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“It’s your old boss. Hightower.”
Pace made a face of bewilderment in the back of the van. “Hinton thinks the CIA is after him, and he hires an ex-Agency paramilitary to protect him?”
“Hiring Zack was my doing. Anton listens to reason, from time to time. I told him Hightower was available and he was the best man for the job. I also assured him he was no longer working for the Agency in any capacity whatsoever.”
“That’s true,” Pace revealed. “Haven’t seen him in several years. He was a hunting guide, last I heard.”
“Now he’s down here with us. Pay is better, conditions are better. The man’s landed his arse in butter.”
“Other than the assassins gunning for his protectee,” Pace said.
“Quite right.” Wren laughed. “Still, I know old Zack will get the job done. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m running late to a meeting.”
“Sure, Wren. Thanks for the time. Listen, if you hear anything, anything at all…I hope you’ll give me a call.”
“You have my word, Jim. Good luck to you.”
Pace hung up the phone and again looked out the window.
Travers had heard the entire conversation. “You know Anton Hinton’s second-hand man?”
Distractedly, he said, “He was SAS. He ran joint ops with Ground Branch in the sandbox. Good dude.”
“Glad Hightower’s found a good gig.”
“Yeah…well, I wish Hinton would talk to me. He’s one of only a few names on Halverson’s list still alive, and we might need information out of him before the assassins try again.”
Travers said, “Dr. Ryder said there were one hundred people who might be targets.”
Pace shook his head adamantly. “Whoever is doing this had to have known that after a few days, everyone else is going to be on lockdown. Yeah, they got to Halverson in Boston and Descourts in Toronto, but it will be exponentially harder now. There aren’t one hundred targets. This phase of the enemy’s operation, whatever it is, is almost over.”
“Back to D.C. still?”
“Yeah. I’ll have Lynn look deeper into Rene Descourts. I’ll dig into Xiang Di today with China desk, and tomorrow we’ll run down to Havana.”
“But…Wren just said Hinton won’t talk to you.”
“I’m not going down to talk to Hinton. I’m going down to talk to Hightower.”
•••
Sir Donald Fitzroy stood alone on the tiny balcony at the rear of a two-story beachside home in Soliman Bay, just a twenty-minute ride north of Tulum, Mexico, with a sweaty glass of lemonade in his hand. He gazed out over the azure water of the Caribbean Sea. Below him tourists walked the sandy beach, stepping around thick brown seagrass pushed ashore by the waves.
The Portuguese coast where he’d been living the past year was prettier, he told himself with assuredness, but he was still very happy to be here. Not because it was Mexico.
Simply because it was Court.
Fitzroy knew he would never be able to pay back the American assassin for all he’d done for him, but that didn’t mean he would ever stop trying.
He looked away from the water, down to his hand with the lemonade, and he saw the liquid trembling in the glass. He stared at the movement for a moment, then a moment more, before putting the glass down on the railing in front of him and reaching into his pants pocket.
He pulled out a bottle of orange prescription pills, opened the cap with difficulty, then poured two out and popped them into his mouth, his hand still slightly shaking as he did so.
A woman in her thirties stepped out onto the balcony behind him. She and her husband had accompanied Fitzroy to Mexico to serve as bodyguards. When he noticed her presence, he quickly tucked the bottle back into his pocket.
In English she said, “They are here, sir.”
“Lovely, Francisca. Very well.” Fitzroy opened and closed his hands a few times, then headed inside. He descended the narrow wooden staircase, his heart rate slowly increasing with excitement as he did so.
