Court Gentry was not trained to wait. He was trained to act.

He shot the man once through the forehead. The cheer downstairs drowned out the muted thump of the gunfire.

The al Qaeda assassin’s gun dropped from his hand and his head snapped back. He crumpled to the ground in the hallway just outside the door. Court rushed over, grabbed the body by its black shirt, and pulled it fully into the room. Closing the door now, he propped the dead weight against it as an ersatz doorstop.

Court spun to the other man now. He’d been told the Israeli agent didn’t speak a word of English, only Hebrew and Arabic. Since Court knew next to no Hebrew at all and his Arabic was only fair, he realized communications between himself and the man he had been sent to rescue would be simple.

But this was a feature, not a glitch. Court didn’t want to chat up the Israeli agent. He wanted to get the fuck out of here.

In memorized Arabic, Court said, “We go out window. Hurry.”

The man stood there, his eyes wide, his hands in front of him, his pen still between the fingers of his right hand. In Arabic he asked, “Who . . . are . . . you?”

Court did not answer directly. He said, “Very dangerous here.”

“Yes. Of course,” came the reply, as the man recovered quickly. He slipped his pen carefully into his pocket, knelt, and began scooping together the paperwork off the floor.

If Court’s mission parameters had included exploiting this site and getting an intelligence haul on this mission he would have helped the middle-aged man recover the documents, but he had no orders to bring out anything other than this Israeli agent, so he just grabbed the man by the collar, hefted him back up, and turned him towards the window. To Court’s surprise and relief, the man gave him no problems.

—

Court pulled in front of the train station with his precious cargo after twenty silent minutes of driving. The only words exchanged had been a few sentences in Hebrew that Court did not understand, and to which Court did not respond. He heard “shalom” several times, but he ignored the man’s thanks.

He stopped the car, moved quickly to the passenger-side door, and opened it up.

“Imshi,” Court said. “Go away.” Court’s Arabic was limited indeed.

The man climbed out and, in Arabic now, asked, “Who are you? Who sent you?”

But Court just shook his head, pretended like he did not understand a word of it. The man nodded, then reached out with his right hand.

To move things along, Court took the hand to shake it, but the Israeli leaned forward and took him in an embrace.

“Imshi,” Court said after a moment.

The man stood back with tears in his eyes, he said, “Shalom” one more time, then he turned and headed inside.