fence and into the man’s home without being detected.
Renfro was home right now; this Hightower knew because he’d followed him here six hours earlier. He’d seen the man’s wife leave with luggage just after, he watched lights go on and off for a couple of hours, and then it all went dark.
The security cameras at the deputy director of Support’s house weren’t working tonight; this Zack saw when he used his laptop and the Wi-Fi password provided by Hanley to log into the system. He found it fortuitous that the security system was on the fritz: more evidence that the time was now to make his breach.
He also had all the details of the house, the keypad lock on the back door, and the alarm code, so he could simply punch it in and access the house.
It didn’t get any easier, Zack told himself.
The only thing holding him back was the fact that he knew Hanley and Brewer wouldn’t want him breaching the home at night while Renfro was there. That wasn’t the original plan, and neither Brewer nor Hanley knew Hightower was right here, right now. Theoretically, at least, this was obviously a higher-threat operation than penetrating during the day while the man was at work. But Renfro didn’t have a dog, his kids were grown, and Hightower had all the details to get into the house. He knew where Renfro hid his pistol, and he knew Renfro’s wife had already left to visit family.
Matt Hanley had told Hightower that he wanted him to put the fear of God in this man. What better way to do so than by showing up at two a.m. at the foot of his bed in a ski mask?
Zack rose from his prone position and started to leave his hide. Just then, a single muffled gunshot cracked in the night. Zack saw a flash behind curtains in a second-story window of Renfro’s house.
He knelt back down between the cans as dogs began barking.
Softly he said, “Uh-oh.”
He pulled out his phone, selected a contact, and put it through his earpiece. A few seconds later a tired voice said, “Brewer.”
“It’s Romantic. We’ve got a problem. I am not one hundred percent certain, but there is a decent chance Renfro just capped himself.”
Brewer woke up fully an instant later. “Capped? As in shot?”
“Affirmative. I heard a single handgun round pop off and saw a flash in his bedroom window.”
“Wait. Where are you?”
Zack breathed out slowly. He was going to get yelled at. “Outside his house.”
“At two in the morning?” When Zack did not respond, she said, “You were intending to breach, weren’t you?”
“I’d been thinking about it,” Zack admitted, ready for the fallout.
But no fallout came. “How do you know he wasn’t murdered?”
“Nobody coming or going since I got here. No other noises.”
“He’s married. Kids are away at college but what about—”
“Watched his wife leave. I checked; she was booked on a 9:30 p.m. flight from Reagan to Boston. Probably going to see their kid at Harvard.”
“Did he see you tonight? Did that cause him to shoot himself?”
Zack looked down at the phone with confusion. “Suzanne, I’d like nothing more than to think I have the power to make the bad guys kill themselves rather than face me, but there is no way he knew I was here.”
“Must have been your bumpering, and the shame of being outed as a traitor.”
“Yeah,” Zack said, still looking at the quiet house across the street. “In the end the fucker folded up like a cheap suitcase.”
“What’s your exposure now?”
“Somebody is going to call in that gunshot, and this looks like one of the neighborhoods where the police will come running when they do. I need to exfil.”
Brewer thought it over and agreed. “Get the hell out of there.” She then added, “If Renfro was the mole, and if he did, in fact, kill himself . . . well then, I guess this is a suitable outcome.”
Zack thought his control officer seemed a little unsure, but he couldn’t imagine why. “You kidding? It’s an outstanding outcome, other than the fact that he deprived me of the pleasure of helping him out with that.” He reached up to turn off his earpiece and said, “Okay, I’m exfilling the AO at this time. I’m out.”
CHAPTER 39
Matt Hanley and Suzanne Brewer arrived at the home of Lucas Renfro at three fifteen a.m. There were no police cars out front, no ambulances in the drive. Apparently, no alarm had been raised by anyone in