Next Day of the Condor Read Free Page A

“Evens out health-wise with the yogurt. Gives us some bulk and energy for the ride back. Three classic chocolate donuts, three seasonal special pumpkin maple donuts. In good conscience, how could we pass those up?”
    “You guys are driving back to Maine?” said Condor.
    “Brooklyn,” said Brian as he sliced a banana into his yogurt.
    “Somebody’s insisting on an overnight there,” explained his partner.
    Two kindergarten aged boys ran past the table trailed by their harried mother.
    “You wouldn’t believe Brooklyn now,” Brian told Condor.
    “I didn’t believe it then.”
    Doug said: “There’s this ultra-hip coffee shop not far from—”
    “Hey!” said his partner.
    “Come on,” Doug told his partner. “You can’t just show up hoping she will.”
    The silver-haired man who was old enough to be the two gunners’ father smiled.
    Said: “We’ve all done that.”
    “What’s the worst that could happen if you finally talked to her?” said Doug.
    Condor shrugged. “You could watch your dreams die in her eyes.”
    “Me,” said Doug, “I was gonna say
alimony
, but troop, if you do not engage the enemy, you create no chance of success.”
    His partner whispered: “Who’s the enemy?”
    “Ourselves,” said Condor.
    Brian blinked at the silver-haired legend. “
My man
: Welcome back!”
    Condor ate his pumpkin maple donut as he stared out the window at travelers walking to and from their steel rides. Saw the guy dressed in padded black close the door on…
yes
, it
was
an old black hearse, walking away carrying a gym bag toward the south end of the rest stop and the rows of gas pumps controlled by attendants whose jobs were protected by state law. A yellow rental truck drove through Condor’s view.
    Buzz
went cell phones in his escorts’ pockets.
    Doug read the text message, said: “Link-up ETA twelve minutes.”
    Seven minutes later, these three men were at the facility’s main doors, Doug going through first, Brian posting drag, and Condor—
    Flash!
    From a cell phone held by a curly-haired woman on the other side of a glass door from Condor:
blurry picture
at best, and
sure
, she appeared innocently overwhelmed by carrying her purse and a takeout tray with two coffees, probably just clumsy fingers on her device, plus she didn’t seem to notice that Brian followed her to her car, cell phoned photos of her and her license plate and her driver who stereotyped
husband
as they drove to the Southbound exit just ahead of a rusty black hearse, while hundreds of miles away near Washington, D.C., their metrics became an I&M (Investigate & Monitor) upload.
    Doug and Condor posted near the parked van.
    Forty feet away, an easy (for him) pistol shot, Brian drifted amidst parked cars.
    Zen. They were here. They were now. Not waiting:
being
,
doing
. Ready
for
.
    The red car drove around the dragon facility from the Northbound entrance. A Japanese brand built in Tennessee that glided ever closer to two men standing by a gray van near the white gazebo.
    Where the red car parked.
    She opened the driver’s door. Let them see no one rode with her (
unless they were laying on the back seat floor or huddled in the trunk
). Kept her hands in sight as she walked toward them and
yes
, it was only a cell phone in her left hand.
    Statistically, most people shoot right handed.
    “Hey,” she said: “Aren’t you friends of Gary Pettigrew?”
    “Don’t know the guy,” answered Doug. Said
guy
and not
him
or
man
.
    “So where you from?”
    “Where we’re going,” answered Doug, sounding ordinary enough for any eavesdropper (none around) but not a likely response from a random stranger.
    “Then I’m in the right place.” She grinned. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic.”
    Her left hand showed them the package’s picture in her cell phone.
    “You must be Condor,” she said, extending her right hand to shake his.
    “
Vin
,” corrected Doug. “But yeah.”
    She was young. Short black hair. Clean caramel