On target

TWELVE

Court made it back to his suite at the Nevsky Palace at four forty-five a.m. He and Hightower had discussed operational details for another hour, then he was led out of the belly of the yacht and over the side, onto a dinghy with two of Zack's men. No words were spoken between the three as they negotiated the frigid black waters of the Bay of Finland, making landfall at nearly four in the morning. A car was waiting on the dock, and Court was ushered into it, driven back to the hotel, and delivered to a room. Hightower had thought of everything, even renting a suite directly above Gentry's. From here the SAD men went to the balcony, dropped a rope over the side, and gave Court a small pad of contact information for the team.

"Hey, man," said the black operator. He'd been introduced as Spencer, and the other guy, a younger man with an accent Court recognized as Croatian, as Milo. "People talk. Rumors and shit. Normally I don't listen… but… Were you the guy in Kiev? Just a yes or no."

Gentry took the pad, stuck it in his back pocket, and uttered his only phrase in the past hour of the transport. "Fuck you." He ignored the rope and kicked his legs over the side of the railing. He swung down to his balcony below unaided and dropped silently.

Spencer leaned over the railing and called down, "Fuck you, too, Six. We'll see you in two weeks down in the stink."

Gentry showered, stared into the foggy bathroom mirror at his bruised face, and looked at the clock on the vanity. Five a.m. In two hours he'd have some explaining to do about how he managed to get a shiner and a fat lip while reading papers alone on a bed in a junior suite. Naked, Court turned to leave the room, but he stopped, turned back, and opened the medicine cabinet on a hunch. He peered in, and simultaneously his heart raced and his shoulders slumped. Sid's men had stocked the cabinet with over a dozen prescription meds: decongestants, antibiotics, medicines for temporary relief from erectile dysfunction. All these could not possibly be less relevant to his present circumstance. But he saw the painkillers almost immediately. Dilaudid, four milligram tablets. His heart raced in anticipation of the respite of relaxation one tab would give him. But his shoulders slumped in resignation that he was not in any real pain, he knew he wanted but did not need the strong opiate, and he knew his three weeks of self-imposed detox would be coming to an end in about five seconds.

Court popped two tablets, swallowed them with water from the tap, and then in a moment of anger and shame, he poured the rest down the drain of the flowing vanity basin.

Next he dressed in the butt-ugly purple tracksuit Sid's men had left for him, and he lay on the bed. His mind would be useless to him soon enough; he had to think before the medicine took its full effect.

He thought about President Abboud. If Nocturne Sapphire was successful, the murderous despot would live. This bothered Gentry mightily. It was too simple perhaps, but Sid's quote from Stalin had a plain truth to it that did resonate with Court, even if he would never admit common ground with Uncle Joe. "Death solves all problems. No man, no problem." No, that wasn't Court's exact thinking; few problems were solved with political assassination. But certainly many short-term goals were achieved. And most assuredly, killing a bad actor ended the bad actor's commission of the bad act.

Killing Abboud would kill Abboud. Other than that, Court Gentry did not give a damn.

The Dilaudid kicked in suddenly. An inaudible whoosh of contentment waved through his brain, like an egg cracked on his forehead and trickling down around his skull. For a moment he just lay there, staring at the canopy above the bed and taking pleasure in the quilted patterns in the fabric. Damn, he said to himself, simultaneously happy for the drug-induced relief on his heavy mind and mad for succumbing to the temptation of the tablets.

He fought the next wave of relaxation and went back to thinking about his predicament.

No, he didn't like the thought of kidnapping the most hated man on the planet. Sid's op would certainly have been more satisfying to him than Hightower's, but Hightower's op offered a more satisfying reward. Having the shoot-on-sight directive rescinded by the SAD would not solve all of Court's problems, but it would be better than having four million dollars in the bank. The money was no good if he was not around to spend it, and with the CIA on his tail for the past four years, he'd been unable to slow down from the around-the-globe flight from his pursuers.

Yes, he'd love to get back in the good graces of the CIA. Whatever he had done that had earned him the SOS sanction, perhaps he could make amends for it by handing Abboud over to Zack and his Whiskey Sierra team on a silver platter.

There was a knock at the door. Court looked to the clock on the side table and saw that it was seven a.m.

Shit. He did not know if he'd slept at all, or if the drugs and the worry had consumed him for two full hours.

Court heard the door in the sitting room open. Seconds later three men entered his room. They were from the same stock of hoodlums who'd dropped him off last night. Their suits were wrinkled; perhaps they'd slept in them in the hall or in the room next door. Or maybe they'd stayed up all night partying. He stood slowly, rubbing his eyes, and felt the meds in his blood slowing his movements and affecting his balance. He caught the men eyeing his black and gold and purple tracksuit appreciatively. Then their eyes rose to his face. Even through his beard he was sure they could see his fat purple lip, and his black eye was totally exposed to them.

"What happened to you?" asked the first man in Russian. Court understood, began to respond, but then caught himself just before the first word left his mouth. Fuck. The Dilaudid was heavy in his brain; he could not operate effectively.

He shrugged his shoulders, perhaps too dramatically, and waited for the man to realize his mistake and ask again in English. When he did, Court said, "I fell out of bed. These silk sheets are slippery."