Gentry continued, “Who knows? I guess if he did show up here, I would know all that was true. I’d like that, to tell you the truth, but then, like I said, I’d tell him to turn his ass around and get the hell out of here.”
Court caught himself staring right at his dad, and his dad stared back at him while he said the last part. It was a terrible piece of tradecraft from the younger Gentry, but he’d been that focused on his father’s words.
Court reached for his wallet, paid his bill with a twenty, then stood up from the counter.
The waitress picked up his check and the cash. “Let me grab your change, hon.”
“You keep it.”
“Well, you have yourself a good day, y’hear?”
“You, too.”
He fought the urge to chance one more look towards the booth in the corner as he walked out the front door of the café and climbed back behind the wheel of his old Bronco, because he thought it highly unlikely he would ever see his father again.
62
Catherine King landed at Ben Gurion Airport after fourteen hours from Dulles through Zurich. She was tired from the flights, but as soon as she made her way through customs and pushed through the crowds to find the hired car waiting for her, she powered up her international phone and dialed a number back in the States.
It was nine a.m. in Washington, and Catherine thought Andy Shoal might be sleeping off a long night of work, but to her surprise he answered on the first ring. “Shoal.”
“Hey, Andy, it’s Cathy. I’m surprised I reached you so early. You up already?”
“Never went to bed. I spent all night in Chevy Chase trying to find new witnesses. I struck out. I got to Dupont Circle a couple hours ago and, so far at least, I’ve got nothing to show for it here, either.”
“Keep plugging away,” she said.
“How about you? Did you contact anyone while flying over?”
“I did. I exchanged e-mails with three former Mossad officers. Men I trust implicitly. They told me they know nothing about one of their assets being rescued in Trieste six years ago.”
“And you believe them.”
“I do, and that’s what makes this interesting. All three of these men, after first saying they didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, came back to me a couple hours later asking where I heard about this thing in Trieste. All three conversations turned threatening. Accusatory, even. It was surreal.”
“Somebody got to them after they dug around for information.”
“That’s it exactly. Mossad knows what I’m after, and they are getting prickly. Not sure why, but it’s curious.”
“What’s your plan now?”
“I’m heading to my hotel, but I’ll call the other investigative reporters and see if they’ve got any leads on the injured Mossad officer. Maybe this guy will be a dead end, too, but I’ve come all this way.”
“Is there anything you need me to do over here?” Andy asked. Catherine could hear the hopefulness in his voice.
“You are already doing it. Keep pounding the pavement. We have to find something that makes Six’s story about what is happing in D.C. plausible. Even if I find information over here about Trieste, that doesn’t mean Six is innocent of all those murders.”
“Okay,” Andy said. “But if you need anything at all, you don’t have to bother your regular team. I’m sure they’ve got a lot to do. Give me a call and I’ll jump on it.”
“I know you will,” she said.
—
Andy Shoal hung up the phone and went right back to work. He told himself he was working harder than anyone else on Catherine King’s much higher-paid and much higher-regarded investigative team, and this was probably true. He’d already spent ten hours in Chevy Chase and Bethesda looking for any witnesses to the events that transpired there the previous Monday night.
Undaunted after a long night with nothing to show for it, this morning he arrived in Dupont Circle. He’d spent the last two hours—minus a twenty-minute break to step into the nearby Krispy Kreme for a breakfast of coffee and donuts—interviewing anyone who would talk to him about the event in the metro station here on Wednesday. He was looking for someone who could say they saw Max Ohlhauser before he was killed, or identify anyone else at the scene who had been part of the melee. If this mysterious Six’s story was to pan out, if it was true he did not shoot Ohlhauser or the cops, then someone in this area just might have seen other people running around with guns.
He’d met several individuals throughout the morning who had been here during the shooting. Most lived in neighboring buildings or else they were employees of the bars, restaurants, and little shops around Dupont Circle. A few people confided in him they’d seen nothing, and others greatly exaggerated their access to the events in question.
One, a bartender at a Mexican restaurant who was getting ready for the brunch crowd, had, at first, seemed like he had a real contribution to make. He claimed to have seen wounded people being hauled out of the handicap elevator, just across the street from the window in front of his bar. Andy pulled out his notebook and started asking him follow-up questions.