Mission Critical
The CIA officer took the gun with a confused expression, then held it up to examine it carefully.
Court knew what this jackass must have been thinking right now. The Ruger Amphibian wasn’t a pistol fielded by CIA case officers, security staff, or normally even paramilitaries. No . . . it was a weapon with only one obvious purpose.
It was an assassin’s tool.
The CIA officer’s eyes were wider now as he looked back to the man in the ball cap sitting in the dark. After clearing his throat nervously, he said, “Is . . . is that all?”
Court replied, “You’re not getting my nail file.”
The standing man recovered slowly, still holding the silenced pistol up for inspection. “I don’t like this shit one bit.”
Court yawned. “Dude, I don’t know what your problem is, but it sure as hell isn’t me.”
The CIA officer turned away and headed up to the front. Court watched him place the .22 in the closet by the cabin door and then leave the aircraft.
* * *
• • •
A minute later Court looked on while the other men boarded. Two burly bearded guys, both with HK short-barreled rifles on their chests. Next came another large CIA man, and he held on to a smaller individual who shuffled into the aircraft with a black bag over his head, his wrists and ankles shackled. Behind them came the man who had disarmed Court along with one more bearded CIA officer.
The prisoner was led into a seat by the front and bracketed by two of the fit bearded officers.
In the back of the cabin, Court Gentry watched it all, and he recognized what was going on. They were taking this dude to the UK. Probably to MI6, British foreign intelligence. This was a rendition, a detainee handoff to another nation.
Before sitting down in the front half of the cabin most of the Americans gave Court “eat shit” looks. Court gazed back at them impassively, then rolled his eyes a little before closing them yet again.
The plane took off from Findel into a starry night.
CHAPTER 1
While an evening rain threatened outside, inside the well-appointed three-car-garage gym a woman worked out alone. With her shoulder-length brunette hair tied in a ponytail, a blue American University T-shirt, and gray yoga pants, she did push-ups and crunches, pounded and kicked a heavy bag, and slung dumbbells, all before heading over to the climbing ropes.
The garage ceiling was just ten feet up, so the ropes weren’t very high, but they were three feet apart and a challenge to climb. The woman grasped them both with gloved hands and began ascending, one hand grabbing and pulling while the other slid up the opposite rope to a higher position, then closed down in a viselike grip to heave her body higher.
Her arms and back and shoulders did all the work; she let her feet hang, swinging back and forth as she climbed, using her upper body for power. At the ceiling she shifted both hands to the same rope and climbed down.
Immediately she started back up again on both ropes.
While she worked out, a muscular bald-headed man in a Windbreaker and cargo pants looked in on her from time to time from his position on the driveway. He wore a Beretta pistol on a utility belt around his waist, as well as handcuffs, Mace, and a radio. Beyond him in the woods another man strolled with a rifle across his chest.
As the woman dropped down after her fourth time up the ropes she doubled forward and put her hands on her knees, struggling to catch her breath.
The bald man on the driveway chided her. “Suck it up, snowflake! Back at BUD/s we had to climb a rope three times higher, five times, after about a thousand push-ups.”
She faced away from him, but she took one hand off a knee and flipped him the middle finger over her shoulder.
The man looked at her rear end, covered in the yoga pants. “Anytime, sugar.”
The woman ignored him, put her hands on the floor, and kicked her feet up into a handstand. In this position she slowly walked her hands the length of the garage, her arms straining. Steadying her body against the back wall, she did a few handstand press-ups.
A minute after this she unhooked the heavy bag from its chain and hefted all 120 pounds of it onto her shoulder. With it she ran across the three-car garage, from one wall to the other, spun, and ran back.
She completed the circuit ten times.
As the woman dropped the bag onto the ground for a moment’s rest, she knelt again with her hands to her knees and her chest heaving. Through her labored breaths she heard a transmission through the walkie-talkie on the leering guard’s utility belt. The muscular man responded through the radio, then called out to her.
“You ready, sunshine? I’ll take you to your room to change first.”
Zoya Zakharova grabbed her towel and her bottle of water, and she headed for the door to the safe house.
* * *
• • •
A minute later they walked down a long, brightly lit basement hallway. The security officer said, “Just you and me down here in holding tonight between twenty-two hundred hours to sunup. That means I have access to all the cams, and all the keys.” He turned to look at her but she kept walking, her eyes ahead and her face covered with sweat. “I’ve also got access to a couple bottles of cabernet I brought in my kit bag. I could flip off any video evidence, come to your room after lights out, and you and I could have ourselves a pretty sweet evening.”
Zoya kept walking. She answered him in perfect English, with no hint of any accent. “William, my answer was a polite ‘no’ the first ten times you propositioned me, and then a firm ‘no’ the next ten times. Do you really want to find out what comes next?”
“I can handle whatever you can dish out, sugar.” He said it with a confident smile.
The brunette let out a little laugh as she walked. “You’re something out of a bad movie.”
“So . . . that’s a maybe? Girl, you gotta be lonely cooped up in here for four months.”
She did look at him now, eyed him up and down as they walked. “Not that lonely.”
The man didn’t seem to take offense, but he said, “You know, I defend you to the other guys, but they’re right about you. You really are mean as a snake.”
Zoya looked straight ahead as she headed to her room. “That’s the thing about snakes, William. They aren’t mean. They just prefer to be left alone.”
Zoya showered and changed into jeans and a black George Washington University sweatshirt. Her hair was still pulled back, and she walked with William to a third-floor library in the nine-thousand-square-foot CIA safe house. Two more security men stood outside the door, and they opened it for Zoya, who entered alone.
CIA Programs and Plans officer Suzanne Brewer was already seated at the table in the center of the room, a pair of thermoses of hot tea positioned in front of her. A hand rested atop a thick brown folder. She was forty-one years old, with blond hair just past her shoulders, and wore a navy blue business suit that fit her lean frame perfectly. Her glasses were functional, not stylish, and she held the tip of a pen to her mouth, then took it away to speak.