There was little emotion in Court in the killing of this now-helpless man; there was only the work, the job. The man himself was a non-issue as an immediate threat, but he was a near-term threat to the mission, so Court killed him with all the sentiment of a file clerk operating a three-hole punch to fit documents into a binder.
This was, quite simply, what Courtland Gentry did for a living.
The small Chinese man went limp after nearly a minute. Court couldn’t know if he was dead or just unconscious, so when the muscles in the man’s neck went completely slack, the American lifted the head and drove it down hard, snapping cervical vertebrae against the cold, blood-smeared, and unyielding edge of the toilet bowl.
Court let the man wilt down to the tile floor, and then Court himself fell onto his ass, slipping on the splashed water from the toilet. He crawled back to his feet, quickly pulled off his soaked sport coat, wiped sweat from his face with it, and took a few calming breaths.
This done, he rushed back into the bedroom to pick up the man’s phone off the floor. The screen had not yet locked, and Court’s picture was there, attached to a text message. Business Suit had only had to push the send button and a close-up of Court’s face with a beard and eyeglasses would have been transmitted to God knows where, and there would have been no chance he could continue on with his job here in the city.
But he deleted the image, pocketed the phone to dispose of somewhere else, and searched the gym bag to see if these men were carrying anything else that could help him understand how they knew about him. He found nothing of interest save for a second blowgun disguised as a pen containing the scopolamine, which he started to pocket, thinking it might come in handy later.
After a few seconds he thought better of this, realizing he couldn’t take anything that would tie him to this incident. He slipped the pen into the man’s jacket.
Court changed into dry clothing as fast as he could, and then, just three minutes after killing the second of two Chinese intelligence operatives, he began packing his own bag, rushing to get himself out of there as fast as possible.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Court Gentry walked along the promenade in front of Victoria Harbor at one a.m., his phone’s wired earpiece in his ear. He’d destroyed the Chinese intelligence officer’s cell phone and tossed it into the warm water seconds earlier, eliminating the chance that he could be located through the device, and now he rolled his wheeled luggage along next to him like a businessman who’d just arrived in the city on a late-evening flight.
After three rings his encrypted international call was answered on the other end.
“Brewer.”
“It’s me.”
“Identity challenge, Racecar.”
Court had a little trouble remembering his code schedule. Finally he cleared his mind of everything else, and it came to him. “Response, Requiem.”
“Confirmed,” Brewer said, and then she made a sarcastic comment about how quickly he was getting in touch with her after proclaiming just thirteen hours earlier he wouldn’t be checking in for a while. “This is your idea of going dark?”
“Something’s happened you need to know about.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not good,” Court confirmed. “Two assholes just tried to kill me. And yes, I am sure.”
It took Brewer a while to process the information. “How can you be so certain they were trying to kill you?”
“Fair question. It started with truth opioids, and when I resisted it went to bullets whizzing by my head, that sort of thing. Trust me, I’m a pretty fair judge of lethal intent.”
He was being a smartass, and this was not the whole truth. Court had determined, on his own, to kill the men to protect his operation, but he didn’t need his CIA handler second-guessing that decision.
“But you are okay?” she asked.
The right side of Court’s rib cage screamed in agony, but only because he’d reaggravated an injury he’d picked up a few weeks ago. He wasn’t dying, so he said, “I’m okay.”
“And the two men?”
“They are not okay.”
“I see.” Court waited while she processed the information. “What is the situation now?”
“One man is in my room. He’s DRT.”
“DRT?”
“Dead right there. The other went out a twenty-fifth-floor window, fell a good twenty stories down, and is now lying on a rooftop. I’m no doctor, but I assume he’s a goner, as well.”
“Oh my God.”
Court knew what would come next.
“Blowbacks on the Agency?”
“I got out clean, there is no tail on me, but the concern would be surveillance imagery inside the Peninsula hotel. They will tie the deaths to the room, obviously, and they’ll look for stored recordings of the guest in the room.”
“We can do something about that.”
“Like what?”
“S&T techniques you aren’t cleared for.”
It felt surreal to Court to be talking about getting support from the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology, chiefly because the CIA had spent a half decade trying to kill him. But everyone was on the same big happy team now, so he pushed any reticence about receiving help from the CIA out of his mind.
“Okay. Do you have cleaners here in Hong Kong?”
“Not our people, but I’ve arranged contingencies with the Brits and Australians over there. I knew there was a chance for something like this on your assignment, so all I have to do is make a call to get their teams moving.”
Court gave Brewer the room number and the location of the building with the dead Chinese intelligence officer on the roof, and then Brewer told him she would call him back.
Court left the promenade, turning to the north and moving through the busy streets of Tsim Sha Tsui. He passed karaoke bars, fortune-tellers, twenty-four-hour bank branches, and so many stand-up fast-food restaurants that the smells from one mingled with the smells from the next just as all the neon seemed to turn into one multicolored ribbon of light.
One mile north and twenty-five minutes later, he answered his beeping phone. It was Brewer again, and they rushed through the challenge and response.
Brewer said, “A British cleanup crew is entering the Peninsula now, and NSA is in the process of altering relevant security camera images. The Aussies are sending a team to get that body off the roof next door. Asian men wearing clothing similar to that of the terminated intelligence officers will be seen and recorded leaving the building, and the men you killed will be dumped in the harbor. Our Hong Kong station will provide a case officer matching your description to enter your room tonight, then check out tomorrow. He’ll come up with a story about the broken window.”
Court was impressed how much Suzanne Brewer had accomplished in less than half an hour.
“That sounds like a solid plan,” he admitted. Working with the CIA had its perks, just as working against them had its drawbacks.
Brewer was cool, but still, she was more emotional about everything than he was. “Jesus, Violator, why did they go lethal? Could you have provoked them in some way?”