Jenner navigated the Camry into Hanley’s garage while Travers continued scanning the neighborhood, then both officers climbed out of the vehicle. While Hanley remained locked in the armored car the men checked his entire two-thousand-square-foot home. It took them fifteen minutes; they put their eyes on any possible man-sized space they could find. Travers crawled the attic, and Jenner moved paint cans in the corner of the basement to shine a light over every square foot where Gentry could possibly hide.
While all this happened Hanley waited silently. He had calls to make and papers to read, but he wasn’t in the mood tonight. He just sat there in the armored car, thinking about nothing.
Finally Jenner opened Hanley’s door. “The place is secure, sir, and it’s locked down tight. Once we leave the garage, set your alarm. Nothing is getting in here.”
“Okay,” he said.
Travers asked, “You sure you don’t want us to bunk here tonight, boss?”
“I could use the company, for sure. But no. You guys run on.”
Jenner shifted his weight back and forth on his boots. “Violator is out there, sir. Got to say I find it a little odd you don’t want the extra security.”
“I’m fine.”
With obvious reluctance, his two men pulled out of the garage and back out onto 28th Street NW. Hanley set the alarm, and then closed his garage door.
Once he changed out of his suit and tie and into jeans and a flannel shirt, he headed down to his kitchen, reheated last night’s takeout from LiLLiES, an Italian bistro right up the street from him. Then he opened a bottle of Chianti, drinking it while scarfing down day-old penne alla vodka from a microwave-safe carryout bowl.
Matt ate a lot and he drank a lot, and when he wasn’t working he did most of his eating and drinking alone. He took his time with his meal, enjoying every bite, but each time a flash of lightning brightened the backyard he glanced out of his kitchen, past his living room, and through the French doors, halfway expecting to see a man standing there, gun in hand.
He finished the last gulp of wine in his glass, then he tried to pour more, but found the bottle empty.
Looking at the clock, he realized he’d been sitting in his kitchen for an hour.
His mobile rang in the front pocket of his jeans, startling him, showing him just how on edge he remained, even though he kept telling himself Gentry probably wouldn’t kill him. He chastised himself as he pulled out the phone and looked at the caller ID.
“Hello, Jenner.”
“Just checking on you, boss.”
“That’s sweet.”
“Seriously. Wanted to make sure you are okay. You watched the garage door till it closed?”
“I did.”
“Okay.” A pause. “Again, you change your mind, you just let me know. Travers lives ten minutes from you, but you know him, he’ll be there in five. I’m twenty out, but I’ll be there in ten if you need me.”
“I read you five-five, Jenner. See you tomorrow.”
Another pause. “You okay, boss?”
“Good night.” Hanley hung up the phone.
Matt Hanley then stood, walked to the French doors overlooking the back patio, and looked out at the approaching storm. The wind blew the trees wildly, and the waist-high ferns in stone planters on his patio whipped around like mad dancing children.
Matt put his hand on the door latch, hesitated almost a minute, and then opened the door.
His home alarm began beeping, but he ignored it.
The smell of rain was strong, blowing into his living room with the wind.
Hanley spoke to the trees. “Okay, Six. Let’s get this over with.”
He stepped out onto his patio and pulled one of the smaller stone planters inside, then used it as a doorstop to keep one of the French doors propped open a foot and a half. Then he turned away, walked over to the security box, and disarmed the alarm.
He headed for the stairs to his bedroom.
Matt Hanley had spent many years intimately aware of the abilities of the assassin known as Violator, Sierra Six, and the Gray Man. He wasn’t sure if Gentry wanted to kill him, but if he did, Gentry would get the job done. Hanley knew, without any doubt, that if Gentry saw no way to walk right up to Hanley he could kill him from a mile away or even more if he wanted.
Hanley wasn’t going to hide under a rock for the rest of his life.
Court Gentry might kill him, Hanley had decided, but he wasn’t going to do it from distance. No thousand-meter shot through the heart.
No, if Hanley had to die, he would die deep in conversation with the Gray Man.
It was his only chance.
At the top of the stairs, Hanley felt a presence here in the house with him. His already pounding heart seemed to find another gear. He sniffed the air, thought he detected the odor of another body, the smell of the outdoors up here on the second floor.
But he could not be certain.
He looked behind him on the stairs, then he opened the door to a hallway bathroom. Another flash of light from outside revealed the room as if it were day.
There was nothing.
Hanley spoke loudly, almost in a shout. “If you’re here, Court, I only ask for a moment of your time before you do whatever it is you came to do. You owe me that much.”
No sounds anywhere in the home, only the pounding of the rain now, on the roof and on the windows.
Hanley turned and headed up the hall to his bedroom.
In his room he turned on the light by his bed, opened the drawer in his end table, and was comforted to see his old Wilson Combat 1911 .45 ACP pistol. He’d had the gun since he’d worn the Green Beret of U.S. Army Special Forces in the 1980s, and although it wasn’t his only firearm, it was the gun he kept by his bed for things that went bump in the night.
He turned off his phone and laid it on his side table, kicked off his shoes, then turned off the light and lay on his back on the bed. Fully clothed, fully expecting no sleep at all tonight.
Matt Hanley’s eyes opened and he sat up, unsure how long he’d been asleep, or even if he had dozed off at all. The thunder barked outside, the room was dark, but again, he felt someone close by.
He dropped his head back on the pillow.
“Jesus Christ, Court. If you are here, just fucking say something.”
A new flash of light outside, at the same time as a thunderclap.
A man stood at the foot of Hanley’s bed, head to toe in black, his face masked, his clothes dry.
“Jesus!” Hanley shouted, jerking back until his head slammed against the headboard. He grabbed at the stitch of pain in his heart.
36
Come on, Six! That’s not necessary! You scared the piss out of me!”
There was no reply in the darkness for several seconds, only the rumble of distant thunder. Then a soft voice came from the side of the bed, ten feet away from where Hanley had seen Gentry in the lightning’s flash.
“Which is it? Are you stupid, cocky, or suicidal?”
Hanley was still recovering from the fright, but he sat all the way up in bed now. “I left the door open because I wanted you to know I’m not trying to keep you away. I didn’t want you to blow my head off from five hundred meters. I’d much rather we talk.”
“And then I blow your head off?”
Hanley swallowed. “Hell, you almost scared me to death.” He rubbed the top of his head where it had hit the headboard. “I can’t stop whatever it is you are planning on doing, but killing me would serve nothing. Can we please talk?”
“I’m not here to kill you, Matt. I remember what you did in Mexico.”
“Glad to hear that.”