Hanley sighs again. I imagine he’s recirculated more air in whatever room he’s in than the HVAC system has in the last ten minutes. He says, “That’s how this works. That’s how any intelligence operation works. Court, you know better than anybody how to play this game! You work with the biggest shitheads on the planet so you can go after some other big shithead. That’s your own business model, is it not?”

I don’t answer this, because I hate it when he’s right.

“Isn’t it?” he shouts again.

It’s quiet for ten seconds, until Zack breaks the still. “Six, I love the sound you make when you shut the fuck up.”

Hanley speaks again. “And here you are, telling me the right thing for me to do is to roll up the Director and give up vital national interests: intel on terror groups, opposition dictators, warlords, drug cartels. Sorry, Court, I love you, man, but you need to get off your goddamned high horse. What the Agency does on a large scale, you do on a small scale.”

Again, I sit quietly.

But he keeps going. “That time you dealt with the biggest cartel in Sinaloa . . . Remind me, did you bring them down, or did you use their resources to help you bring down someone else?”

He has a point. A strong point. An unassailable point. But I’m not in a conciliatory mood.

“Look,” I say, but he talks over me.

“Just today. Just today, Violator! Who did you meet with in Venice? I bet it was your buddy Luigi Alfonsi, wasn’t it?”

He’s wrong, I met with Alfonsi’s security chief, but I don’t quibble.

“You know what they’re up to? Gun running, drug running, immigrant running. A boat linked to them just last month sank in the Med; thirty-eight Libyans were on it. They still haven’t picked all the dead kids out of the water.”

Everyone in the Falcon looks towards me, ready for my brilliant rejoinder to Hanley’s reasoning. But all I can say is, “Fuck you, Matt.”

Matthew Hanley is the deputy director for operations for the CIA; he has every right to hang up the phone in the face of some foul-mouthed and insubordinate contract agent, but he does not.

Not because he loves me or respects me.

But because he needs me. He needs me to come home and work for him and be the best fucking killer of men on the planet.

And I know it, which means I know I can lose the argument on the merits, and win the argument with leverage.

And he knows it, too. He says, “Look, son. I respect you for what you are trying to do. But you will die trying, and you won’t fix anything. I can’t have you dying. I mean . . . not unless it’s on one of my ops.”

He snorts out a laugh at the end, but he’s not kidding, and I’m not laughing.

Neither are the others on board, because they all know Matt Hanley would sacrifice them for a greater good without a moment’s hesitation. We all knew it when we signed up for this shit, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we want him joking around about it.

After a few uncomfortable seconds, I say, “There is an American psychologist who works for the Consortium. I know her name. I know where she lives. And I know where she is going to be for the next several days.”

The speakers are silent for a moment, and then Hanley says, “Let me just get out ahead of you here. Request denied.”

Dick. “This is not a request, Matt.”

“Oh, really? So . . . what? This is the point where you take down seven highly trained paramilitaries and an armed flight attendant, all by your lonesome, in the cabin of a midsized executive jet, then hijack the aircraft and fly below the radar around the globe until you land on some out-of-the-way American airstrip? FaceTime me while I get the popcorn, because this I’ve gotta see.”

“No, Matt. I’m not fighting anybody. You are going to let me do what I need to do.”

“And why would I?”

“You may have me in pocket, but you don’t have my associate. I’ve been working with someone else on this, and even if you have her name, you don’t know where she is right now. If I don’t contact her in six hours”—I take a quick look at my watch—“sorry, five hours and twelve minutes, then she is going to call your good friend Catherine King at the Washington Post and tell her an amazing tale about how the CIA is propping up a sex trafficker.”

“We’re not propping him up, we’re just—”

“We’ve got the evidence of the relationship, that’s all we need. Do you think the Post is going to tell your side of it, or are they going to tell the most sensational version they can?”

Hanley doesn’t answer me. He hates it when I’m right.

I continue. “I don’t want to do that, and you know I don’t. But I will do it, and you know I will.”

Hightower leans over closer to the speakerphone. “Say the word, Matt, and I’ll toss this prick out of the plane without a chute.”

But Zack winks at me after saying this, letting me know he’s just sucking up to his boss.

I’m surrounded by nutjobs.

When Hanley doesn’t reply, I say, “My associate has banking records tying Dr. Claudia Riesling to the trafficking ring. There is also one of the heads of the Consortium, a South African. I saw him. His first name might be Jaco, but I can’t be certain. He was on the boat that transported a shipment of victims to an auction in Venice, where they were sold off into slavery. My associate knows this, too. Shit, Matt, the Post won’t write about anything else for a fucking month!”

“What is it you want, son?”

“I want to get off this aircraft in D.C., unmolested. I want to walk away.”

Hanley hesitates a long time, but that feels promising to me. His “hell nos” come quickly. His reluctant “yeses” take a minute.

Eventually he says, “Approved, under conditions. Is that it?”

He knows that’s not it. “No. I want Hightower, Travers, and four more Ground Branch guys at my disposal for seventy-two hours.”

Hanley laughs now, and I worry I just overplayed my hand. “That request is denied. They’re not your men to use, and you certainly can’t use them in the States.” He pauses, and I wait him out. Finally, he says, “But I’ll talk to Romantic privately. We might be able to throw you a bone. Again, with conditions.”

I’m not sure what he means by this, but it sounds like more than I had hoped for originally.

“What are the conditions?” I ask.

“You won’t find the Director; this guy is as good as anyone on the planet at insulating himself from his operations. That’s why he’s been informing on international criminals for ten years and he’s not taking a dirt nap in some gully somewhere. And it’s why we don’t know who he is.