Дэвид Балдаччи - End Game

Robie made sure his seat belt was secure. He checked the mirror one more time.

Then he crushed the brakes.

Smoke blew out from the rear tires as he laid rubber down the road.

He kept his hands firmly on the wheel. When the truck started to shake and edge to the right, he guided it back to the center with slight maneuvers of the wheel.

He didn’t brace himself.

He relaxed.

He looked in the mirror.

The car had gone out of control as it sharply decelerated. It had turned to the left, but its forward momentum was carrying it right toward the truck.

Three... two... one.

Robie smoothly steered the truck to the left, and the out-of-control car flew past him on the right. He could see the panicked faces of the three men inside as it sailed by. And then it rolled twice before coming to rest back on its wheels.

Robie slowed, then stopped and slammed the truck into park. He ripped off the seat belt and came out of the truck charging forward with his pistol aimed directly at the driver. Robie’s laser sight was on the man’s chest.

The second man was in the passenger seat, and the third in the rear. They all looked knocked out amid a sea of deployed air bags.

As he approached, Robie recognized one of them in the illumination of his truck lights.

He’d seen him at Dolph’s compound.

He hoped one of them was still alive. He needed information.

Robie pulled open the driver’s door, pushed aside the air bag, and checked the man’s pulse.

Dead.

He pulled open the rear door and did the same to the man slumped over there.

He had a pulse.

Robie slapped him in the face. The man groaned. Robie slapped him even harder.

The man’s eyes slowly opened.

Robie gripped the man’s chin and pointed it upward so he was looking directly at Robie.

“Where is Dolph?” he asked.

The man’s head listed to one side. Robie pulled him back up straight.

“Dolph!”

The man shook his head.

In the front passenger seat the man there stirred and caught sight of Robie in the rearview. His hand slowly went down to his gun. “Dolph!” said Robie again.

“I... I don’t...”

Robie shook the other man. “Where is Dolph?”

“Bu-bunk...”

“In the bunker? In Lambert’s bunker?”

“G-God, I’m h-hurting s-so bad.”

“Answer my question and I’ll end your pain right here and now.”

The man didn’t answer and Robie shook him again.

The man in the front seat edged his pistol over the vinyl and fired. The round hit the other man in the forehead.

Without missing a beat Robie pointed his gun to the side and peeled off a shot, hitting the shooter in the hand. He screamed and dropped his gun.

Robie let go of the dead man and pointed his gun at his colleague, who was whimpering in the front seat while holding his wounded hand. Robie placed the muzzle of his pistol against the man’s left temple.

“You got three seconds to tell me where Dolph is.”

“Fuck you!”

“Two seconds.”

“I don’t know.”

“One second.”

The man screamed, “The silo! He’s in the damn silo.”

“Lambert’s?”

The man’s hand flew to his fallen gun.

Robie fired before he could even pick it up.

He looked around the car’s interior. Three fewer hate-filled assholes in the world. Nothing wrong with that.

But Dolph in the bunker? What was that about? Did that mean that Roark Lambert was somehow working with Dolph? That didn’t make sense, at least with what Robie knew about Lambert. But the fact was, he didn’t know that much about the man.

He walked back to his truck and pulled out his phone.

She answered on the third ring.

It was Malloy.

“I thought you were still here,” she said groggily.

In clipped sentences he said what he needed to say.

He could envision her sitting up naked in bed and struggling to come to grips with what he had just said: shots, a chase, three men dead.

He had not told her what the man had said about the silo. Right now he didn’t trust anybody in this damn place.

“Are... are you serious?” she stammered.

“Serious as shit. You want to get out here, or you want to call in Bender?”

“I’m getting dressed. And I’m calling him. You stay right there.”

“No, I’ve got places to go.”

He clicked off before she had a chance to respond.

He set out flares so no one coming along here would slam into the car, which was still partially on the road.

He climbed back into his truck and drove off in the direction of the silo.

Reel had hot-wired the old limo’s engine and was now twenty minutes outside of town. Tommy Page would surely be pissed when he got outside only to find his ride gone, but she figured he was probably too drunk to drive anyway.

His portable GPS was on a carrier suction-cupped to the dashboard. She had punched “previous destinations” and the address for the cabin on Bluff Point Road had popped up. She’d clicked on it, and the device was telling her she had about another twenty minutes of driving to get to it.

The rain had picked up again as she drove along. The sky was so overcast that not a single star was visible. The land was flat for as far as her headlights would show. If there had been sand outside instead of dirt, Reel could have believed she was in the Middle East.

Right now she didn’t know which was more dangerous, Iraq or eastern Colorado.

Next, her thoughts, despite her best efforts, turned to Robie.

She was sure that he had gone off to see Malloy tonight. And Reel also was certain that she had driven him to do that. In fact, her words had practically demanded that he do so.

And why had she said to him what she had?

Part of her didn’t know.

Part of her thought she did, but the confidence level was ebbing.

She blinked, and with a swipe of the windshield wipers her mind also skipped to another train of thought. She was entering Robie’s apartment while he was gone and placing the note on his bed. She had gotten a week’s leave from the Middle East deployment. And she had flown directly back to the United States mainly to do what she had, after confirming that Robie was out of the country on assignment.

Essentially, fearless Jessica Reel didn’t have the courage to face the man over it.

But it had been six months since Mississippi, and she had returned none of his calls, none of his texts or e-mails. She had purposely avoided him at every turn, until he had simply given up.

She had volunteered for the most dangerous duty she could think of, and it had very nearly ended up killing her.

And for what reason?

What was the end game here?

You were always supposed to have one. You never started a mission without a concrete goal firmly in mind.

But Will Robie and I are not like a mission. We’re not even close to it. We’re something “else” that maybe neither one of us is prepared for.

Which was why she had written the note that she had.

It’s complicated.

No shit.

So she had taken sniping in Iraq over trying to find common ground with the only man she had ever felt anything for.

Sniping was easy. Sniping was something she knew how to do, excelled at. She feared nothing when she was behind the scope and trigger.

But this other stuff?

I’m clueless. And it scares the hell out of me.

With another whisk of the wipers, her mind returned to where she was going tonight. The minutes ticked by and she finally saw the bent signpost for Bluff Point Road.

She turned down the road, after cutting her lights.

According to Page, the Randalls had flown out to their Hampton digs. But that didn’t mean that the other guys with him on these “other” trips weren’t still in residence.