“Don’t thank me. In fact…you are about to be pissed at me.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t let you go to the funeral. There could be surveillance. Assassins watching out for you.”
“I don’t want to go to the funeral. That’s why I called.”
Hanley was clearly gobsmacked by this. “You don’t want to go to your father’s…I mean, I expected pushback. Maybe I can put you in a blacked-out Tahoe, a couple hundred yards away with a lens so you could watch, pay your respects from a safe distance.”
“No, thanks.”
Matt said, “I don’t understand. Why don’t you want to go to the funeral?”
“Because I want to go to Northern Ireland.”
Hanley just blew out an annoyed sigh. Court had been listening to this man make this sound for a long time, usually because of something Court had said or done.
“Why?”
“You know why. I want to get off this little jet and then get on a bigger Bellstar jet that can get me all the way to Belfast. That is the only resource from Ghost Town I’m asking for. If you don’t have something that can go transatlantic at Hampton Roads, charter me something at Reagan or Dulles. I want to go immediately.”
“Disallowed.”
“I’m asking you for a jet, Matt. I’m not asking you for permission to go. I’m going. If I have to take the fuckingQueen Mary, I’m going. You want me to do this in a few days, or do you want me to take longer? That’s up to you.”
“I need you back here. It’s a fucking convalescent ward at Ghost Town, unless you’ve forgotten.”
“I’ll be back. Pace and Lacy will keep working; when I get back I’ll go help kill some other motherfucker that has it coming, but right now, I’m going to Belfast.”
Matt sighed. “Pace thinks Lewis Shaw was just a fucking errand boy. And when the heat got too high for the real culprit, meaning when Pace, along with Ghost Town, did what we did, then whoever is responsible killed Shaw to use him as a fall guy. Gauntlet is involved, but there is somebody very high in the intelligence community who is behind all this.
“In fact,” Hanley said, his voice a little lower now, “Pace has suspicions about Trey Watkins himself. Seems he is one of only a few who could have gotten intelligence on both Zack’s daughter and your father. He thinks Watkins is setting us up.”
“Well,” Court said, “you guys work on figuring that shit out, and when I get back, I’ll deal with it.”
Hanley breathed into the phone a moment. Finally, he said, “Do you even know where Whetstone is?”
“No, but I can find him. I just need some time, Matt.”
Hanley’s response came in a different tone. Harsher, less sympathetic. “Six, you are a fucking resource. I’m never going to lie to you about that, I’m never going to pretend otherwise. So don’tyoufucking forget it. I’ll always do anything I can for you, unless and until it gets in the way of our mission, at which point, I have to do whatIhave to do.
“And right now, I need you at Ghost Town.”
“I hate this fucking shit,” Court mumbled.
“No, you don’t,” Hanley responded. “The job you do, you know it’s crucial. I’m sorry your dad died this morning, but that dad of yours saved the life of America’s most important human intelligence resource. Jim Gentry died a motherfucking hero, saving his son, protecting my asset,and from what Skip tells me about Jim, nothing on this earth would have made him prouder than exactly what happened today.
“Now…make him even prouder by helping us do what you were meant to do.”
Court felt the plane descending. “You come at me with your fucking logic, it just makes me want to beat the shit out of you.”
“Because I’m right.”
After a pause, the man in the jet said, “I’m going to Northern Ireland.”
“To kill a man who probably doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore.”
“He and I both have unfinished business.”
