“Roger that.” Court disconnected from Signal and answered the call from Hanley.
He answered, “Permission to come aboard is granted. I see you brought your backup dancers.”
Hanley chuckled a little. “Security. They’ll stay up here on deck.”
Court hung up, holstered his pistol, and unlocked the door down to the saloon, and soon enough, he and Hanley were sitting on the couch,each with a beer. These were Pacifico Mexican lagers—Court’s choice, this time, but Hanley didn’t complain.
The music over the salon stereo played a bluesy tune called “Broken Bones”; it wasn’t loud, but the first words out of Hanley’s mouth were completely predictable to Court.
Hanley said, “Can I get you to turn that down?”
Court moved over to the stereo and lowered the volume, but he let the music play more softly.
“Still with the country music?” Hanley asked.
“How the fuck isthiscountry? It’s blues. In fact, these guys are from Iceland.”
“It all sounds like country to me. When do you have time to listen to music?”
“For every minute I’m operational, there’s about a thousand minutes when I’m sitting on a plane, on a bus, in a hide, in a safe house. You have to do all the thinking, boss; I get to decompress once in a while.”
“Right.”
“What doyoulisten to in your downtime?” Court asked.
“Podcasts about geopolitics, mostly.”
“Nerd.” Court took a swig.
“Iamyour superior, or have you forgotten?”
Court shrugged. “Superior nerd.”
Matt let it go. “You talked to Fitzroy? Did he have any insight?”
“A lot, actually, just as I suspected. It turns out the guy who called me is a second-generation shithead. His dad was Provisional IRA, a straight-up terrorist, killing cops in London, then working as an enforcer, assassinating Irish Catholics who had worked for the British. Then the Brits killed him but put the blame on some splinter IRA faction. A few years later, the son, the guy who called me, was activated by the British to go on kill missions in Ulster, taking out enemies of England because Fitzroy and his minions tricked him. After the Brits were done with him, he went into private practice, working as a hitter all over the world, and then he retired.
“I guess he would have stayed that way if I hadn’t killed his kid.”
“Unbelievable,” Hanley said.
Court said, “The guy’s code name is Whetstone.”
Hanley thought a moment. “I guess the Brits did a good job hiding that story from us. I’ve never heard of an Irish Republican asset called Whetstone.”
Court took another sip. “Ideally, I think that’s how assassins are supposed to operate. Quietly.”
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t know, would you?”
“I would not,” Court admitted. The legend of the Gray Man had grown in the intelligence and security world to a degree that only made Court’s life more dangerous.
Hanley finally took a sip of his beer. “I need you to remain focused onmyop, Six. In case you’ve lost count, I am currently an asset down.”
“One asset down? Didn’t Zack go back to Colorado today?”
“He was on his way to the airport, but something’s come up, and I turned him around. I need him here till tomorrow afternoon.”
Court put down the beer. “What’s going on?”
