Free The Hit by David Baldacci Page B

then her view of him was gone, blocked by the wall of flames. It was designed to lead him right to the pond, which looked like a safe harbor but would be his grave.
    Yet under the most intense pressure he had kept his wits, deduced the safe harbor was a trap, and executed on the fly a maneuver designed to keep him alive.
    And he had succeeded.
    She froze the screen on the image of Robie walking back to his car.
    Could I have just done what he did? Am I as good as he is?
    She stared at the screen, looking into Robie’s face, trying to read the man’s mind, to delve into what he was thinking at just that moment in time.
    But the face was inscrutable.
    A good poker player.
    No, a great poker player.
    She closed the laptop and sat back on her bed. She pulled a Glock nine-millimeter from her belt holster and started disassembling it. She did it without looking, as she had been trained to do.
    Then she started to put it back together, again without looking.
    This exercise always served to calm her, make her think more clearly. And she needed to think as clearly as possible right now.
    She was fighting an engagement on two flanks.
    She had her list with more names on it. These people were now forewarned. Their protective shells were being hardened as she sat there.
    And she had Will Robie, who was now more than a little angry at almost being killed by her. He would be coming hard on her rear flank.
    That meant she had to have eyes in the back of her head, see both combat fronts at the same time. Difficult, but not impossible to do.
    Robie had gone to her cottage on the Eastern Shore to learn more about her. He had found nothing except an attempt on his life.
    But now Reel needed more information on Robie. She had thought he would be the one to come after her. The episode at the cottage had confirmed this.
    She rose, made a phone call, and then slipped into jeans, sweater, boots, and a hoodie. Her gun rested in her belt holster. A Ka-Bar knife rode in a leather sleeve wrapped around her left arm and hidden under the hoodie. She could pull it free in a second if need be.
    Her main problem was that despite her changed appearance there were eyes everywhere. Much of the United States and the civilized world was now one big camera. Her former employer would be using sophisticated search and facial recognition software, going through databases housing billions of images, in a 24/7 attempt to track her down.
    With that many resources leveled against her, Reel had no margin of error. She had built a nice bulwark of defenses, but nothing was perfect. Nearly every defensive line in every war had been pierced at some point. And she was under no delusions that she would be one of the rare exceptions.
    She took a cab to a major intersection and then got out. The rest of the way would be on foot. It took her thirty minutes to walk it, unhurried, seemingly out for a casual stroll. Along the way she used every skill she possessed to attempt to see anyone watching her. Her antennae never quivered.
    She reached the spot ahead of schedule and surveyed it from a hidden observation point. If something were going to happen, here was where it would transpire.
    Twenty minutes passed and she saw him approach. He was dressed in a suit and looked like a bureaucrat. Which he was. He didn’t carry a bulky manila file with him. That would have been the old days.
    And I’m old enough to remember some of the “old days,”
she thought.
    He bought a newspaper from a machine and clanged the metal and glass door shut, checking it once to make certain it had closed properly. It was a routine sort of thing and would not warrant any attention from anyone.
    He turned and walked away.
    Reel watched him go and then strolled over to the machine, inserted her coins, opened the door, and withdrew the next paper that sat on top of the pile. At the same instant her hand closed around the black thumb drive the man had placed there.
    It was an old-fashioned drop procedure to