Ballistic

Then he spoke, his words calm and confident like he was a man comfortable with these surroundings. In Spanish he said, “It looks like you guys started the party without me.”

Court knew an old coworker from the Agency was coming to identify him. He fully expected to be staring face to face with Zack Hightower, his former team leader in the Goon Squad.

But it was not Zack Hightower.

It was Hanley. Matthew Hanley.

Gentry had not seen Matt in more than five years, and even back then they had never spent much time around each other. Hanley was a SAD executive; he had run Gentry’s old unit, Task Force Golf Sierra, from Langley, passed instructions primarily through team leader Hightower, who relayed orders on to the rest of the men.

Court had last seen Zack back in the spring, and Zack had told him Hanley was out of SAD and riding a desk somewhere in the Third World, his fall from grace the fault of Gentry himself.

And now here he was, in a secret torture chamber operated by a vicious drug cartel somewhere in or near Mexico City.

No words were spoken between the two at first. Instead Hanley addressed the fat man behind the table. “You in charge here?”

“You might say this is my office,” came the proud reply.

Hanley just nodded. Then he stepped closer to Gentry.

“I must ask that you do not touch the prisoner,” said the Black Suit from behind. The two federales in the room took a step forward but stopped when Hanley nodded again.

The thick American kept his hands to his side, but he moved even closer to the prisoner. He only stopped his slow advance when the two men’s faces were inches apart.

Court looked too wounded to speak; his eyes were swollen and vomit coated his bloody lips. As far as Hanley could tell, the younger man was out of it. But Gentry did speak, his words soft but strong enough, loud enough, to be understood by anyone in the room who spoke English. “Do what you gotta do to me, Matt, but the guy in the corner is a State Department dip working for the Black Suits.”

Matt Hanley turned, glanced at the man in the corner. Pfleger’s black balaclava mask worn with khakis and a white short-sleeved button-down were an odd combination in a room where the other three masked men were decked out in full SWAT gear and guns. Pfleger did not speak, did not move. Just stared back. Hanley shrugged. “Not my problem.”

Court spoke again, though the words came out through winces and muscle spasms. “He’s . . . he’s running a criminal ring . . . selling visas to illegals.”

Hanley glared at the bound prisoner. “Yeah?” He turned back to Pfleger again. “How’s business?”

“I . . . I’m not really. I just—”

“Look at me, boy!” Hanley’s voice, a low West Virginian drawl, boomed in the concrete dungeon.

“Yes, sir?”

“Take that stupid sock off of your face.”

Pfleger looked to Carlos, the Black Suit in the room, for help, then to the federales. Then to the Little Butcher, then to the young protege with the leather apron. All the Mexicans just stood there, did nothing at all. Slowly, Jerry removed the mask. Stuck it in his pocket.

“Do I look like I’m with the Office of the Inspector General?” Hanley asked, again his voice boomed like artillery.

Jerry shook his head a very little bit. “No, sir.”

“Okay, then. Relax. I’m not with State, and I’m sure as shit not here for you.” Hanley turned back to Gentry. “I’m here for the big fish.”

Jerry breathed an audible sigh. Said, “So this is the guy you are looking for?”

Hanley nodded. Confirmed. “It’s him.”

“Awesome. And there is a reward, right?”

“Yep.”

“Awesome,” repeated Pfleger. “What did he do?”

Hanley looked close into the face of the prisoner once again. Studying it. “What did he do? What did you do, Violator?”

“I did what I was ordered to do. And you gave the orders.”

“Not when you went off the reservation.”

For the first time Court lifted his head, as if his anger gave him strength. “I never went off res. I followed Zack’s op orders to the letter. Always! And then you ordered the team to kill me!”

“Ancient history.”

“Then why are you here?”

Hanley smiled. Took a step back from Gentry and looked around the room.

Hanley looked over the torturer’s gear on the rolling cart. He spoke Spanish. “Nice. Primitive, but nice.”

“?Primitivo? What do you mean? This is the best—”

“Nah, chubby, we were using shit like this in the late eighties.” That was Spanish, but he turned to Court and switched to his native tongue. “I lit up a bunch of Noriega’s enforcers with one of these bad boys at Howard Air Force Base during ‘Just Cause.’ ”

Hanley reached for the dial. Switched back to Spanish. “May I?”

The Little Butcher smiled just a bit. “Of course, but he is tough. I’ve blown two fuses on this gringo . . . this norteamericano, I mean.”

Hanley looked at Court, turned the dial. Sent a strong electric shock into the central nervous system of his ex-subordinate. Gentry’s body spasmed and jerked; every muscle flexed taught; the sinews in his jaw looked like guitar strings wound tight under his skin.

After he’d turned the dial back down, Hanley chuckled. “That never gets old.” He looked at the fat man. “It’s a little weak, isn’t it?”

“The battery is drained. This man has taken most of its power.”

“He is tough.”

Carlos, Spider’s second-in-command, stepped forward and spoke in English. “Now that you know we have the man you seek, we will take you back to Chapultepec Park. Once we have finished with the prisoner, we will dump his remains near the embassy as agreed.”

Hanley nodded. “He has some information you are trying to extract, or is all this just for shits and grins?”

Carlos just looked at the blond American. He did not understand. “Shit . . . a . . . greens?”

“The prisoner. You need him to tell you something?”

Carlos just nodded.

Hanley looked down to the bucket on the floor. The metal prod jutted out of it. “Oh . . . I see. It’s about to get intimate around here.” He continued looking around. At the surgical implements on the table, at a shelf full of containers, restraints, electrical tape, and other odds and ends. He looked back at the men in the room around him.

No one spoke.

Hanley continued. “I would like to stay for the interrogation.”

Carlos shook his head. “That will not be possible. We do not know how much time it will take.”

“Too bad,” said Hanley, then he turned back to Gentry. “Hey, asshole. Wake up. Do you have any idea how much pain you have caused me?”

Court’s head hung low again, but he managed a smile. “You aren’t the first to tell me that.”

“I was going places. I was on the way up.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then one day I get word that one of my door kickers fucked up. It was a fuckup that could have been extremely politically damaging for the United States. A deal was done, a deal between us and another nation, and an agreement was made. If we cleaned up our own mess, if we got rid of the offending party, then this foreign nation would let the matter slide.