“Suck it up or you’ll fuck it up.”
Court didn’t know if he could suck it up this time. He didn’t think he could go on.
He didn’t hear the truck pull up, but he should have. He had been trained to remain in condition yellow, always on guard. The very idea he could be sitting in a dark and silent location and not hear a truck pull up a gravel drive to within twenty-five yards of his position was impossible to fathom. And yet it happened.
The trailer brightened with the beams of a vehicle’s headlights. He’d been compromised. He had failed again.
He only heard the sound of a car door shutting.
Court decided then and there that he had no more fight in him. He could shoot the men outside the trailer, but why? None of these static security guys who would be converging on him right now were responsible for the murder of the most successful deep-penetration agent ever to infiltrate al Qaeda.
These guys are blameless, Court thought. Unlike him.
He thought about standing, walking out the door, and pointing his gun at the armed guards—suicide by security goon—but he didn’t feel like getting up. No. He’d stay right here, here in the little room where it all started so many years ago.
Court decided this would be the perfect place to end the miserable saga that was his life.
He pulled the Glock from his bag, opened his mouth, and jammed the muzzle in, biting it with his teeth. Tears streamed down his face, wet his lips, and carried on down the barrel of his gun.
He had no fear of dying; he never had. His fear had always been failure.
And now he saw his failure in Trieste as the realization of his greatest fear.
He moved his thumb inside the trigger guard and placed it on the trigger. Took a short sharp breath and began to squeeze his hand.
“I sure hope you don’t expect me to mop up that mess you’re about to make.”
The voice came from the doorway. Court spun the pistol around quickly and pointed it there, a reaction to a surprise threat, an instinctive move, nothing more.
Zack Hightower stood in the doorway silhouetted by the headlights. His hands were empty. He grinned. “Make up your mind, bro. You gonna shoot you, or are you gonna shoot me?”
Court quickly wiped wetness from his face with his forearm. He lowered the gun. “What are you doing here?”
“Hanley sent me.”
“Who is with you?”
“All by my lonesome. Matt wants a word.”
Court shook his head. “No need. I know everything now. I killed the wrong man.”
Zack shrugged. “Yeah. I kinda told you that, didn’t I?” He moved into the trailer and sat down across from Court, placing his back against the wall. He looked around in the little room. The lights from the truck outside reflected off the walls, though it was still dim.
Court said, “I was so sure of my intel, Zack.”
Another shrug from the big man with the silvery blond hair. “Fuckin’ towelheads. They all look alike to me, too. Hey, Six, you really thinking about eating a bullet? That’s not your style.”
Court found himself embarrassed. “It wasn’t my first choice, but my masterful plan to prove I did nothing wrong went tits-up the moment I found out I did something wrong. I’m not going to be taken alive, and I don’t much feel like running anymore. Not sure where that leaves me.”
“Looks like it leaves you sitting on your ass in a moldy mobile home with puke on your face and a gun in your mouth.”
Court said, “Still telling it like it is, I see.”
“You want some advice?”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll want to angle that pistol up to about sixty-five degrees. Roof of the mouth. You’ll hit the brain stem that way. I won’t have to watch you flop around like an idiot for more than a second or two.”
Court closed his eyes. Despite himself, he chuckled. Gallows humor. “With friends like you, Zack.”
“On the other hand,” Hightower said, “I came a long ass way. Would it kill you to talk to Hanley on the sat phone for two minutes? If you do that for me, I promise I won’t get in the way of your little art project.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, amigo. I do know my orders are to put you two in touch, and I know Hanley will kick my dick if I don’t deliver.”
“I thought you were Denny’s bitch.”
“Hanley’s a smart guy. He’s a brasshole, everybody at Langley is, but he’s one of the better ones. Give him a couple of minutes.”
Court sighed and held his hand out.
Zack took an Iridium Extreme sat phone unit from the side pocket of his cargo pants, pulled out a pair of reading glasses from the breast pocket of his shirt, and put them on. He fumbled with his eyeglasses as he dialed the unit.
Court looked at him. “Need some help with that, Dad?”