Hanley was confused. “There’s no compromise or threat to Zoya. The people protecting her aren’t Gauntlet employees. They aren’t foreign hitters. They’re former agency paramilitaries; I know each and every one of them. Night Train knows them all, and Teddy knows some of them, too.”
“Good. Then Teddy and Night Train will have a nice time recuperating with their old pals. I just want more guns around Zoya, honestly. Even if Teddy’s got a hole in his neck and Night Train’s leg is messed up, they’re still solid operators who won’t let anything happen to her.”
Hanley thought about it a moment, then said, “Okay. Granted.” He then asked, “How long will it take you to get your dad to agree to come back with you?”
“That’s a good question. I haven’t talked to him in twenty years.”
“You want to bring him to Charlottesville, too? Turn the facility into a boardinghouse?”
Court laughed a little. “That’s okay. I can put him on my boat. I’ll tell him to stay on board till this is all over.” He thought a moment. “Why doyou think Whetstone killed Shaw, if Shaw was the one leaking the information? Whetstone and the others were obviously benefiting from that information.”
“Pace and Lacy are trying to figure that out. There have been fourteen killings in the intelligence community in the past four days, several more attempts. We’re wondering if the people who ordered the operation have decided they’ve achieved enough, and Shaw was just a compromise at this point.”
Court said, “Or maybe there’s a whole other aspect to their operation, something they no longer needed Shaw for.”
“Right,” Hanley said. “Pace is tracking some leads; we’ll see what he learns. Any way you look at it, though, it means our work probably isn’t done, and even though you and the boys have done a good job eliminating assassins, our own attrition rate hasn’t been that good.”
“Well, boss,” Court said, “strap on a .45 and get after it.” He then chuckled. “My dad is a former Marine sniper. Maybe you could hire him when I get his ass up to Virginia. Is there an age ceiling at Ghost Town?”
“The way things are going, the Five Guys and Arnold are all going to be out on the streets shooting it out with Gauntlet before too long.” Hanley sniffed. “Enjoy your personal time, but get your ass back up to us, put your dad in that boat, and get back to work.”
“Right.”
Just then, the copilot gave Court a wave, telling him to buckle up.
—
Seventy-five-year-old Jim Gentry poured another steaming mug of coffee, then carried it over to his kitchen table, passed it to the man sitting there, then sat down slowly in front of his own half-empty cup.
Gentry had a full head of silver hair, cut short like a Marine. He was five foot eight, did not carry an ounce of extra weight on his body, but that appeared to be mostly because of genetics and not exercise, because he looked even older than his years, like someone who didn’t do much more than sit on his porch.
His eyes were bright, but he wore thick glasses. His shoulders wereslight. His mouth hung in a permanent scowl, and his face showed the effects of living his life entirely in Florida and working a blue-collar job.
And Vietnam.
The effects of a stroke several years earlier were only evident to those who knew Gentry before it happened: the way his mouth hung, plus he walked and talked a little slow. Still, he moved no slower than many septuagenarians, and his dexterity seemed normal enough for a man his age.
The other man at the table was nearly a decade younger, barrel chested, bearded. He looked like he could have been a boxer in his younger days; a crooked nose held up his eyeglasses, but his easy smile shone under his thick brown mustache.
His name was Stanley Echols, but Jim Gentry, and everybody else who knew him, called him Skip.
James Gentry lived in a small two-bedroom home with aluminum siding next door to a large parcel of property he’d owned for decades, a disused farm and shuttered-up firearms training facility dozens of acres in size, just a couple of miles south of the Georgia state line in Glen St. Mary, Florida. The property was surrounded by farms, flatlands, and woods, a half hour west of Jacksonville. A massive solar power plant had gone up just down the road from Jim’s place, and many of the farms in the area, and the buildings on them, were in a state of disrepair.
The men at the kitchen table had been chatting for thirty minutes; Skip had been a daily fixture here since he moved in a block away a few weeks earlier, and today’s conversation was similar to that of other days. The weather was first and foremost; a heavy storm was due to hit the area later in the morning, and they argued for a time on exactly when. Then they talked politics for a while, but only until Jim said they should both run for president, only on opposite tickets.
Just then, Skip Echols looked down at his phone, then back up to the older man. “Jimbo, you okay if I take this outside?”
“You got a girlfriend you forgot to tell me about?”
“Would I be here listening to you jabber all morning if I did?” Echols went out back, stood in the grass, and looked back towards a thick line oftall Florida pines swaying in the growing wind. The sky was dark and growing darker; a door to an outbuilding on Gentry’s vacant property next door banged open and shut in the breeze.
Skip said, “Mornin’, Matt. How’s it going up there?”
Stanley “Skip” Echols had known Matthew Hanley for a quarter century, from back when Hanley was a young U.S. Special Forces officer and Echols was a U.S. Army Ranger.
Hanley had gone into CIA, Echols had gone to Delta Force, and when Hanley became an exec at the Agency, he tried to get Echols to join him as a paramilitary.
Echols felt he’d done his time, though, so he took his retirement from the Army, moved back to Jacksonville, and became a private investigator.
