As Jessup slid the block into place, plugging the hole, Hancock stripped off his ear protection and rolled onto his back, laughing uproariously. The vision of the chief’s twirling head was more comical to him than any cartoon had ever been in his youth.
Jessup ran up the hall, shouting for him get up and move, but Hancock rolled to his side, holding his belly as he continued to roar with delight.
Jessup grabbed the Barrett by its carrying handle and snatched up the spent shell casing. “Rhett! We gotta get the fuck outta here!”
Hancock did not seem to hear him, his laughter continuing in a maniacal craze.
“Rhett!” Jessup kicked him in the ass with the side of his boot. “Get the fuck up!”
But Hancock did not rise until he had finally laughed himself out, nearly two minutes later. He sat up against the wall. “Oh, fuck me!” he said, wiping the tears from his face. “Oh, Christ, it was beautiful — a once-in — a-lifetime shot!”
Jessup could have cared less. “You’re gonna get us fucking killed! We gotta go!”
Hancock chuckled one last time, exhausted from his fit. “Calm down, Cochise. There ain’t nobody lookin’ for us. They think we’re long gone. Besides, they’re all too busy piling out the back of that goddamn church.”
“Ruvalcaba’s people are waiting in the alley, but they’re not gonna wait all day!”
Hancock stuck up his hand, and Jessup hauled him to his feet.
“Fuck, Rhett. Sometimes I wonder what the fuck is wrong with you.”
Two hours later, they sat in a cantina on the outskirts of Mexico City, safe in the heart of Ruvalcaba’s territory. Hancock was drinking straight from a bottle of Jose Cuervo, and Jessup sat across from him, nursing a beer.
“Are you sober enough to comprehend some bad news?” Jessup asked harshly.
Hancock nodded slowly.
“I just got a call from Oscar, and it looks like the snatch-and-grab at Crosswhite’s place must have gotten fucked up. All three of Ruvalcaba’s people are MIA, and the place is crawling with cops. I told you we should have shot the bastard instead of fucking around with him. Now he knows we’re after him, and he’ll go to ground.”
Hancock shook his head drunkenly from one side to the other. “Nope. No, he won’t. He’ll come after me. And that’s okay. It’s what I want.”
“ ‘He’ll come after me!’ ” Jessup echoed sarcastically. He shook his head. “You’re dreaming.”
Hancock gripped the bottle by its neck and held it in his lap between his legs, inching closer to the table. His eyes lost their glassy appearance, and he seemed strangely sober all of a sudden. “I had a little talk with one of my own sources late last night.”
“What source?”
“Never mind. What’s important is what I found out.”
A doubtful frown appeared on Jessup’s face. “And what’s that?”
Hancock tossed the tequila bottle into the corner and braced his elbows on the table top. “Crosswhite’s a contender.”
Jessup cocked an eyebrow. “A contender for what?”
Hancock turned to look over at the bartender. “Hey, cabrón! Where the fuck is my steak?”
The bartender disappeared into the back, and Jessup let out a weary sigh. “You never asked for a steak.”
“I just did,” Hancock said. “Didn’t you hear?”
“Are you gonna tell me about Crosswhite?”
“Yeah.” Hancock got up from the table and went to the bar, pulling out his penis and pissing into the drain at the base of the bar stool, which was not an uncommon sight in some of the older, rougher cantinas. “Turns out the guy was part of Operation Earnest Endeavor. He’s a Medal of Honor winner. The leader of a special Ranger unit in Afghanistan. They were one of the first teams in-country, even before the bombs started to drop.” He finished taking his leak and shook himself dry, zipping up his pants and coming back to the table.
“And that’s why you think he’ll come after you?” Jessup asked.
“Fuckin’-A, he’ll come after me.” Hancock sat back and spread his arms. “This ain’t the kinda dude to spend the rest of his life hiding from nobody. He’ll look to end this shit, and that’s gonna bring his ass right into my crosshairs, Cochise. Wait and see.”
Jessup took a swig from his beer. “Cochise was an Apache, you stupid shit. How many times I gotta tell you I’m a Sioux?”
“Name me a famous Sioux.”
“Sitting Bull, jag-off.”
“Fuck that.” Hancock glanced over his shoulder, looking for the bartender. “I ain’t callin’ you no goddamn Sitting Bull.”
Jessup took another drink. “We need to talk about these last two missions, Rhett. Today was the second time you tried to get me killed. If I can’t count on you to perform like a professional, I’m the fuck outta here.” He’d been on the roof with Hancock in Mexico City on the day of Downly’s assassination, acting as Hancock’s spotter. Downly had been in the open from the time she had exited the vehicle, and Jessup had kept calling for Hancock to shoot her, but Hancock had chosen to shoot the ambassador and two of the DSS agents first, wasting valuable escape time. Jessup had ducked into the stairwell only seconds before Vaught had reached the roof and killed their security team of crooked policemen.
Hancock yawned and stretched. “I’m getting hungry.”
“Or better yet,” Jessup said, “why don’t we split? We’ve got plenty of money now.”
“No,” Hancock said, shaking his head. “If you wanna split, split. I’ll start taking things more seriously, if you want, but I ain’t goin’ nowhere. I don’t give a fiddler’s fuck about the money. Shit, you can have mine. This is the only the fucking thing I was ever any good at, and I’m gonna keep right on doing it until somebody better comes along and stops me.”
But Jessup knew it went deeper than that, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it might be better for everyone involved for him to put Hancock down himself. There was, after all, such a thing as taking shit too far.
18
CIA Director Robert Pope was talking with Clemson Fields in his office. Pope was tall, in his midsixties, with a head of thick white hair and boyish blue eyes peering out from behind his glasses. His professional relationship with Fields dated back to the Cold War. They weren’t what most people would consider friends, but neither man was the type who valued friendship a great deal.
“…and you have a soft spot for Shannon,” Fields was saying. “That could be problematic for us. He does whatever the hell he wants — like this nonsense with Blickensderfer’s fiancée. He wasn’t trained by the CIA, and I think you’re trying to teach an old dog too many new tricks.”
“His unpredictability is what makes him effective,” Pope said. “And his loyalty to me is unquestioned.”
“For the moment. What about Crosswhite?”
“Crosswhite belongs to me lock, stock, and barrel. If need be, I can use the girl and the baby to control him.”
Fields sat back in the chair. “And Shannon will stand for that?”
“Gil understands that Crosswhite is reckless and needs a firm hand.”
“And now Shannon is getting reckless.”
“He got horny,” Pope said dismissively. “Not having your ashes hauled will do that to a man.”
Fields was skeptical. “I think you’d better be careful not to ask too much of him. He’s too principled. And he’s not young anymore — he doesn’t have anything left to prove. If he stops believing in what we’re doing, you’ll have to retire him.”
A dark shadow fell over Pope.
“I don’t mean retire him,” Fields said. “I mean pension him out.”