Innocent, The by Baldacci David

Author:Baldacci, David [BALDACCI, DAVID]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2012-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

52

ROBIE WALKED THROUGH the open gate.

“Where have you been all this time?” asked Vance.

“Let’s go back to Donnelly’s,” said Robie.

“Why?”

“I want to check something I should have already checked.”

Fifteen minutes later Robie stood in the same spot he had on the night an MP-5 had tried to rip his life away. He eyed where the SUV had been, then his defensive position behind the trash cans, and then over his shoulder at the shattered plate glass window. He walked back and forth and framed, in his mind’s eye, the shot pattern of the attackers.

“Total number of dead and wounded as of right now?” he asked Vance, who was watching him.

“Six dead, five wounded. One’s still in the hospital but looks like he’ll make it.”

“But not us,” said Robie.

“What?”

“We’re not dead.”

“A somewhat obvious deduction,” Vance said dryly.

“Eleven people shot, six fatally, and yet the shooter misses us? We were the closest target, right out in the open. Aluminum trash cans the only thing between us, thirty-round clips, and a cooler bed at the D.C. morgue.”

“You’re saying the shooter missed us on purpose?”

He looked over to find Vance staring at him, a perplexed look on her face.

“How does that make sense?” she asked.

“How does it make sense that the guy missed us at basically point-blank range with a weapon that is designed for mass destruction in narrow fields of fire? There should be at least eight dead, including you and me. Look at the shot pattern. He was firing around us.”

“Then are you saying they killed all those people for what? A warning? Something to do with the Wind case? The bus bombing?”

Robie didn’t answer her. His thoughts were racing ahead, taking him in a direction he had never expected to go.

“Robie?”

He turned to her.

Vance said slowly, “I guess looking at it that way, what you’re saying makes sense. I guess we should be dead. Then it has to relate to the Winds, or the bus, or maybe both.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“But Robie—”

He turned back away from her to stare at the spot on the street again from where the SUV had launched its attack.

Someone has tagged me. Someone is playing mind games with me. Someone close is trying to get to me, screw with me.

“Robie, do you have any other enemies?” asked Vance.

“None that I can think of,” he said absently.

Other than a few hundred, he thought.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked.

He broke off his thoughts and rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you tell me everything?”

“What?”

He faced her. “Do you tell me everything?” he demanded.

“I guess not.”

“Then you have your answer.”

“But you told me I could trust you.”

“You can, but you have your agency and I have mine. I’m assuming you’ll tell me everything you can and I’ll do the same. I’ve got people to report to and so do you. It all has limits. But that doesn’t mean we can’t work together to get the job done.”

Vance glanced down at her feet, poked a cigarette butt lying on the street with the toe of her shoe.

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