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  Gentry looked the man over with his right eye. It had been four years since they last worked together in the CIA’s Golf Sierra unit, unofficially known, to those few who knew of it at all, as the Goon Squad. Hightower had been Sierra One, the team leader. Gentry was Sierra Six, the youngest, most junior man on the team, but always the first through the door. Hightower was now forty-five or so, but his eyes were still as bright and blue as a baby boy’s. He was razor lean and square-jawed. His hair was cut in a classic military high and tight; flecks of silver now blinked in the sandy blond. He was six one and two hundred pounds, not an ounce of it excess fat. He moved with confidence, walked with his broad chest leading the way. Court knew Zack was Texas born and bred, had joined the navy after college baseball, spent a decade on the storied SEAL Team Six before joining the CIA’s Special Activities Division as a Paramilitary Operations officer. Zack was smart and tough and sure of himself, exceptionally charming with the ladies, and popular with the guys.

  In short, a typical SEAL.

  “How ya been?” Hightower asked as he looked down to his own injury, a hand swollen at the knuckles. Court thought briefly about leaping off the chair and spearing the bigger man’s windpipe, but he knew the drugs in his system would slow his reflexes still. Zack didn’t seem worried about Court attacking, and Court figured Zack would know better than he did what was still pumping through his bloodstream.

  “Some days better than others, I guess.”

  “Scuttlebutt is you’re doing all right. You’ve run three to five ops a year for the past four years. All over the map. Making some pretty good bank is the word on the street. Langley thinks you smoked both of the Abubaker brothers, one in Syria and the next a few weeks later in Madrid. French intelligence says someone fitting your general description blew up half of French-speaking Europe last December. The Ukrainians are even running around saying you did that shit in Kiev. You didn’t, did you?”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear. How’d you guys find me?”

  Zack shrugged. “Echelon picked up some cell phone traffic from Sidorenko’s hoodlums. They have a code name for you, I guess, but some dipshit referred to you as ‘seryj muzhchina’ on an open line.”

  “Gray Man,” Court translated with a frustrated sigh. “Brilliant.”

  “Fucking geniuses, these Ivans,” said Zack sarcastically. “They said you’d be coming to see the boss today. NSA sent word to Langley; Langley passed it on to me.”

  Court nodded. “It’s shoot on sight, Zack. You drugged me just to bring me here to slap me around first?”

  “Nah, the SOS is officially on hold, at least while you and I have a little discussion. The ass-kicking? That’s personal.”

  “You call that an ass-kicking?”

  “Who says I’m done?”

  Court’s brown eyebrows drew together. “Back in Virginia. I shot you, point-blank. Forty-four caliber. I saw you go backwards out a window. Two stories down.”

  Zack grinned. Like a hyena, he smiled but did not look happy. “Don’t remind me. My vest caught the round, but I landed pretty fucking hard on an air-conditioning unit. Broke my pelvis in two places. Collarbone and a couple of ribs for good measure.” Zack winced as if he were remembering the event, until something popped into his memory. He added, “Never knew you to carry a Derringer.”

  “Never had cause to mention it. Good thing I didn’t.”

  Zack shrugged. “Depends on your point of view. To tell you the truth, I’d have loved to have known about it.”

  “So why were you guys there? What did I do?”

  Zack shrugged, like the answer was obvious. “Termination order from on high. You know how it is.”

  “No. Actually, I don’t. What the hell did I do wrong, Zack?” Court’s voice was plaintive.

  Hightower shrugged again. “Dunno. I’m just a worker bee. I got the term order on you, and I went to work that day, just like any other.”

  “Bullshit. They gave you a reason.”

  “Kid, when have I ever needed a reason to follow an order? I’m not like you, all navel-gazing and introspective. I do my shitty day job with a smile on my face.”

  Court was certain his former team leader was lying; no one at CIA would order an SAD field team leader to delete his own man without so much as an explanation, but he decided to let it go. “The men, the guys with you who jumped me tonight, they’re your new Goon Squad?”

  “More or less. Not Golf Sierra but Whiskey Sierra, so I’m still Sierra One. Bureaucratically we’re set up different than the old gang. Mission and rules of engagement are more restrictive these days. But basically it’s the same idea. My new crew consists of a couple of ex-SEALS, an ex-Delta, two SF guys who crossed over to CIA black ops way back when. Pretty good bunch, but certainly not Court Gentry caliber. You’ll always be my best door kicker.” He smiled. “You fucked Todd up pretty good: busted nose and a dislocated jaw.”

  “Sorry,” replied Court, but he didn’t mean it.

  “Shit happens.” Zack shrugged. Clearly he didn’t mean it either.

  “So why am I here?”

  Zack Hightower reached out for the ice bag, took it from Gentry’s face, and wrapped it over his swollen fist. “Abboud. President Bakri Ali Abboud.”

  TEN

  “What about him?”

  “You’re goin’ in to whack him on an op for Sid.”

  Court saw no point in playing dumb. If the CIA knew this much, they probably knew more details about Sid’s op at this point than Gentry did himself. “I haven’t agreed to anything.”

  “Yeah, well, you will. We want you to.”

  “What makes you think I give a shit what you want?”

  “Just listen to my spiel, kid. It’s that or the term order, so why not?”

  Court pulled the ice pack back, repositioned it lower, leaving his black eye uncovered but soothing the growing pain in his lip. From behind it he said, “I’m listening.”

  Hightower leaned forward. “Here’s the sit rep, kid.” Gentry was thirty-six years old, but Hightower had called him kid since the first day they met, eight years earlier. “We want you to take Sidorenko’s job, use the Ruskies to get into the Sudan. They have a solid op to get you in, better than anything we can orchestrate without using agency transportation and logistical assets, which we’re not allowed to do.”

  “And then?”

  “Then you make like you’re going to pop Abboud, but at the last second, we want you to snatch him.”

  “Kidnap him?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “And then?”

  “Then you pass him off to me and my boys. We’ll be on site, outta sight but close by. You hand him over to us and exfiltrate over water with my team.”

  “Why does the USA want Abboud? Washington wants to clean up the Darfur thing as much as anybody, and Abboud is almost single-handedly responsible.”

  “Yeah, he is, but POTUS and his people want Abboud sent to the International Criminal Court; he wants to hand over Abboud on a silver platter to them. There’s been an ICC arrest warrant on him for three years.”

  “I know. But whacking him will do it quicker and cleaner, with no CIA comebacks. You guys could have just let me do the hit for the Russians.”

  Zack chuckled. “I know, Court. Your prescription for any disease is a double dose of lead to the head. But it’s a new day in D.C., bro. The president and his crew at the White House are all into making nice with Europe, bolstering international institutions and all that shit. They want to take credit.”

  Court couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The White House actually wants to save Abboud’s life so that he can be turned over to the Euros?”

  Zack shrugged. “There’s more to it than that. Tit for tat, quid pro quo, and a bunch of other phrases I don’t get paid enough to understand but . . . basically . . . yeah.”

  Court shook his head, “Not like the old days, huh?”

  “Yeah, right?
Five years ago we would just whack whomever we needed to whack. To hell with the ICC. Listen, I’m with you; this seems like a lot of work just to hand the guy off to the fucking UN or whoever the fuck, but someone at Langley has convinced someone at the White House, who has convinced POTUS, that we have a surefire way to get hold of Abboud and deliver him to the ICC with no comebacks on us if it doesn’t go to plan.”

  “And that way is me,” Court said.

  “Exactly. Every intelligence agency worth its salt knows the CIA wants the Gray Man dead. So that makes you the epitome of plausible deniability. If this deal breaks bad, it won’t smell like a CIA op.”

  “This was the CIA’s idea?”

  “One hundred percent. SAD has been lying too low for our taste. CIA and military drones are buzzing around at thirty thousand feet, taking out bad guys left and right with their Hellfires, but Paramilitary Operations teams like Whiskey Sierra are just sitting around. The White House has restricted everything we do. Even our training regimen has suffered. We aren’t killing terrorists, we aren’t running in friendly countries, we aren’t wiping our asses unless we use extra soft TP. SAD needs this op to go ahead, to show POTUS that SAD’s Special Operations Group can still be viable in a kinder, gentler CIA. You are our proxy boy; you’ll take the risks, you’ll hand Abboud over to us, we’ll hand him over to the Justice Department, and they’ll hand him over to an appreciative International Criminal Court. POTUS and his risk-averse flunkies will give SAD more to do if they see how we can make his Euro fag buddies all warm and fuzzy by giving them Abboud tied in a bow. There isn’t a UAV out there that can kidnap someone. At least, not yet.”

  “What about Sidorenko?”

  “We pull it off, and Sid will just think you got whacked by us and we snatched Abboud in the same op. You don’t want to work for that caviar-sucking psychopath any longer, trust me. Even in comparison with the rest of the Russian mob, Greg Sidorenko and his Nazi henchmen are fucking loony tunes.”

  Court cocked his head to the side. “If you guys are going to be in theater for the handover, how are you going to ensure there are no comebacks to the CIA?”

  Zack waved his hand. “Details. We’ll lie low, spend most of our time in international waters, shoot in for the op. You’ll do the heavy lifting, and we’ll support you. CIA Sudan Station has an informant in Suakin who knows Abboud’s schedule for his trip there. This guy is involved in contingency planning for any emergencies; he knows the op orders for the president’s bodyguards and their tactics.”

  “How does that help me?”

  Zack smiled. “The security detail has a protocol for an attack when the president is making his morning walk to the mosque. If there is a threat while they’re in the square in front of the mosque, they take Abboud into the local bank and lock themselves in the vault until help arrives.”

  “And I am guessing you have a way to make them think there is some sort of a threat?”

  “Sudan Station does. They have a force of one hundred Sudanese Liberation Army rebels who can hit Suakin at six thirty-five a.m. on Sunday, ten April. Exactly when Abboud and his entourage hit the square. The president and some of his close protection detail will enter the bank, which of course will be empty.”

  “But it won’t be empty.”

  Zack smiled and nodded aggressively, “You got it. You’ll be in there, ready to disable the guard force and snatch Abboud, get him out of town while the SLA blows some shit up and jumps around for a few minutes, distracting the locals and the rest of Abboud’s team. Then you meet up with me for the handoff.” It was clear Hightower was excited by the operation; his hands and his body had not stopped moving since he’d begun his explanation.

  Court sat there silently for a moment, then asked, “Is this where I start clapping?”

  “This is a good plan, Six. Operation Nocturne Sapphire, we’re calling it.”

  “A thrill just went up my leg,” said Court sarcastically, still unfazed by Zack’s vigor.

  “But the best part is the deal I’ve been authorized to offer you.”

  Gentry looked at his former team leader a long time before speaking. “The CIA has wanted me on a slab for four years. What kind of deal could you offer that would interest me?”

  “No slab, for starters. We call off the dogs. Not just CIA, but Interpol, too.”

  “Interpol doesn’t scare me.”

  “I know they don’t. You don’t scare easy. Never did. But I know what does scare the Gray Man.”

  “What scares me, Zack?”

  “We scare you. Wouldn’t you like to be free of us? Free of the shoot-on-sight sanction? I know what your life is like, bro. People talk about the Gray Man like you’re some sort of flashy-assed James Bond, jet-setting around the world, partying at the best clubs, and drinking martinis with the beautiful people on the Côte d’Azur. But I know what it’s really like: living on the run, bouncing from one shit splat town to the next, no one loves you, no one likes you, no one fucking knows you. Always looking into the shadows for crazy motherfuckers like me hunting you down. Eating beans out of a can in a stairwell in a roach-infested flophouse while the real tuxedo crowd is around the corner dining on lobster tail at the Four Seasons.”

  Truer words had never been spoken, but Court was not about to give Zack the satisfaction of admitting he was right.

  “I like beans.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t like any of it, except the job. The job is you. The rest is just your fucked-up temporary predicament. I know the score, Sierra Six. Being the Gray Man sucks.”

  “So let me guess. You’re here to take me away from all that?”

  “Damn right. I can keep you on the job, but you won’t be hunted anymore, at least by us.”

  “On the job? Working for who?”

  “The CIA, of course.” Zack reached across and held Court’s face by the chin, turned it from side to side. “I thought we just covered that. What, did I hit you too hard?” He took the ice pack from Gentry and returned it to his hand.

  Court said, “I do this gig in Sudan for you, but after that, you’re offering full-time work? Just like the last four years didn’t happen? Everything goes back to the way it was in the old days?”

  “Negative. I’m offering contract work. Keeps Langley’s hands clean, and it pays a damn sight better than a real government salary.” He smiled. “We want you back.” Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Well, let me rephrase that. I’m not talking about a desk and a reserved parking space at Langley. That doesn’t happen to guys like you. CIA won’t acknowledge working with the Gray Man. But from time to time we run into situations where I hear people say, ‘Sure wish Sierra Six was still here, instead of out in bumble fuck, doin’ private hits for pimps and drug dealers.’ I swear, we miss you sometimes.”

  He paused before saying, “You always were the best. We want you alive, Court. Doing the dirty jobs under a false flag.”

  “How do I know you aren’t just going to kill me when the Sudan op is done?”

  “Because we need you. We aren’t asking you to go raise daffodils in Iowa in the Witness Protection Program here. We want you to keep doing what you’re doing, living out here in the cold, and we’ll keep up the front that we’re still after your ass. Look, this shit is in your blood, and the agency can still use you, despite your fuckup in ’06. Washington won’t let the SAD get its hands dirty these days. But if we play this right, we can let you get the dirty hands, and we can support you. It’s fucking perfect, man. Like coke off a whore’s ass. Know what I’m saying?”

  Court shook his head slowly. “Not really, no.”

  “Look, you act all cynical, but I know you. You are a patriot, kiddo. You piss red, white, and blue. The White House has a need, I have a need, you have a need. We can all help each other.” He grinned. “Everybody wins.”

  The discussion steered to the potential operation for several minutes. Zack had an answer ready for every question Gentry posed. When there were no other operation
al details left to go over, Court grabbed the ice pack back from Hightower and pressed it to the swollen flesh on his face. Zack looked at it longingly a moment but did not reach for it. Behind the ice pack Court said, “I need to hear this deal from somebody above you.”

  “Like who?” asked Hightower with no appearance of surprise.

  “I’d settle for Mathew Hanley. I figure our old supervisor is probably running SAD now, if not higher up than that.”

  “Matt’s out of SAD. Riding a desk in South America last I heard. Paraguay, maybe?”

  Court did not hide his puzzlement. “He used to be the wunderkind of black ops. What happened?”

  “You happened, fucko. Having one of his door kickers go nuts and shoot up his own squad didn’t help his ascendancy to the top.”

  “So I get blamed for that, too?”

  “History is written by the victors. You may have survived, sorta, but the CIA is still around to write the official version of what you did and why.”

  Court thought a moment. Finally he just repeated himself: “I need to hear this deal from someone above you.”

  Hightower nodded. “That’s cool. Sit tight, and I’ll be back.”

  Court was given his clothing back. He dressed, and then he waited.

  ELEVEN

  Over an hour later two of Zack’s men returned to the room where Court was being held. He’d spent the time massaging ice into his face. He wondered how he was going to explain the obvious bruising to his Russian colleagues /captors. Two of Zack’s men, one big and black and the other older and white, led him down a narrow and low hallway, past water and steam pipes, up a narrow flight of stairs, and into a room on the upper deck. Zack’s men didn’t like Court, that much was plain by their eat shit looks and the way they bumped him with their muscular bodies to get him to turn into the new room. Gentry recognized that taking down one of their team with a cracking shot to the face wasn’t going to endear him to these hardy boys.