Chapter Thirty-Four
Thirty-Four
Dawn was still thirty minutes off, putting enough light in the sky on the sleepy suburban neighborhood to make out the homes, the fences, the yards. A dog barked in the distance, and birds stirred in the trees.
A face covered from the neck to just below the eyes appeared over a wooden fence; the eyes scanned the scene ahead, and then a man climbed over and dropped down on the other side.
Landing in a crouch, he rose and moved through a backyard full of pine trees.
Here he stopped for a moment at the edge of the tree line, knelt, then looked across a swimming pool covered for the winter and towards a small brick home on the other side of a wrought-iron fence.
Waiting, watching. Finally, the man rose again and sprinted forward.
A minute later the same man put a key in the back door of the brick home, drew a pistol from his belt, took a moment to put on a set of black-rimmed eyeglasses over his eyes, then opened the door.
Flowing in alone, he kept his weapon up in front of him.
Court Gentry used the high-lumen weapon light to search for trip wires, and in this he had help.
He wore the glasses Arnold Reyes had worn in the Hirshhorn Museum the day before so his scan of the home could be watched in real time by Matt Hanley, who was several blocks away with the rest of the team in a van.
Court began climbing the stairs; Matt was in his ear, telling him to move slowly, to watch for any other cameras the intruder might have set up, attached to his own network somehow.
Fully five minutes after entering the small home, Court arrived at the phone.
He didn’t touch the device lying there, but he turned on the overhead light in the room and lowered the pistol. “I’m clear,” he said. “There’s a folded note on the dresser next to the camera.”
“We’re on the way,” Hanley said.
Court confirmed receipt of the transmission, but he didn’t wait on Hanley and company before lifting the note and opening it.
Violator. Gray Man. Call the one number saved into this phone via Signal. Phone password is 00001. I will answer. I can’t stop all the killing still to come, but I can stop my part in it. It’s now up to you, chief.
Five minutes later, Hanley and Hightower stood in the bedroom with Court, the phone still on the dresser. Behind them, Arnold had just completed his radio frequency scan of the home, making certain no bugs had been placed.
Two members of the Five Guys, the security team at Ghost Town, were armed with AR-15s, and they stood at windows, securing the property.
“What do you think?” Hightower said.
“I think I better get the number off this phone, then use a burner to call it.”
Just then, Jill came over everyone’s headsets. “It’s Gumdrop. Two more killings overnight. One in D.C. and another in Vienna, Virginia. Both current members of the IC. One was DIA, the other Homeland Security office of Intelligence and Analysis.”
Hightower said, “That’s seven assassinations, eight attempts. In what…eight, nine hours? If you had the best hitters in the world, there’d still have to be three, four of them, minimum, doing all this.”
Court said, “Let me see the videos again.”
They sat on the bed and watched several of the videos of the man in the home, just two hours or so earlier.
Court froze one of the videos and just looked at the darkened image of the man in the hood. “Who the fuck is this guy?”
“Obviously, one of the assassins,” Hanley said. “He’s close enough to D.C., Maryland, Tysons, Vienna, could have done any of those hits and then come here, or else he hasn’t even started yet.”
“How does he know about me?” Court asked. “Or about your connection to me?”
“There’s a massive intelligence leak under way, or haven’t you been paying attention?”
Court rubbed his eyes.
Lacy called again. Hanley took the call downstairs in his den, then met Court and Zack at the back door while Arnold went to retrieve the van with one of the Five Guys.
Hanley said, “We’ve got some new information.
Angela told me that Scott Kincaid was released from prison by the Cubans just yesterday. ”
Lancer, Court thought. The former Navy SEAL turned assassin who Court had come up against in Havana earlier in the year. Softly, he just said, “That asshole.”
“What’s he want with you?” Hightower asked.
But Matt answered. “He blames Six for getting him arrested in Havana. This is probably our culprit.”
Court thought back to the video. “That guy…he wasn’t really built like Lancer.”
Hightower said, “Maybe seven months in a Cuban prison changes a man.”
The van pulled up and the men climbed in, and Court said, “The rate at which people are dying, I think I’d better call sooner than later.”
—
It was decided by the team that Court would call the number from a computer at Ghost Town and not from the Google phone that had been left for him.
That phone was now in a Faraday cage on the outside chance there was a tracker built into it that Arnold’s equipment had missed.
Jill had assured him it would be impossible for anyone to determine the origin of his call if she used a spoofing app on her laptop, so he now sat alone in the small office that just a year earlier had been an exam room in a podiatry clinic, and he looked at the number on the screen.
With headphones and a microphone on his head, the laptop set to record the conversation, he took a deep breath, then ordered the computer to dial the number.
The call was answered on the other end after a short delay. The audio quality was impeccable with the headset Court wore, and almost instantly he heard soft breathing on the other end of the line.
After a time, when the party on the other end of the line did not say anything, Court said, “You wanted a word?”
“Who am I speaking to?” The man was Irish, Court could tell immediately. This was not Lancer, the American hit man he’d run into in Havana.
Court hadn’t operated in Ireland in many years.
Confused, he recovered quickly, then answered. “A long time ago, certain people referred to me as Violator.”
“Aye,” the man said. “If it is really you, I would like a wee chat. But how do I know it’s really you, eh?”
Court leaned back in the chair, put his feet up on the desk.
“Well…I guess that’s your problem, dickhead.
You broke into a man’s house, left a phone and a note claiming to have been part of a streak of killings.
You went to a lot of trouble to get this far, and you don’t have a plan to identify me? ”
Court just heard more breathing on the line.
Even though he knew he couldn’t be traced, the voice, the tempo of the man’s words, and the slow breathing unsettled him just the same.
Finally, the man on the other end said, “You are interested in the assassinations taking place in America right now, yeah?”
Court furrowed his brow. He wasn’t sure what this man knew about him. He said, “Not really. I’m not in America, and I don’t work for the government.”
“But my note to Hanley, I said if you called, I could make some of the killin’ stop.”
Court said, “Hanley reached out to me, and I told him I’d call you as a courtesy. But I’m not involved in—”
“Not buyin’ it, chief. This call from you came too quick, didn’t it? You’re tryin’ to help. You’re in the middle of all this.”
Court did not argue. Instead, he just asked, “Which of the hits was yours?”
The answer came quickly. “Hyattsville, Maryland. Last night. That’s all, so far, but I’ve got work ahead of me yet.”
“How do I know you—”
“Knife, from behind, straight across the throat. One cut, left to right. Has that been released yet?”
Court didn’t have a clue how the victim in Hyattsville had been killed, but there was an authority in the man’s tone that left no doubt that what he was saying was true.
“All right, then. What do I call you?”
“Call me whatever you like.”
“I’ll call you Dick.”
“Suit yourself, Gray Man.”
Court could hear a searing intensity to the man’s words.
A derision he did not understand but knew was somehow relevant to all this.
To draw the man out a little, he said, “I’m already bored with this conversation.
I’ve got to help a friend move today; he just found out his place has pests, so if you’ll excuse me, Dick, I better—”
The Irishman shouted now. “You’ll sit right there and you’ll feckin’ listen to me, yeah?”
Court gave it a few beats. “I’m listening.”
“Within the hour there will be another killing. It’s my doin’, though I won’t be there personally when it happens.”
“A bomb, you mean?” Court said.
“You’ll see.”
“Any chance I can talk you into stopping it?”
“None,” the man said with finality. “We’re not talking about that victim. He’s as good as gone. We’re talking about the others.”
“How many killers are out there?”
“You’ve done what I do. Did the people in charge tell you everything what was going on?”
“No,” Court admitted.
“Nah, mate. You just killed ’cause it’s all ya knew how to do. You didn’t need a reason.”
Court never killed without a reason, but he wasn’t going to argue with the man. Yet something in the tone of the Irishman’s words bothered him.
Court said, “You seem like you’re mad at me about something. That this is somehow personal. Do I have that part right?”
“Aye. You do.”
“Do we know each other?”
“We’ve never met. I know your work, though. Intimately.”
Court rubbed his eyes now. “What is it you think I did?”
“Don’t think. Know. And I want you to know that I am comin’ for ya, and I will be finding ya, yeah?”
This somehow unsettled Court even more, but he fought revealing it in his voice. He said, “All that, and you’re going to be busy killing intelligence professionals across America?”
“The only intelligence professional I care about is you. I just took this job so they could help me find ya, and they’re keepin’ up their end so far, so I’ve got to keep up mine, don’t I?”
“What’s your plan with me, then?” Court asked, genuinely confused.