Court knew if Zack were here he’d bitch about the ammo, and maybe about the pistol, too, but Court was trained to see weapons as tools, nothing more. If the tool could accomplish the task, then it was the right tool for the job. He didn’t need to wield a specific weapon to make a personal statement—it was all about the job.

Also in the case were a night vision monocle and a pair of small but high-quality binoculars. Court shoved these in the pockets of his blazer, then he placed the gun on the table. He stripped, reassembled, and function-checked it, determining it to be in good condition.

After charging the magazines with ammo and loading the Beretta, he slid the gun into a small plastic hook device that would hold it inside his waistband.

And only when all this was done did he open the manila folder. Inside he found an eight-by-ten surveillance photo of a man wearing a white polo shirt, sitting at a café table. The man smiled into the camera, well aware he was being photographed.

This was the man he was sent to rescue.

The Israeli agent had a trim black beard and he appeared to be in his mid-forties, but his deep-set eyes and high forehead were conspicuous enough that Court felt sure he could recognize him even if he was clean-shaven.

The picture had been taken on the street, somewhere in Jerusalem, Court saw immediately, due to the fact that he could make out the Tower of David in the background.

He folded the picture in fourths, then tucked it into his back pocket.

He then stood from the bed, leaving the case right there, and he left the apartment. The meat and cheese and fresh cream sat untouched in the refrigerator.

Gentry wasn’t here for an Italian holiday.

—

Thirty minutes later he stood on the open fourth floor of an office building undergoing construction and he leaned into the late afternoon breeze coming off the Adriatic Sea. Through his binoculars he peered out over the Port of Trieste. Less than a quarter of a mile from shore, a small dry-goods hauler dropped anchor in placid water.

Court knew from his briefing the day before that the Casablancan Queen had left port in Nemrut Bay, Turkey, on Tuesday. On board, according to sources, were two al Qaeda operatives from Iraq, one of whom was actually a Mossad asset. They were here to meet five more AQ men from Pakistan, and then together open negotiations that AQ hoped would lead to a mutually beneficial weapons deal with Serbian gangsters. Court’s job was to tail these men to the Serb safe house, obtain positive ID on the agent, and then, at the earliest possible opportunity, he was to make entry on the safe house and rescue him.