Back Blast

51

Court opened up the throttle on his Yamaha 650 as soon as he turned south on I-95. He wasn’t sure where he was going, only that he needed to get the hell out of D.C., at least for the time being. He planned on finding a new hide, somewhere within a half hour to an hour’s drive of the District, and someplace one hell of a lot more secure than Arthur Mayberry’s basement apartment.

Although he wasn’t sure where he was going, he wasn’t exactly flying blind. He knew this stretch of highway, because the HQ of the Goon Squad had been in Norfolk and he’d lived in Virginia Beach, both just to the southeast. He’d driven up I-95 to D.C. from time to time on training evolutions, either to practice surveillance in Old Town Alexandria or around the National Mall near the Capitol building.

He passed Prince William Forest Park on his right, the marine barracks of Quantico on his left, and he continued another few minutes until he saw a turnoff for the Stafford Regional Airport. Instantly an idea came to him. Court had learned to fly light aircraft here, a long time ago, admittedly, but he remembered the facility, more or less. Security had been lax around the airport at the time, so he thought there was a chance he could hide out somewhere on the property, either in a hangar or a utility room, or perhaps even in the comfort of a private aircraft. It was a thin plan, because he hadn’t visited the location in some fifteen years, but he knew if he continued on too much longer he’d be in Fredericksburg, and he had no intention of setting up his new hide in a developed area.

He exited I-95 and headed towards the airport.

As soon as he began riding along the chain-link fence to the airport property he decided his impromptu plan wasn’t going to pan out like he’d hoped. It was a small airfield with only one runway and just a half dozen or so buildings, and security appeared much tighter than what he remembered. He knew he could wait till nightfall and gain access to the grounds, but it wasn’t yet nine a.m. and he did not want to waste an entire day lying low, only to spend the whole evening developing a new hide. No, Court had things to do; he needed to find a new home right now so that tonight he could act.

Once he passed the airport he started to turn around to head back to I-95, but a lonely gravel road off to his right caught his eye. He didn’t see a single structure on either side of the road, only oak and pine and thick brush, but he imagined the road led to someplace where no one would be looking for him, and for now, at least, that was good enough.

Court remembered flying low over these woods, all those years ago. His flight instructor, a retired Air Force jet jockey who taught single-engine piloting to CIA operators, had pointed out the roofs of a few wooden houses, far away from any noticeable roads. He’d told Court there had once been a Civil War camp in the woods, and a few broken-down battlements and other structures remained from that era.

Now Court wondered if he could find the old buildings and use them as some sort of shelter.

After only a few minutes of driving north on the gravel road the sky opened up and heavy rain began to fall again.

He saw a narrow gravel footpath that led off the road, and not a soul in sight, so he made the turn, driving deeper now into the forest. Another two minutes on the road and he found himself looking for any access into the dense woods so he could get under the protection of a tree and out of the rain. But as he peered deep in the woods he saw, on both sides of the footpath, low stone fences that looked like they were at least from the Civil War era, if not well before. He continued on because he wouldn’t be able to get his bike up and over the stone barriers.

The path ran along a creek and then ended at the remnants of a washed-out wooden footbridge over the water. A sign on a pole told Court this was Accokeek Creek, and the 11th Union Army had spent the winter of 1863 camped nearby. Court’s interest in the Civil War was surpassed by his interest in survival, so he worried he might have wandered into some sort of historic park that attracted visitors. But if he had, he was all but certain he’d come in through a back entrance, and he had the distinct impression there was no one around for miles.

Court turned off his bike’s engine and rolled it to the creek’s edge, then began pushing it upstream along the bank to get around the stone fence and find some cover from the storm.

He found the woods thicker here than he’d first thought, so he continued moving on the creek’s edge, knowing he had succeeded in finding a remote location in which to hide, but wondering if he had overachieved by getting too far away from civilization to be practical. He’d been in search of a roof, and it seemed now he’d have to settle for a fallen tree or maybe just foliage with thick leaves.

His mood darkened with the frustration growing in him.

After a time he found evidence of an old set of stone stairs rising out of the creek and up a hill. They were barely visible under the brush along the creek bed, but it made him wonder if more development was close by. He pushed himself and his motorcycle up into the woods and away from the water.

As he climbed he saw that, although this path had long ago been cleared of trees, it had not been used in some time, and the farther he got from the creek, the deeper the grasses and foliage grew.

He’d gone no more than fifty feet when, ahead and off to the right of the overgrown path, he saw something big looming in the woods. He looked closer, then he rubbed rainwater out of his eyes to do a double take.

It was a two-story building, covered with vines and surrounded by oak trees. The first floor seemed to be made of stacked stone, and the second floor and the steeply pitched roof were wood plank, much of it bowed or rotten.

Court left his bike where it was and pushed into the trees to investigate the building.

The door had a lock on it, but that wasn’t going to slow Court down, because the door was lying on its side on the porch, ten feet from where it had once been affixed in the doorway.

The stone steps up to the porch were covered in vines but good and solid. Not so the porch itself, which sagged down several inches when he stepped on it. He moved along the edges until he found a crossbeam under the rotten wood, then walked along this like a tightrope to the door.

He stepped through the doorway and into a large, dark room.

This was an abandoned grain mill; he could tell from the setup. It was at least as old as the Civil War battlements supposedly out here in the forest, but probably unrelated to the 1863 encampment of Union forces. The big, dark room was open to the elements because of all the windows and the missing door, and he could hear dripping rainwater here inside, but the roof high above him seemed mostly intact.

He pulled his flashlight from his pack and walked the beam all along the inside. A small amount of graffiti on the wall and the beams above, and a larger amount of twentieth-century trash, told him he hadn’t discovered anything that had not been discovered hundreds of times by others, but he had serious doubts anyone happened by here with any regularity.

It was a roof over his head, and it was nothing if not secluded, but this wasn’t going to be comfortable, at least not until he scrounged up a few more items.

He looked at his watch. It had taken him a little less than an hour to travel here from D.C., which made this a suitable location as far as he was concerned.

This was now home.

He dropped his pack against a wall and changed into dry blue jeans and a mostly dry dark gray thermal shirt. He didn’t have any more socks other than the ones he was wearing, which, like his tennis shoes, were soaking wet, so he just told himself to forget about any real comfort and be glad for what he had.

When he was settled in, meaning sitting on a raincoat with his back against the wall, a tiny fire for warmth in front of him, he pulled out his smartphone and began calling up CNN and a few newswire services on the Internet.

It took him fewer than five minutes of surfing to come across the Washington Post article purporting to have information about a homegrown terrorist targeting the Central Intelligence Agency.

Court almost ignored it, thinking it was going to be nothing more than a bunch of bullshit conjecture, just like everything he’d seen during the daytime hours of CNN and the other cable networks. A bunch of people who knew nothing about the event pontificating just to fill airtime. But quickly he realized the writer of this article had spoken with CIA personnel. Key personnel, in fact.

Soon Court was certain Denny Carmichael had been involved in the background interview the reporter cited as her principal source.

He read through to the end of the article, and now Court’s jaw muscles tensed and he looked up from his screen, furious.

They were making him out to be nothing more than a delusional psycho who held an imaginary grudge against the CIA, who then bumbled over to the Middle East for training and support before returning home to begin his reign of terror.

Court scrolled back up to the top of the article looking for the byline. Catherine King. An e-mail address and phone number were listed as well.

Court decided he wanted to talk to King to find out about the access she’d been granted and the people she’d interviewed. This might help him learn of others involved in his situation, someone he could target next.

But Court knew something else, as well. The CIA had planted intel in the article so that he would do just that.

Court shook his head in disbelief. All these years, all this cat and mouse, and Denny Carmichael still thought Court was just some knuckle-dragging door-kicker, not smart enough to see he was being set up.

Court smiled a little and decided he wouldn’t go after Catherine King. No, not yet.

He would, instead, go after whoever it was tailing Catherine King, hoping it would be the same group of Arabs he’d been up against since at least the night he witnessed Leland Babbitt’s murder.

If the CIA was using foreign operatives here in the U.S., Court felt they would be at the center of the reasons behind his targeting. He’d love to get hold of some of these men after him, to squeeze them for intelligence, because they would surely have the answers.

He’d speak with King later if he needed to, but for now, he would seek out the hunters on his trail, because in Court’s long career, he had learned one lesson above all: it’s no big trick to turn a predator into prey.