Page 20 of One Minute Out

“I don’t give a fuck who did it, I just know that—”

The bald-headed man in the polo shirt hesitated suddenly. This story about an entire way station shot up, seven killed, a targeted assassination. Something about this triggered his brain. He changed his tune suddenly. “Who did it?”

Seconds later, it was plain to the other two in the Mercedes that Jaco Verdoorn very clearly did give a fuck who did it. “You’re kidding me. How sure are they?” A pause. “Of course I bladdy well know who that is!”

He listened now as the Greek talked about a Bosnian police chief who he felt should be killed for allowing the hit to happen, and Jaco agreed, but he wasn’t thinking about a police chief.

No, he was thinking about the Gray Man.

Courtland Gentry.

Finally he hung up, called a contact in the Serbian government in Banja Luka for confirmation, and then hung up from that call and looked down at his phone.

He thought about calling the Director immediately; the man did not like to be bothered during the night, but Jaco knew he’d have to get approval for the hit on the Bosnian cop. Still, as the wheels in the South African’s mind turned, he realized he would need more information about the American assassin before going to his boss.

And he knew where to get it.

With a pounding heart that only came from the prospect of hunting the most dangerous prey in the world, the South African smiled now.

“What’s up, boss?” asked the driver.

Verdoorn said, “Tryin’ to not get my hopes up too high, Samuel, but we might have ourselves a spot of fun on the horizon.”

The man in the back spoke with sarcasm. “What, more exciting than this?”

Verdoorn ignored him.

The driver saw the look in his boss’s eye. “New target, sir?” Samuel knew there was only one thing that his boss considered fun.

Verdoorn brought the phone to his ear as he placed the call. To his driver he said, still through a smile, “New target.”

SEVEN

I dream about the women in the cellar. I can’t make out any faces clearly, but I see eyes shining red: desolate, fearful, despairing orbs that track me wherever I move. I am enveloped by the sights and sounds of their prison; I sense the inevitable bleakness of their futures and, more disheartening, I see that they sense that bleakness, as well.

And then, just before I wake up, I remember that this is all my motherfucking fault.

Opening my eyes now, I realize that I am not in the red room, but I don’t know where I am. I wake up in a different hotel or apartment or flophouse or bunk bed with staggering regularity, so I’m used to the sensation. My left hand hurts, and the muscles all over my body feel strained and knotted: also nothing out of the ordinary for me.

I’ve seen action, that much is clear by my aches and pains.

I’m on the floor of a closet with a gear bag under my head, which also tells me I’m operational. I always sleep in closets when I can for my own security, and I’m more comfortable here on the floor than alone in a comfortable bed.

You get like this when people make killing you their life’s work.

I lie there, shake off the dream, and remember the reality that was last night. Babic, the women and girls, the dogs, the gunfire and shouting and running.

And then I remember Liliana.

Did she leave? I sit up quickly. When I lay down she had already fallen asleep in the bed, so my eyes go there.

I see only tousled bedsheets.

Shit.

But I scan to the right and find her in the little living room of the apartment, sitting at a table by the window, looking down at the street into the night.

I lie back down, pleased to see that at least one of us is working.

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