David Baldacci - The Innocent

“Okay.”

“Look, I showed all them dudes the maintenance records. Ain’t nothing on that bus made it blow up. I know we don’t look like much, but we take our work seriously here. Had to be something like a bomb.”

“Could you show me where the bus would sit?”

“Look, man, I got a ton of shit to do on three buses.”

“I’d really appreciate it,” said Robie, motioning to the door.

Willie sighed and led him out and around the building. He pointed to a spot near the fence. “They’re parked right there until the driver shows up.”

“How many buses were sitting here the night the one blew up?”

“Two. Side by side. The one heading to New York and one heading south to Miami.”

“Okay, somebody looking to put a bomb on a particular bus. How would they know which was which?”

“You asking me to think like some maniac?”

“Nothing on the bus exterior to tell them?”

“Oh sure, there’s a number on the front of the bus. The 112 goes to New York. The 97 bus goes to Miami.”

Robie said, “So whoever put the bomb on there would be able to tell which bus was which if they had the bus schedule or checked online?”

“I guess that’s right.”

“Or if they worked here.”

Willie took a step back. “Look, man, I ain’t got no idea how somebody put a bomb on one of our buses, if that’s what happened. And I sure as hell didn’t help them do it. I knew two of the people got blowed up. One was a friend and the other knew my momma. Went up to New York once a month to visit her granddaughter. Wore a damn robe on the bus. I used to think it was funny. Don’t think it’s funny no more. Almost gave my momma a heart attack when she found out.”

Robie thought back to the bus ride, to the old lady in her robe who had been screaming.

“So the 112 goes to New York.” He eyed the fence. Easy enough to get over. The bomber could have hopped the fence when the guard was on the other side of the property. Plant the bomb and then be gone. Less than a minute.

He looked at Willie. “That night, how long was the 112 bus sitting out here before the driver showed?”

Willie thought about this. “Didn’t have much work to do on it. It got in early from the last trip. Chester did the checklist, vacuumed the interior. I did the outside wash, fueled and then parked it. Maybe two-three hours.”

Robie nodded. “Did you notice anyone suspicious around?”

“I’m inside most of the time working on the buses. Guard might have seen something, but probably not.”

“Why’s that?”

“He does more eating in his little guard shack than walking, you get my drift. Why he’s so fat.”

“Okay.”

“Can I get back to work now?”

“Thanks for the information.”

Willie left him and walked back into the building.

Robie stood there in the dark and eyeballed the spot the 112 bus had been in. Bomber did the bus. Robie got on the bus. Robie got off the bus. Bus blew up. They sent a shooter into the alley to finish the job. Someone really wanted him bad.

Another thought occurred to him. But maybe not that bad.

“Doing some private sleuthing on your off time?”

He turned and looked through the chain-link fence.

Nicole Vance was staring back at him.

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. “So you find anything over at the bus maintenance shop that you can tell me?”

“That bus was parked there a long time, long enough for someone to plant the bomb on it.”

“So the bomber knew the target was going to be on the bus.”

“Do we have a passenger list?”

“Only partially. For those who paid with a credit card, not for those who paid with cash, unless a family member or friend came forward and told us a person was on the bus.”

“So how many people on the bus?”

“Thirty-six plus the driver. We’re doing background checks on all known persons that were on the bus. That’s twenty-nine people. That leaves eight unaccounted for. They were probably walk-ups that night who paid cash for the tickets.”

Robie thought, That includes Julie and the hit man.

“Can I see the list?”

She slipped out her phone and hit some buttons. She held the screen out to him.

He ran his gaze down the list. Julie wasn’t on it. And thankfully neither was Gerald Dixon, which meant Julie had not used his credit card to buy her ticket. But no other name on the list meant anything to him, other than the alias Robie had reserved his ticket under.

Okay, he had been the target, not Julie. But then why really try and kill him on the bus and then miss him on purpose when the MP-5 had him in the kill zone?