pumped a fist into the air in excitement, but Court didn’t look back to catch it.
EPILOGUE
A light but steady rain fell out of the gray morning sky, over the blue and white fishing boat bobbing in the water next to an impossibly green spit of land. There was no marina here in Loch Crenen, just an old clapboard dock, half-rotten through time, sticking out barely far enough for the trawler to tie on without running ashore.
The weather here in the western coastal highlands was predictably dreary, and the captain walked around on deck securing lines to set sail without acknowledging the fact that his face and hair were drenched.
He’d been living this life for thirty years, after all, and he knew no other.
A mile or so to the southeast, a small twin turbo prop took off from Oban Airport, banked through the gray rain, and disappeared in a puff of mist.
While the captain continued preparing for the voyage, a man standing motionless on the foredeck of the trawler watched the aircraft fly away through the droplets dripping in front of his eyes off the hood of his raincoat.
Court Gentry sighed. He didn’t have any idea who was on that aircraft, but he imagined it being Zoya. This was doubtful. More likely she was still on board the destroyer, or had already been spirited back to the United States on a CIA Gulfstream.
It had been a week since the attack, and he’d been lying low in nearby Oban, eating canned food in a simple hotel room, taking his antibiotics, and sulking.
Court had been offered a ride back to the States, not on Hanley’s jet; the DDO had resumed his earlier stance of remaining arm’s length from the assets of Poison Apple, but Hanley had told Court he could go to Oban and fly out as soon as Transpo could arrange a lift for him.
He got a text telling him when and where, and then he’d taken his battery out of his phone and thrown it in a river.
He’d not declined so much as he just hadn’t shown up at the prearranged place and time.
Court would go on to his next destination alone.
He leaned against the railing of the trawler, his spirits as dreary as the skies above.
He’d gotten this boat captain to agree to take him through the last couple miles out of this loch, to a skiff that would be waiting a few miles out in the open ocean. The skiff would take him, in turn, back to its mothership, a Singapore-flagged Evergreen dry-goods hauler. Court had arranged for transportation through a broker that he knew from his time as an assassin for hire; he knew the broker would take his fee and pay off the Taiwanese crew and secure a ride for Court, at least as far as one of their ports of call.
It was a useful service for a man like Gentry, one he used even now, though he was a CIA asset and could easily get transportation from them.
But no, he had a thing against CIA Transpo at the moment.
He felt like he was running away. Away from Zoya. He thought about pursuing her back to D.C. He could get Brewer to arrange a meeting, though Brewer and Zoya weren’t exactly on speaking terms at the moment. Still . . . he wondered if he could try one more time to convince Zoya that he wasn’t the enemy.
He told himself he might wonder that for a long time, because in the end, he decided to leave her in peace. She had made herself abundantly clear as to her wishes, and he would respect them, even if they killed him.
The captain leaned out of the tiny navigation bridge and told Court they’d be leaving in five minutes. The boat bobbed and Court looked to the land. The only colors anywhere in sight were blue, green, and gray, but some movement in the distance caught his attention. A white vehicle bounced on the muddy road in the distance, fast approaching the trawler tied to the dilapidated pier.
Court cocked his head. The captain had said nothing about anyone else coming along for this ride, and there wasn’t a thing out here other than rocky coastline and undeveloped pasture land.
As it neared, Court determined the SUV to be a Toyota Land Cruiser that was at least twenty years old, and he had no idea who the hell could be inside it.
Hadn’t they fucking killed all the bad guys already?