Travers followed Gentry’s orders, confused. He did know how to defeat zip ties, even when his arms were fastened behind his back, but if Gentry knew this already, why was he using them?
When his arms were secured, Court walked up to him and spun him around. A second later Travers heard the sound of thick duct tape being pulled from a roll.
“You motherfucker,” he mumbled. The zip ties were just to keep his hands down while Court restrained him in a way that would be much harder to defeat.
—
Five minutes later Travers’s arms and hands were completely secured, from the shoulders all the way down to the fingertips, with an entire roll of duct tape. His ankles were bound with wires from two table lamps. He sat on the floor, arms outstretched behind him like a single wing, and his feet in front of him, lashed together.
Once Court was finished he knelt over the other man and surveyed his work. “You look ridiculous,” he said.
“I’ve got to piss.”
“Just think of that as additional incentive.” Court patted the other man on the head. “Good to see you, Chris.” He headed for the door.
“Fuck you. Seriously, how the hell am I supposed to get out of this?”
Court flipped off the overhead in the living room. The only remaining light was from the street, filtering in through the curtains. He said, “If this equation takes you more than ten minutes to solve, then you are a poor excuse for an asset.” Court reached for the door latch.
Travers called after him. “Hey, Court?”
“Yeah?”
Travers paused, then said, “I’m going to tell you this as a friend. I really hope you’ll take my advice. Run. Just fucking run. You had the right plan. Staying off grid, out of the States. That was working for you. There is no future to you sticking around here. Trust me on that. Now that you’re here. Now that they know. They’ll rain down on you with everything they have, and they will kill you.”
“I suspect you’re right,” Court said, and he left Travers there, alone in the dark.
—
It was well after two a.m. when Court pulled into a little market and gas station a mile from his long-term storage unit in Columbia Heights. He’d been driving around for a while, rolling into, and then back out of, a half dozen other convenience store parking lots, because he was looking for a very specific setup.
He needed a place with poor CCTV camera coverage of the parking lot.
Court took it on faith that the U.S. government would have access to civilian CCTV networks here in the area. They would also have facial recognition software working to identify him as he moved around the city. While there was nothing Court could do to avoid getting picked up on cameras inside stores—he couldn’t very well wear a ski mask as he shopped—he knew it was in his best interests to show neither his face nor his vehicle on camera.
Court could mitigate the risk to himself by never going to the same place more than once. By the time he was identified on camera and CIA or police arrived to investigate, hours would have passed. Court merely had to know better than to ever return. But if he allowed his image to be recorded and identified and he allowed his vehicle to be identified by parking it in view of a CCTV camera, then he would be screwed, because he couldn’t very well change cars every time he went out into the city.
The parking lots of the first six late-night markets he pulled into had good camera coverage, with no place to park without exposing his vehicle. The seventh store, to Court’s great relief, did have a couple of outdoor cameras near the pumps, but the store’s owners were cutting corners and relying on the inside camera to film a portion of the lot near the window. Court only had to pull up to one side of the front window or the other, park in a space there, and then go inside.
Court stepped carefully into the Easy Market on Rhode Island with his head down. He lowered his hood, but he left his baseball cap on, low in front of his face. He moved slowly to the back corner of the establishment, far away from the register, and he pretended to look through the cooler for a drink. Soon he glanced up and around the little shop, scanning high and in the corners, searching for cameras.
And Court liked what he saw. Not only had the management here gone cheap with the cams outside; two of the cameras inside the market were hanging down with wires unplugged—clearly out of commission. A third camera was up to the right of the front register and facing down, but Court determined he could defeat it with his cap and by turning his face away from the proper angle needed for successful facial recog.