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas. I have to admit, it was well thought out.”
“Why leave out the U.S. president?” asked Robie.
“Probably because the agency didn’t want to pay its people to think up plausible ways to kill POTUS. If that got out there would be hell to pay.”
“And what was the purpose of such an attack, at least according to West?”
“Power vacuum in the civilized world, chaos in financial markets, upheaval across the globe, 9/11 on steroids.”
“And why would we want a paper out there that tells people how to do that?”
“They probably didn’t believe it would be circulated. And maybe they wanted to see the scenario to know how to counter it so it didn’t happen or deal with it if it ever did. Roy West wasn’t too clear on that.”
“Did we come up with counters?”
“I doubt it. The paper apparently didn’t go anywhere within the agency hierarchy.”
“You know what that strategy reminds me of?” said Robie.
“What?”
“The scene in The Godfather. Where Michael Corleone is having his child baptized. And then they intercut to the scenes of the rival bosses who tried to kill Marlon Brando’s character being assassinated. It was Michael’s revenge.”
“Maybe that’s where West got the idea. From a movie. He didn’t strike me as an original thinker.”
“But for it to work they have to have personnel in all those different countries ready to move at the same time.”
“So who on the inside of the U.S. government would want to see that scenario played out?” asked Reel.
“I would hope no one. But that apparently isn’t the case.”
“So America gets thrown into the apocalypse. In a scenario like that, nobody wins.”
They were both silent for a while, each probably contemplating what the world might look like after such an event.
“Feeling pretty hopeless?” asked Reel.
“Aren’t you?”
“I’ve never forgotten one thing. It might seem stupid to you.”
“I’m listening.”
“There is always hope in hopeless.”
They exchanged a brief smile.
“Tell me something. Who was the friend of the friend?”
Reel looked away. Robie saw her fingers tighten on the steering wheel but she didn’t answer.
“The guy in the photo with you. You said he was a friend of a friend because putting the other guy in there would guarantee I never would have gotten the picture.”
“Why do you need to know who he is?”
“If you didn’t want me to know, why leave the photo in the locker?”
“Maybe I didn’t have a reason.”
“You told me there is a reason for everything you do.”
A minute later Reel said, “The friend was a mentor. A guy who cared about me way back when. When no one else did.”
“How did you know him?”
“I just knew him.”
“Witness Protection, maybe?”
She glanced at him in surprise.
“DiCarlo told me about your past.”