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“What’s that?” Court asked.
Fitzroy put the pill bottle back in his trousers.
Zoya spoke up in the dark as they woke. “Jesus, Court. You don’t have to answer that, Don. I’m sorry, Court wasn’t assigned manners by the CIA.”
Court was confused. He looked to Zoya. “What did I say?”
Fitzroy answered. “Parkinson’s, as I’m sure you gathered, young lady. The levodopa helps for a while, now anyway. This time next year, unfortunately, I won’t be able to say the same.”
They all walked in silence a moment. Zoya put her arm around Fitzroy. Finally she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m living on my terms, as long as I can. It’s a bloody shame about Jack, but I am glad I was here to help my two friends.”
After a minute Zoya reached into her back pocket and pulled out the broken piece of motherboard she’d taken out of the first ground vehicle. She said, “I pulled this from the robot downstairs after I killed it. Maybe we can find someone who can trace the components.”
Court said, “All I got was a sunburn.” He took the piece and held it up to the moonlight as he walked. “I know just who to call about that.”
Zoya looked at him for a moment, then sighed a little. “Lacy at CIA?”
“Yeah.”
“And then what? It’s not like she can just reveal the fact that the Gray Man called her with intelligence about the technology killings. She’s going to have some explaining to do.”
Court had already considered this. “Matt Hanley.”
“Hanley? What about him?”
“If Lacy can put me in contact with Hanley, I’ll give the motherboard and the information to him. He’ll be able to slip it to someone, no questions asked. He’s done stuff like that before.”
“You said he was somewhere in the South Pacific.”
“Last I heard. Lacy will know.”
Fitzroy looked back and forth between the two. Instead of commenting on their conversation, he said, “My aircraft is in Cozumel, just a helo ride over the water from where I’m staying here. You can take the plane wherever you need to go.” He winced again as he walked. “I myself am going to go to a hospital in Cozumel tomorrow to get all this looked at. I’ll just tell them I slipped at the pool into a glass coffee table after imbibing too many margaritas.”
“Yeah,” Court said, “they wouldn’t believe you if you told them what just happened.”
“Nor would I, lad.”
THIRTY-SIX
The faintest of glows of an emerging dawn appeared over the Cuban pines in the east, causing the runner on the lonely dark road to glance down at his watch.
Six twenty-three a.m. A couple minutes off his ideal ten-kilometer pace, but he’d not run more than five klicks at a time in several weeks, so he wasn’t disappointed.
Zack Hightower kept his stride steady through the pine forest, emerging from it and onto a rolling canvas of cultivated fields. To his left and right were rice paddies, and a plantain farm on a hill just to the north blocked his view of the early-morning lights of Havana.
A few minutes later he was out of the open fields and back into dense forest.
Zack had had the morning to himself, but now, just after six thirty, he began seeing a smattering of farmers on bikes and on foot as they headed to their jobs.
He carried a tiny Ruger LCP MAX .380 pistol in a belly band holster that he’d checked out of the armory at La Finca, but he didn’t feel like he was going to need it, because the locals here seemed to be no threat at all. He didn’t pass a man, woman, or child who did not wave, smile, or extend a greeting in Spanish.
The people loved Hinton, and by association, they seemed to love the big and muscular blond gringo with the pointy beard, as well.
He passed Kimmie Lin, Anton Hinton’s assistant, waving at her as she ventured out on her own predawn run.
At six forty Zack passed the pair of stone pillboxes at the entrance to La Finca, Hinton’s massive property just southwest of his lab at the campus. Whereas they had been empty when he’d arrived here in Cuba yesterday, now they were occupied by at least four soldiers, obviously because Hinton was now on the property.
