Carmichael snatched it and held it to his ear while he walked. “Who is this?”
“It’s Mayes.” Jordan Mayes was Carmichael’s number two at NCS. He was a dozen years younger than his boss, but Carmichael could barely recall a time when Mayes was not by his side.
“Talk.”
“He’s here.”
“Who’s here?”
A brief delay from Mayes. Then one word. “Gentry.”
Carmichael stopped in his tracks. After a few seconds he spoke again, but his voice cracked. “He— Here? Here where?”
“Worst-case scenario? He’s got eyes on you right now.”
Carmichael looked around the lawn. In an instant his emotions cycled from fury through confusion, and then straight on to terror, and his voice went hoarse. “He’s in the goddamned States?”
“Best intel puts him in your state, Denny.”
Carmichael spoke quickly now; there would be no more pregnant pauses. “Get me the fuck out of here.” He began walking briskly, still cordoned off from the rest by DeRenzi and his men.
“Helo inbound. ETA five mikes.”
As he hurried along, Denny scanned his property. The tree line of pines in the distance, half-covered by thick mist, suddenly appeared foreboding.
Carmichael barked into the phone, “Five mikes, my ass. Expedite it!”
1
The band started back up tentatively, but the revelers’ attention was firmly fixed on the dozen serious men in the driveway surrounding the host.
Carmichael’s eyes searched from left to right, locking on human forms, because everyone at the party was a threat now. A congressman from Nevada, a prosecutor from Virginia, a horse breeder from Kentucky, the co-owner of a fashion magazine on Fifth Avenue. Caterers, musicians, and an event organizer standing by the pool with his hands on his hips, gaping at the armed Neanderthals destroying the mood of this glorious spring garden social. Carmichael double-checked everyone’s faces as he neared the back door, and the men and women he did not recognize—there were just a few—he triple-checked. He knew Gentry’s appearance—he’d been thinking about it for years—but he also knew the man could disguise himself better than anyone he’d ever known.
When he was inside and completely surrounded by his detail, he stood there a moment breathing heavily. He remembered he was still holding the phone to his ear. He said, “We’re sure?”
Mayes replied in a clipped, efficient tone. “Israelis tracked him to a freighter that embarked from Lisbon eight days ago. It’s now anchored in the Chesapeake Bay, just west of Easton. He might be heading west into D.C., but if he goes east, that’s less than fifteen minutes from you by car. We’ve sent a Marine FAST team to hit the boat, but—”
“Gentry won’t be on it.”
“Not a chance. He would have slipped off the second he got near the shore. Have to clear it anyway. Might find some clues on board as to what his play is here in the States.”
“Where did the Israelis come across this intel?”
“Unknown. I have a conference call set up with Menachem Aurbach at Mossad. We’ll initiate it as soon as you get to Langley.”
Just then, Carmichael saw heads turn to the south. Seconds later he heard the thumping. He knew the sound. It was one of the Agency’s sleek new Eurocopters.
Jordan Mayes added, “Denny, sorry about the party. I know it was important to Eleanor.”
“Fuck this party. I want the Violator Working Group assembled in sixty mikes. Everyone.”
“Roger that.”
—
The landing of the helo and the exfiltration of the host of the garden party went down in a fashion just as obnoxious as Carmichael feared it might. He’d spend the rest of his life explaining this moment away to his wife’s friends, but the fallout wasn’t even on his radar now. As he boarded the aircraft, along with DeRenzi and three other bodyguards, his mind reverted into combat mode.
Carmichael had fought as a lieutenant in Vietnam, as a lieutenant colonel in Lebanon and Grenada, and as a CIA officer against the Russians in Afghanistan. He’d HALO jumped into Panama, jetted into the Balkans, dune buggied into Iraq, and helicoptered back into Afghanistan twenty years after his first visit. Denny knew combat, and he knew how to push everything extraneous out of his mind, leaving it solely committed to the utter simplicity of kill or be killed.
This was his mind-set now.
The helo took off towards the south, leaving the party behind as it rose over misty, rolling farmland. The pilot pushed the cyclic forward and then twisted the throttle to pick up speed in the cold air.
Carmichael ordered Mayes to hold the line, then he moved to a seat just behind the flight crew and put on a set of headphones. Pulling the microphone down over his lips, he tapped the pilot on his shoulder.
The man turned back to him. “Yes, sir?”
“You have countermeasures on board?”
The pilot seemed surprised by the question. He glanced to his copilot, then back to the windscreen in front of him. “Yes, sir. Chaff and flares.”