Текст книги "The Hit"

Автор книги: David Baldacci

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Robie did a sight line to the car window. A fine shot on a diagonal line between two stationary objects at distance.

At night.

In less than ideal conditions.

The margin of error he calculated to be nonexistent.

She had to have used a scope and a hybrid weapon, something between a pistol and a rifle. This was not the Eastern Shore, after all. There were potential witnesses everywhere. Pulling out a long-barreled rifle was problematic at best.

She’d gotten the shot off and then was gone. Like smoke. That didn’t just happen. You had to make it happen.

His gaze went to the bushes surrounding the tree, and he saw it on his second pass. He knelt down and picked it up. It was white, falling apart. He put it to his nose. It had a scent.

His mind went back to the town house where the kill shot on Jacobs had come from. Same thing.

He put it in his pocket. It was the only clue he could see and he was not going to leave it for the police to find. They were not his ally in this.

He looked around. There were four directions on the compass, and they translated into thousands of potential escape routes for Reel to take.

His phone buzzed again.

He hoped it was Blue Man, maybe to finally tell Robie why he was acting so funny.

Only it wasn’t Blue Man.

It was Jessica Reel.

CHAPTER

16

N OTHING PERSONAL.

Robie stared at the two words on the tiny screen. Then he stared even harder when the next words appeared:

Part of me is glad you made it.

Without really thinking, he thumbed a response:

Which part?

She didn’t answer the question, but her next text was even more surprising:

When things look simple they’re usually not. Right and wrong, good and bad are in the eyes of the definer. Understand the agenda, Will. And watch your back.

His phone buzzed again. He knew it would. It wasn’t another text from Reel. It was a phone call.

He answered. “Robie.”

“You need to come in. Now.”

“Who is this?”

“The office of Director Evan Tucker.”

Okay, thought Robie. They had seen the texts from Reel, because they’d been monitoring his phone ever since she emailed him the first time. He’s the number one at the agency and is obviously feeling a little stressed out. Can’t blame him there.

“Where? Langley?”

“The director is at home. He will meet you there.”

Five minutes later Robie was in his car and heading to Great Falls, Virginia. The roads were narrow and winding, but in this heavily wooded, rural-looking suburb lived some of the richest, most powerful people in the country.

Director Tucker lived at the end of a cul-de-sac. There was a concrete barricade set up fifty feet before the home and spanning the entire road, interrupted only by a lift gate in the center that allowed vehicles to pass in single file. Tucker lived in a substantial brick-and-siding center-hall colonial with a cedar shake roof set on a total of five acres with a pool and tennis court and about two acres of woods.

Robie pulled his car to a stop at the improvised guard shack set up at the barricade. He and his car were searched and his appointment verified. He had to leave his car and walk the rest of the way.

He eyed one of the grim-faced agents. “I’m very partial to that Audi. Make sure it’s here when I get back.”

The man didn’t even crack a smile.

They had taken Robie’s gun, which was not unexpected. Still, he felt naked as he made his way up the sidewalk to the front door.

Other guards were there. He was searched once more, as though he could have somehow acquired a weapon in the preceding fifty feet. The door was opened and he was escorted inside.

It was still fairly early but he figured the DCI had been up ever since his second in command had gone down with a single round to the forehead.

It would have made Robie sleepless too.

The paneled library he was led into was filled with books that looked like they had actually been read. A rectangular-shaped rug partially covered the plank floor. There was a desk at one end with a banker’s lamp turned on. A chair was positioned in front of the desk.

Behind the desk sat Evan Tucker. He was in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, and dark slacks. His overly starched collar was undone, and there was a cup of coffee perched on the desk within easy reach.

He motioned Robie to the chair and said, “Coffee?”

“Thanks.”

The escort disappeared, presumably to fulfill this request. In the meantime Robie sat back and took in the man who led his agency.

He looked older than his fifty-four years. His hair was all gray, his waist was thick, and his hands were dotted with age spots. But it was the face that really told the story: lined, jowly, with eyes that were ensnared in deep pockets of flesh. They looked like miniature sinkholes swallowing the man whole. The lips were narrow and cracked. The teeth behind were yellowed and irregular in shape. He made no attempt to conceal them. But then again, Robie figured Evan Tucker had very little reason to smile in his job.

The coffee came and the aide departed, closing the door behind him.

Tucker pushed a button hidden in the kneehole of his desk and Robie heard a sudden hum of power. He looked at the windows as thick panels slid across them. He looked at the door as the same thing happened there.

It was all very James Bond–like, but it had a legitimate and tangible purpose. The room had just been turned into a SCIF, or sensitive compartmented information facility. Obviously, what Robie was about to hear was considered to be intelligence residing at the very highest levels of the clandestine community.

Tucker sat back in his chair and continued to look at Robie. “She’s been communicating with you,” he said. The tone was slightly accusatory. “Sending you these stupid messages. Like it’s some sort of game. And telling you she doesn’t really want to blow your head off. It’s all bullshit, I trust you know that.”

Robie didn’t flinch. He never flinched. It took your mind off the game. “I know it. But there’s also nothing I can do about that. Your people say they can’t track her.”

“They tell me she’s using encryption levels above the NSA’s standard platform. She’s obviously planned this out well.”

“But if she keeps texting me, it gives us some information. And she might make a mistake. In fact, I think she’s already made a mistake by communicating with me.”

“She’s playing head games with you, Robie. She’s really good at that. I’ve seen the reports on her. She’s a manipulator. She can get people to do things by worming her way into their confidence.”

“She tried to burn me alive. Funny way to gain my confidence.”

“But then she tells you she’s sorry? No harm, no foul? And telling you to watch your back? Right and wrong? She’s doing her best to flip this whole thing to where she comes out innocent and misjudged. Makes me sick to my stomach.”

“She can say whatever she wants to. It doesn’t change my task, does it?” Robie took a sip of his coffee and then put it back down.

Tucker kept looking at Robie like he was trying to discern the slightest uncertainty in his words. “Gelder was a good man. So was Doug Jacobs.”

“So you knew Jacobs too?” asked Robie.

“No, but he certainly didn’t deserve to be shot in the back by a traitor.”

“Right,” said Robie.

“You do what she does, Robie,” said Tucker. “Walk me into her mind.”

Robie didn’t answer right away, because he wasn’t exactly sure what the man was asking. “I can tell you technically how she would approach her tasks. I can’t tell you why she’s turned traitor. I don’t know enough about her yet. I was just assigned this.”

“She’s not letting the grass grow under her feet. You can’t either.”

“I’ve been to the scene of both shootings.”

“And almost run into an FBI agent in charge of the investigation. You later had dinner with the woman. Is there a conflict there that you’renot seeing?”

“I didn’t volunteer for this mission, sir. And I had no way to control who was assigned by the FBI to investigate.”

“Go on.”

“I’ve also been to Reel’s cottage on the Eastern Shore.”

Tucker nodded. “And almost gotten burned to death for your trouble. I’ve watched the SAT footage. I think you need to elevate your game, Robie. Or else she’s going to kill you too. You come highly recommended. But we don’t need to find out down the road that she’s better than you are.”

Robie coolly appraised the man sitting behind his desk in his fine house with his guards and barricades all around. Robie knew about Tucker. He’d been a politician, then came over to the intel side. He’d never been a field agent. Never worn the uniform. Like Jacobs he was never there. He got to watch long-distance on SAT screens as others died violently.

Robie knew that drone technology ended up saving lives because you didn’t need to send in an entire team and put them in harm’s way. It was only the target at risk of dying. But sometimes computers and satellites and drones weren’t enough. That’s when Robie got called up. And he did his job. What bugged him was the desk grunts thinking that what they did was exactly what he did. It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

“You think I’m being unfair?” said Tucker in a patronizing tone.

“The issue of fairness has nothing to do with what I do,” replied Robie.

“That’s good to hear. It saves us time.”

Robie looked around. “Since we’re in a SCIF, sir, perhaps you can give me your opinion of why this is happening.”

“Reel has turned. Someone turned her.”

“Who do you think that is? The agency must have some idea.”

“You have info on her last four missions. They took place over the better part of a year. I would say the answer would lie there.”

“Might the answer lie with the man she didn’tkill?”

“Ferat Ahmadi, you mean?”

Robie nodded. “Sometimes the simplest answers are the right ones.”

“That explains Jacobs. It doesn’t explain Gelder.”

“Let’s explore that. Did Gelder have a role in the hit on Ahmadi?”

Tucker looked around, his expression saying the SCIF wall suddenly wasn’t sturdy enough to contain the weight of this conversation.

Robie said, “If you don’t think I’m cleared for it, we can discontinue the discussion.”

“It would be quite stupid to bring you into this and not think you’re cleared for it.”

“So did Gelder have a role?”

“To my knowledge—” began Tucker, but Robie held up a hand like a cop directing traffic, which was actually what he felt like right now.

“With all due respect, sir, prefaces like that do me no good. You’re not testifying on the Hill. I need a complete answer or none at all.”

“Gelder headed up the clandestine operations, but he had no direct involvement in the Ahmadi mission,” said Tucker as he sat up straighter and seemed to look at Robie in a new light.

“So if we discount Ahmadi, where else do we look? We need some connecting dots between Jacobs and Gelder.”

“Has it occurred to you that Reel might just be targeting individuals at the agency based on some paranoid template in her own mind? She was working with Jacobs. She could set him up easily. He’s dead. Gelder is the number two man. She takes him down and it does catastrophic damage to the agency and helps our enemies. There could be no more rhyme or reason to it than that.”

“Don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Tucker said sharply.

“Anybody could do that. Reel isn’t just anybody.”

“I didn’t think you knew her that well. The file says you’ve had no contact with her for over a decade.”

“That’s true. But the contact I did have with her was pretty intense. You get to know a person under conditions like that. It’s like you’ve known them your whole life.”

“People change, Robie.”

“Yes, they do.”

“So what exactly is your point?”

“She has a plan. And the plan is of her own making.”

“And you’re basing that on what? Your gut?”

“If she were working for someone else, she would not be communicating with me. The standard rules of engagement preclude that. Her employers would be monitoring that, just as you are monitoring my communications. She wouldn’t risk that. I think this is personal.”

“She could be playing you. Taking you off your game. She’s an attractive woman. Her record indicates that she’s used allher assets to successfully complete her missions in the past. Don’t get sucked in.”

“I’ve taken that into account, sir. Still doesn’t add up.”

“Then if she has an agenda, what is it? We’re talking in circles.”

“I have more homework to do. The connection between Gelder and Jacobs is where I’ll start.”

“If there is one.”

“A word of caution, sir.”

Tucker looked at him. “I’m listening.”

“Reel has gone from low-level to high in one step. She could be doing a zigzag route to throw us off.”

“That presumes she has more targets.”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt of that.”

“I hope you’re wrong.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“And your word of caution?”

“What if she decides to keep moving up the agency’s hierarchy?”

“Then there’s only one slot left. Me.”

“Right.”

“I have security.”

“So did Jim Gelder.”

“My security is better.”

“But so is Jessica Reel,” replied Robie.

“Pretty damn ironic that this country gave her the skills she’s now using against us,” grumbled Tucker.

“You gave her anotherset of skills, sir. The most important one she already had.”

“And what skill was that?”

“Nerve. Most people think they have it. Almost all of them are wrong.”

“You have that skill too, Robie.”

“And I’m going to need it now. Every bit I’ve got.”

CHAPTER

17

THE DRIVE BACK TO HIS apartment took Robie only about thirty minutes at this time of the morning, but it felt like thirty hours.

He had a lot on his mind.

What he had said to Tucker and what Tucker had said back to him had commingled in his brain like a soupy mess. He really didn’t know what to make of the meeting with the DCI.

The texts from Reel had convinced Robie that she was working alone. This was personal to the woman. You don’t miss your adversary and then say you’re half glad that was the case. It was clear, though, that she was trying to get inside his head. Her subtle references to right and wrong, advising him to watch his back, were classic manipulation techniques to make him doubt both his mission and his trust in the agency. She was good—there was no question about that.

Robie and Reel had received the same level of training, come up through the same systems, the same ranks, had the same protocols grafted onto their professional souls. But they were different. Robie would have never once thought of texting an opponent like that. He usually took the more direct route to his goal. Whether it was a gender thing or not he didn’t know and didn’t care. The differences were real, that’s what was important.

It was possible Reel could have changed. But then it was also possible she was exactly who she had always been.

He got back to his apartment building, parked in the underground garage, and rode the elevator up to his floor. He checked the hallway for anything unusual, then unlocked the door and punched in the disarming code on the security panel.

He put on a pot of coffee, made a peanut butter and honey sandwich, and sat in the window seat of his living room. He drank the coffee, ate the sandwich, and studied the rain that had started to pour outside. It was surely fouling a rush hour into the city that was miserable in the sunshine, much less with slicked roads and buckets of water falling on windshields.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the tiny white object. It had disintegrated more in his pocket, but it was still there. He needed to find out exactly what it was. He had found it at both kill sites.

Once could be a coincidence. Twice was a pattern.

And if Reel had left this, there had to be a reason.

He poured a second cup of coffee, sat at his desk, and clicked the keys on his laptop. Doug Jacobs’s life spread across his screen like blood on a test strip.

It would have been an interesting life to the layman, but a rather ordinary one by Robie’s standards. Jacobs had been an analyst and then a handler. He had never fired a weapon on behalf of his country. Until his violent death he had never been wounded in his line of work.

He had killed many—from a distance and using people like Robie to pull the actual trigger. There was nothing wrong with that. Men like Robie needed people like Jacobs to accomplish their missions as well.

Jacobs had worked with Reel on five different occasions over three years. No problems, not even the slightest execution hiccup. All targets had been eliminated and Reel had come home safe to be deployed again.

He wasn’t sure the pair had ever met face-to-face. There wasn’t anything in the record to show they had. That was not unusual. Robie had never met any of his handlers. The agency subscribed to the Chinese wall policy on operatives. The less people knew about each other, the less they could tell if they were captured and tortured.

Robie discounted any issues in Jacobs’s personal life. With Reel’s being involved, this had to emanate from his professional life.

So many successful missions. No problems. Then Reel had shot Jacobs in the back while she was supposedly on a mission in the Middle East to end the life of someone America could not tolerate being in power.

Finding nothing in Jacobs’s file, Robie opened the far larger digital history of James Gelder.

Gelder had been a lifelong public servant starting in the military, all in the intelligence sector. He had risen quickly and was seen as a likely successor to Evan Tucker—unless the president decided to make a political statement and appoint some Capitol Hill banger whose only connection to intelligence was that he had none.

Evan Tucker was the public face of the agency, to the extent it had one. He was more hands-on than some of his predecessors, but at the operations level it was Gelder’s ball to carry across the goal line.

Robie wondered who would replace him. Would anyone want the job, seeing how it had ended for Gelder?

Robie started way back at the beginning, before Gelder had even joined the agency and was still in the Navy. Then he methodically worked his way forward. The man had had an exemplary career and the respect that Robie had for him only increased.

He came to the end of the file and sat back.

So why would Jessica Reel kill him? If this was personal, what would the reason be? Robie could find no connection between Reel and Gelder. As Evan Tucker had said, Gelder had had no direct hand in the Ahmadi mission other than to give it his official blessing. And Robie could find no other evidence that Gelder had worked with Reel either directly or indirectly.

He hit some computer keys to exit out of the file, but a crack of thunder distracted him and he hit a couple of other keys by accident. The page he was looking at was instantly reformatted. Headers and footers and other electronic gibberish sprang forth.

Shit.

He couldn’t change the page; it was a read-only document, of course.

He hit some keys to try and get out of this new, if accidental, format, but nothing seemed to work. He was about to try again when he looked down at the bottom of the page. In a very faint font, so faint he needed to turn on his desk lamp to see it better, was one word in brackets.

[Deleted]

Robie stared at the faded word like it was a ghost appearing on his screen.

Shit again.

He immediately paged back through Gelder’s file and found twenty-one instances of [Deleted].

He went back through Jacobs’s file, hit the same key combo, and found nineteen such deletions.

He sat back.

He had expected some censorship, but they had basically electronically redacted the whole damn thing. Who “they” were could include either only certain unknown persons, or the entire agency from Tucker on down.

He opened Reel’s official file, and after performing the same keystrokes on this document, he found it littered with the [Deleted]mark.

They want me to investigate this, but they’ve tied my arms and my legs together. They’ve lied to me by not telling me the whole story.

He grabbed his phone to call Blue Man, but stopped, his finger hovering over the keypad.

Blue Man had sounded very unusual during their last call. He had wanted Robie to come in, ostensibly so his burns could be attended to. But he had given Robie another location, and this made him wonder if the burns were uppermost on Blue Man’s agenda.

There was clearly something going on here to which Robie was not attuned.

He rose and went to the window and stared out at the rain, as though the messy weather would somehow clear his thinking.

It did and it didn’t.

It did in that Robie decided he would go in to see Blue Man. But he would not mention what he had just discovered. He would see how it played out. He would see if Blue Man brought it up or whether he was playing for a side other than Robie’s. Yesterday this would have been unthinkable. But yesterday what Robie had just seen on the screen would have been unthinkable too.

His thinking was far less clear when it came to Jessica Reel. He was beginning to have doubts there. Severe ones.

Nothing personal, she had said.

Yet Robie was beginning to think that somehow this couldn’t get any morepersonal for the woman. And if that were the case he had to find out why.

CHAPTER

18

AS HE WAS PULLING OUT of his garage Robie heard his phone ring. He looked at the screen and groaned. She had called many times and he had never called back. He was hoping she would just stop phoning. But it didn’t seem she was getting the message.

On impulse he hit the answer button. “Yeah?”

“What the hell game are you playing, Robie?”

Julie Getty sounded just like she had the last time they had spoken. Slightly ticked off. Slightly mistrustful. Well, she actually sounded really pissed off and vastly mistrustful.

And he couldn’t really blame her.

“Not sure what you mean?”

“I mean, when someone leaves you twenty-six voice mails, it ‘might’ be a sign they want to talk to you.”

“So how’s life treating you?”

“Shitty.”

“Seriously?” Robie said cautiously.

“No, not seriously. Jerome’s been everything as advertised. In fact, maybe too good. I feel like I’m Huck Finn back living with the Widow Douglas.”

“I wouldn’t hold that against him. A normal, boring life is severely underrated.”

“But you’d know all about how I was doing if you’d called me back!”

“I’ve been busy.”

“You wimped out on me and you know it. I even went by your place, but you moved out. I waited for hours five separate times until I figured that out. Then I kept looking in the obits for your picture because I figured you were a man who kept his word. And if you didn’t contact me it was because you must be dead. I only tried to call one more time for the hell of it.”

“Look, Julie.”

She snapped, “You promised me. I normally discount shit like that, but I trusted you. I really trusted you. And you let me down.”

“You do not need someone like me in your life. I think past events showed you that was the case.”

“Past events showed me that you were a man who did what he said he would do. Only then you stopped.”

“It was for your own good,” Robie said.

“Why don’t you let me decide stuff like that?”

“You’re fourteen. You don’t get to make those sorts of choices.”

“So you say.”

“You can hate me and curse me and think I’m a pile of shit. But in the end it’s for the best.”

“No thinking needed. You area pile of shit.”

The line went dead and Robie dropped the phone on the seat.

He shouldn’t feel bad about this, he really shouldn’t. Everything he had told Julie Getty was the truth.

So why do I feel like the world’s biggest asshole?

A half mile from his apartment he pulled to the curb and got out. He opened the door of the shop and went inside. He was instantly hit by a thick wall of scents. If he’d had allergies he would have started sneezing.

He walked to the counter where a young woman was working. He pulled out the tiny white fragments and set them on the counter as she turned to him.

“Strange question, I know,” he began. “Could you tell me what kind of flower this is?”

The young woman peered down at the fragments of petals. “That’s not really a flower, sir.”

“It’s all that was left.”

She poked it with a finger and held it up to her nose. She shook her head. “I’m not sure. I only work here part-time.”

“Is there anybody else who can help me?”

“Give me a sec.”

She stepped into a back room and a few moments later a woman wearing spectacles came out. She was older and heavier and for some reason Robie concluded that she was the owner of this florist shop.

“Can I help you?” she asked politely.

Robie repeated his question. The woman picked up what remained of the petal, held it close to her eyes, took off her glasses, examined it more closely, and then took a whiff.

“White rose,” she said decisively. “A Madame Alfred Carriere.” She pointed to a spot on the petal. “You can see just a hint of pink blush there. And the smell is strong spicy-sweet. The Madame Plantier by comparison is all white and the smell is quite different—at least it is to someone who knows roses. I’ve got some Carriere in stock if you’d like to see them.”

“Maybe another time.” Robie paused, thinking how best to phrase this. “What would you buy white flowers for? I mean, what sort of an occasion?”

“Oh, well, white roses are a traditional wedding flower. They symbolize innocence, purity, virginity, you know, those sorts of things.”

Robie glanced over at the young woman and found her rolling her eyes.

“Although it is interesting,” said the older woman.

Robie refocused on her. “What is?”

“Well, white roses are often used at funeral services too. They represent peacefulness, spiritual love, that sort of thing.” She glanced down at the petal Robie had brought in. She put her finger on the pinkish smudge. “Although that’s another sort of symbol that I wouldn’t associate with peace.”

“The pink part? What do you mean?”

“Well, some people associate it with something entirely different from peace and love.”

“What?”

“Blood.”

CHAPTER

19

ROBIE LEFT THE FLOWER SHOP and headed on. He had a lot to think about. And he was angry. Flowers at both scenes. No, actually remnantsof flowers at both scenes. The files he had been given were not the only thing his agency had redacted. They had policed the crime scenes and removed the white roses that Reel had left there, but they had missed a couple petals.

In her message Reel had suggested that he watch his back. That there were other agendas on the table. Now he was thinking she was more right than wrong about that.

The new location Blue Man had directed him to was west of D.C. in Loudoun County, Virginia. This was horse country, big estates behind miles of fencing, mingled with more modest homesteads. Interspersed throughout were small towns with upscale shopping and restaurants that catered to the well-heeled playing at being country squires. Alongside those establishments were stores that sold things people actually needed, like crop seed and saddles.

Eventually Robie turned down a graveled lane bracketed by dense pines that had turned the ground underneath them orange with their fallen needles. There was a sign at the entrance to the lane that warned folks who did not have business down here not to make the turn.

He came to a steel gate manned by two men in cammies and holding MP5s. He and his car were searched and his invitation to be here confirmed. The steel gate slid open on motorized tracks and he drove on.

The complex was sprawling and all on one story. It looked like a well-funded community college.

He parked and walked to the front door, was buzzed in, and a woman in a conservative navy blue pantsuit escorted him back. On her hip rode her security creds. Robie eyed them. When she glanced up at him and saw what he was doing she admonished, “I wouldn’t commit them to memory.”

“I never do,” replied Robie.

He was left in a sterile examination room by the woman, who closed the door behind her. He assumed it would lock automatically. He doubted they wanted him wandering the halls unaccompanied.

A minute later the door opened and another woman came in. She was slender, in her late thirties, with long dark hair tied back, glasses, and red lipstick. She wore a white doctor’s coat.

“I’m Dr. Karin Meenan, Mr. Robie. I understand you’ve sustained some injuries?”

“Nothing too serious.”

“Where are they located?”

“Arm and leg.”

“Can you disrobe and get up on the table, please?”

She prepared some medical devices while Robie took off his jacket, shirt, pants, and shoes. He perched on the table while Meenan sat on a stool with rollers and moved closer to him.

She looked at the burns. “You think these aren’t serious?” she said, her eyebrows hiked.

“I’m not dead.”

She continued to examine him. “I guess you have a different set of standards than most.”

“I guess.”

“Did you clean these?”

“Yes.”

“You did a good job,” she noted.

“Thanks.”

“But they need some more work.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“I’m also going to give you some meds to prevent infection. And a shot.”

“Whatever you think best,” replied Robie.

“You’re a very cooperative patient.”

“Do you get any other kind here?”

“Not really. But I didn’t always work here, either,” said Meenan.

“Where before?”

“Trauma center, southeast D.C.”

“Then you’ve seen your share of gunshot wounds.”

“Yes, I have. Speaking of which, you have your share.” She eyed two spots on Robie’s body. She placed her finger in a divot on Robie’s arm. “Nine-mil?”

“Three-fifty-seven, actually. Shooter was using an off-brand that luckily jammed on him the second time around, or else I might not be here talking to you.”

Her gaze flicked up at him. “Are you often lucky in your work?”

“Almost never.”

“It’s not about luck, is it?”

“Almost never,” he repeated.

She spent the next hour thoroughly cleaning and then bandaging his wounds. “I can give you the first round of meds in the butt or the arm. The injection spot will be sore for a while,” she said.

Robie immediately held out his left arm.

“You shoot right-handed, I take it.”

“Yes,” he answered.

She stuck the syringe into his arm and depressed the plunger. “There will be a bottle of pills waiting for you in the lobby. Follow the directions and you shouldn’t have any problems. But you werelucky. You came close to requiring skin grafts. As it is the skin may not heal completely without plastic surgery.”