Hanley replied, “I’ve already called my guy watching your dad down there and told him to be extra vigilant. This information was just disseminated last night. Obviously, the assassins have other targets, so we don’t know—”
“Matt. What about Teddy and Night Train?”
“Teddy’s at home. Lacy didn’t say anything about him getting pinged in this. Night Train is in Boulder; he has no next of kin, so I assess him as less of a threat to—”
Court interrupted. “Call the pilot. Now! Tell him to file a flight plan for Boulder.”
“Boulder?What about your dad?”
“Just have your guy down there keep eyes on and a phone ready to call the local five-oh. I’m heading to get to Night Train.”
“Okay, stand by.” A few seconds passed. “Erin just called him; his phone went to voice mail. I think he’s in his MRI appointment about now, might not have his phone on him. We’ll keep trying.”
There was a brief pause. Court figured Hanley was about to ask what it was he wasn’t telling him, but then Court just said, “Trust me on this, Pilgrim. If I’m wrong, I’ll never explain. If I’m right…I’ll tell you more.”
Hanley took a beat, then said, “Let me call Bellstar and have them file that flight plan. We’ll keep trying Zack.”
Court said, “Tell Bellstar I need whatever aircraft will get me to Boulder fastest.”
“Roger that.”
Court was already on the off-ramp leading to the airport. He thought of his father; he hadn’t spoken to the man in nearly twenty years, although he did actually lay eyes on him a few years back. But then he thought of Zack. Court had no idea if the enemy that seemed to be so good at getting secrets out of the U.S. intelligence community could manage to get secrets out of the famously secure FBI Witness Protection Program, but if they could, then Zack needed all the help he could get.
—
Zack Hightower sat alone in a small room, on a bench in front of a row of four wooden lockers. He wore a paper gown, his black boxer briefs underit, and patient-mandated footie-socks with little grippers on the bottom on his feet.
The leg was stiff today, but it didn’t hurt. He massaged the wound as he sat there, and he wanted to hurry this process up, talk to his doc, and get his ass back to Ghost Town.
As ordered, he’d removed his watch and any other metal objects on his body. He’d answered a questionnaire given to him by the technician ensuring he had no bullet fragments in his body, and that he wore no other jewelry. The only other metal objects he’d brought into the hospital with him were his phone, which he’d turned off, his backup pistol, and a knife. His primary concealed weapon, a Staccato HD P4 9-millimeter, was currently in a lockbox in his truck, but he also carried a tiny Ruger LCP MAX micro .380 pistol in his boot, and this was in the locker, right next to his Ka-Bar Ek Commando fixed-blade knife.
His phone and keys were locked up, as well. He had a key to his locker in his hand, hanging from a string, and he swung it around. He felt naked without his weapons, felt extra vulnerable at the doctor, but he was used to this.
Zack had been injured more times than he could count in his career; this was just another MRI, another doctor’s visit, another day.
He looked at the clock on the wall. It was ten thirty a.m.
—
The Voorhies brothers entered the imaging center a full minute apart, and each man immediately pulled a disposable mask from a dispenser by the door to cover his face. They took seats across the busy lobby from one another, then spent a couple of minutes there, getting a feel for the layout of the area and texting back and forth.
These two guys were not exactly strangers to this sort of thing. Two years earlier the brothers had partnered with four older and more experienced men in their organization to go on a three-month crime spree. They hit a pair of sporting goods stores in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, for guns and ammo, and three credit unions outside Portland for cash. Todd had shot and wounded a security guard at one of the credit unions, and Lee had pistol-whipped a clerk reaching for a sidearm in Coeur d’Alene, so the duo hadblood on their hands, and from the older members they’d learned how to quickly register patterns in a business. The attentiveness of the employees, what parts of the building were busy, which parts were idle and accessible. These and many other factors went into casing a location before committing a crime, and the brothers used this hard-earned knowledge today.
Within moments of arriving in the busy medical office, they had both noticed that a side hallway was quiet, and a doorway at the end of this hall had a trickle of patients exiting through it. This showed them that the patients to the imaging center, when finished with their procedure, were not led directly back through the doors in the lobby they’d entered through, and this gave Todd, the older brother, an idea.
Without a word to his brother, Todd rose and began heading down the hall, and as Lee followed, the older brother rushed to catch a door opened by a departing vending machine attendant.
Once inside the inner portion of the facility, Lee found a map on the wall that showed them the location of the MRI suites, down past a row of X-ray machine rooms and right before a CAT scan area.
The map also indicated the small waiting room for the MRI center, along with two dressing rooms adjacent to it.
Both men could feel the weight of the pistols under their shirts, but they’d decided they’d do this with knives, catching their unsuspecting target outside the MRI scanning room. Each man carried a fixed blade mounted to his belt under his coat.
Todd whispered to Lee just as they neared an area with a pair of nurses standing at a table and typing on laptops. “Spread out. Patients don’t walk around together.” Lee nodded, lagged back.
They passed a medical technician who gave them a nod without really looking, and then, when they were alone in a hallway on the way to the MRI suite, they passed shelves of storage, then walked by an elderly patient heading for the exit.
They entered a door that was marked Zone 2: MRI. There were computers, a desk, and a few chairs, and the men saw doors marked Dressing Room 1 and Dressing Room 2. No one was around at the moment, so each man pulled his knife, and after a quick look and nod between them, they yanked open the two doors.
