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A review by humatariq
The Innocent by David Baldacci
4.0
Will Robie is a 6 ft 1 inch tall, 39-year old assassin, who is in the Scottish capital on a mission, on his 40th birthday. Dressed in a monk's robes, he is ready to take out his targets in Underground Edinburgh. Robie gets back in Virginia after killing the drug trafficker, who was planning a coup in Mexico, along with his four bodyguards. The US government contracted this kill because of political reasons. However, his assignments are of the "Mission Impossible" variety, i.e. he will be not officially recognized as an employee of the US Government and even punished for his killings if caught.
Robie ponders over the fact that he has traveled all over the world to almost 37 different countries, but always to kill people. He realizes the dangers of his job and how he can die if his target is better prepared than him.
SPOILERS Ahead. Consider yourself warned!!
Robie's new assignment arrives in a USB drive right after he is back. The new assignment takes almost a month to plan and takes him to Morocco. He has practiced the hit on a full scale mock setup back in US, but he knows that the real assignment will be far more dangerous. He hitches a ride on the underside of a truck to penetrate a high-security facility.
The target is Khalid Bin Talal, a Saudi prince who does not favor America's friendship with his country and their self-appointed position as the leaders of the free world. Talal has arranged a meeting on his private jet in the high-security facility in lock-down. The prince is shot by Robie twice in the head through the plane's window. Robie escapes and takes a longer ferry route back to Spain so he will arrive their 2 days later.
For his next assignement, Robie is tricked into killing a US Govt official. He backed out when he saw her child sleeping with her, but a backup-sniper kills both the mother and child anyway. He flees the scene of crime and meets a teenage girl who has an assassin after her. Surviving a bus bomb blast, he is called in by his agency to serve as a liaison with the FBI in the investigation of the very murder he fled from. He hides Julie, the 14 year old kid, in an apartment across his building. Meanwhile, he and the FBI agent got attacked from an SUV owned by the Secret Service...things are still jumbled up as ever!!
Robie starts dating the cute Anne Lambert from his apartment building who works in the White House. Meanwhile his instincts tell him that someone is trying to warn or frame him.
Robie discovers that the bus bomb was not for Julie but for him and he was deliberately left unhurt in the shooting SUV incident. A witness to the bus bomb has come forward claiming that she saw a man and a teenage girl get off the bus before the blast. Robie is still figuring how to evade Agent Vance, when she tells him that the witness has identified the missing survivors as African-American.
Curious about the reason why the witness is lying, he follows her home and finds out that somebody promised to clear the gambling debts of her husband if she falsely testified to the FBI. After several cat-and-mouse chases, going off the grid with Julie and the FBI agent, and more deaths, we get to the end game.
Turns out the plan is an assassination attempt at the POTUS and the Saudi King who is visiting him, the very plot that Robie heard in the plane the night he went to kill Prince Talal. The perpetrator is the Prince Talal, who send a duplicate to that meeting in the hangar and is still alive. Moreover, he also wants to get back at Robie for trying to kill him and is twisting him around his fingers. In the end, it turns out that the assassin is Anne Lambert who is shot by Robie before she could complete her mission.
This was quite a nice suspense novel, though quite different from the usual thrillers Baldacci writes. I would very much like to read the next book Baldacci is writing about Robie.
Robie ponders over the fact that he has traveled all over the world to almost 37 different countries, but always to kill people. He realizes the dangers of his job and how he can die if his target is better prepared than him.
SPOILERS Ahead. Consider yourself warned!!
Robie's new assignment arrives in a USB drive right after he is back. The new assignment takes almost a month to plan and takes him to Morocco. He has practiced the hit on a full scale mock setup back in US, but he knows that the real assignment will be far more dangerous. He hitches a ride on the underside of a truck to penetrate a high-security facility.
The target is Khalid Bin Talal, a Saudi prince who does not favor America's friendship with his country and their self-appointed position as the leaders of the free world. Talal has arranged a meeting on his private jet in the high-security facility in lock-down. The prince is shot by Robie twice in the head through the plane's window. Robie escapes and takes a longer ferry route back to Spain so he will arrive their 2 days later.
For his next assignement, Robie is tricked into killing a US Govt official. He backed out when he saw her child sleeping with her, but a backup-sniper kills both the mother and child anyway. He flees the scene of crime and meets a teenage girl who has an assassin after her. Surviving a bus bomb blast, he is called in by his agency to serve as a liaison with the FBI in the investigation of the very murder he fled from. He hides Julie, the 14 year old kid, in an apartment across his building. Meanwhile, he and the FBI agent got attacked from an SUV owned by the Secret Service...things are still jumbled up as ever!!
Robie starts dating the cute Anne Lambert from his apartment building who works in the White House. Meanwhile his instincts tell him that someone is trying to warn or frame him.
Robie discovers that the bus bomb was not for Julie but for him and he was deliberately left unhurt in the shooting SUV incident. A witness to the bus bomb has come forward claiming that she saw a man and a teenage girl get off the bus before the blast. Robie is still figuring how to evade Agent Vance, when she tells him that the witness has identified the missing survivors as African-American.
Curious about the reason why the witness is lying, he follows her home and finds out that somebody promised to clear the gambling debts of her husband if she falsely testified to the FBI. After several cat-and-mouse chases, going off the grid with Julie and the FBI agent, and more deaths, we get to the end game.
Turns out the plan is an assassination attempt at the POTUS and the Saudi King who is visiting him, the very plot that Robie heard in the plane the night he went to kill Prince Talal. The perpetrator is the Prince Talal, who send a duplicate to that meeting in the hangar and is still alive. Moreover, he also wants to get back at Robie for trying to kill him and is twisting him around his fingers. In the end, it turns out that the assassin is Anne Lambert who is shot by Robie before she could complete her mission.
This was quite a nice suspense novel, though quite different from the usual thrillers Baldacci writes. I would very much like to read the next book Baldacci is writing about Robie.