Looking away from the mirror, he got his first glimpse of his hotel. The five-star Peninsula Hong Kong sat at the southern tip of Kowloon, just across the street from the harbor ferry terminal. He was anxious to get into his room — not so he could rest after the two-leg, nineteen-hour flight from the United States; rather so he could whip out his encrypted phone and call his handler. He would let her know about the surveillance, and he would let her have it, because this bullshit wasn’t his damn fault, and it could ruin this mission before it began.
No, Court told himself. This wouldn’t hurt the op. It couldn’t, because his assignment here was possibly the most important of his life. The potential for gain was exponentially larger than any intelligence haul he’d ever heard of short of wartime.
And lives were on the line, including the life of a man who had saved Court Gentry years ago.
Court told himself he would not fail. Regardless of the hurdles ahead, he would see this through somehow, even if he had these Chinese motherfuckers breathing down his neck for the duration of his assignment.
The Mercedes drove around the fountain in front of the Peninsula and stopped under the awning. A bellman opened the back door, but Court climbed out of the front seat with barely a nod to his driver. He handled his own luggage and passed the attentive bellmen with a curt nod, like he was a businessman who did this every day of his life.
A stunning fleet of green Rolls-Royce Phantoms, eight in total, were lined up near the entrance to the hotel, and Court pretended to give a damn about them, just as a foreign businessman might. He knew the cars were here to take the well-heeled guests to and fro around Hong Kong, and he wouldn’t mind going for a ride in the back of a luxurious classic car, but this wasn’t going to be that type of assignment. No, he figured he’d likely spend his time skulking alone in shady alleys and cracking heads in opium dens and strip clubs.
Despite the nice hotel and his nice suit, he fully expected to find himself serving as a low-grade ground pounder on this gig, not a high-flying cocktail circuit spook.
After slowing a moment to fulfill his cover by looking over the Rolls-Royce fleet approvingly, he returned to his brisk pace and entered the lobby.
Five minutes later he was checked into his twenty-fifth-floor room. It wasn’t a suite but it was roomy and ornate. It came with a dramatic floor-to-ceiling view of Victoria Harbor. Beyond the congested waterway, the massive skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island shot skyward. Past the stunning urban landscape, lush hills dwarfed the buildings, and Victoria Peak, the highest point in HK, was completely hidden by the low cloud ceiling.
Court took in the view just for a moment before dropping his roll-aboard and his backpack on the bed, fishing in his luggage for his mobile phone and its battery, and reassembling the device.
He turned on his room’s impressive stereo system, made sure the surround-sound speakers were each playing with the “all channel” stereo mode to remove the chance that a hidden surveillance mic happened to be positioned near a speaker that was only blaring music intermittently, and then he chose a station playing some annoying techno that was sure to madden anyone who might be eavesdropping. Court then entered the spacious bathroom and turned on the spigot in the tub. The sounds of water moving through pipes in the walls would play havoc on a microphone positioned nearby.
More than once in his own career he’d had to yank headphones from his ears and throw them across the room to save himself from the roar of a filling tub or the thunder of a flushing toilet.
Court’s mobile was encrypted with nonproprietary, off-the-shelf software that had been tweaked to improve the performance of the encryption but not augmented with any gadgetry that would give away the fact that Court got it from the Science and Technology Division of the CIA. It would withstand examination by experts at even top-tier intelligence organizations. If they ever got their hands on it, he’d seem like a paranoid businessman, an antisurveillance technology geek, but he would not look like a government spy.
Gentry’s primary cover was as an American businessman, but his secondary cover was that of a freelance assassin — a hit man without portfolio — and he wasn’t about to give that away by using gear with the Agency’s fingerprints on it.
It took a moment for his phone to establish a connection, but when it went through, the call was answered on the first ring.
“Brewer.”
Court checked his watch and saw that it was ten p.m. in Langley, Virginia, and he wondered if Suzanne Brewer was still in her office.
He said, “Violator.”
“Identity challenge, Roadster.” He heard a hint of relief in her voice. Court knew she’d been anticipating his call.
“My response is Renaissance.”
“Challenge response confirmed. I assume your operation is proceeding nominally.”
“Not even close. There’s a problem.”
“A problem? By the clock on my desk you should just now be arriving at your hotel. Is your bed too lumpy?”
“I’ve got a tail.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Are you—”
Court interrupted. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“How the hell did you manage to pick up a tail?”
“My plane landed, and there was a surveillance team waiting for me in a car as I left the airport.”
Another pause. “That’s problematic.”
“Problematic? At Langley, yeah, I guess that’s how it looks. Here, from my angle, it looks like an utter clusterfuck. How am I supposed to do this job with eyes on me?”
Brewer remained detached and professional. “I understand your concern, Violator. I’ll begin a review immediately, look into the aircraft, see if there is a chance—”
“Who knows about this operation?”
Brewer answered without hesitation. “You, me, and Hanley. Full stop.”
Matthew Hanley was the CIA’s new director of the National Clandestine Service. Court had a long history with Hanley, whereas his relationship with Suzanne Brewer was less than twenty-four hours old. But she was his handler, his single contact, his one lifeline with the Agency on this operation. He had to work with her, and to some extent, he had to trust her.
But Court wasn’t a trusting guy. “You’re sure about that?”
“Absolutely certain. Look, this isn’t about you. Can’t be. Whoever it is that’s following you doesn’t know who you are. They must just somehow know the plane belongs to us, so whoever climbed off the plane is now their target.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Brewer said, “I’m always right. We just met, so you can’t know that yet, but you will learn soon enough.”
“You sure as hell weren’t right about the jet.”
“That wasn’t my jet. That was the transport Hanley arranged. I’m as new to this op as you are.” She thought a moment. “If the Chinese know it’s an Agency asset, then we won’t use it again. When the job is done, I’ll fly you out of there on a clean aircraft, I promise you that.”
Court gazed out the window and down at the harbor, twenty-five floors down. Dozens of different watercraft of all sizes and types were in sight. “Maybe I’d be safer on one of these old junks bobbing in the harbor.”
“That’s your call, but until you complete your op, no slow boats for you. The clock is ticking. You know what’s at stake here.”