Nope.
As Court did another head count, he couldn’t help but wonder where the last AQ operator was. He wasn’t downstairs watching the match, and up in the room with the two prayer rugs, Court had seen only one man.
Court did one more scan of the property with his night vision monocle, checking the outdoor walkway that circled the second floor of the villa, and he saw a pair of Serb guards standing close together, right above their comrades enjoying the match on the ground floor. These two men seemed to be more disciplined than their mates, because they were eyeing the side yard intently, their guns off their shoulders and in their hands.
To Court it looked like they might have heard or seen something that brought them up to the landing.
And then Court saw something that surprised him. On the terra-cotta tile roof of the villa, right above the two Serbs, his eyes picked up some movement in the dark.
Court lowered his binoculars quickly and then brought up his night vision monocle. Yes. Lying flat on the roof above the two Serbs, facedown and feet up towards the peak of the building, was a lone figure dressed in black.
Court squinted, trying to get better clarity. It seemed likely this might be the missing AQ operator, but it was difficult to tell. What was certain was the man on the roof just above the walkway was absolutely fixated on the two security men directly below him.
Court saw the glint of metal in the man’s left hand.
And then it hit him. Court hadn’t been the only one who realized the soccer match would be distracting the guards. An assassin wouldn’t wait for the middle of the night to act, not when nearly the entire security detail was focused on the television in the living room.
The hit man was here, now, and he was on his way to take down the Israeli agent.
A loud cheer erupted downstairs at the television, a dozen men celebrating some play made by one of the teams, and, while this was going on, Court watched as two flashes of light on the roof signaled the firing of two rounds from a suppressed pistol.
Court did not hear a sound from the gunfire, but he saw the two Serbs crumple to the walkway.
Quickly the man on the roof slid around, dropped down next to the two bodies, and started dragging one of them to a nearby open door. Court recognized that the man planned on hiding them from anyone below who stepped away from the French doors and looked up to the second floor.
He realized it would take him a minute or two to hide the bodies, but after that he’d have a straight shot along the empty walkway towards the Israeli asset sitting alone in the bedroom at the back of the villa.
And Court knew it was his job to protect the asset.
He threw his binos into his pack along with his night vision monocle, and then he stood and pushed through the trees, closing on the villa below him with reckless speed.
48
Court scaled a back wall quickly and quietly, dropped down into a garden, then looked ahead. Directly in front of him was an open-sided shelter that covered a pair of speedboats on trailers, and to the right of the boats was a large garden with a fountain. Beyond both the garden and the garage was the main house of the villa, two stories high. The Israeli agent’s room was on the second floor, right beyond the boat shelter. Court looked up and realized the window to the Israeli asset’s room was open, although he could not make out the man inside from ground level.
He also saw two more Serbian guards. These men were on the sidewalk directly below the walkway and the second-floor window. They didn’t seem to be on edge like the two who had just been murdered by the approaching al Qaeda assassin, but they also weren’t goofing off around the corner watching the soccer match through the windows like the others.
Court knew he could take out these two men—just follow the lead of the other hit man in black here on the property and wait for some noise from the other side of the house, then use his suppressed pistol to drop them where they stood.
But he couldn’t wait around. He knew the assassin on the second-floor walkway would be closing as quickly as possible on the man upstairs.
Court looked at the boat shelter next to him. He backed up a few feet, then used a palm tree that ran close enough to the shelter to brace himself on both the back wall of the structure and the tree’s thick trunk, and he shimmied all the way up to the flat metal roof.