He handed it back to Matt, and the big blond American took a long pull before asking, “So what the hell are you doing here in Mexico, duking it out with the narcos?”
“I just stumbled into this.”
“That wasn’t too bright. This drug war is crazy. Worse than Colombia. You ever seen anything as fucked up as this?”
“Yeah . . . I have.”
Hanley regarded Gentry then nodded slowly. “You must have done some work in Bosnia.”
“I must have,” replied Court, in semi-agreement. Hanley let it go. He did not know much about Gentry’s pre–Goon Squad work for the CIA, and he did not need to.
“Langley said you knew the GOPES commander, this Major Gamboa.”
“Yeah, long time ago.”
“And now DLR is going after his family.”
Court nodded. “That’s what I’ve been dealing with.”
“Wish I could give you some support, but officially speaking, my employer doesn’t care about Gamboa, and while they do care about you, they only care about making you dead.”
“Why did you help me?”
Matt shrugged. “You did fuck up my life, but now that it is fucked-up, there’s not much more they can do to me.”
Court didn’t understand. Hanley saw this and continued. “Look, you’d have done it for me. In the Goon Squad, you did your job and you did it well. Of course you fought back when we turned on you. I can’t begrudge you that. I’m not going to just sit and watch the fucking Daniel de la Rocha Cartel torture you to death. You may be persona non grata amongst the top brass at Langley, but I didn’t get into this line of work to watch Mexican drug lords murder American patriots.”
Gentry nodded. Leaned back against the cold concrete.
Matt said, “This isn’t the first time I’ve been sent by Denny to ID you.”
“No?”
“Couple of years ago. I was in Paraguay at the time.” He chuckled. “I didn’t know how good I had it in Paraguay. Fucking Haiti, kid. You have no idea.”
“We don’t have much time.”
“Anyway, that thing goes down in Kiev. Carmichael has my ass on a company jet from Asunción to Kiev so fast my head’s spinning. They were trying to ID you as the operator there, as if one man could have pulled that off, but we both know it wasn’t you.”
Gentry nodded. Hanley stared him down, and Court knew the other man was doing his best to read Court’s face for any reaction to his statement. Court’s face still twitched from the current that had been ripping through his central nervous system; no lie detector–type clues from his limbic system would be reliable in his current state.
Hanley gave up. “Anyway, got a free trip to Europe out of it, at least.”
Still no response from Gentry.
Matt smiled again, “You were always the quiet one. The one who did most of the work but never bitched. Hightower was the loudmouth of the group.”
“How is Zack?”
“How is he? Is that a serious question? He’s dead. They’re all dead.”
“All who?”
“All the Goon Squad guys. You killed them all, buddy. You put both barrels of a .44 Derringer into Zack Hightower’s chest, sent him cartwheeling out a window. He died at the scene.”
Jesus, thought Court. Matt Hanley really was out of the loop. Zack had survived the shoot-out, and Court had run an op seven months earlier in North Africa with him. Zack had been wounded badly in the Sudan, and Court did not know for sure whether or not he’d survived, but clearly, he knew a hell of a lot more than Matt Hanley did about what had been going on at the upper echelons of the Special Activities Division.
The CIA had a shoot-on-sight directive out against the Gray Man, yet the Gray Man was not as much of an outsider as Matthew Hanley.
“Who put the shoot on sight out on me?”
Hanley looked at the tequila bottle, like he was measuring his consumption. “Denny Carmichael was the one who contacted me. Told me you had to go.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.”
“Bullshit.”
“Carmichael knows. Others at the top. I was told you were the enemy, to execute the shoot on sight. I was shown a presidential finding to that effect; it mentioned something about a foreign nation’s involvement, and I asked Denny what that was all about. He told me a deal had been worked out between folks way above my pay grade, and I needed to shut the hell up and execute the finding. I told Denny the only way to be sure to wax you was to drop a JDAM on your head, but he ordered me to use the team to liquidate you. I told Zack, he told the others, and now they are all dead.” Hanley took an exceptionally long pull of the clear liquid. Court saw him wobble a bit from its effects.