“Negative. The guy running me is untrustworthy. I might just go it alone from here on out.”

Now Hanley put his glass down. “If you were going it alone, we wouldn’t be talking. What do you need?”

“Not sure how much I should tell you, actually.”

“The line is clean, but you know that. You don’t know how much you should tell me so that I maintain plausible deniability over what you are about to do. Is that it?”

“In a nutshell.”

“Well . . . maybe keep it vague. Theoretical. Hypothetical.”

Court breathed into the phone a moment. Then, “Let’s say an opportunity arose where someone could eliminate a very bad actor at the center of a very bad situation.”

Hanley looked around for the waiter, and when the two men met eyes, the big man lifted his empty wine bottle. He had a feeling he was going to need some more alcohol in the next few minutes. Court was talking about assassinating Ahmed Azzam; there was no question in Hanley’s mind. He controlled his own breathing and said, “Go on.”

“The elimination of this bad actor might well help things . . . but it might not have any real effect. Who knows . . . things could conceivably get worse.”

“The future’s hard to predict.”

“That’s right. I guess I’m trying to decide, should this person in a position to do this thing to this bad actor act . . . or should he wait for someone with more knowledge of the situation to decide if the elimination of the bad actor is the right thing to do?”

Hanley said, “You want a vague answer?”

“I want an ironclad thumbs-up or thumbs-down, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“You are after my blessing, then.”

“Something like that . . . I guess.”

“Well, kid, I can’t just give you carte blanche to delete anyone in the world you want to delete. Officially or unofficially.”

“I understand.”

“Having said that,” Hanley continued, “I’ve learned over the years that you have pretty fair judgment.”

Court did not reply to this.

“And . . . if the question is, ‘do we take a bad actor off the game table, even if we don’t know what will come next,’ I kinda have a philosophy about that.”

“I’d be very interested in your philosophy, Matt.”

Hanley kept his voice low as his eyes flitted about the room. “If a bad guy gets dead, well, it might make the next bad guy think a little bit. It might not, there’s no silver bullet to fix every problem, but at the end of the day, a little street justice, an eye for an eye . . . well, that might be the most sure thing there is out there to hold back the monsters.”

There was a long pause. “I’ve been thinking pretty much the same thing.”

“I know you have. And you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. Officially speaking, though, I haven’t said shit, and you have not been tasked. You got that?”

“Got it.”

The connection crackled for several seconds.

“Court, old buddy, I’ve got a rib eye staring me down here.”

“I’ll let you get back to your steak. Sorry to bother you.”

“You kidding? Between you and me, this little phone call has made my week.”

“Guess that means you had a shitty week.”

“I’d say you have no idea, but you probably do.” Hanley sipped water now. “Your mom misses you.”

“Suzanne Brewer’s definitely not my mom, and I doubt she misses me. She probably was hoping I hadn’t checked in because I got hit by a bus.”

“Brewer knows she’s not that lucky.” Hanley laughed aloud, then adopted an authoritative tone. “I want to hear back from you again, soon. You copy? We still have an arrangement, if you remember.”

“Copy. Let me figure out my current predicament, then I’ll reach out.”

“Put a couple weeks in between,” Hanley said. “For the sake of plausible deniability.”

“Will do.”

Hanley added, “I guess I’ll keep one eye on the news for a few days to see what the hell you’re up to. Be careful, kid. Come through whole, okay?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Hanley disconnected the call and immediately put a call in to a number he had stored on his phone. It went directly to a desk at the Pentagon, and a watch officer answered on the first ring and sent Hanley’s call on from there.

While he waited for the transfer, he picked up his fork and took a bite of his sherry-glazed mushrooms. As he looked around the room, it occurred to him that no one else sitting in the restaurant could have possibly guessed that the thickly built man dining alone had just given tacit approval to the assassination of the president of Syria.

CHAPTER 66

Court Gentry sat alone in Captain Anderson’s hooch for twenty minutes, drinking water, eating rations, and waiting. A Green Beret medic came in and cleaned and stitched the vicious cut he’d received over his right ear from the exploding windshield glass in Damascus, then wrapped Court’s head with a dressing.

Finally the captain came through the door, followed by two other members of his A-team. He introduced them as Danny, a master sergeant, and Cliff, a first sergeant. Court did not introduce himself but shook their hands.

Once this was done, Robby said, “All right, mystery man. I’ve been told to hand you over whatever you want, equipment-wise, food-and water-wise, et cetera, and follow your instructions. I am then ordered to forget I ever saw you. Not sure if that means you have friends back at Langley, or enemies.”

“Yeah, our relationship status is complicated.”

Robby said, “We are staying here for the next several weeks, so unless you want to join our op, you’ll need to get extracted somehow. If your friends in high places can scare up transport for you, I’ll certainly get you safely to your LZ.”

Court shook his head. “Thanks, but I don’t need babysitters.”

“Sir, you’re smack-dab in what’s left of ISIS country.”

“Well, that blows. My travel agent said this was a clothing-optional resort.”

All three men laughed, but to Court it still appeared they were regarding him as if he were a unicorn. Robby said, “Seriously, you aren’t going anywhere without a lot of help.” Cliff unrolled a large satellite photo of the area and put it on a table in his hooch. He showed Court where they were in the hills, a few hours’ drive south of the highway where he’d been captured. “The FSA has technicals, but you’ll need a helicopter. The Iraqi border is one hundred twenty-five klicks east. The Turkish border is three times that to the north.”

Court just looked at the Army men. “I’ll be heading northwest, actually. To Palmyra.”

All three looked up from the sat photo. Robby said, “Now why would a smart fella like you go and do a thing like that?”

Court shrugged. “Work.”

Cliff said, “We’ve had our drone up north. Not to Palmyra, but east, over the M20. We’ve been seeing all the activity. A couple days ago the Iranians moved out of the area, then the SAA moved in, and yesterday the militia pushed east along the highway. We even spotted some Russian attack helos. You know anything about what’s going on?”

Court nodded. As far as he was concerned, an American A-team right here a few hours’ drive from enemy lines should know as much as possible about what was going on. “Ahmed Azzam is going to be visiting a small Russian Spetsnaz base located about two klicks east of Palmyra tomorrow, probably in the morning.”

“What Russian base?” the men asked simultaneously, and this surprised Court.

“You don’t know of a Russian base along the M20?”

Court looked down to the photo and put his finger on the place where he’d seen the nucleus of the security operation. “I saw it on an enemy map right here. Just north of the M20 highway. Also, there is something they want protected down here.”

Court remembered the “dumbbell” on the map and traced his finger down. There, displayed on the photo, were a few bombed-out buildings and the unmistakable shape of a single runway. “What’s this?”

“It was the Palmyra airport. It’s been shuttered for years. Since ISIS came in. The SAA hasn’t reopened it.”

“How old is this image?” he asked.

Danny checked the back. “Almost a month. That’s so far out of our sector we haven’t updated it. Mostly we use our UAVs for real intelligence, not sat images.”

Court’s eyes were on the airfield. “Holy shit!” he said aloud, as it came to him. “Not only is that airport back open, but I think the Russians are running it.”

Robby was incredulous. “Where are you getting this intel?”

Court said, “Can’t say. But I can say I’m pretty sure I’m right.”

Robby looked at him. “And you want to go there?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘want to.’ More like ‘have to.’”

Danny said, “Shit, sir, I wanna be you when I grow up.”

Court shook his head. “You really do not, Sergeant.”

Cliff looked to his senior officer. “Hey, Rob. What about hooking him up with the Terp? He’s from Palmyra.”