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Contreras squinted back at him, his eyes bloodshot red from the lighter fluid itself, as well as the fumes of the liquid on his body.
“All I know about Cyrus is…he’s American.”
Both Zoya and Court spoke at the same time. “What?”
Contreras nodded. “I spoke to him on the phone. Multiple times. American accent, but good Spanish, too.” When neither Court nor Zoya spoke, the Mexican looked to Court. “So…Gentry…it might be your country at the top of all this.”
Court said, “I don’t believe you.”
“Fine. Don’t. But I recorded one of my conversations with him. There’s a file on my laptop. You can listen for yourself.”
Court rubbed his face now, a rare display of his inner thoughts. When his hand moved away from his mouth, he said, “Did you notify the Cubans that something was happening in the harbor?”
“I didn’t. I assume Cyrus did.”
“Back to Hinton,” Zoya said. “You’re sure Cyrus wasn’t targeting him?”
Contreras just shrugged. “Maybe Cyrus had another operation going against him, but I wasn’t part of it.”
Zoya said, “The robots were in shipping containers. Completely disassembled. Who was going to put them together?”
The Mexican thought for a moment. “They wouldn’t be disassembled if they were about to be used. The LAWs that came to me were ready to go. I just had to power them on and throw them out of an airplane. I did nothing else.”
“So…why would one hundred tons be shipped to—”
“One hundred tons?”
“Yes.”
“Where did they come from?”
“Hong Kong.”
Contreras thought a moment, then laughed at them yet again.
Court thought about putting his boot in the man’s face and knocking him back on his ass.
But before he could, the Mexican said, “One hundred tons of disassembled LAWs sent to Cuba from China? Anton Hinton is here in Cuba?” He laughed a little. “You can’t figure this out without my help?”
Court and Zoya did not reply.
Contreras spit on the floor again. “Anton Hinton knows more about AI than anyone in the world. Those weapons are here for Hinton, but they are not targeting him. They’re here for him to use. To operate. What he needs them for…” The bound and seated man shrugged. “I don’t know. But there’s your answer.”
Court went and retrieved Pace and Travers, assuring both of them that the smell of lighter fluid did not mean anything in any way untoward was going on back here in the barn.
And Pace, for his part, acted like he believed him. Travers, on the other hand, didn’t seem to give a shit if they lit this guy up like a bonfire or not.
Jim Pace stepped up to the bound man, and he held up Contreras’s two laptops, one in each hand. “Which one has the audio file of Cyrus?”
With a nod to the one on the right, Contreras gave him his code. Pace unlocked the computer, followed the drone pilot’s directions to find the file, and they all listened to the conversation together.
With a shrug Pace told the prisoner that the Agency would ultimately get everything off both of his devices, and then he asked him to repeat everything he’d already told Gentry and Zakharova.
Finally, Zoya left the barn and returned with a large wooden bucket of rainwater. She poured it over the half-naked man, washing away the majority of the flammable liquid she’d covered him with. Victor Six came out to watch the prisoner, and she, Court, and Jim returned to the farmhouse.
FIFTY-FIVE
While Court and Zoya were ushered into a back bedroom by the tiny Cuban woman, Pace reentered the dining room at the front of the property, sat down in front of his laptop, checked to make sure his connection was encrypted, and prepared to initiate a call with his staff at Langley.
