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Wren looked up and down the darkened street. Unlike in front, there was no one back here but a few cops. “Don’t overthink it. They might have been the only crew willing to act in Cuba.” Thinking a moment, he said, “They killed a lot of people.”
“They killed a couple of guys outside who weren’t ready for anything to happen. They killed the two guards back by you facing the kitchen. And then they died.”
Wren put his hand on Zack’s shoulder. “You did well tonight, mate.”
“Thanks,” Zack said, temporarily leaving his confusion about the assassination attempt behind. “You, too. Thanks for having my back.”
Wren smiled. “Let’s head back to La Finca.”
Zack and Wren began picking their way back through the shot-up restaurant to the front and the Hinton Labs vehicles parked there. Zack moved slower than the Brit because he continued looking at the holes in the walls, the location of the blood, and he kept trying to picture how this made any sense at all.
FORTY-ONE
The silver Suburban carrying Chris Travers, Joe “Hash” Takahashi, and Jim Pace stopped at the automatic gates just off Carrera 45 in Bogotá’s Teusaquillo neighborhood. Soon the gates opened and the vehicle began rolling through the massive campus of the U.S. embassy in Colombia, passing annex after annex, and finally stopping at the chancery, the main building of the compound.
After multiple displays of credentials, a pass through an X-ray, after phone confiscations and eye scans, they found themselves led into the tiny third-floor foyer of the office of the CIA’s deputy station chief, and here the three men waited while the admin assistant called her boss over the intercom.
Soon the door to the office opened, and a blond-haired man with a big chest and an only slightly bigger gut leaned out. Matt Hanley’s polka-dot tie was loose around his thick neck, and his white dress shirt was wrinkled, as was the blue blazer that looked two sizes too large.
“Come on in, gents.” He shook Pace’s hand, then looked up and saw Travers. “Chris? The hell you doing here? Couldn’t find a door that needed kicking?”
“Jim brought me in case your office was locked,” the younger man joked.
They all stepped inside, Hanley shut the door, and then he pulled off his blazer, letting it drop into a chair.
Jim Pace said, “Good to see you again, Deputy Director.”
Hanley chuckled. “These days, it’s just Matt.”
“Not to me, boss.”
“It’s been too long, Sierra Four.”
“Definitely. Glad you got pulled out of the Philippines.”
Hanley snorted as he headed back over to his desk. “I wish it was the Philippines. It was frickin’ New Guinea.”
Pace stifled a little gasp, but his eyes widened. “Jesus, Matt. What did you do?”
It was said as a joke, and Hanley treated it as such. “All sorts of fun stuff they couldn’t pin on me, but I bent the rules enough for a conflict-avoidant director to bring me down.” He waved a hand at his little office. “But look at me now. Master of all I survey…unless I look out the window.”
Outside the window was a ramshackle auxiliary building, basically a double-wide trailer, five feet from the glass and blocking any view.
“Sit down,” Hanley instructed, and he dropped into his swivel chair, which squeaked in annoyance.
Pace sat in a straight-back chair in front of the desk, but Takahashi and Travers stayed on their feet at the door, directly behind Pace.
Hanley looked at his watch. “I’m impressed. Six and a half hours after I reach you in D.C., you walk into my office. Glad you could come down on such short notice.”
“You know better than anyone, traveling on short notice is part of the gig. You mentioned you picked up some physical intelligence you wanted me to have.”
Hanley said, “Yes, that is what I told you. And that is the truth, but only part of the truth. I actually have more than that.”
Pace leaned forward. “You have my full attention.”
“I won’t beat around the bush, then. The code name of the person or persons involved in the killings is Cyrus. Doubt that will trace back to anything tangible, but worth a look.”
Confused, Pace sat upright. “Okay. Confidence level on this?”
