Zack shrugged, still leaning towards his HK. “That’s pretty much it, I guess.”
Court took two quick steps, flung his body forward, and dove with his arms outstretched. He landed on the metal roof and slid several feet. He snatched the weapon cleanly and brought it up towards his target.
Zack Hightower had not even tried for the gun. He barely moved, except to raise his hands. He said, “Damn, dude! It’s always fun to watch you work! Great to see you again! I’ve fuckin’ missed you!”
Court ignored the joviality, which seemed ridiculously incongruous to the present circumstance. “You were up here ready to blow my head off if you saw me. Why the hell wouldn’t I shoot you now?”
Zack shrugged. “I’ll be honest, bro. Can’t think of a single reason.”
Court climbed back up to his feet and leveled the pistol at Zack’s face. “Me, neither.”
“Unless . . .” Zack said, still holding his hands up in surrender, “you were interested in how I got here. Who’s benefiting from this. The list of everyone who is involved. That sort of thing. If any of that shit matters to you, then I guess I’m more useful to you alive than dead.”
Court kept the weapon pointed at Zack’s face for another fifteen seconds, thinking over the situation. Slowly he lowered the weapon. “Bastard.”
Zack grinned from ear to ear. “Good decision. We’ve got some catching up to do. How ’bout we go get a beer and some wings. I’m buying.”
“Shirt off, pants to your ankles,” Gentry ordered.
Hightower said, “Woah, Nellie! We’re movin’ this relationship in a new direction, aren’t we? Maybe you should buy me dinner.”
“Do it.”
Zack whined a little more, but he knew the protocol for taking any prisoner into custody. Court just wanted to see if he had any tricks up his sleeve, or down his pants.
By the time Hightower got his Kevlar vest, tunic, boots, and black dungarees off, another folding knife, a can of pepper spray, a leather sap, and a pair of brass knuckles were scattered around the roof. Court then ordered Zack to pack up his gear in the Osprey pack and step away. Court hefted the pack onto his own back, ordered Zack to put his clothes back on, and then, when both men were ready, Zack led the way to a fire escape running down to the courtyard at the back of the building.
Court kept the HK pistol trained on Zack the entire way down, and in the courtyard he found the suppressed Glock that had fallen off the roof. He scooped it up, removed the suppressor, shoved both items into the big backpack, then followed Zack back to his truck, parked in front of a late-night watering hole two blocks north of the university.
Zack again offered to buy beer and hot wings, but Court had something quite different in mind for the evening.
53
The red Chevy Silverado pulled off the main road near Stafford Regional Airport, its headlights off and its brake lights extinguished, thanks to a few pulled fuses. Court drove the truck slowly, but with no lights, and on a cloudy night, this would have been impossible without the infrared device he’d found in Zack’s bag. He held the device just in front of his face awkwardly while he drove with the other hand, and although this wouldn’t have worked at all if anyone had been chasing him, it was a hell of a lot better than driving blind out here in the woods.
Zack wasn’t here with him in the cab. As soon as the two men arrived at Hightower’s truck at the bar in Georgetown, Court hog-tied his old boss with a long length of quarter-inch jute rope he found in the bed of the pickup, then took a shorter length of rope and looped it around Zack’s mouth before cinching it behind his head. Lastly, he blindfolded him with a T-shirt. Once he was secure and silent, Court rolled Zack facedown in the truck bed and flipped the hard shell bed cover over him to keep any larger trucks on the road from looking down and seeing a prostrate form in the back of the pickup.
After several minutes of slow going on the dark gravel road to the north, Court pulled the vehicle off the road, just before they got to the Civil War–era stone wall. He forced it deep into the brush, finally parking it some forty feet from the footpath that lead to the creek.
It wasn’t invisible here from the footpath, but it was nearly so, and it would be invisible from the air.
Court climbed out of the Silverado, hefted Zack’s heavy pack, and then walked around to the back.
He cut Zack’s gag and leg bindings free, but he kept the big knot of jute rope on his wrists, secure behind his back. Zack struggled to climb down from the back of the truck bed. When he finally did so Court pushed the barrel of the HK into Zack’s forehead for a moment, then told him to turn around and start walking up the dark road.
“I can’t see where I’m going, genius,” Zack complained.