Back Blast

73

DeRenzi had made it to Carmichael and his Middle Eastern guest within seconds of the alarm sounding, with the plan to barricade them in place. He locked the door to the conference room — the Violator Working Group members were guarded by a security officer named Suarez — then he bolted the other door from the office to the main hall. After a few seconds he heard gunfire right outside in the hall, which likely meant the attacker had made it past the doors into the south wing before they closed. DeRenzi rushed now to the conference room entrance. He listened at the door a moment, then opened it, intending on calling out to Suarez, to order him to fall back to DeRenzi’s position to help cover Carmichael. Two men could protect the two entrances better than one, DeRenzi reasoned. This would leave the Violator Working Group on their own, but DeRenzi knew the Gray Man was in the building, and he also knew Denny Carmichael was the target.

The employees of the Violator Working Group weren’t his problem.

Slowly the veteran CIA shooter opened the door to the conference room hall, got his gun up, and saw a man head to toe in black, just a foot away.

DeRenzi fired his M4 but the Gray Man used his MP7 to strike the weapon just as it fired, sending a burst of 5.56 rounds into the wall of the hallway by the bathroom door. The Gray Man took hold of the handguard of the weapon, then raised his MP7. At point-blank range he fired directly into the steel chest plate of DeRenzi’s body armor, knocking the CIA security officer back on his heels. A second shot from Gentry’s gun, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth sent DeRenzi stumbling backwards the length of the office. Court ripped the M4 from the security officer’s hand as he fell back.

DeRenzi lay on his back on the parquet floor. He wore a pistol on his hip, but just as he thought about going for it, Court said, “You try it and the next six rounds won’t go in the middle of your chest plate. I’ll put them in your face.”

DeRenzi raised his hands in surrender.

Court had him remove his drop leg holster and slide the entire unit across the floor, then he ordered him onto his stomach with his legs crossed and his hands behind his head. Once DeRenzi complied, Court turned to Carmichael, who stood in front of a shuttered window.

With him was Murquin al-Kazaz.

Court showed no emotion as he approached both men. He planned on checking them for weapons quickly, but as soon as he reached for the Saudi, he realized there was no way this man would have been allowed in the building with a firearm or a blade. He turned to Denny. “You wearing a gun, Denny?”

Carmichael shook his head. “I put it on the desk, son. I’m not pointing a gun at the world-famous Gray Man.”

There was sarcasm in the comment, but at least Carmichael was telling the truth. Court saw a semiautomatic lying on the desk fifteen feet away. He searched Denny anyway, and he found nothing on his person save for a mobile phone, and a curious item on his left wrist. Just larger than a watch, it had a small glass screen and a function button. Court touched the button, and the screen lit up. He realized the device was a master security panic button. By scrolling left or right on the screen, he could then give the wrist computer different commands. He could alert his security force of an emergency, close and lock his living quarters, or close and lock down the entire south wing. He also had the option of opening and closing any door in the wing, and even overriding commands from the south wing security desk.

Court was pleased to see that the big double doors were still closed and locked, then he pressed the icon that would keep them that way until he signaled that he wanted them open. He put the device on his own wrist, then led the three men back down the hall and into the conference room without a word. He had Denny and al-Kazaz both take a seat at the table, then he pushed DeRenzi against the wall at the back of the room, flipped them on their stomachs, and tied them expertly with pieces of Kevlar rope.

The conference room was a full house now.

A middle-aged man at the table said, “There was no motion detector on that bomb, was there?”

Court said, “Are you kidding? That would be dangerous.” He checked the locks on the conference room doors and decided they were solid. Confident he had a semi-secure perimeter, he finally took a breath, then looked around the room at the crowd. “Who are all you people?”

No one answered.

He turned to the youngest, most junior-looking person in the room, a scrawny kid with Coke-bottle glasses who sat at the far end of the table by the wall monitors, a laptop computer and a few peripherals on the table in front of him. The man was terrified, clearly, and to Court he looked like he couldn’t have been twenty-five years old. Pointing the HK rifle at him, Court said, “Who are you?”

A meek cough. “William, sir.”

“And what’s your function here, William?”

“I’m in charge of the video-conferencing suite. That’s all I know, sir.”

“Who are you conferencing with?”

The young man glanced over to Carmichael. Court said, “Denny can fire you tomorrow. I can shoot you now. Pay attention to me.”

“I am connecting the Violator Working Group here with the Violator tactical operations center at Langley.”

Court nodded. “The Violator Working Group?” He looked around at the men and women at the table. “All these years I pictured the faces of the people who were after me. Not the shooters on the ground, but the suits pulling the strings. And here you are.”

After a slow pan of the room, he looked back to the young man. “William, are we connected with the TOC right now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“These assholes at the table needed the TOC to locate me, but I’m here, so they don’t really need it anymore. I want you to pull the plug on everything. Shut it all down for me.”

William slowly moved his hands up to the laptop and began shutting down the connection.

Court turned back to the group. “Toss your phones in the middle of the table.” Everyone did so. “Guns, knives, Tasers, pepper spray?” No one moved. “Anything?”

Nothing but shakes of the head.

“None of you have any way of protecting yourselves from me? I was just some name on a sanction list, some vague personality that needed to die. I wasn’t a real person, so you didn’t see me as a threat to you. Now here I am, and you don’t have a clue what to do about it.”

Denny Carmichael said, “Court, this is—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Court screamed, his outburst of rage in stark contrast to the calm demeanor he’d used to address William seconds before. He raised his PDW and stormed around the table, aiming the weapon’s laser pointer on Denny’s forehead the entire time.

More women sobbed now, and some of the men trembled with terror.

No one in the Alexandria Police Department was aware that the twelfth largest building in their city was, in truth, a Cold War — era CIA secure facility that was now being used as a safe house by America’s senior operations officer, so when the first call came through about a hostage situation at the property on North Quaker Lane, they did what they would do for any other similar event; they dispatched squad cars, tactical units, supervisors, and detectives.

The Agency employees at the facility had been ordered to keep a low profile, which meant they couldn’t very well tell the cops that rolled onto the grounds to get off their lawn. They did confirm there were government employees inside, which caused the local police to inform the FBI, but as far as the Alexandria cops were concerned, this was their town, so this was their scene.

Within minutes a massive cordon was set up around the building, helicopters were flying overhead, and police filled the main hall. Above them, on the second-floor landing, two dozen armed men screamed down at the cops, refusing to come down or turn over their guns, claiming that they were responsible for what went on here, and they would take care of it.

The police were disinclined to just pack up and call it a night, however, so a tense standoff developed.

The FBI arrived ten minutes later, in the form of six Special Agents. They called in their vaunted Hostage Rescue Team, but it would take HRT a half hour to deploy from Quantico. In the meantime the FBI men pushed their way through the cops, made it to the bottom of the stairs, pulled their credentials, and began walking up into the cordon of armed plainclothesmen on the landing. Nobody shot anybody, which was something, but the shouting and the yelling only got worse with the arrival of the FBI.

Suzanne Brewer had been sleeping — the dark hospital room along with the painkillers they gave her every six hours made it hard to stay awake — but her eyes opened when she heard the door squeak. A shaft of light raced across the room to her. Her guards outside were ordered to keep everyone out but hospital personnel, and her nurse had told her she would not be disturbed for the rest of the night. As she turned her head to look, for one brief, heart-stopping moment she thought of Violator, but this vision drifted away instantly and, in a second moment — this one lasting twice as long because to her the threat was twice as real — she thought of Carmichael.

Could he have changed his mind about their arrangement? Could this be one of the Saudi hitters roaming the District?

But the man in the doorway was not the Gray Man, and he was no one doing the bidding of Denny Carmichael. On the contrary, Matthew Hanley stood big and broad, a thin smile on his face and a large bouquet of flowers in his hand.

For some reason Suzanne could not put her finger on, the sight of Hanley with flowers felt to her more menacing than seeing a Saudi assassin at her door.

“Hi, Suzanne, how are you feeling?”

She pressed a button on the railing of her bed, turning on a light on the wall behind her. She pushed a second button, and this raised her up into a sitting position.

“Matt, so nice to see you.” This had yet to be determined in Suzanne’s mind, but she said it anyway. “Flowers personally delivered by a division director? I must say I’m surprised you took the time to come all the way over here.”

Hanley said, “They tell me you are going to be fine. A broken leg, a concussion, lots of cuts and bruises, but it could have been worse.”

“Yes,” she said. “Much worse.” After a moment she added, “Poor, poor Jordan.”

Hanley said nothing.

Suzanne could not stand the silence of the moment. “Sorry, Matt, I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but is there some reason you are here, other than the flowers?”

“You don’t know what’s happened, do you?”

Suzanne Brewer shook her head slowly. “I know nothing. I’ve been lying here in the dark since mid-afternoon.”

Hanley sat down in the chair next to her bed. “At this moment Denny Carmichael is being held hostage by Court Gentry in a safe house in Alexandria.”

She closed her eyes. Her mind raced. “Oh my God. What are we doing to get Denny out of there?”

“Everything we can, I’m sure, but Gentry holds all the cards at the moment.”

Suzanne’s head began to spin. She tried to sit up. “I’m going to Langley. I can manage this better from the TOC.”

Hanley shook his head. “You are going to stay right here.” He picked a dead petal off of one of the chrysanthemums. Dropped it on the floor. “Suzanne, you are a winner. You can still come out of this ahead, but the walls are closing all around you, and there is not much time.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“You’ve chosen sides. That’s all right, we all need an allegiance. But your side is losing. Even if Denny walks out of that safe house with his life, he won’t hold the power he held when he walked in. His operations have been compromised. His connection to Gentry and the origins of the shoot on sight will be scrutinized.

“I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, I’m sure. You are a lot more politically astute than I am, so you know when you are standing on a sinking ship.”

The metaphors were piling one on top of the other, but she certainly understood the message.

She fought for the right words. “I’m not sure I understand you, Matt. I’m sorry. My involvement in this matter is limited to the work I did in the Working Group, and my presence at the scene of one of Violator’s assassinations. I am not aligned with Director Carmichael any more than anyone else in the Clandestine Service.”

Hanley stood. “Well, if that’s the case, then you can turn on CNN right now and watch the action in Alexandria with only a passing curiosity. With no stake in the outcome. If there is something else, some other string that tethers you to Carmichael, then you should consider cutting it before he goes down. Denny’s descent won’t be pretty, and he will take a great number of people with him. That is unfortunate for them, but it will create a power vacuum that the Agency will need to fill.”

Hanley continued, “The NCS is going to need good people in its ranks when this is over. Winners.”

He headed for the door, but Suzanne called out to him.

“Matt, I’d say you are a lot more politically aware than you make yourself out to be.”

Hanley turned. “Me? No, I’m just an old straight-legged army guy who’s learned how to roll with the punches.” He smiled a little. “That’s all. Hope you feel better.” He left the room, leaving Suzanne Brewer alone with a terror that began welling up inside her.

Within twenty seconds, she reached for the telephone.