Zack Hightower had worked for Matt Hanley for several years, till the day Hanley was told all the men in his Goon Squad unit were dead except for Gentry, and Gentry was the culprit for the deaths of the others.

“Hey, Matt,” Zack said. He seemed embarrassed to be alive. He added, “Sorry about that.” Zack then nodded over to Denny Carmichael, who was looking down at some papers. He shrugged. “Orders. You know.”

Hanley just stared Hightower down and said, “Your funeral sucked, by the way.”

Zack gave a half smile and looked down to his empty notebook, and one of the techs in the room, a man who had no idea what was going on, broke out in a surprised laugh.

The executives at the conference table, in contrast, remained silent, until Suzanne Brewer said, “Matt, you haven’t missed anything, I was just getting started with the morning briefing. The short version is this: Gentry’s in the wind. Again. Local PD had him, but they lost him.”

Hanley asked, “How did that happen?”

“While forty cops cordoned off the neighborhood, two eight-man ERT units hit the house where he was staying. They engaged Gentry, but Gentry managed to get out of the building and past the cordon.”

Hanley said, “Let’s see . . . yesterday in Dupont Circle, Gentry brutally murdered several men. The death toll this morning must have been three times that, right?”

Brewer shook her head, not picking up on the fact that Hanley seemed to know the answer to this question already. “Surprisingly, no. Four men were injured, though no injuries were life-threatening.”

Hanley glanced to Hightower, and he noticed his eyebrows furrowing slightly. But Zack said nothing.

Hanley next asked, “Could someone please tell me why I’m here?”

Carmichael spoke for the first time since Hanley had arrived. “Like it or not, Matt, it’s in your best interests that we bring this episode to a close. Suzanne wants to know where Violator will go next for shelter. Today, we suspect, will be a repositioning day for him. He will find some new location, some new bolt-hole, and I’m going to venture to guess it will be outside of the District, someplace safer. You ran the man for several years, and he hasn’t been back in the area since those days. We thought you might give us ideas about his possible new hide site.”

Before Hanley could respond, Hightower raised a wary hand.

Brewer turned to acknowledge him. “Zack, it’s not necessary to raise your hand.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Gentry will be south of D.C., in a remote location. Picture a covered ditch, a deserted cabin, a grain elevator on an abandoned farm. He will be very difficult to find once he gets there. Almost impossible. I feel our next moment of opportunity will be when he reengages us, not when we discover his hide.”