He had killed her.

It was something that only a person like Jessica Reel could understand.

CHAPTER

71

SAM KENT WAS ON the move.

He had taken two weeks off from his duties as a judge. The FISC didn’t have a backlog. They were swift in their judgments. They could spare him.

He packed a bag and kissed his wife and children goodbye.

This was not unusual. He often went away without a lot of explanation. His wife understood it to be part of his past life that he did not talk about.

Well, this wasn’t really about his past life. It was about his future. Precisely speaking, whether he was going to have one or not.

Jacobs, Gelder, and now Decker were dead.

Kent knew that he would have to dance nimbly not to end up like the other three men. He had foes on both flanks now.

Reel and Robie were formidable. He was less concerned about them, though, than with the opponent on his other flank. But the clear way out was to make sure that the plan succeeded. At least his part of it. After that, it was out of his hands. But he also couldn’t be blamed for that part failing.

It was also an opportunity for him to get back out in the field after years of sitting behind a desk. That inactivity had been a slow death for him, he could see that now. It had been a luxury killing that idiot Anthony Zim. He had missed that.

He drove to the airport and checked his car into long-term parking. The night was a fine one. Clear skies, many stars, light winds. It would be a good flight. He would have to hit the ground running. There was a fair amount of prep work that needed to be done.

Success or failure was always defined largely during the preparation. With good planning all one had to do was execute. Even last-second changes could be made with greater ease if the planning in the first place had been precise.

Kent carried no weapons in his bag. That was not his job this time around. He was a thinker, a processor, not a doer.

Part of that pained him, but at his age, he also knew it was the most realistic option for him. Once this was over, the future was both uncertain and crystal clear. Clear for those who knew what was about to happen. A little murkier for everyone else. Flowing up his spine was an electrified charge of excitement mixed with dread. It would certainly be a different world after this. But a better one, he truly believed.

He took a bus to the terminal, showed his passport, checked his bag, passed through security, and walked to the lounge to await his international flight.

The wild card or cards were obvious.

Robie and Reel.

The attack at the mall was conclusive proof in Kent’s mind. Four pros wiped out by two pros who were far more professional.

The battle lost, but not the war, of course.

Eliminating Reel’s source of information was the primary objective. The cleanup had been messy. Cover stories had been deployed and the FBI and DHS would be led round and round the merry-go-round until they were so dizzy the truth could bite them in the collective ass and they would fail to see it.

Kent sipped on a bottle of orange juice and had some crackers and cheese in the airport club to which he belonged. Ordinarily he would fly on private wings to his destination, but this time commercial was just as good. He looked out the window and watched jet after jet pull back from their gates, taxi off, and a few minutes later lift into the clear night sky.

Soon it would be his turn.

He wondered where Robie and Reel were right now.

Perhaps on the way to the same place he was?

Could they have figured it out considering what they had to work with?

The white paper was a key piece, but it listed no specific target. It just gave a scenario of players. The other pieces they might have put together, but to make sense out of it all—that was a stretch even for the likes of them.

And if Reel had gotten what she needed from Roy West she wouldn’t have had to turn to the late Michael Gioffre. It was lucky that Kent’s superior had remembered that connection and quickly posted a team on him.

The only misfortune was that his men had not picked up on Robie. But for him they might have gotten Reel. But they hadn’t and that was that.

His flight was called an hour later. He boarded after watching the other passengers crowd into the small gate area. The flight would be full. That was okay. It was a popular route.

He would try to sleep.

But he doubted that he would be successful. He had too much to think about.

As he was sitting down in his seat, his phone buzzed.

He looked at the text. Good luck, it read.

He put it away without texting back.

What was he supposed to say? Thanks?

He buckled up and reclined the seat. He pulled out his wallet and slipped the photo out.

His other life. His family. Beautiful young wife, adorable children. They lived in the perfect home in the perfect neighborhood and had all the money they would ever need to be happy. He could be with them right now. Tucking his kids in. Making love to his wife. Having a scotch in his study while reading a good book. He could do that for the rest of his days and be extremely content, euphoric even.

But here he was on a plane that would be flying to yet another destination where he would risk life and limb for the greater good.

Kent ran his finger against his wife’s picture.

A female passenger sitting next to him, who had observed what he had done, smiled. “I know. I miss my family every time I leave too,” she said.

He smiled and then turned away.

A few minutes later the plane zipped down the runway and lifted into the air.

Kent had been on many flights, from patched-together choppers in the jungles of Vietnam where every tree seemingly provided cover for Viet Cong trying to take the aircraft down, to 747s that had whisked him across the globe in luxury. But in each instance when he’d gotten on the ground he had been prepared to kill. And quite often did.

He unfolded the paper and looked at the front page.

Howard Decker was still alive—in the photo, that is. His eyes were open. He was smiling. His wife was by his side at some social function that required outrageously expensive formal gowns for the women and cookie-cutter penguin suits for the men.

In reality Decker was on a slab at the D.C. morgue with part of his head missing. He would never smile again.

Kent had known nothing of the hit but he agreed with its execution. Loose ends tied up. The weak separated from the rest of the herd.

They were near the end of this and nothing and no one was going to interfere with the desired result. Too much time in the planning. Too many obstacles avoided. Far too much at stake.

It was Super Bowl Sunday. All the hype was over.

It was time to play the damn game.

CHAPTER