VERYTHING WAS WAITING for Robie when he got back to his apartment. That was not entirely comforting.

None of my traps were tripped.

He looked over the file, the creds, and his background information.

He had to come up to speed on this case as fast as possible. But fast-tracking something like this meant that mistakes could be made.

And probably will be.

Then it became a case of how fast his support from Blue Man would fade away.

Faster than the party and financial support of a candidate with plummeting poll numbers.

It was just how the town worked.

The name Will Robie stared back at him from the creds. Ironically, his real name was the safest one to use for this sort of assignment.

Robie picked up the badge and ID card pack and put it in his jacket. Also waiting for him was a fresh Glock G20 and a shoulder holster. He was glad to rid himself of the.38 throwaway. He strapped it on and buttoned his jacket.

As he headed out, Robie looked down the hall and watched as she unlocked her door. Annie Lambert turned to him. She was in a black business suit and sneakers with white ankle socks.

“Hello, Will,” she said.

“Don’t usually see you here in the middle of the day,” he said.

“I forgot something. Lunchtime was the first chance I’ve had to come and get it. What are you all dressed up for?”

“Just a meeting. How did your chill session go?”

“What? Oh, it went fine.”

The inquiries into Lambert triggered by her contact with Robie had turned up nothing. Not surprising. To work at the White House one had to be squeaky clean.

He said, “Sorry I left so abruptly. I was just tired.”

“No problem. I was too, actually.” She hesitated and said in a subdued voice, “But maybe we can have that drink sometime.”

“Yeah, maybe we can,” said Robie, who was thinking of all that lay ahead of him.

“Okay,” she said uncertainly.

He started to walk off and then stopped, realizing that he’d once more been abrupt with her. He turned to her. “I appreciate the offer, Annie. I really do. And I want to have a drink with you.”

She brightened. “That’d be great.”

“And let’s do it soon,” he said. “Real soon.”

“Why? Are you going somewhere?” she asked.

“No. But I’ve wanted to start getting out more. And I’d like to do that with you.”

Her smile widened. “Okay, Will. You know where I live.”

He walked off and wondered why he was suddenly so taken with the young woman. She was lovely and obviously smart and maybe she was smitten with him. But in the past that had not mattered to Robie. He turned and looked back at her apartment. She had gone inside, but he had the image of her standing there in the tennis shoes and the business suit. He smiled.

Robie drove his Audi to the crime scene. With his creds he was able to park within the security perimeter. On the way he had looked at his tracking device as he passed the hotel where Julie was staying. She was still there.

He walked to the apartment building’s entrance feeling enormously uncomfortable. He was going to help investigate a murder at which he was an eyewitness.

There was a pack of cops and suits huddled in the lobby of the building. Robie made his way to them, thinking he would check in and introduce himself to the people running the case. The huddle started breaking up as he approached. Out from its middle stepped the same female FBI special agent he had seen at the bus bombing.

She came forward, looking at him inquisitively.

He pulled his cred pack, flashed first the badge and then ID card.

She reciprocated with her cred pack. It said she was FBI special agent Nicole Vance.

“Agent Robie, welcome to the show. I’ve got some questions for you,” she said.

“I look forward to working on this case with you, Agent Vance.”

She said, “I got a call from my supervisor about you. We’re to associate you with the case, but purely for background information on the deceased and any other information that will help us solve the case. But the FBI has the lead, meaning I have the lead.”

“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” Robie said smoothly.

Vance seemed to study him more closely. “Okay,” she said cautiously. “Just so long as we understand the ground rules.”

“What would you like my help on?”

“Any background you can give us on the victim.”

Robie pulled a flash drive from his jacket pocket. “Her official background file is contained on here.”

She took the drive and handed it to one of her associates. “Get it read and summarized ASAP.”

She turned back to Robie. “We were just about to go over the crime scene again. Care to join us?”

“I’d appreciate that. My superiors want to know I’m earning my pay.”

This comment earned him a smile. “I guess fed agencies all operate similarly,” she said.

“I guess they do.”

As they headed to the elevator Vance said, “Did you hear about the bus explosion?”

“I saw it on the news,” said Robie. “I understand FBI is investigating that too.”

“More specifically, I am.”

“A lot on your plate,” he commented.

“Might be a good reason to merge the investigations.”

“Why is that?”

“We found a gun at the scene of the bus explosion.”

Robie kept his gaze straight ahead even as his heartbeat quickened.

“Gun?” he said.

“Yeah. And we’ve already run ballistics. The Glock we found matches a slug we took from the floor of the apartment the deceased lived in. So in my mind, the two cases are definitely connected. Now we just have to find out how.”

“The killer might have just thrown the gun away during his escape. Might just be a coincidence it was found near the bus explosion.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences. At least not ones like that.”

As they stepped off the elevator and headed to the condo where two people had been murdered right in front of him, Robie, despite the cool air, wicked a drop of sweat off his forehead.

He would take a hundred megalomaniacal Saudi princes and bloodthirsty cartel chieftains over this.