Текст книги "The Hit"

Автор книги: David Baldacci

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“I would have assumed that you were given her fles.”

“I require allof her files. Not just the redacted ones.”

DiCarlo looked startled. “What are you talking about?”

“The electronic files I was given were censored. Some information was deleted. There were time gaps. I need the whole picture if I’m going to be able to do my job.” Robie paused and then decided to say it. “And the crime scenes were tampered with. Things were removed. Not by the police. By our people. I need to know what was taken, and why.”

DiCarlo glanced away. But before she did so Robie saw in the woman’s eyes an apprehensive look.

When she looked back she had composed herself. “I will look into that matter immediately and get back to you.”

Robie nodded, not trying all that hard to disguise his look of skepticism.

He stood. “So do you want me to kill Jessica Reel?” he asked.

DiCarlo stared up at him. “I want you to find the truth, Mr. Robie.”

“Then I better get to it.”

CHAPTER

24

ROBIE DROVE BACK INTO D.C., but he didn’t return to his apartment. Instead, he drove to a school.

He parked at the curb and looked around. This was a nice section of D.C. The school Julie Getty attended was one of the best. But it was not one where uniforms were issued and all the students were the progeny of the upper crust. Kids got in here solely on their merits, not based on their parents’ ability to pay the tuition or donate to the school. Once you got in the tuition was taken care of. The place was based on individuality. There were rules, of course, but the students at the school were expected to march to the beat of a different drummer.

Robie assumed that Julie Getty was thriving in such an environment. He had discovered that her beat and her drummer were as individual as was humanly possible.

He thought about how he would handle this first encounter with her. And then he stopped thinking about it. There was no good way to approach this.

I’m going to take my lumps and maybe that’s best.

The rain seemed to want to linger, and Robie turned on his windshield wipers and watched them shove the water off the glass. He looked at his watch. Anytime now. There was a line of cars waiting to pick up students. There was no bus service at the school, although there was a stop across the street for a public bus.

A few seconds later the doors to the school opened and the students started to stream out. Robie got out of the car when he saw her, turned up his collar against the light rain, and jogged across the street.

Julie was walking near the back of a group of girls. She had her earbuds in and was pecking away on her smartphone. She had come a long way in a short time, thought Robie. When he first met her she couldn’t afford a phone of any kind.

He let the group of girls pass and then stepped forward.

Julie stopped, looked up, and Robie could see first happiness and then anger on her features.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Fulfilling my promise to come and see you.”

“Little late for that.”

“Is it?”

The rain started to fall harder.

“You need a ride home?” he asked as he saw her shiver.

“I take the bus across the street.”

Robie turned to see a bus gliding to a stop at the far curb. “I thought after last time you’d never get on another bus.”

Robie could see a glimmer of a smile on her face and sought to press this advantage. “I can drive you. We can talk. I can check up on Jerome. Make sure he’s being a good guardian.”

“He’s fine. I told you.”

“Nothing like seeing it for myself.”

“I don’t want you to be here just because you feel shitty about how you’ve treated me.”

“I do feel shitty, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Why, then?”

“Can we get out of the rain?”

“Afraid of melting?”

He pointed to her earbuds and phone. “Don’t want you to be electrocuted.”

“Right,” she said sarcastically.

But she followed him over to his car. They slid in and Robie started the engine and drove off.

Julie pulled on her seat belt. “So why are you really here?” she asked again.

“Unfinished business.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“You’re not making this easy.”

“Why should I? You dissed me, but I bet you’ve seen super agent Vance plenty of times.”

“I have, but only once and it was for professional reasons. She was trying to pick my brain on something.”

“More murders?”

“Why do you say that?”

“What else could it be? You and Vance deal in dead bodies. Lots of them.”

“I guess I can see that.”

“But you still got together with her.”

“It’s different.”

“Not to me.”

Robie frowned. “Is this a competition?”

“It’s about being a man of your word, Robie. I don’t like people lying to me. If you didn’t want to see me again all you had to do was say so. No sweat.”

“You think it’s that simple?”

“It should be.”

“I’m here because I was wrong.”

“About what?” she asked.

“I wanted to protect you. I should have known better.”

“What do you mean?”

“In my line of work you make enemies. I wanted to keep those people away from you. I wanted you to have a fresh start. All old ties gone. I wanted you to have a shot at happiness.”

“Are you bullshitting me?” she said.

“Happiness is elusive. I wanted a clean break for you. You almost died with me. I didn’t want that to happen again.”

“So why not tell me that up front?”

“Because I was an idiot.”

“I don’t think so, Will,” she said in a softer tone.

“You know you call me Robie when you’re pissed at me and Will when you’re not?”

“Then try not to make me go back to calling you Robie.”

He slowed for a red light and glanced over at her. “Maybe I wanted to do exactly what I told you I would. Maybe I wanted to keep in touch. Maybe...”

“Maybe you just wanted to be normal.”

The light turned green and Robie started off again. He didn’t speak for a few seconds.

“Maybe I did.”

The rain started to come down more heavily.

“I think that was the most honest thing you’ve said to me.”

“You’re way too mature for fourteen.”

“I’m fourteen in years. Not in experience. I wish I wasn’t.”

Robie nodded. “I understand that.” He looked at her. “We cool now?”

“We’re getting there. Maybe...Will.”

Robie smiled and then eyed the rearview mirror. He registered on the car not immediately behind him but the one behind that.

“What is it?”

He turned to see Julie staring at him.

She said, “I know that look. Is someone back there who shouldn’t be?”

Robie thought quickly. It couldn’t be. There was no way. But then again, why not? Everything that had happened so far had been totally unpredictable.

Now the problem was obvious. He had Julie with him. If he dropped her off she was vulnerable. If he kept her with him she was likely going to be in danger.

He glanced at her again and she seemed to pick up on the anxiety he was feeling.

“Look, when you get nervous, I get scared. What’s going on?”

“I should have followed my gut, Julie, and just left you alone. This is exactly the reason I needed to stay away from you.”

Julie started to look back, but Robie snapped, “Don’t. They’ll know we’ve spotted them.”

“So what do we do?”

“We keep driving normally.”

“That’s it? That’s the plan?”

“We keep driving normally until something happens to make us stop.”

“Okay, that sounds more like it. Then what?”

“We just have to see what happens.”

Robie tightened his grip on the wheel and cast another glance in the rearview. The car was still back there. It seemed to be driving normally too. Robie could be wrong. But he knew he wasn’t. He’d been doing this too long.

So who was following him? His people or somebody else? And if somebody else?

It couldn’t be Jessica Reel. That would break every rule in the book. But maybe that was her strategy. Breaking the rules made you unpredictable.

Well, he thought, I can play that game too.

CHAPTER

25

ROBIE KEPT AT THE PACE of the traffic, making no sudden swerves and looking like any other motorist on the road. Then he decided to cut to the chase and see if the threat back there was real or imagined. It would only be a little feint, but it would draw a response if the threat was real.

He put on his right turn signal.

“Will, my house isn’t that way,” said Julie.

“Hold tight. Just doing a little test.”

He glanced in the rearview. The third car was keeping directly behind the second one, so he couldn’t see what he needed to. That in itself was telling. He swung the car out just a hair, to get it beyond the car in between.

Still nothing. The other car wasn’t taking the bait.

Then he slowed and glanced back at a building across the street. In the reflection off the plate glass he saw the right turn signal illuminated on the third car.

Okay. Base established, he looked back up ahead as the intersection approached.

He started to turn right but then went straight through the intersection.

The car between them turned right. The second car was now exposed.

Its turn signal was no longer illuminated. It went straight ahead, but slowed to allow another car to pull in between.

Drivers in D.C. are not that nice, Robie thought.

And the decision to mimic his movements and go through the intersection had erased all doubt from his mind.

“Are we being followed?” asked Julie.

He glanced down at her. “Seat belt tight?”

She gave it a tug. “I’m good. You armed?”

He touched his chest. “I’m good.”

“What’s the plan?”

Robie didn’t have time to answer. The car following them suddenly accelerated and came up next to them. Robie was about to hit the gas and take evasive action when he relaxed.

“Vance?” he exclaimed.

The FBI agent was indeed driving the other car.

Vance motioned to him to pull over. Robie turned down a side street and jacked the car into park. He was out of the car before Vance had a chance to take off her seat belt. He opened her car door.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snapped.

“Why so pissed?”

“I spotted a tail. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you.”

She slipped off her seat belt and got out. She looked over to see Julie standing next to Robie’s car.

“Hi, Julie,” she said.

Julie nodded at her and then looked tentatively at Robie.

He said, “Explain, Vance. Why were you following me?”

“Are you always this paranoid?”

“Yeah, I am. Especially these days.”

“I wasn’t tailing you.”

“Oh, you just happened by here at the same time I was coming through?” Robie said skeptically.

“No. I saw you pick Julie up.”

“And why were you here at all?”

Vance looked in Julie’s direction and said in a low voice, “I think she might still be a target for some.”

Robie took a step back. “What do you know that I don’t?”

“Only that the Saudi had deep pockets and lots of allies. Julie is known to them. I’mknown to them. But at least I have the Bureau covering my back. What does Julie have?” she added pointedly.

Robie took another step back and glanced in Julie’s direction. He didn’t know if Julie could hear them or not, but she was looking anxious.

“She’s got me,” he said quietly.

“Not until today. I was surprised to see you at the school waiting for her.”

“Maybe I surprised myself,” Robie said in a guilty tone.

Vance took a step toward him and her tone softened. “That’s not a bad thing, Robie.” She paused. “Who did you think I was?”

He glanced up. “It’s sort of standard procedure in my line of work to be on the alert.”

“Are you sure that’s all?”

He shook his head wearily. “Why do I feel every time I’m around you it’s an interrogation?”

“Because it’s the only way I can ever get anything out of you,” said Vance in exasperation. “And even then I always come away feeling like I know even less about you than I did before I asked. So if you’re feeling frustrated, so am I.” She paused and said in a calmer tone, “I know that your agency is on high alert after what happened to Jim Gelder.”

Robie didn’t respond to this.

“And add to that Doug Jacobs and maybe you guys have a shitstorm going on.” She moved a step closer. “I didn’t buy the DTRA cover. He was agency all the way. Probably a handler or an analyst.”

“Will,” called out Julie. “I’d like to get home. I’ve got a lot of home work to do.”

Robie said, “One sec.” He turned to Vance. “The less you know about all of this, the better. I’m asking as a professional courtesy that you back off on this.”

Vance was shaking her head before he’d finished speaking. “Doesn’t work that way, Robie. You should know I can’t back off. I’ve got a job to do. No punches pulled. Just the way it is.”

She looked over at Julie before continuing. “And if it is a shitstorm then I’d follow your gut and keep far away from Julie. Taking out the number two at the agency? I don’t think those types of people will balk at snuffing out the life of a fourteen-year-old.”

She got back into her car and drove off. Robie watched her until she turned the corner and was gone.

Julie walked over to Robie. “What was that all about with super agent Vance?”

Robie said nothing, and Julie looked away in disappointment. “Just take me home, Robie,” she said curtly.

They got into the car and drove off.

Behind them a car pulled around the corner from where it had been parked and started to follow them.

Jessica Reel was driving.

CHAPTER

26

REEL KEPT HER DISTANCE, figuring that Robie would still be on alert, but not as much as before. She had gotten quite a gift when Vance had shown up and started following Robie. That had allowed Reel to shadow him while he believed it was only Vance.

So now she had some breathing room and some observation time. She could find out things about Robie. More things.

As she followed him at a leisurely pace her mind drifted to the mental list of names.

Jacobs, done.

Gelder, done.

Sam Kent, a total disaster on her part.

She had one more name on the list. Kent would have communicated with the person by now. Gelder and Jacobs might have been chalked up simply as attacks on American intelligence. By missing Kent, she had clearly exposed her hand.

She had watched in admiration as Robie forced Vance to show her intentions with the traffic light feint. She would have done the same thing. Reel wondered if she could read Robie that easily by just assuming they would react to the same situation in the same way. Then she discarded that simplistic idea. Robie would probably figure that out soon enough and deliberately zig instead of zagging.

Then I’m dead.

About thirty minutes later she pulled to the curb as Robie stopped and Julie Getty climbed out of the car. She didn’t look happy, thought Reel. Julie hurried up the steps to the most imposing four-story town home in the affluent neighborhood.

Reel nodded in approval as she looked around at the high-dollar homes. The foster care child had climbed far.

Then she returned her gaze to Robie. He was still in the car, still staring at Julie. When the door closed behind her, he pulled away.

Reel took a photo of the town home with her phone, waited for Robie to get a bit ahead of her, and then followed.

This was clearly Robie’s Achilles’ heel. He cared about somebody. He cared about this young woman. He had broken rule number one in their line of work.

You don’t care about anyone. You have to be a machine because you have to kill without remorse. And then move on to the next one after quickly forgetting the last.

Yet Reel could understand Robie making that mistake, for a very compelling reason.

I made it too.

She followed him back into D.C., where Robie pulled into the underground garage of an apartment complex.

Reel didn’t go into the garage. That would be too obvious. She stared up at the nondescript eight-story building. It looked like a place where young people just starting out or older people downsizing might live mixed in with a healthy dose of middle-aged people who had simply never fully realized their goals in life.

It was totally unexceptional.

So that meant it was perfect for Robie.

He could hide in plain sight.

She had locked down his base and there was nothing more to be gained from staying here. Robie’s place might be watched. There were enough traffic and pedestrians around that she wasn’t overly worried about being spotted, but the longer she hung around the greater the risk.

And now Reel was confronted with a new problem.

She thought her list had been complete. But her gut was telling her there was someone else out there whom she hadn’t accounted for.

Jacobs was a small fry.

Gelder was a big fish.

Kent was in the mix because he was a special sort of judge who perhaps wasn’t simply a judge.

And there was a fourth person on her list.

But she sensed there was a fifth person, perhaps the most important one of all.

She needed more information. She needed to track the catalyst for all this right to its source. To do so she needed help.

A particular sort of help. And she knew right where to get it.

In the most unlikely of places.

Not the corridors of power.

She would find it at a local shopping mall.

CHAPTER

27

REEL DROVE OFF HEADING WEST. It would be tricky and delicate and perilous. But so was everything she did.

She gripped the steering wheel tighter. Not from nerves. She didn’t really possess them, not like normal people. When she entered the danger zone she actually grew calmer, her heartbeat grew slower, and her limbs became supple. Her field of vision seemed to gain such clarity that everything around her slowed, allowing her to analyze every factor seemingly at her leisure.

And then it was usually over in a blink of an eye.

And someone lay dead.

The drive took over an hour. The traffic was bad, with rain that alternated between bucketing and merely falling.

She liked shopping malls, particularly because they were filled with people and had many entry and exit points.

She also hated shopping malls, particularly because they were filled with people and had many entry and exit points.

She parked her car in an underground garage, then walked to a stairwell and up to the mall entrance. She moved past a group of teenage girls carrying multiple bags from a variety of stores. All were texting on their phones, oblivious to what was going on around them.

Reel could have killed them all before they could even hit send on their phones.

She walked into the mall and slowed her pace. She kept her glasses on, her ball cap pulled low. Her gaze darted everywhere, her mind a microprocessor clearinghouse of potential problems and what to do about them. She could never again simply go into a building, take a walk or a drive without engaging this part of her brain. It was like breathing. She couldn’t not do it and expect to live.

She slowed even more as she neared the store she wanted. She walked past but not into the store. She made eye contact, flicked a finger under her chin, gave a slight nod, and kept going. She continued farther down the hall and then stopped, looking over some items in a kiosk. She looked up in time to see the person she had nodded at leave the store and turn in her direction.

Reel immediately walked in the opposite direction, eventually turning down a hallway toward the restrooms. She opened the door for the family restroom and closed it behind her. She entered the stall, pulled her gun, and waited. She didn’t like cornering herself in this way, but there wasn’t much choice.

The door opened a few seconds later. Peering through the space between the stall door and wall, she saw who it was.

“Lock the door,” Reel said.

The person locked the door.

Reel came out, gun in hand.

The man looked up at her. He was short, maybe five-six and a hundred and thirty skeletal pounds. Physically he would have no chance against her, even without the gun. But she hadn’t come here to pick a fight. She needed information.

The man’s name was Michael Gioffre. He worked in a GameStop store at the mall, principally because he was an expert gamer and loved the thrill of the competition. He was in his early forties and had never really grown up. He wore a T-shirt stenciled with the title “Day of Doom.”

He also had been a spy. He could talk out of both sides of his mouth glibly and could sell sand to a man dying of thirst. Now retired, he looked out only for himself.

And for Jessica Reel.

Because she had saved his life, not once but twice.

He was her gold card, one of the few she possessed.

Gioffre eyed the gun. “Serious shit?”

She nodded. “Is there any other?”

“Wouldn’t have recognized you without the chin flick signal. Nice plastic surgery, by the way. Very becoming.”

“When someone’s cutting you, only go with the best.”

“I’ve heard the official story. Gelder and another guy dead.”

“That’s right.”

“Your doing?” His expression showed he did not expect an answer. “What can I do for you, Jess?”

Reel put her gun away and leaned against the sink. “I need information.”

“Big risk you coming here.”

“Not as big as three years ago. You’ve been off the grid for a while, Mike. I know where your cover team sets up. They’re not there. In fact, they haven’t been there for six months.”

Gioffre folded his arms and leaned back against the door. “I havebeen feeling a little naked out there. But I guess they figured I was really retired after all and am officially into my retail gaming career. So no more cover. What information?”

“You knew Gelder?”

He nodded. “Lots of us did. He’d been there a long time.”

“What about the other dead guy, Doug Jacobs? Cover was at DTRA?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“They knew each other. And not just in agency circles.”

“How do you know that?” asked Gioffre.

“Not relevant. But it’s true.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“Nothing, but I need you to do something for me,” said Reel.

“What?”

“Like I said, information. Not anything you know. Something you have to find out for me. And I need it right away.”

“I don’t have many contacts left inside.”

“I didn’t say it was on the inside. At least not anymore.”

CHAPTER

28

ROBIE SAT BACK AND RUBBED his eyes. Janet DiCarlo hadn’t yet sent him new files electronically, so he had gone over the redacted ones several times looking for things that might have escaped his notice before.

But there was nothing.

Reel’s last several missions had all been outside the country. Robie could travel to each of them, but he wasn’t convinced it would benefit his investigation.

He would have to go back the two years in her life that he had set as the outside time parameter. The only problem was, that would take time too.

How many more people would she kill in the interim?

If she kept the body count going, Robie could imagine himself being dismissed from the task of finding her. And maybe that would be perfectly fine with him.

He had called the number DiCarlo left him, but it had gone to voice mail. He wondered about the rose petals and what they might mean. He doubted Reel had left them as symbols of her pious lifestyle. Had she left them as symbols of bloody deaths with funerals certain to follow? That also didn’t make sense to him, which meant he was looking at the issue in the wrong way.

So what was the right way? he asked himself as he poured out a cup of fresh coffee. He checked his watch.

Two a.m. He poured the coffee into the sink.

It was time to go to sleep. Without some shuteye he was going to be of little use to himself or anyone else.

Five hours later he awoke reasonably refreshed. He spent several hours going back over the files he had been given. Even with the redactions he felt there might be something in them that could help.

Again he didn’t find much. He made some calls that were similarly unproductive. He worked out for a quick thirty minutes in the gym in the basement of his apartment building and then snatched a meal, eating it standing up in his kitchen. That’s when he got the call from the agency. They had something for him that might help his search, but he needed to come and get it. He showered, gunned up, and was on his way.

He arrived at a CIA facility that Reel had used during her mission before killing Doug Jacobs. It was about an hour outside of D.C. There was a locker there with a few possessions that Reel had left behind. Considering the redactions and the policed crime scenes, Robie held no hope that the locker would offer any useful details, but he had to check them out regardless.

He was processed through the facility’s security and escorted to the locker. It was opened for him and he was left alone with the contents. They were few, and Robie had no way of knowing if these were the only ones that had been in the locker. Right now he trusted no one.

There were only three items: a photo, a book on World War II, and a nine-millimeter Glock 17 semiautomatic pistol with custom sights. The photograph was of Reel standing next to a man whom Robie did not recognize.

He collected all the items and made the hourlong drive back to his apartment to go over them.

Robie was feeling out of his depth. His specialty was preparing, in a scorched-earth way, to kill another human being and then successfully exiting that situation to live to kill another day. Sleuthing, painstakingly going over minutiae looking for clues, traveling here and there, questioning people simply wasn’t his thing. He wasn’t a detective. He was a professional trigger, but they were expecting him to investigate and so he would.

He laid the photo, the book, and the gun on the table and looked at them one by one as the rain once more picked up and banged against his window.

He disassembled the gun and found it to be simply a gun. From the ease with which the elements came apart and went back together, Robie concluded that the agency had already taken it apart looking for clues as well. He had already checked the mag. It was a super-high-capacity configuration, thirty-three rounds. It was standard ammo that Robie had seen a million times, although the elongated mag wasn’t typical.

Thirty-three rounds to do the job, Reel? Who would have thought?

There was also a titanium safety plunger. It reduced friction, made the trigger pull lighter, and increased your accuracy. Robie used one on his own weapon, although it was probably overkill.

Still, Reel clearly paid attention to the details.

The grip was stippled for better tackiness. It wasn’t merely a slip-on; the frame had been altered with the embossed pattern etched right into the hardware.

Robie figured a soldering iron had been used to make the stipple on the Glock’s polymer frame. He had done the same with his weapons early on. In fact, he and Reel had learned how to stipple from a senior field agent named Ryan Marshall, who swore by the process.

He next looked at the customized sight. It was a nice piece of engineering. Robie squinted to see the name on it. It bore the initials PSAC.

He Googled it and came up with the Pennsylvania Small Arms Company. He’d never heard of them, but there were lots of such companies. Obviously, Reel had not been happy with the Glock sight for some reason. Again, details.

He laid the gun aside and studied the photo. Reel was standing next to a large man, easily six-four. He looked about fifty, built like an athlete going to pot. There was an edge of red next to the man. It might have been another person dressed in that color or a sign or a car, Robie couldn’t be sure. And unless he had the negative or the photo card it came from he couldn’t see if there was anything there that could be enlarged.

He studied Reel’s image. She was tall even in flats. And unlike her companion, there was not an ounce of fab on her. Her gaze was pointed straight at the camera. This was of course not the first image Robie had seen of the woman. But each time he did see her picture, it was like he was looking at a different person.

We were all chameleons to a certain extent.

Yet he felt like he was coming to understand Reel better each time he saw her likeness or learned a new bit of information about her. It was like layers of an onion being peeled away.

She appeared calm, self-assured without being overconfident. The limbs were held loosely, but Robie could sense an inner tightness, signaling that they could be deployed as needed in a second. She seemed to balance herself on the balls of her feet, her weight equally distributed, whereas most people stood either too far forward or back on their feet. This would delay them maybe a second or two in movement. In most people’s lives that wouldn’t matter.

In the lives of Reel and Robie it mattered a lot.

The lips were fuller in this picture. The lipstick was red, nearly as red as that edge of something in the photo. Robie turned the photo at various angles to see if it helped him to discern what the thing could be.

It didn’t.

He put the photo down and turned to the book, a history of World War II. He paged through some of it looking for marginalia that Reel might have left there, but found none.

And even if there had been something left in the book, Robie had to assume that the agency would have already deleted it somehow. That they had left the book, gun, and photo told Robie that they had found nothing in them. Otherwise the items wouldn’t have been left in the locker for Robie to examine. He was convinced that they wanted him to find and kill Jessica Reel. But he was beginning to doubt whether they wanted him to find out the truth behind her actions.

He laid the book aside, rose, and looked out the window. Reel was out there somewhere, probably working out the details of her next hit. Julie was out there somewhere, probably doing her homework. But maybe she was also thinking of their encounter yesterday.

And Nicole Vance was out there trying to find Reel, though she didn’t know it. That situation was only going to get more complicated.

Two hours later, while he was still staring down at the items he’d taken from Reel’s locker, his phone buzzed. He looked at the message on the screen. Janet DiCarlo wanted to see him. But not at the last place they met. It was out in Middleburg. Probably her house, from the look of the address.

Robie responded to the message, pulled on his jacket, locked up Reel’s gun, book, and photo in his wall safe, and headed out.

He hoped DiCarlo was ready to give him some answers. If not, he wasn’t sure what his next step would be. But he could sense Reel pulling farther and farther ahead of him.

CHAPTER

29

IT WAS GROWING DARK AS he set out, and the drive took over an hour with traffic. Robie picked up speed but then had to slow down as he wound his way through some small towns on the way to DiCarlo’s house. He wondered how the woman enjoyed the commute every day from here. He assumed she didn’t. Most Washington-area commuters spent years of their lives sitting in traffic plotting intricate ways to kill their fellow rule-breaking motorists.