On target

NINE

"You remember me, don't you, Gentry?"

Gentry hadn't even remembered that his name was Gentry. His eyes were well open when he became aware, and he wondered if he'd been conscious for a while or if he'd just now come to. He was not dead, of that he was certain, though the rest was unclear. He then felt the cold, looked down at his bare chest and underwear, found himself sitting on a chair. Four walls surrounded him, and his wrists were bound behind his back. He saw four men standing around him, over him, and felt their malevolence, but their faces were difficult to focus on, drugs coursing through him still. In his training at the CIA's secret Autonomous Asset Development Program in Harvey Point, North Carolina, he had been injected with, had ingested, or had been aspirated with somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five mood-altering substances to test and improve his dexterity, agility, and cognitive ability while under the influence. He'd once even successfully climbed a three-story rope ladder and picked a lock while completely numbed by Versed, though he had no recollection of performing the drill twenty minutes later. He'd learned much about opiates and other anesthetics in his training, but now all he could say for sure was that he was seriously fucked up.

In a flash he realized that he had not taken any heavy pills in nearly three weeks and had seemingly kicked the painkiller addiction he'd been suffering from for months in the south of France. Now he wondered if having these drugs forced into his bloodstream would just undo all the work he'd done to get past his problem.

Of course, he reckoned, if one of these men did what he was supposed to do and put a bullet into his brain, then the problem would be remedied in short order.

Death solves all problems.

Three of the four men backed out through a small door in the room, leaving just the one who'd spoken. "Hang on a sec," the standing man said. "We took you off the drip a few minutes ago. You'll come down in a flash. Let me know when I'm coming through loud and clear, okay, bro?"

Court knew the voice before he knew the face. He fought the drugs, shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Blinked hard. Then he knew. His eyes furrowed. His head cocked. "Didn't I kill you once?"

"Negative, Court. Why would you kill me? We had a little misunderstanding way back when, but nothing major."

"Hightower. Zack Hightower," Court said the man's name as if the man didn't know it himself. Court's words did not come out past his tongue as clearly as he'd intended.

"Are you hurt?" asked the standing man.

"Na… negative."

"Let me fix that. Now pay attention, bro. I've been waiting four years for this moment. I'd sure hate for you to miss it." He snapped his fingers in front of Gentry's face. "You with me still? Outstanding. Now… this is for Paul Lynch." Hightower punched Gentry in the jaw.

Court fell off the chair and onto the floor with a brilliant starburst in his eyes.

"Fuck!" said Court.

"Fuck!" said Zack. Court looked up and saw the other man holding his fist, in obvious pain. Court licked his lower lip and spat blood. Zack pulled him by the hair back up into the chair. Gentry's movements were sluggish from the drugs, but the punch had gone a long way towards focusing his senses.

"And this, Court, is for Dino Redus." Hightower hit Court again in the face. Gentry dropped back onto the floor, felt his left eye swell instantly, heard Hightower cuss again in pain.

After a moment Court said, "Redus tried to kill me! You all did!"

"Shut your dick trap, Gentry! We're not done here yet!"

Court rolled up to his knees, fought with his balance for a moment, then climbed back up to the chair without Zack's help. His left eye had all but shut, tears running and blurring his vision further. "He, Lynch, Morgan, you, you guys came at me! What the fuck was I supposed to do? Just let you murder me?"

"Would have been helpful," said Hightower. "Keith Morgan's wife sure would have appreciated it." Hightower smashed his left hand into Court's head. Not as hard this time, but again he shook his hand to cool it after the impact.

Court wobbled but kept his seat this time. He spat a mouthful of blood on the floor and said, "Too bad you've got more piece of shit dead friends than you do hands."

"They were your friends, too, Court! Before you killed them!" Hightower balled his left fist again, reached back for another punch.

"Come on!" shouted Court. "I know about the sanction! It's shoot on sight! You keep swinging at me like that, and we'll be here all fucking night! Pull out your gun and do your goddamned job!"

Zack held his fist high over Gentry's face. Then slowly the fist lowered. His jaw tightened. He nodded slowly. He reached behind his back and drew a snub-nosed nickel-plated revolver from his waistband.

Zack swung it around and pressed it to Court Gentry's forehead in a single motion.

Court blinked, his cheeks twitched, but then he looked up at Zack, up the tiny barrel of the gun. His voice was soft. "Might as well just tell me why. What's it going to hurt now?"

Zack ignored the question, just held the gun against Gentry's head steadily for five, ten, twenty seconds. Then he said, "Just so you know. Whatever happens after this, Six… for the rest of your life. Everything from now on… is a gift from me." With a cruel look in his eyes he lowered the gun, slipped it back into the small of his back.

Court blinked away a bead of sweat that had trickled into his right eye.

Zack put his hands on his hips, still looking down at his prisoner. Through heavy breaths brought on by the physical activity of the beating and the intensity of the moment, he asked, "Did ya miss me, Court?"

Court blinked again. Said, tentatively, "Like a hole in the head."

Zack smiled wryly. "Easily arranged."

Without another word, Hightower left the room, giving Court the opportunity to calm his nerves a bit and take stock of his surroundings. Immediately he decided from the thick white paint and bare furnishings of the small space that he was on a boat. Near the engine room, he surmised, from the humming in the walls. He could not feel the motion of water, but he knew that his equilibrium was toast at the moment, so that didn't mean much.

Hightower returned with a clear plastic bag full of ice and a small utility knife. He stepped behind Court's chair and, with a well-practiced single motion, cut away the flexi-cuffs binding Court's wrists. Zack then grabbed another chair from the hallway, dragged it across the floor with a painful screech, and sat facing Gentry, dropping the bag of ice into his prisoner's lap. Court immediately brought it to his eye and lip to deaden the growing pain there.

Gentry looked the man over with his right eye. It had been four years since they last worked together in the CIA's Golf Sierra unit, unofficially known, to those few who knew of it at all, as the Goon Squad. Hightower had been Sierra One, the team leader. Gentry was Sierra Six, the youngest, most junior man on the team, but always the first through the door. Hightower was now forty-five or so, but his eyes were still as bright and blue as a baby boy's. He was razor lean and square-jawed. His hair was cut in a classic military high and tight; flecks of silver now blinked in the sandy blond. He was six one and two hundred pounds, not an ounce of it excess fat. He moved with confidence, walked with his broad chest leading the way. Court knew Zack was Texas born and bred, had joined the navy after college baseball, spent a decade on the storied SEAL Team Six before joining the CIA's Special Activities Division as a Paramilitary Operations officer. Zack was smart and tough and sure of himself, exceptionally charming with the ladies, and popular with the guys.

In short, a typical SEAL.

"How ya been?" Hightower asked as he looked down to his own injury, a hand swollen at the knuckles. Court thought briefly about leaping off the chair and spearing the bigger man's windpipe, but he knew the drugs in his system would slow his reflexes still. Zack didn't seem worried about Court attacking, and Court figured Zack would know better than he did what was still pumping through his bloodstream.

"Some days better than others, I guess."

"Scuttlebutt is you're doing all right. You've run three to five ops a year for the past four years. All over the map. Making some pretty good bank is the word on the street. Langley thinks you smoked both of the Abubaker brothers, one in Syria and the next a few weeks later in Madrid. French intelligence says someone fitting your general description blew up half of French-speaking Europe last December. The Ukrainians are even running around saying you did that shit in Kiev. You didn't, did you?"

"Don't believe everything you hear. How'd you guys find me?"

Zack shrugged. "Echelon picked up some cell phone traffic from Sidorenko's hoodlums. They have a code name for you, I guess, but some dipshit referred to you as 'seryj muzhchina' on an open line."

"Gray Man," Court translated with a frustrated sigh. "Brilliant."

"Fucking geniuses, these Ivans," said Zack sarcastically. "They said you'd be coming to see the boss today. NSA sent word to Langley; Langley passed it on to me."

Court nodded. "It's shoot on sight, Zack. You drugged me just to bring me here to slap me around first?"

"Nah, the SOS is officially on hold, at least while you and I have a little discussion. The ass-kicking? That's personal."

"You call that an ass-kicking?"

"Who says I'm done?"

Court's brown eyebrows drew together. "Back in Virginia. I shot you, point-blank. Forty-four caliber. I saw you go backwards out a window. Two stories down."

Zack grinned. Like a hyena, he smiled but did not look happy. "Don't remind me. My vest caught the round, but I landed pretty fucking hard on an air-conditioning unit. Broke my pelvis in two places. Collarbone and a couple of ribs for good measure." Zack winced as if he were remembering the event, until something popped into his memory. He added, "Never knew you to carry a Derringer."

"Never had cause to mention it. Good thing I didn't."

Zack shrugged. "Depends on your point of view. To tell you the truth, I'd have loved to have known about it."

"So why were you guys there? What did I do?"

Zack shrugged, like the answer was obvious. "Termination order from on high. You know how it is."

"No. Actually, I don't. What the hell did I do wrong, Zack?" Court's voice was plaintive.

Hightower shrugged again. "Dunno. I'm just a worker bee. I got the term order on you, and I went to work that day, just like any other."

"Bullshit. They gave you a reason."

"Kid, when have I ever needed a reason to follow an order? I'm not like you, all navel-gazing and introspective. I do my shitty day job with a smile on my face."

Court was certain his former team leader was lying; no one at CIA would order an SAD field team leader to delete his own man without so much as an explanation, but he decided to let it go. "The men, the guys with you who jumped me tonight, they're your new Goon Squad?"

"More or less. Not Golf Sierra but Whiskey Sierra, so I'm still Sierra One. Bureaucratically we're set up different than the old gang. Mission and rules of engagement are more restrictive these days. But basically it's the same idea. My new crew consists of a couple of ex-SEALS, an ex-Delta, two SF guys who crossed over to CIA black ops way back when. Pretty good bunch, but certainly not Court Gentry caliber. You'll always be my best door kicker." He smiled. "You fucked Todd up pretty good: busted nose and a dislocated jaw."

"Sorry," replied Court, but he didn't mean it.

"Shit happens." Zack shrugged. Clearly he didn't mean it either.

"So why am I here?"

Zack Hightower reached out for the ice bag, took it from Gentry's face, and wrapped it over his swollen fist. "Abboud. President Bakri Ali Abboud."