On Target

left by their wounded comrade in an instant, their body weight pinning his appendages to the bed as he wrestled desperately to get free.

Looking to his left, he saw one of the men had retrieved something from somewhere in the darkness and approached now with careful confidence. Court saw the sharp glint of thin metal, a stubby piece of clear plastic. Even in the negligible light he recognized the outline of the syringe. The needle approached, and whatever noxious goo it had been filled with was on its way to his bloodstream unless he could stop the man trying to punch it against his skin.

Instantly Gentry decided these were CIA Special Activities Division Paramilitary Operations officers, an entire field team, and he knew he was in deep shit. There was a termination order on him. He’d ducked them for years, but they had found him now.

Bound to happen sooner or later.

Court relaxed his left arm for an instant, gave the man holding it down a moment’s respite from the struggle. The ruse worked, and Gentry shot his arm down, under the man’s grip and to his side. From here it was free, and he jetted out a fierce jab to the needle man’s face. The needle man’s head snapped back, and he dropped the syringe as he folded back on his legs and grabbed his nose, but the operator pinning his left leg down reached out and grabbed the instrument off the floor, buried its business end into Court’s thigh, and pressed the plunger as Gentry tried and failed to kick free.

“Son of a bitch!” Court shouted, not knowing what he’d been injected with but recognizing that, no matter what he did now, he had just lost the battle.

He stopped moving immediately. There was no point. He was as good as dead.

A sixth man entered the room—slowly, but with an unmistakable swagger in his step. Court tried to focus on him, but already he could feel a drug taking hold of his central nervous system. Whatever they’d given him was powerful; he’d worked with poisons and incapacitating anesthetics enough to know that he’d been dosed with a hard and potent sedative. His muscles relaxed; he felt as if his body were melting into the mattress.

The new man in the room leaned over him as the others climbed off. Two of the original five were down; the other three calmly tended to their associates’ injuries, while the new visitor to the dark room just looked down on Court with curiosity. Gentry tried to focus on the man, to fight against the growing fuzz from the drugs in his blood. For a moment he thought the face looked familiar, but a wave of dizziness wiggled the image out of his mind.

The man above him spoke. “Hiya, Court.”

Through the haze Gentry knew the voice somehow. The man grabbed Court’s cheeks and pinched them until his mouth opened. Saliva oozed out past his protruding tongue and down his chin.

“Twenty seconds and he’s out,” said the man above him to the men standing around. Then he turned his attention back to Gentry. “Predictable. I knew you’d sneak out of the hotel and come here. Haven’t you picked up any new travel tips in the past eight years?” He smiled. “Unlucky for you I just happened to remember this shit hole.”

He turned back to his colleagues. “Sierra Six never was the luckiest dude around. We used to say that if it were raining pussy, Court Gentry would get hit with a dick.”

Sierra Six?

As Court felt himself falling into blackness, his numb mouth moved, and he whispered a single word before the lights went out completely. “Zack?”

NINE

“You remember me, don’t you, Gentry?”

Gentry hadn’t even remembered that his name was Gentry. His eyes were well open when he became aware, and he wondered if he’d been conscious for a while or if he’d just now come to. He was not dead, of that he was certain, though the rest was unclear. He then felt the cold, looked down at his bare chest and underwear, found himself sitting on a chair. Four walls surrounded him, and his wrists were bound behind his back. He saw four men standing around him, over him, and felt their malevolence, but their faces were difficult to focus on, drugs coursing through him still. In his training at the CIA’s secret Autonomous Asset Development Program in Harvey Point, North Carolina, he had been injected with, had ingested, or had been aspirated with somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five mood-altering substances to test and improve his dexterity, agility, and cognitive ability while under the influence. He’d once even successfully climbed a three-story rope ladder and picked a lock while completely numbed by Versed, though he had no recollection of performing the drill twenty minutes later. He’d learned much about opiates and other anesthetics in his training, but now all he could say for sure was that he was seriously fucked up.

In a flash he realized that he had not taken any heavy pills in nearly three weeks and had seemingly kicked the painkiller addiction he’d been suffering from for months in the south of France. Now he wondered if having these drugs forced into his bloodstream would just undo all the work he’d done to get past his problem.

Of course, he reckoned, if one of these men did what he was supposed to do and put a bullet into his brain, then the problem would be remedied in short order.

Death solves all problems.

Three of the four men backed out through a small door in the room, leaving just the one who’d spoken. “Hang on a sec,” the standing man said. “We took you off the drip a few minutes ago. You’ll come down in a flash. Let me know when I’m coming through loud and clear, okay, bro?”

Court knew the voice before he knew the face. He fought the drugs, shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Blinked hard. Then he knew. His eyes furrowed. His head cocked. “Didn’t I kill you once?”

“Negative, Court. Why would you kill me? We had a little misunderstanding way back when, but nothing major.”

“Hightower. Zack Hightower,” Court said the man’s name as if the man didn’t know it himself. Court’s words did not come out past his tongue as clearly as he’d intended.

“Are you hurt?” asked the standing man.

“Na . . . negative.”

“Let me fix that. Now pay attention, bro. I’ve been waiting four years for this moment. I’d sure hate for you to miss it.” He snapped his fingers in front of Gentry’s face. “You with me still? Outstanding. Now . . . this is for Paul Lynch.” Hightower punched Gentry in the jaw.

Court fell off the chair and onto the floor with a brilliant starburst in his eyes.

“Fuck!” said Court.

“Fuck!” said Zack. Court looked up and saw the other man holding his fist, in obvious pain. Court licked his lower lip and spat blood. Zack pulled him by the hair back up into the chair. Gentry’s movements were sluggish from the drugs, but the punch had gone a long way towards focusing his senses.

“And this, Court, is for Dino Redus.” Hightower hit Court again in the face. Gentry dropped back onto the floor, felt his left eye swell instantly, heard Hightower cuss again in pain.

After a moment Court said, “Redus tried to kill me! You all did!”

“Shut your dick trap, Gentry! We’re not done here yet!”

Court rolled up to his knees, fought with his balance for a moment, then climbed back up to the chair without Zack’s help. His left eye had all but shut, tears running and blurring his vision further. “He, Lynch, Morgan, you, you guys came at me! What the fuck was I supposed to do? Just let you murder me?”

“Would have been helpful,” said Hightower. “Keith Morgan’s wife sure would have appreciated it.” Hightower smashed his left hand into Court’s head. Not as hard this time, but again he shook his hand to cool it after the impact.

Court wobbled but kept his seat this time. He spat a mouthful of blood on the floor and said, “Too bad you’ve got more piece of shit dead friends than you do hands.”

“They were your friends, too, Court! Before you killed them!” Hightower balled his left fist again, reached back for another punch.

“Come on!” shouted Court. “I know about the sanction! It’s shoot on sight! You keep swinging at me like that, and we’ll be here all fucking night! Pull out your gun and do your goddamned job!”