to fix them. The woman last month. She wasn’t cleared back into active status, but your people came and collected her anyway.”
“I needed her. I need him,” he said flatly. “He’s tough. He’ll be fine.”
“Are you a medical doctor, Director Hanley?”
Hanley licked his lips, then ran a hand through his graying blond hair. “There’s an old joke. A soccer player gets knocked unconscious in a game, the trainers drag him off the field and check him out when he comes to. The coach comes over, whispers to the trainer, asks if the player is okay. The trainer says, ‘He can’t remember his name.’ The coach replies, ‘Then tell him he’s Pelé, and put his ass back on the field.’”
Dr. Eugene Cathey just stared at the DDO.
Hanley clarified. “The point I’m making is this. If we tell the asset he’s fine, he’ll be fine.”
“With apologies, Director Hanley, that’s not how medicine works.”
“Well, in this case, it’s how American national security works.” He looked back to the door. The matter was settled, and both men knew it. Hanley asked, “Is he awake now?”
“I don’t know. But when he is awake, he just stares into space. There’s a TV in there. Internet. But I haven’t seen him do anything in nearly three weeks other than sit and gaze at the wall, listening to music on the radio. I have concerns about his psychological cond—”
“This guy doesn’t need a shrink,” Hanley replied flatly, and then under his breath he said, “It’s too late for that.” He started forward again; the doctor had let go of his arm, but he called out to the DDO as he walked away, one final attempt to fulfill his Hippocratic oath.
“You brought me into this to give you my unvarnished opinion.”
Hanley stopped again. “No, I brought you into this to keep my assets operational. Look, doc, I don’t do this shit because I’m an asshole. I do it because I have crucial work that needs doing. Now, will you let me take him or not?”
The doctor, deflated, walked back over to his desk and sat down. “You can do whatever you want, and I can’t stop you.”
Hanley continued towards the door. “Just wanted to double-check that you understood our relationship.”
TWO
Matt Hanley stepped inside the small ward, finding a space even darker than the room he just left. The air was cool despite the fact that several machines whirred and hummed along the wall on either side of a bed.
The patient’s eyes were open but glazed, and he lay back on his bed on top of the covers. He wore burgundy tracksuit bottoms with no shirt, and bandages were wrapped around his left shoulder and upper chest area.
A full beard, dark brown with just a few flecks of gray, hung from his face. His hair was nearly to his shoulders and messy.
To Hanley’s surprise, a radio somewhere in the room played what he took to be country music.
Both men’s eyes met.
Hanley said, “You look good, Court.”
CIA contract killer Courtland Gentry, code name Violator, blinked slowly now, his first sign of life. Softly he replied, “I’ll bet.”
Hanley looked around for the source of the music. The radio was across the windowless room on a wire shelf. “You like country?”
“That’s not country. That’s Drive-By Truckers. That’s rock.”
Hanley shrugged. “Sounds like country. You mind turning it off?”
Court produced a small remote that had been hidden in the bedsheets, and the music stopped.
“How are you feeling?”
Court turned away from the older man and stared at the wall. “Like I got stabbed in the chest with a knife.”
Hanley pulled a rolling chair over and sat down on Court’s left. He grinned suddenly; his voice boomed now, and it rang with levity. “It was your shoulder, kid. Just below your collarbone. Don’t make a meal of it.”
Gentry didn’t smile. “Right.”
“Dr. Cathey tells me you’re just about healed up.”
Gentry’s languid eyes turned back to Hanley; they stared the deputy director down but gave away no malice. “Cool,” was his only reply.
He wasn’t buying what Hanley was selling; that much was clear.
“You feel like talking?” Hanley asked, and Court shrugged his good shoulder.
“Is this about Los Angeles?”
Court had done a job in LA a few weeks prior. Hanley had been furious about the way things had ended up, but he’d needed his best man on another operation, so he let it slide and extracted him from Southern California, intent on throwing Court back into the field immediately.
But on the transcontinental flight back to the East Coast, the doctor