She stood from her stool, lifted her drink off the bar, and began walking over.
Out of the corner of her left eye she saw Aron sitting with the college kids; he looked up at her and squared his shoulders in her direction. Though he was professional and showed no outward alarm, she wondered if he would call out to her, and she also wondered if he would leap from his chair and tackle her before she could walk over and sit down next to the man with the blood of so many on his hands.
But he did not shout and he did not tackle her. She made the crossing over to her target without incident, and she focused on the man as she stepped up to the bar next to him.
Gentry looked down into his beer. He did not move a muscle.
“Hej,” she said. It sounded like “Hey!” in English, but it was Swedish for “hello” and the only word she knew in the language.
Slowly the man’s face turned to her. “Hello,” he answered in English. His voice was softer than she’d imagined it to be.
“Crowded,” she said. “I guess everyone wants to get out of the cold.”
“I guess so.”
“You’re American?” she asked.
He nodded and looked back down to his beer, his shoulders and legs pointed forward, toward the bar, and not in her direction. His body language would have devastated her self-esteem if she had really been trying to chat him up.
“Me, too.”
He did not look up or respond.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just thought I could introduce myself.”
“All right.”
She used his response as an invitation to sit down on the stool just vacated next to him, although she was pretty sure that wasn’t what he meant.
In the intelligence world, a seemingly chance encounter with someone who is actually an enemy intelligence officer is referred to as a bump. If a male spy is riding the subway, the pretty girl who drops her purse next to him and then starts up a conversation as the two of them pick up the contents is probably bumping him. There is likely nothing at all random to the encounter.
Court had seen no specific tell indicating that this encounter with this woman was a bump. But Court was also a suspicious man. He would assume she was part of a surveillance team until he either confirmed it or somehow proved otherwise.
It occurred to him that the only true way he would ever be convinced she was not bumping him was if she walked away right now and he never saw her again.
He did not speak to her, so she started talking. “I’m here on vacation. Brooklyn, born and raised.” She smiled.
He looked up now, but not at her; instead he looked behind the bartender in front of them, scanning the glass bottles, the reflections off the glass shelving, even the tap handles over the draft beer faucet.
“I’m Rebecca,” she said, and she reached out a hand.
He took it and shook it softly; there was no eye contact along with the gesture.
His phone rang. “I’m sorry.” And then, with a slight smile he said, “Work.”
“Sure,” she said politely, and then she swiveled in her stool, faced forward, and took a sip of her pilsner.
Court answered with a light “Hello.”
“I’ve got answers for you.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
Russ said, “The short version is this: If I were you, I’d drink up.”
“Go on.”
Russ said, “I will go on. I’ve got all the intel you need right now, real life-and-death shit, but I want something for it.”
“What’s that?”
Russ said, “I want to know about Kiev.”
Court sighed a little and said, “Good-bye,” and he started to take his phone from his ear.
Russ shouted, “The woman is Mossad!”
Court brought the phone back quickly. His breathing quickened slightly, though he made no outward indication of alarm.
“Is that a fact?” The girl was on his right, sipping from her beer mug and looking ahead.
“Yes. There is a Mossad team liasing with Townsend. I’ve got all the particulars, but you have to give me what I want first. Tell me everything you did in Kiev.”
“That’s not really convenient for me right now.”
“I understand, you are in public. Look, I know you are a man of your word. You swear to me you will tell me about Kiev. The truth, no bullshit. You do that and I’ll help you get away from the Israelis.”
Court looked at the reflection of the woman in the mirror behind the bar. She glanced up at his reflection and smiled.
Mossad. Holy hell. In his five years on the run he’d purposefully steered clear of the Israelis. He had great respect for their abilities, and the fact that they were on him now made his guts churn.
Softly he spoke into his phone. “Deal.”
“Listen carefully,” Russ said. “I just talked to Jeff Parks at Townsend. The woman’s name is Ettinger. Ruth Ettinger. She’s running a four-person targeting team, and although she is working with Townsend, they are not operating together tonight. Still, if there are targeters on you, you know good and well there are going to be shooters close by.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Court said flatly.
“You need to get out of town.”
“I hear you.”
Court looked back over his left shoulder; there was a hallway that led to a rear exit. It was his closest escape route, although there were easily thirty people crowding the floor between himself and the hallway.
“Not the back,” said Whitlock. He couldn’t see Gentry, of course, but he could guess what was going through the other singleton’s head. “They’ll have that covered with guns first. There will be eyes at the front, but they won’t expect you to bolt into public.”
Court knew Whitlock was right. He looked to the front door now. There was also kitchen access next to the bar, and he was sure there would be an exit through there.
“Okay, man. Good to hear from you. Call me tomorrow.”
Russ paused, then said, “She’s right there, isn’t she?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you talking to her?”
“Pretty much.”
Whitlock paused, and when he spoke again, the agitation in his voice was clear. “I need you to extricate yourself from that!”
“You and me both.”
“They will kill you, man. They are going to smoke your ass as soon as they get an opportunity!”
Court just nodded with the phone to his ear. The girl next to him smiled at him again in the mirror, then took a sip of her drink.
“You with me, Court?”
“Yeah.”
“Get the hell out of there and call me back. You give me Kiev, I’ll link up with Townsend and feed you everything you need to shepherd you out of the trouble you are in.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll talk to you later.” Court hung up the phone and slipped it back into his coat.
He spoke to the woman next to him. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem.” She turned to him and hesitated. Then, “What do you do that keeps you busy this late on a Saturday?”
Gentry rolled his head slowly, stretching his neck. His eyes were not on the girl; they faced ahead, still looking at the shiny surfaces of the bar.
“I’m in waste management.”
The girl’s voice faltered. “Oh. Okay.”
Now he stood from his bar stool, and as he did so he moved closer to her. His coat was open and it shielded his left hand, by the bar, from the crowd positioned to his right.