Around eight p.m. he piled his large frame into the back of his armored Camry and began the movement west back to his home in Woodley Park. Jenner was at the wheel, as before, but Hanley had given Chris Travers the rest of the week off. Travers had been suspicious, of course, had asked his boss what was up, and Hanley thought about lying to his man. Instead he went the opposite direction: the cold hard facts. Hanley told Travers Carmichael was trying to get him booted from the SAD, probably by ginning up a positive drug result. He promised to fight for Travers but insisted Chris go home and make himself scarce for a few days.

If they couldn’t find Travers they couldn’t take a sample of his piss, Hanley explained, and, without a sample to taint, they sure as hell couldn’t frame him for abusing drugs.

With Travers out a young Ground Branch paramilitary named Paladino rode shotgun in Hanley’s car, but it wasn’t just these two men in the Camry anymore. Now a Chevy Tahoe followed chase on Hanley’s vehicle, with four more armed SAD officers inside, and all six men would stay at Hanley’s house until Gentry was either captured or killed.

Hanley was no longer worried about Gentry killing him, but he’d bumped up his detail anyhow. It was his way of giving the middle finger to Denny Carmichael. Denny had JSOC men following him, so Hanley surrounded himself with Ground Branch boys to keep the army-side goons far enough back to where he wouldn’t have to see them or deal with them.

He recognized how silly he was being, but he didn’t give a shit.

A half mile from his home Hanley asked Jenner to divert to an Italian tratorria on Connecticut. The two-vehicle convoy did as instructed, and Hanley dropped in to the half-empty restaurant and took a small round table in the back. He’d asked Jenner and the boys to sit and eat with him, but even though he was their boss, they declined.

It was their job to keep him safe, they explained, not to pass him the garlic toast and listen to his old war stories about the Grenada invasion.

Matt Hanley ordered raw oysters and a rare fillet, along with an entire bottle of Chianti for himself, and he sipped his wine and slurped his oysters, all the while sitting there and humming along to sad Dean Martin songs playing softly over the restaurant’s speakers. His men stood near the exits, their eyes out the windows and doors.

Shortly after Hanley’s steak arrived, Jenner approached the table, his MP7 obvious under his suit coat.

The director of the SAD said, “Sure you won’t join me for a drink?”

“No thanks. Boss, there’s somebody here that wants to talk to you.”

Hanley just looked up from his plate. “Well, who the hell is it?”