She proceeded to the train station in time to catch the next train that was rolling through. Ten minutes later she was five miles from the town where she had just committed murder. Four hours later, long before the body would be discovered, she had left that train and boarded a plane back to Turkey.
Now she needed to decide what to do.
And how to do it.
Chapter
22
JESSICA REEL PUT DOWN HER weapon, slipped off her sound mufflers, and hit the button to draw the target toward her.
Twenty shots. Nineteen in the kill zone. One two centimeters outside. She frowned. Not good enough. She had lost her focus on the fourteenth trigger pull.
She looked at Robie next to her as his target sheet sailed toward him.
All of his shots were in the kill zone. He looked at her errant shot mark.
“I know,” she said miserably.
She had easily passed the test on the firing range even by Burner Box standards. This was her first miss in over two thousand fired rounds since they’d been here.
Amanda Marks came to stand next to them.
“I think you’ve proved your marksmanship still holds,” she said.
They left the firing range and walked back to the main facility. Their days here had been long and arduous, and Robie and Reel felt both exhausted and finely tuned.
“Two possible targets,” said Reel suddenly.
Marks and Robie slowed.
Marks looked at her. “Blue Man?”
“His visit was timely,” said Robie.
“It wasn’t at my prompting,” said Marks.
“We know,” replied Reel. “It apparently was your colleague.”
“Viola? Now there’s a surprise.”
“Not if he’s feeling like a fish out of water. Word is he had a one-on-one with Tucker. And came away more than a little nervous.”
“Hence the call to Blue Man,” said Robie.
“If Viola is nervous something is off.”
“Two targets,” said Reel again. “Twin possibilities.”
They stopped walking altogether and stood in a tight circle.
“Two heads of state,” said Robie after glancing at Reel. They had talked at length about how to break this to Marks. They had finally concluded that the direct way was best.
Marks stared at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The target will be a head of state. And the list of possibilities is pretty short.”
The look of incredulity still in her eyes, Marks swallowed nervously and said, “Is that what Blue Man told you?”
Robie said, “Not directly. But circumstantially, the way this is stacking up, that’s the only thing it could be. And he’s in agreement with that assessment. That’s what Tucker is putting together and it’s apparently eating him alive. That and figuring out what to do with the two of us.”
“But that’s illegal. Tucker would never go out on a limb like that.”
“He would with appropriate alliances.”
“There are very few alliances that would justify that sort of mission,” said Marks sharply.
“And not all presidents are built the same,” noted Reel.
Marks stared at her for a long moment. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yes, I am.”
“But that’s an im—”
“Impeachable offense,” interjected Robie. “That’s why the need to know is so tight it’s almost nonexistent.”
“So Iran or North Korea,” said Reel. “Place your bets. Our two badass enemies. The remaining two of the old axis of evil. Now that Iraq is all nice and peaceful and full of terrorists.”
Marks looked around. The area was deserted, but she still did not look comfortable discussing this. She said, “Clandestine ops like this are my whole wheelhouse as the DD. They’re mine to direct. Or not. And I know nothing about this.”
“Apparently, Tucker is the only one at CIA to know.”
Reel added, “And the president and Potter, the APNSA.”
“This is crazy,” said Marks in a low voice. “How did Blue Man find this out?”
“By doing what Blue Man does better than anyone else: working his sources and reading the tea leaves and the faces of his superiors in the organization,” said Robie. “Tucker doesn’t have the greatest poker face. And he didn’t come up in the intelligence field. He’s a politician. I’m sure Blue Man has ways to find out things at Langley that Tucker can’t even imagine.”
Reel said, “So Iran’s president or the ayatollah. Or North Korea’s Supreme Leader, Un.”
“This is absolutely insane,” said Marks firmly. “North Korea has nukes. Iran is close to having them. And they have death squads all over the world, including right here. If they’re deployed in force with chemical or biological weapons?”