A minute later the door opened and the four men reappeared. Hanley and Hightower came out first, then the other two CIA men. Gentry had already forgotten the young guy’s name, but Lynch and Phelps had been talking about Jordan Mayes for the past hour. According to what Gentry overheard, Mayes worked directly for the head of the SAD, Denny Carmichael. Court didn’t care much for office politics; hell, he’d only been to Langley once in his many years with the Agency. Most of his CIA career was spent in smelly barracks and team rooms like this, or else out in the field using a backstopped legend and pretending to be someone else.

After a wave to the six operators and Hanley’s repeated congratulations for the success of the Mog op, the visitors left.

As soon as the door shut behind them, Hightower turned around to the room to face his team. All five paramilitary operations officers stopped what they were doing and stared back at him, wondering where they were headed, and if they would even get the chance to pass by a drive-through for tacos to go on the way to the airport, since by now nobody figured they’d even have time for a sit-down burger meal.

Hightower said, “Sierra Six. Front and center.” Court Gentry stood and stepped forward. “Conference room,” Hightower ordered, then he surprised the rest of the team when he said, “You other four lucky fuckers have seventy-two hours R&R.”

Morgan pumped his fist in the air. “Hell, yes! The Boss is a go!”

Hightower opened the door to the conference room and held it for Gentry, but he continued addressing everyone. “Don’t forget, Monday at oh six hundred we’re rolling in convoy down to the shoot houses in Moyock to run some CQB force-on-force evolutions.”

Gentry looked around the team room at the other men. Confused. “Just me, Zack?”

“Yep. Don’t you feel special?”

“My lucky day,” he mumbled, and he entered the conference room.

Hightower followed him in with a whistle. “Kid, you’ve been hanging around these degenerates too long. Slowly but surely you’re getting a fuckin’ mouth on you.”

“Sorry, boss.”

Inside the conference room, Hightower and Gentry sat down at the table. Sierra One immediately got down to business. “Something different this time. A solo op. Real James Bond shit. Free tuxedo included. You up for it?”

Court nodded slowly.

Hightower glanced down to a small notebook in front of him. “Just kidding about the tuxedo. Local civilian attire will do.” He coughed as he checked his notes. “Anyway, the Agency has liaison intel saying some Israeli deep penetration agent has worked his way into a cell of al Qaeda in Iraq. The cell is on a gun run in the Balkans, getting AKs and such from Serbian gangsters. They are meeting in a safe house in Trieste, just over the Italian border from Croatia.