“Wait one.” Harley looked away from the screen and out through the front windshield. After a few seconds to orient himself, to find a correlation between the frozen picture on the monitor showing Violator’s image highlighted with a red square and the real world outside, he pointed towards the escalators ahead on his right. They descended down into the Metro. “Right there.”
“I don’t see him.”
Harley checked the image again. A running digital timer in the upper right corner of the software told him how long ago the image was taken. It had just hit the ten-second mark. In the picture Violator was stepping onto the escalator. Harley said, “He’s gone down into the Metro.”
“Shit!” Dakota shouted, then he grabbed the walkie-talkie on the center console between the two men. “All elements, Dakota. Target acquired! He’s heading into the metro station at Metro Center Square. Stand by.” He sped the Yukon through the intersection and whipped into a parking space left vacant a second before by an Audi sedan. Looking again to Harley, he asked, “What’s he wearing?”
“Black raincoat. Umbrella in his hand.” Harley looked closer at the image in front of him. “Aw, hell! He’s with that Agency guy, Ohlhauser!”
“Are you sure?”
Harley could see the right side of both men’s faces in the image, because they had been moving perpendicular to the camera. “Fat dude with a red bow tie is right in front of him on the escalator. Looks scared shitless. Gentry’s in contact distance to Ohlhauser. Might have a weapon in his hand.”
Dakota spoke again into the walkie-talkie. “Consult your Metro maps and GPSs, and route yourself to nearby stations. Be advised. Subject has one hostage.”
Dakota knew he didn’t have enough men to conduct running surveillance in the Metro, so he pressed a button on his Bluetooth earpiece. Seconds later he relayed all the information regarding the facial recognition hit to Jordan Mayes. He expected this would get him more bodies to help with his hunt; either CIA contractors or regular D.C. police, whom the CIA could simply ask to be on the lookout for a man fitting Court’s description.
And his call did bring out these forces, because Mayes immediately relayed his info to Suzanne Brewer in the Violator TOC, but Dakota had no way of knowing that Denny Carmichael would also receive word of the sighting within moments. Denny immediately contacted Saudi intelligence chief Murquin al-Kazaz. In minutes another force would be descending on the immediate area and conducting a hunt of its own, and if Dakota had only known what an absolute tragedy this would create, he no doubt would have kept word of the Violator sighting to himself.
42
Even though he’d had less than three hours to prepare, Gentry had planned this operation against Max Ohlhauser well, even to the point of buying two Metro Smart Cards, one for himself and the other for his hostage. He slipped the card into the older man’s hand and together they went through the turnstiles. Feet away a pair of Metro Transit Police stood, the female officer holding the leash of a Belgian Malinois who looked only somewhat less bored than her handler.
The two men waited in silence on the platform, standing shoulder to shoulder, as per Gentry’s instructions. Max’s breathing was labored and sweat drenched his brow, but Court just stood there, his face placid and his eyes scanning the area around him calmly, not flitting back and forth.
They took a Red Line train heading to the northwestern outskirts of the metro area, but that was just because it had been the first train to arrive at the platform. Court wanted to interrogate Max while onboard the Metro, thinking it would make it tougher for the followers to catch up. Of course he knew at each stop he’d have a new crowd to look over, and it was possible the four CIA contractors up at street level had radioed to other units with instructions to be ready at every stop, but by making himself a moving target in a transitional area with spotty comms, Court was reasonably certain he’d bought himself at least ten or fifteen minutes in which he could squeeze Ohlhauser of intel free of danger.
Court led Ohlhauser to the back row of a car that was only about a quarter full and, as the train began to move, Court sat with his back to the wall and pushed Ohlhauser down into a seat where he faced Court and his back was to the car.
Court still carried an air of calm, and Ohlhauser remained petrified.
Court said, “Relax, Max. You and I are going to chat for a few minutes. If you don’t scream like a bitch, and if you don’t try to make a run for it, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Ohlhauser nodded. He didn’t believe. But he nodded.
Court kept looking beyond Ohlhauser’s right shoulder and down the length of the entire car. He’d slipped his knife back in its sheath inside his pants pocket, and formed a grip on the pistol inside the waistband on his right hip, shielded from view of the other passengers by his body. He said, “First things first: I did not kill Leland Babbitt. I was there. I planned on questioning him, but I didn’t shoot him.”