Scott Kincaid hung up on Big Mike, then looked to the brothers. “Get in there. Get to him before he goes into the MRI. Knives only. I’ll pick you up from any door you exit from, just text me.”
Both men stepped out into a freezing rain and began walking towards the building.
When they were gone, when Scott Kincaid was all alone in theWagoneer, he moved to the driver’s seat, then drummed his fingers on the wheel a moment. After just a few seconds, he snatched up his phone and dialed the two other men on the other side of the parking lot in the Bronco.
Ronald Winter and Carl Maybus were in their forties, and they’d been involved in the white nationalist movement since they were children. They had been brutes their whole lives, and unlike the other three men on Lancer’s team, he’d known them before this week.
Carl answered the phone. “Yeah?”
“Get back over to the bakery. Pick up Bennett and park the Bronco. One of you goes in and lingers, the other waits in the truck. After forty-five minutes switch out, but don’t lose sight of the girl. If she leaves, follow her, see where she goes. We might need to grab her. Hightower’s her biological dad. Also, rent us an out-of-the-way place near Eldora Mountain, just in case we need to bolt. Don’t use your credit card. Find someone else’s card you can use, something the feds won’t trace back to your group.” He thought a moment. “And I’m gonna need a couple more men. You know anybody up this way wants to make five grand for an afternoon’s work?”
Carl showed no excitement or even great interest in this enterprise. He just said, “Yup. I’ll make some calls,” and hung up.
—
Angela Lacy spoke with urgency. “We’ve had another breach.”
Matt Hanley had been meeting with Erin and Jill in his office just after noon when the call came through. When he heard Angela’s words and her unmistakable tone, he tapped the speaker function on his device so the others could hear.
“What’s happened?”
“It’s not good,” she said. “Someone with a specific CIA credential set spent most of last night digging into the personnel files of yourself, Zachary Hightower, and Courtland Gentry.”
Hanley sat on the edge of his desk. Erin looked at him with wide eyes. Hanley said, “Not Violator? Not Agency intel on the Gray Man? But Courtland Gentry? By name?”
“All three. They got into information on something called the Violator Working Group that was running a few years ago, apparently there was—”
“Yeah, I know all about that. All traces of that were supposedly purged from the system.”
“They weren’t. His name was mentioned in a meeting, notes were taken and recorded, though it was a code-worded file.”
“And someone got the code word yesterday?”
“It seems so.”
Hanley looked to the ceiling, shaking his head. “What else did they learn?”
“Some known associates information, next of kin of Six…apparently he has one living relative, a father, down in—”
Hanley said, “I’m calling you right back.” He hung up the phone and dialed Court.
—
Court raced down the highway on his Yamaha, heading from his boat in Virginia Beach down to the southwest of the state, to Drum Hill, Ghost Town’s private training facility forty-five minutes away in North Carolina. He had a backpack full of gear, and it seemed like Ghost Town was standing down for the day since Zack and Teddy were inop, so he’d decided to spend a cold afternoon heating up some guns and testing some new ammo.
His earpiece rang; it was his Signal app, and he opened it by touching the phone that was mounted on a chest rig on his jacket. Through the headphones he wore, he could make and take calls even while riding his motorcycle. “Yeah?”
“Six, we have a problem.” It was Hanley, and Court wished he had a dollar for every time Hanley called him and began with this line. Then he said, “How soon can you be at the airport?”
The exit to Hampton Roads Executive Airport was less than a quarter mile in front of him. “Under ten minutes. Where am I going?”
“Court,” Hanley said. “It looks like you’re going home.”
“Home?”
“The enemy knows about your dad. I have no idea if they will try to exploit that or—”
“Fuck!” Court said into his helmet. “Yeah. Whetstone most definitely will. I’ll go down and pull him out.”
