“Exactly. Since about three a.m. we have been monitoring hospitals, all-night pharmacies, and minor emergency clinics, expecting him to show up for supplies. Nothing so far.”
Zack shook his head. “He won’t go to a hospital or a clinic. He’ll treat himself. If he didn’t already have wound management supplies, he’ll get them at a grocery store or a corner market or a vet clinic because he’ll expect you to monitor video feeds at pharmacies. There can’t be more than a dozen that are open all night around here.”
Brewer nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. Any other suggestions?”
Just then, Jordan Mayes leaned into the TOC. “Sorry, Suzanne. I’ll need to borrow Zack for a few minutes. I’ll send him back down when I’m done.”
—
Zack followed Mayes up to seven, neither man speaking the entire way. The older man with the white hair looked exhausted, which Zack found hilarious, because he had been the one in the field the night before, not Jordan Mayes.
Zack was late forties, Mayes was just a few years older, but Mayes was a suit. Zack told himself he wouldn’t let himself go to pot like Mayes when he hit his fifties; hell, not even when he was eighty-five.
They entered a small private conference room, and Zack expected to see Carmichael waiting for him. But the room was empty. Mayes motioned for Zack to sit, and Mayes then took the chair next to him.
Hightower understood now. Denny was using Mayes as a cutout. Mayes would provide a barrier between the shooter and the man who gave the term order.
He’d expected instant and profuse gratitude from Mayes for killing Babbitt, but what he got was something quite different.
Mayes began, “You had eyes on the rear of Babbitt’s property. How is it you didn’t see Violator?”
Zack wasn’t ready to go on the defensive, so it took him a moment to answer. Finally he said, “I guess that’s why they call him the Gray Man. He probably got into position before I arrived. He had a secure hide site. I was focused on the target, and the target’s security.”
“And after? Babbitt’s men saw him. Why didn’t you?”
Hightower’s square jaw flexed. “After I smoked my target, I hit the bricks. Nobody said anything to me about Babbitt being a potential Gentry target.”
Mayes sighed. “Still, you knew Gentry was on the streets. A little vigilance on your part and you could have killed two birds with one stone last night. This op would be over.”
Hightower was no longer on the defensive—now he was pissed. No seventh-floor suit was going to tell him how to do wet work. “Look, if you’d integrated me into this op a little bit more, let me know about the connection between Gentry and Babbitt, whatever it was, I could have done your analysis for you.” Zack shrugged. “You just brought me into this to be a trigger puller, so I just pulled the fucking trigger.”
Mayes let it go. “Very well. Denny and I are satisfied with the Babbitt termination.”
Zack wanted to say, “I killed the motherfucker for you, why wouldn’t you be satisfied?” but instead he forced out a “Glad to hear it. Next time, send me after Gentry, and I’ll get Gentry. It’s as simple as that.”
33
Denny Carmichael stared at his computer monitor, the thick worry lines in his forehead tight with concentration. He was reading the website for the Washington Post, and on it an article filed at six fifteen a.m. by metro reporter Andrew R. Shoal. The story laid out the bare bones of the killing of Leland Babbitt, the escape of the killer, and a carjacking ninety minutes later that, police were saying, might have been related to the earlier crime.
There was no mention of Catherine King in the article, and she was not included in the byline, but Denny had heard all about her surprise appearance at the scene last night and her proclamation that she knew Brewer and Mayes had been in Washington Highlands at the site of Gentry’s first act in the area.
There was also no mention in the piece of the two CIA employees the Post reporters ran into at the carjacking scene, and while Carmichael was thankful for this, he presumed Catherine King would be working on that end of the story and he’d be forced to deal with her soon. Actually, he was certain of this, because shortly after eight a.m. the Washington Post investigative reporter herself had called Denny’s office, asking his secretary for a meeting on background with the director of NCS.
Denny didn’t know if King was just fishing or if she had some clearer picture of what was going on. The fact that she knew Mayes and Brewer had been in Washington Highlands Saturday night was a problem, because now there was no way he could claim the Agency’s appearance in Chevy Chase was only a curiosity about Babbitt’s killing and not part of something that they had known about for several days.
Carmichael’s secretary came over the intercom, breaking his train of thought. “Sir, Suzanne Brewer of Programs and Plans is asking for five minutes.”