Chapter Forty-One #2
Lancer had two more white nationalists on his team, both in a black Bronco with Utah plates, rented the night before when the team arrived. After a call from Kincaid, the two vehicles switched positions on the highway; the Wagoneer dropped back half a mile and the Bronco edged up closer.
They didn’t need to get too close; Bennett had put a tracker in Hightower’s F-150 in the airport garage early the evening before, just minutes before he landed, so they could follow the truck’s movements on Kincaid’s phone.
That was what led them to an apartment complex last night, then the bakery this morning, and then, just before ten a.m., to a medical office park.
Here they found the F-150 parked in a busy lot in front of the Boulder Imaging Center.
Both vehicles continued driving around the block, and then they pulled into different entrances of the same parking lot. The Bronco reported to Kincaid that they saw their target enter the imaging center doors.
Once the Wagoneer parked, Todd Voorhies turned to Lancer. “If he’s getting an MRI, then we should do it now.”
“Why?”
“You ever get an MRI?”
“Like a half dozen.”
“So you know. The MRI is a big magnet. You can’t have any metal on you in there.
You make this dude out like he’s some kind of badass.
Is he gonna be a badass wearing a fucking hospital gown, no gun, no knife?
We get in there, hang out in the waiting room, let him go back to the dressing room.
We find a back way in, catch him in his underwear before they turn on the MRI. We use knives, keep it quiet.”
Lancer thought about the situation, and he also thought about the kid in the bakery. He wasn’t sure taking Hightower down in a medical office was going to work out, but it was worth a shot, especially since he hadn’t heard back from his Gauntlet support yet about the girl.
Just then, his Signal app notified him he had a call coming through. Snatching the phone off his lap, he said, “Tell me you have something on the girl.”
The person on the other end of the line was not his Gauntlet support lead; it was Mike himself.
“Get ready for this. They kicked your request up to me, and I reached out to my guy on the inside. Took him a minute, but he just learned that Zack Hightower had a kid who went into wit-pro twelve years ago. She now lives in Boulder. Name is Andrea Delaney and she works at Cara’s Bakehouse.
The image you sent the team matches a picture of her on a website for junior national ranked snowboarders. ”
“Oh, shit,” Kincaid said. “Old Hightower is here spying on his biological kid.”
Mike said, “You going to snatch her? Use her to get to him?”
Kincaid looked at the front door of the building on the other side of the parking lot. “Another opportunity has presented itself. We’re going to try this first but use the girl as a backup plan. Either way, I’ll let you know when the job is done.”
“Good. Don’t fuck it up.”
“I don’t fuck up.”
“Says the guy I pulled out of a Cuban prison.”
Kincaid ignored the comment and said, “What do you have for me on the Gray Man?”
Mike hesitated, then said, “Still looking into that. Hope to have something soon.”
“Bullshit. You can get me the identity of somebody in witness protection in under an hour, but you can’t find out anything about the Gray Man?”
Mike said, “We don’t know how our guy has access. Certain data is available to him, other data is not. Like I said, he’s on it, and we’ll let you know if—”
Scott Kincaid hung up on Big Mike, then looked to the brothers. “Get in there. Get to him before he goes into the MRI. Knives only. I’ll pick you up from any door you exit from, just text me.”
Both men stepped out into a freezing rain and began walking towards the building.
When they were gone, when Scott Kincaid was all alone in the Wagoneer, he moved to the driver’s seat, then drummed his fingers on the wheel a moment. After just a few seconds, he snatched up his phone and dialed the two other men on the other side of the parking lot in the Bronco.
Ronald Winter and Carl Maybus were in their forties, and they’d been involved in the white nationalist movement since they were children. They had been brutes their whole lives, and unlike the other three men on Lancer’s team, he’d known them before this week.
Carl answered the phone. “Yeah?”
“Get back over to the bakery. Pick up Bennett and park the Bronco. One of you goes in and lingers, the other waits in the truck. After forty-five minutes switch out, but don’t lose sight of the girl.
If she leaves, follow her, see where she goes.
We might need to grab her. Hightower’s her biological dad.
Also, rent us an out-of-the-way place near Eldora Mountain, just in case we need to bolt.
Don’t use your credit card. Find someone else’s card you can use, something the feds won’t trace back to your group.
” He thought a moment. “And I’m gonna need a couple more men.
You know anybody up this way wants to make five grand for an afternoon’s work? ”
Carl showed no excitement or even great interest in this enterprise. He just said, “Yup. I’ll make some calls,” and hung up.
—
Angela Lacy spoke with urgency. “We’ve had another breach.”
Matt Hanley had been meeting with Erin and Jill in his office just after noon when the call came through. When he heard Angela’s words and her unmistakable tone, he tapped the speaker function on his device so the others could hear.
“What’s happened?”
“It’s not good,” she said. “Someone with a specific CIA credential set spent most of last night digging into the personnel files of yourself, Zachary Hightower, and Courtland Gentry.”
Hanley sat on the edge of his desk. Erin looked at him with wide eyes. Hanley said, “Not Violator? Not Agency intel on the Gray Man? But Courtland Gentry? By name?”
“All three. They got into information on something called the Violator Working Group that was running a few years ago, apparently there was—”
“Yeah, I know all about that. All traces of that were supposedly purged from the system.”
“They weren’t. His name was mentioned in a meeting, notes were taken and recorded, though it was a code-worded file.”
“And someone got the code word yesterday?”
“It seems so.”
Hanley looked to the ceiling, shaking his head. “What else did they learn?”
“Some known associates information, next of kin of Six…apparently he has one living relative, a father, down in—”
Hanley said, “I’m calling you right back.” He hung up the phone and dialed Court.
—
Court raced down the highway on his Yamaha, heading from his boat in Virginia Beach down to the southwest of the state, to Drum Hill, Ghost Town’s private training facility forty-five minutes away in North Carolina.
He had a backpack full of gear, and it seemed like Ghost Town was standing down for the day since Zack and Teddy were inop, so he’d decided to spend a cold afternoon heating up some guns and testing some new ammo.
His earpiece rang; it was his Signal app, and he opened it by touching the phone that was mounted on a chest rig on his jacket. Through the headphones he wore, he could make and take calls even while riding his motorcycle. “Yeah?”
“Six, we have a problem.” It was Hanley, and Court wished he had a dollar for every time Hanley called him and began with this line. Then he said, “How soon can you be at the airport?”
The exit to Hampton Roads Executive Airport was less than a quarter mile in front of him. “Under ten minutes. Where am I going?”
“Court,” Hanley said. “It looks like you’re going home.”
“Home?”
“The enemy knows about your dad. I have no idea if they will try to exploit that or—”
“Fuck!” Court said into his helmet. “Yeah. Whetstone most definitely will. I’ll go down and pull him out.”
Hanley replied, “I’ve already called my guy watching your dad down there and told him to be extra vigilant. This information was just disseminated last night. Obviously, the assassins have other targets, so we don’t know—”
“Matt. What about Teddy and Night Train?”
“Teddy’s at home. Lacy didn’t say anything about him getting pinged in this. Night Train is in Boulder; he has no next of kin, so I assess him as less of a threat to—”
Court interrupted. “Call the pilot. Now! Tell him to file a flight plan for Boulder.”
“Boulder? What about your dad?”
“Just have your guy down there keep eyes on and a phone ready to call the local five-oh. I’m heading to get to Night Train.”
“Okay, stand by.” A few seconds passed. “Erin just called him; his phone went to voice mail. I think he’s in his MRI appointment about now, might not have his phone on him. We’ll keep trying.”
There was a brief pause. Court figured Hanley was about to ask what it was he wasn’t telling him, but then Court just said, “Trust me on this, Pilgrim. If I’m wrong, I’ll never explain. If I’m right…I’ll tell you more.”
Hanley took a beat, then said, “Let me call Bellstar and have them file that flight plan. We’ll keep trying Zack.”
Court said, “Tell Bellstar I need whatever aircraft will get me to Boulder fastest.”
“Roger that.”
Court was already on the off-ramp leading to the airport.
He thought of his father; he hadn’t spoken to the man in nearly twenty years, although he did actually lay eyes on him a few years back.
But then he thought of Zack. Court had no idea if the enemy that seemed to be so good at getting secrets out of the U.S.
intelligence community could manage to get secrets out of the famously secure FBI Witness Protection Program, but if they could, then Zack needed all the help he could get.
—
Zack Hightower sat alone in a small room, on a bench in front of a row of four wooden lockers. He wore a paper gown, his black boxer briefs under it, and patient-mandated footie-socks with little grippers on the bottom on his feet.