Mission Critical
Hanley immediately spread the word that everyone around the castle needed to get to a hospital, now, to begin a course of antibiotics, and then he was loaded into a U.S. Navy helicopter, along with Brewer, Zakharova, Gentry, Hightower, and the surviving Ground Branch men: Travers, Lorenzi, and Greer, who had all been wounded. They were flown west to the USS Forest Sherman, an Arleigh Burke–class destroyer just off the Scottish coast.
Everyone in the group received antibiotic infusions as soon as the helo landed, and everyone save for Hightower and Hanley had been wounded, so they all spent time in the sick bay. Court’s hand was X-rayed and it was determined that he didn’t need surgery, but they put a proper cast on it and supplied him with mild painkillers that made his life a little easier, though all he did was worry about Zoya.
* * *
• • •
The last surviving attendee of the Five Eyes conference received their first dose of antibiotics eight hours after the end of the event, virtually the last moment for the incubation period of the strain of plague created by Dr. Won Jang-Mi. These were followed by infusions the following day and a multiweek course of oral medicines.
* * *
• • •
The day after the attack at the castle ended, Matt Hanley stepped into Suzanne Brewer’s private room off the sick bay. She was on her back in bed, her neck heavily bandaged, and she wore glasses and stared blankly at the TV.
She turned to him with some difficulty. “Hi, Matt. Nice of you to come.”
Hanley entered, closed the door, and sat down next to the bed. “They say you’ll be fine.”
“They say I was lucky. Didn’t even break any bones. But I don’t feel so lucky. My own asset shooting me.”
“Zoya says you were targeting Gentry.”
Brewer chuckled. “Look, she made an honest mistake, I get that. She saw me with the gun and—”
Hanley interrupted. “Suzanne. We are not going to talk about this, you and me, ever again. But I want you to understand one thing. If Court dies on your watch, and I have any suspicions, any at all that his death wasn’t in the normal course of operations . . . I send Zack over to your house. You might want to keep that in mind.”
“Wait. Christ, Matt. You believe her?”
Hanley just stared down at Brewer.
“Matt, for God’s sake, I didn’t—”
Hanley interrupted again. “I’m not accusing you of anything, although I have an opinion on what Zakharova said. Next time you might be thinking about some little scheme, do yourself a favor and think about Zack Hightower, and see if that doesn’t calm you down a bit.”
“But—”
Hanley waved a hand through the air and left the room. On his way out he said, “Get better. I want you back at your desk pronto. Poison Apple needs to go back to work soon.”
Brewer stared at the ceiling in the low light, wishing that those fucking bombs had ended her interminable misery.
* * *
• • •
Zoya was in surgery during much of the first afternoon, and then overnight she was put in ICU. She was finally rolled into a room around eleven a.m. the next day. Court hadn’t spoken to her since she’d passed out in the basement, and there was nothing else on Earth that he wanted to do more right now.
He went in for another round of antibiotics and was given a bottle with sixty pills in it and told to take three a day. After he asked about her, the doctor told him Anthem had been moved to a room. Court was given directions and he descended a ladder and followed a passageway, but when he turned a corner to the room, he saw Zack Hightower standing there, wearing a U.S. Navy sweatshirt and sweatpants. He saw Court and put up a hand.
“Dude . . . forget her.”
“What?”
“I just checked on her. She’s fine, but . . . but she does not want to talk to you. She’s pissed. No . . . she’s more than pissed. Funny enough, it’s not about the fact you stitched her up with a burst from a subgun. It’s about—”
“It’s about me killing her father.”
“Yep.”
“She wanted to do it.”
“Yeah, she did. You did the right thing, but she’s not gonna see that. Ever. She saw it as her cross to bear for her brother. Not yours to take from her.”
“I just need to talk to her and—”
“No, man. Let it rest for now. Maybe somewhere down the road when it’s not so raw you can—”
Court started to push past Hightower, but the bigger man held him firm. “I’m lookin’ out for you, brother. If it’s gonna work with you two, it sure as shit isn’t gonna happen today. I talked to her, I saw the look in her eyes. Nothing good will come from you goin’ through that door right now, I can promise you that.
“Stand down, Six. Let this rest.”
Court looked at Hightower a long moment, and then he stood down. After several seconds more he turned and began walking away, his shoulders low.
“You outta here, brother?”
“Yep,” Court replied. “Getting on a launch back to Scotland in an hour.”
“Then what?”
Court stopped. Seemed to think about it. “Solo for a while, I guess. All this teamwork shit is a complicated pain in the ass.”
Zack chuckled. “Watch your six, Violator.”
Court turned away and headed off up the passageway again. “You be careful out there, too.” He paused. Then said, “Night Train.”
Zack pumped a fist into the air in excitement, but Court didn’t look back to catch it.
EPILOGUE
A light but steady rain fell out of the gray morning sky, over the blue and white fishing boat bobbing in the water next to an impossibly green spit of land. There was no marina here in Loch Crenen, just an old clapboard dock, half-rotten through time, sticking out barely far enough for the trawler to tie on without running ashore.
The weather here in the western coastal highlands was predictably dreary, and the captain walked around on deck securing lines to set sail without acknowledging the fact that his face and hair were drenched.
He’d been living this life for thirty years, after all, and he knew no other.
A mile or so to the southeast, a small twin turbo prop took off from Oban Airport, banked through the gray rain, and disappeared in a puff of mist.
While the captain continued preparing for the voyage, a man standing motionless on the foredeck of the trawler watched the aircraft fly away through the droplets dripping in front of his eyes off the hood of his raincoat.