Instead the UAV left the path of the highway and entered a little village. He saw it descending between two hills, and then it was gone.
“Ruth. I lost it.”
“Shit.”
“We’re going to have to wait another half hour.”
“Dammit! That takes us past noon. That’s not enough time to get to the cemetery if this doesn’t work.”
Court yelled back at her. “I’m close! Next time the UAV leaves this village and the other comes back I’ll be right on top of the ground control station.”
He raced into the village of Overijse, found high ground in a copse of trees just to the east of town, and then parked his bike. They were running out of time, but for now there was nothing he could do but wait.
FIFTY-THREE
Ruth took a bus that led her in the same general direction as the UAV, but she climbed out after only two stops, not wanting to reveal that she knew which village Townsend was operating from. She stood along the side of the road, killing time until the next UAV changeover.
Her phone chirped in her ear. “Yes?”
“It’s Babbitt. Why haven’t you called?”
She knew he was watching her, or at least he was being informed of her odd movements. She said, “I’m in contact with Gentry; he’s leading me around to make sure I’m not being followed.”
“It’s almost noon; he better hurry it up or Kalb is a dead man.”
“I know. It won’t be long. Do you have Dead Eye?”
“When you have Gentry in pocket, call me back. We know where Whitlock is, and I will tell you where to send Gentry.”
“Very good,” she said, and she disconnected the call.
But it was not “very good.” She knew Babbitt was stringing her along. There would be no meeting between Gentry and Whitlock at the end of this trip. No, as soon as the Townsend UAV tracked her to Gentry the Townsend men would pounce.
She climbed on the next bus heading in the opposite direction from Court. It was time to lead Jumper Team away from him.
Russ Whitlock had spent the morning preparing his escape from Brussels after his act. He staged an automobile north of town and reserved a hotel room in Amsterdam for that evening. From there he would play it by ear. He knew with certainty that his new documents received from the CIA the previous evening would be less than worthless; he would have to go to ground here in the EU and find some forged credos. This would take time and money, but Russ was comforted by the fact that, after one P.M. this afternoon, he would have a great deal of both.
He positioned himself in his rented ground-floor flat in the Brussels neighborhood of Saint Pieter Woluwe. He knew the area because the flat was in a building that also contained a Townsend safe house, a top-floor unit that Russ had used once in the past. He steered clear of the safe house unit because he thought it might have been bugged, and he knew Townsend might have been targeting him at this point along with Gentry.
He wanted to take an Adderall to amp up his reaction times and awareness, but he knew he’d have to make a plus one-thousand-yard shot, which would be impossible with the amped-up heart rate and blood pressure the drug would cause.
But this was of no great concern, because Russ knew his almost euphoric mood would take the place of the psychostimulant. He felt amazing about today, about his plan, his future.
It was just before noon now. He had fifteen minutes to kill before returning to his hide east of Dieweg Cemetery. He decided he would quickly clean and rebandage his weeping hip wound.
As he stood to head to the bathroom, his earpiece chirped.
“Go.”
“It’s Babbitt.”
Russ chuckled. “What? No identity check?”
“You are no longer an employee of Townsend Government Services. There is nothing official to this call.” He paused. “We’re just two guys, having a man-to-man chat.”
Russ’s ebullient mood continued. He joked, “You can’t fire me, because I quit.”
Babbitt wasn’t laughing. “I’m here in Brussels.”
Russ shrugged to himself in the quiet flat. “You? Out here in the field? Don’t tell me you brought Parks along with you?”
“Jeff is here, yes.”
“Oh no.” Russ’s tone was sarcastic. “The sheriff and his deputy have come to bring me in.”
Lee said, “If it were up to me I would do just that. But Denny Carmichael is ordering us to continue on with the Gentry mission.”
“Good ol’ Denny. He is an old single-minded, grudge-holding motherfucker, isn’t he?”
Babbitt cleared his throat. “I have been in contact with the woman from Mossad. She is here in Brussels and working with Gentry. They are trying to track you down.”
“They won’t find me.”
“She wants to exchange Gentry for you.”
Whitlock whistled. “Poor Court. He never met a friend who didn’t stab him in the back.”
“True.”
“Well, I’m not turning myself over to Mossad, and I’m not turning myself over to you.”
“Of course you aren’t.”
“Then what is it you want from me, Babbitt?”
“I want your trust.”
Russ cocked his head. Where was this going? “What do you mean?”
“I want you to just listen to what I have to say without reacting.” Before Russ responded, Babbitt said, “I thought it was likely you would use one of our mothballed safe houses as your base of operations, so I sent a UAV to check out all the locations you knew about. You were seen on Rue Kelle, and now John Beaumont and his team are right outside your door. Myself as well. We want to come in and talk. We have no mandate or sanction to do anything to you, we just need you to help us get Gentry.”
Russ leapt to his feet and reached for the Glock pistol on his hip, just as the living room door flew open and three men entered with their guns high. Russ dove out of the room and rushed toward the back of the property but here three more armed Townsend operatives entered through the back door and rushed toward him with their sub guns held high. He looked down and saw dancing laser dots moving around his chest as a half-dozen laser targeting systems attached to short-barreled submachine guns found their target.
Whitlock raised his hands in surrender. Beaumont stormed up the narrow hallway, then quickly brought his right knee up, hard, slamming it into the ragged infected gunshot wound on Whitlock’s left hip.
Russ fell to the floor.
Minutes later Dead Eye’s hands had been zip-tied behind his back, and he sat on the couch in the living room. Two Townsend men were tasked with keeping their Uzis pointed at his head, and the rest of the Townsend men moved around the property, mostly helping the UAV team move their ground control station from the van outside to a long table next to a bay window in the front of the living room. As the two UAV operators, a pilot named Joe and a sensor operator named Keith, set up their gear, they glanced his way. Russ smiled at the two young men. Matter-of-factly he said, “I’m going to kill you both.”
They looked to Beaumont with panic-stricken looks.
Beaumont said, “Don’t listen to him, boys. He’s just a little grumpy. When we busted through that door he lost twenty-five million bucks.”
Babbitt and Parks entered the living room and sat down in wingback chairs across from Russ. Beaumont remained across the room, leaning against the wall with his Uzi slung across his chest.
Leland Babbitt addressed Whitlock. “Here’s how it’s going to play out. The Israeli woman will make contact with Gentry and then she will call me. I will have her send Gentry here. When he arrives we kill him, and then we sit here until Kalb leaves the city.