Court watched the pilot move the forty-pound gear bag from the truck to the spinning helo, then Court climbed in the backseat with it. The pilot got back in and strapped himself into the right seat again.
The videographer was too scared to turn around and look at Court, but Court put on a headset and spoke to him. “Cameraman, throw your phone out the door. Pilot, you, too.” Both men did as instructed. Court read off a series of GPS coordinates to the pilot, then said, “Take me there exactly. Get us to an altitude of six thousand feet.”
Angus Lee punched the coordinates in his computer. “Yes, sir. What do I tell air traffic control?”
“Tell them you are flying to Baltimore. That will get you close enough to where we’re going. After that tell them there was a gun to your head. That will get you out of trouble.”
“I’ll do what you ask. Please don’t hold your gun to my head.”
“It’s a figure of speech, dude. Do what I say and we’ll all stay friends. Cool?”
“Yes, sir.”
The helo took off and headed north. Court had his own GPS unit on his wrist, and he used it to make sure the pilot complied with his instructions.
While they flew he also consulted a small tablet computer in his hand and looked over the schematics of the building he was about to hit, working over each detail of his operation again and again, trying to think of everything and anything that might come up.
Court’s big backpack was next to him on the bench seat, not on his back, because his parachute was using that real estate at present. The pack was bungied to Court’s waist, and it would hang from him as he parachuted down. If Court didn’t make contact with the enemy during the landing phase of his jump he would pull a knife from his chest rig and cut the pack free right before he touched down. Otherwise he would simply land with a forty-pound weight hanging between his legs, which wouldn’t be optimal, but it was nothing Court had not dealt with before, both in training and in operations.
He was well versed in dealing with Murphy’s Law.
He put the tablet computer away, then he grabbed another bag from his pack. One by one he pulled out five mobile phones and placed them on the seat next to him. Once he had them lined up, he opened the Uber car service app on each phone and fiddled with the map on each screen for a few seconds. It took longer than he would have liked, but after less than five minutes, he had accomplished what he’d set out to do.
He then opened the door of the helo and leaned out. Looking down, he realized they were flying over Huntley Meadows Park, a large forested green space that would be closed for the evening. Court took all five phones and tossed them over the side of the helo, then closed the door again.
The pilot flew to six thousand feet, checked his GPS, and told Gentry they were two minutes from the target. Court checked one more time to make sure all his kit was secure on his body.
He saw the videographer moving his camera into position. Court turned away, his back to the lens. He spoke into the mic. “No lights.”
“I understand,” said the videographer.
Court took off his headset, opened the rear door, kicked his legs out over the side, and looked out.
He saw nothing but clouds. His pounding heart skipped a beat.
From the front the pilot shouted now, “Ten seconds!”
Court checked his own GPS and confirmed this, then hefted his backpack in his lap and pushed to the edge of his seat. The cold night pressed against his face as he looked out the side of the helo.
Then, “Three, two, one. Go!”
Court went over the side, dropping his forty-pound bag from his hands as he did so. It pulled at his waist for a moment but as both he and his equipment bundle reached maximum velocity, he knew he wouldn’t think about it again.
Not until he pulled the rip cord. He did this at four thousand feet, he felt the canopy catch above him, and instantly the bag yanked hard below him. He checked his chute; it was almost impossible to see in the cloudy night above, but he saw his lines were taut and he realized he had a good, full canopy.
Checking the GPS on his wrist, he began steering to the left, then he looked down, trying to pick out the large clock tower of Alexandria Eight. It took him some time, but on his right he saw the lights of a jet on final approach to nearby Reagan National, and he used this as a reference point. His eyes tracked south from the airport, along the Potomac River, then he looked along the lights of King Street, which led from the river all the way to the massive George Washington Masonic National Memorial, the highest building in the city. From here his eyes tracked to the left, to the west, and within a few seconds he centered on Alexandria Eight.
Once he had the clock tower of the safe house in his sights, he looked at little else, because the tower was his landing zone.
He thought the darkness would improve his chances of parachuting all the way to the tower without being seen by the guard force on the property, but he had wanted to do something to improve his chances even more.
Below him on North Quaker Lane, five pairs of headlights moved slowly to the edge of the property at the front of the safe house grounds. When they rolled under the streetlight closest to the driveway, this revealed them to be five large black SUVs. They stopped one hundred feet in front of the guard shack and just sat there. They weren’t threatening anyone or anything, but they were a curious sight indeed.
The five SUVs were from Uber, and Court had ordered one to go to that location with each of his five phones. He’d texted each driver with instructions to wait at the end of the driveway. The drivers inside the vehicles didn’t know anything more than that; when they found themselves forming into a motorcade with other drivers, they likely assumed a group would be coming down the driveway from the big property any minute and piling in to go to dinner or to another location.
But Court didn’t care what the drivers were thinking. He was only concerned about what the CIA guards on the property were thinking. He knew everyone would see a motorcade of big black SUVs and immediately think “feds” or other government entity. He had planned this so that every eye on the property would look out to the cars at the end of the drive. If he had created some threatening diversion, explosions or fireworks, for example, he knew security here would order the south wing of the property locked down tight, so he kept his diversion mild. Just government-looking vehicles forming in the distance.
Court turned his attention from the five SUVs and focused again on the clock tower. The defensive plan of Alexandria Eight, Court had read in the plans sent by Hanley, had called for either one or two guards on the clock tower landing. Court was hoping for one, but when he got his NODs centered on the tower and then looked just below it at the landing, he saw three men standing there.
Shit.
He reached for the weapon on his right hip. It was a Ruger Mark 2 Amphibian, a stainless steel .22 caliber rim fire pistol with an integral suppressor.
But then he decided to change his tactics on the fly. As he descended closer to the men he took his hand off the pistol, and he let go of one of the brake handles on his parachute rig and quickly pulled his knife. At thirty feet above the landing he cut away his equipment bundle, then quickly grabbed his quick-release harness, pulling it to release the entire rigging from his back.
The backpack crashed on the landing and Court landed right behind it, hitting the surface and dropping low, just inches behind the first sentry, who swung around at the noise right behind him. Court came up under the man’s M4 rifle, ripping the weapon away with one hand and pulling against the guard’s rifle sling. This yanked the man forward, with his chin leading the way.
Court rocked the man with an uppercut palm strike to his chin.