the sound as additional cover for his approach.
It was clear to Court that, despite the fact that whoever Drummond had helping him had only two days earlier captured a man going after their protectee, they were utterly unprepared for someone else to make a similar attempt. It made no sense to him, unless of course they’d had some sort of advance warning of Hightower along with the CIA Caracas station officers before they appeared.
At the foot of the stairs to the porch, he kept one hand hovering over his Walther while with the other he pulled an eight-inch-long stainless steel cylindrical device from his chest rig, one of three held by the webbing there.
It was a Dermojet needleless automatic injector, capable of pushing a dose of whatever medicine had been loaded into it through bare skin via a quick, high-pressure blast of air.
Court eyed his victim, sleeping soundly in front of him, as he readied the device in his left hand.
Clean and quiet, Hanley had instructed. Maybe he could do clean after all, he told himself, but then his rational brain took back over.
Surely to God it’s not going to be this easy.
* * *
• • •
Clark Drummond had become a cynical and bitter man in the past few years, and he no longer loved much in this world, but his love for Schubert had proved to be undying. The Austrian composer’s 1816 work, Symphony no. 5, played over the speakers as the American milled about the second-floor library of the old Colonial mansion, perusing the shelves full of books. He brushed his fingers across old tomes that he had no interest in reading, his head moving gently with the subdued music.
He liked the look of this room, the feel of these books. Even though this mansion was in utter disrepair and he worried about breathing in an excessive amount of the heavy mold he smelled, he enjoyed his evenings in the place, thinking about the luxury of the property that had been sullied only by the hands of time.
But though this place did have its charms, he wasn’t happy here.
Venezuela, he thought as he stepped back over to his desk in the corner. Why the hell am I in Venezuela?
This old house was not his. Venezuelan intelligence had put him up here, and they would continue to do so as long as he continued to help them. If he stopped, if he left, then he had no idea what lengths the regime might go to in order to bring him back or to make him pay for his defiance.
So he had decided to make the best of the situation, and he did what he could to enjoy himself, like staying up most evenings until the first glows of morning, working on his computer at his desk here in the library, or simply drinking gin and tonics and listening to music.
This was an arrangement of convenience between himself and the Venezuelan regime, and Drummond took advantage of the conveniences extended to him. Like this massive library that, while creaky and dusty and moldy and gloomy, gave off an unmistakable air of importance.
He also took advantage of the old stereo and the wide array of classical vinyl on the shelves among the books, even if many of the records were scratched or hopelessly warped from the warm, wet tropical air.
And there was one more positive aspect of his life here in hiding.
The woman.
Drummond had started to go back to his desk, but he stopped himself and turned back around when he heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway, shuffling over the music. As the Fifth Symphony’s menuetto began, an attractive brunette in her forties entered the library, a fresh gin and tonic in her hand. Wearing a short skirt and a blouse that gave no hint she would be going to bed any earlier than Drummond, she kissed him as she handed him his sixth cocktail of the evening. She kissed him again, turned, and left to the sound of strings pouring out of the bassy old speakers like running water.
Alejandra was Drummond’s girlfriend, or at least that was what he liked to call her. He was no fool; he knew she was actually “on the job.” She wasn’t a prostitute but an intelligence operative of some sort. She’d appeared in his life, a “chance” encounter in a grocery store, the day after he agreed to terms with the regime to provide technical assistance to SEBIN.
Clark Drummond had been in