“I’m good to go.”
The F-150 began rolling through the snowy conditions towards Boulder Municipal Airport.
Forty-Eight
Court Gentry was the only passenger in the back of a five-passenger Cirrus Vision Jet flying south over Georgia at seven in the morning. He’d slept a little with his cabin chair reclined and his feet on his backpack. Mostly, however, he’d been making and taking encrypted phone calls.
He had landed with Zack at Hampton Roads around three a.m., helped him hobble down out of the Hawker that brought them from Colorado. He’d asked Zack if he could borrow his pistol, and then, while Zack was assisted by both Erin Childers and a nurse into the back of an SUV sent by Hanley, Court immediately boarded the waiting Vision to begin his flight down to Florida to pick up his father and bring him back to Virginia.
Court’s dad knew nothing about this; Hanley and Court had agreed operational security was crucial, so Jim Gentry would only learn what was going on when his son showed up at his door. In the meantime, however, the man Hanley had watching over Court’s dad down in northern Florida had been told to keep an even more careful eye out for strangers in the area.
Court was three hours into his second flight now; it was well past dawn outside, and the pilot announced they’d be landing soon.
Then Court’s phone buzzed again, and again, it was Hanley.
“I have some news.”
“Good news or bad?”
“Definitely bad if your name is Lewis Shaw.”
“Somebody smoked him?”
“Affirmative. Murdered in his home overnight.” Thiswasbig news, principally because, as the presumed leaker of intelligence product that had been getting people killed around the world, Court had assumed he’d be the one to kill him.
“Saves me the trouble,” he said. “We know who did it?”
“A neighbor heard a gunshot, described a man wearing a British riding cap leaving in the back of an SUV driven by someone else. No other description.”
“Sounds like Whetstone,” Court said.
“Yep. I thought you’d want to know about it as soon as I did. Didn’t want you to worry you were going to run into that bastard down there this morning.”
“Well, just because he’s still in D.C. doesn’t mean he’s not going to pose a threat to my dad.”
“I agree, but I guess you have a little more time for the extraction.” He then said, “You want me to go ahead and let my guy down there know you’re coming? He lives a couple blocks away from your dad and has been having coffee with him most every morning.”
“Better not. You don’t know my dad. Old Jim might take some coaxing, and I don’t want him planning on how he’s going to tell me no. I’m going to just go there and sit with him and tell him as little about the danger as I can to get his ass moving. I’ll text you when I’m just a couple minutes out from his house, and you can call your private detective off. Give him my sincere thanks, but I want him gone when I get there.”
“I get it. You and your pop have some stuff to hash out before he gets in a car with you, I’m sure.”
“Something like that.” Switching the subject, Court said, “How’s Night Train?”
“Thirty-three stitches in the leg, right down the center of his left quadricep. A dozen more in the shoulder. His body’s beat to shit, but nothing he won’t shake off. No square dancing for him for a bit, but otherwise, he’s doing well. I haven’t talked to him about why he never mentioned his daughter to me yet. I just told him I’m glad everything worked out in Boulder.”
Court replied, “He blames himself for the enemy homing in on her. I get it. Maybe you don’t say anything more right now; he feels bad enough as it is.”
Hanley sighed a little. “Right. I’ll have to find some other reason to chew him out.”
“I’m confident you’ll come up with something. How’s Teddy doing?” Court asked.
“I told Teddy last night that the good news was that he was now officially thesecondworst injured Ghost Town asset. He’s moving around fine. Not operational, but doing good, considering he took a bullet to the fucking neck.”
“Good.” Court hesitated a moment, then said, “I want him to go to Charlottesville.”
Hanley was surprised. “To where Zoya, Irene, and Cathy are being kept safe by five armed guards?”
“Yes. I want him there, watching over the people who are watching over Zoya. You can put Night Train there, too, to convalesce. I want them both armed.”
