was a spook.
He advanced on her, placed his hand over her mouth, and, pulling her skirt up to her hip, injected her in her right thigh. Her stifled screams were muffled even more when Court pushed her backwards into the bathroom and kicked the door shut with the heel of his boot. She was a fighter, and she pushed back, but he kept her mouth covered and held her up against the wall.
She went limp in his arms finally, and he laid her gently on the broken tile next to the tub. He found no weapons on her, so he left her there and turned again for the hallway.
* * *
• • •
There were only a few minutes left in Schubert’s fourth movement, and Clark Drummond told himself he’d finally go to bed when it was over. He was focused on the music now, fixated even, until he felt a presence directly behind him, standing over him as he sat in the leather chair. He assumed it was Alejandra because the security men from SEBIN wouldn’t dare disturb him this late at night.
He was about to speak to her, to invite her to join him for the rousing Allegro vivace, when he was tapped gently on the top of his head with a metal object.
He rose, drink in hand, then turned back in the direction of the door.
And stood face-to-face with an armed man in tiger camouflage. Panic welled inside him and he dropped his glass, shattering it on the hardwood.
“Who . . . are . . . you?”
“I’m that thing you’ve been telling yourself could never happen.”
NINE
Drummond immediately looked to the hallway, then out the open doors to the veranda. Court was accustomed to this. Often when he confronted someone with bodyguards, their first thought, after the stabbing pain in their heart that came with the shock, was to check and see what the hell had happened to the assholes they’d been paying to keep them safe.
Court said, “I counted three security men. Did I miss anyone?” Drummond did not respond, so he added, “I’d sure hate for somebody to come in here and surprise me while my finger’s on the trigger of the gun pointed at your face.”
“There were only three tonight,” the former NSA man said finally. “But my . . . my girlfriend is here in the house.”
“She’s fine,” Court replied, not bothering to nitpick about Drummond referring to the obvious SEBIN minder as his girlfriend. “The guards will be fine, too. Not that I think you really give a shit.”
Drummond still had not moved. He nodded, then puffed up his chest a little. “Those guards. They are Venezuelan intelligence. You fucked with the wrong people, friend.”
“That’s funny. I was about to say the same thing to you.”
Court stepped around the leather chair, then around Drummond himself, and took a seat facing the door to the hallway, directly in front of his target.
The Glock 19 with a suppressor attached rested on his thigh, the business end pointed towards Drummond, and Court’s finger hovered just outside the trigger guard.
The only light in the room save for the LEDs on the stereo was a little moonlight and a floor lamp between the chairs. Court pulled the chain on the lamp, and the room dipped into near darkness.
Now the older American looked searchingly out to the rear veranda.
Court said, “No one’s coming to save you. Sit down.”
Reluctantly, Drummond did so. Court could see worry in the man’s eyes, but he saw little of the panic that usually came with someone who thought he was about to die.
Now the NSA specialist asked again, “Who . . . are . . . you?”
“Don’t you recognize me?”
Drummond sniffed. “No. Why would I? You obviously know who I am. You should know that I don’t interface with people like you on the operational side.”
Court cocked his head at this. Operational side? The operational side of what? Court had been in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, but Drummond would be well aware Court was no longer an Agency employee.
Court said, “I hear you were involved with hunting me down a few years back. They did, at least, show you a picture of your target, didn’t they?”
Drummond sniffed out a little laugh. “I don’t have a clue what you are talking a—”
He stopped speaking suddenly, and when he spoke again, the word came out in a gasp. “Violator?”
Court sat motionless at the mention of his CIA code name.
After several seconds Drummond said, “I don’t believe