Especially at a facility like Harvey Point.
Court’s hopes that he would get information at the AAP facility were buoyed as he picked his way through the grounds nearby. Two Humvee patrols passed, giving him the impression there was something this far west of the Point that needed protecting. Both times he hid himself completely behind trees as the patrols neared, fearing the men inside the vehicles would be using infrared scopes to check the woods for trouble.
But when he came upon the AAP compound itself, his heart began to sink. The main compound building was there, even several of the old trailers in the parking lot next to it, but everything was dark and deserted. Weeds grew a foot high from cracks in the lot. To Court it didn’t look like anyone had been here in years.
After watching through Zack’s night sight from the trees for a few minutes to make certain no one was around, Court rose, then walked through the wide-open gate at the front of the compound. He passed a sign that read Secure Facility, then he crossed the parking lot in front of the entrance to the building everyone in the program referred to as “The Center,” and he pushed on the front door.
It was unlocked.
Inside it looked like a typical public high school, but a high school during summer vacation. No light, no movement.
The floors were covered with dust and leaves that had blown in through a broken window somewhere, and there was water damage on the baseboards, as if the area had once flooded. The smell of mold filled the dank air.
Court wandered around for several minutes, checking the different floors and wings, and he found the entire building abandoned, and not a scrap of paper or a sign on the wall to give any hint as to what was once here.
He stood in the medical ward, he walked through the dormitory, he checked every locker in the locker room off the empty swimming pool.
Nothing.
Back outside in the parking lot he walked among the trailers on the north side of the building. These were individual classrooms for AADP recruits; Court had spent part of virtually every day for two years studying with his principal trainer in trailer 14b.
Many of the trailers were gone now, but 14b was still there, the last one on the second row, almost all the way to the perimeter fence around the parking lot. Court walked over to it. Where before the grounds around the lot had been manicured lawn, now it looked like the forest on the other side of the chain-link fence had pushed through. Young pine and oak dotted the ground almost up to the back of the trailer, and the asphalt lot the trailer rested on was buckled and broken, with weeds growing through the cracks.
The windows of 14b were all broken out, as well, and there was evidence of water and storm damage here, just like at The Center. The aluminum door was bent and it hung wide open.
Court looked in, shone his flashlight around. It was all but empty. He went inside and stood there in the middle of the dark space, flipped off his light, and thought about his time here, more than fifteen years earlier.
A small swivel chair was the only piece of furniture that remained—Maurice’s chair. Maurice had been his trainer, the one man he worked with 365 days a year for two years. Maurice nearly killed him multiple times, and Court wanted to kill him back more than once, but Court loved the man like a father.
Maurice was dead now, and Court found himself wishing, more than anything in the world, that the old bastard was sitting in that chair so Court could ask him what the hell he should do now.
Exhausted suddenly, and overcome with failure, Court sat down against the wall, leaned his head back, and asked himself what the hell he was going to do now.
Just then he felt the vibration of his phone in his pack, letting him know he was getting a call via RedPhone. For a moment he just let it buzz. He had no desire to talk to Catherine King at the moment. As far as he was concerned right now, she was just one more dead end.
Finally, though, he fished out his phone and opened the app that put the call through.
“Yeah?”
“This is Catherine.”
“No one else has this number.”
“I’ve been calling. I was worried something happened to you.”
I’ll just bet, Court thought to himself. He wondered what her excuse would be for not going to Israel. “I’m fine,” he said. Three shafts of dull light entered the dark space through the door and two windows, as the moon broke through the cloudy night.
“Where are you now?” she asked.
Court looked around at the old empty trailer. “I’m at a Starbucks on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
“Really?”
Court didn’t answer. Instead he said, “How ’bout you?”
“I’m at Heathrow. My flight home boards soon. I’m so glad I caught you between flights. I tried you before I left Tel Aviv, but you didn’t answer.”
Court sat up straighter. “You actually went?”
“I did.”
“Did you find . . .”
“The man you shot? Yes. His name is Yanis Alvey. He has fully recovered.”