He shook his head now to clear his brain, then he spoke softly. Just to himself, always to himself, he said the three words he’d been repeating like a mantra for the past six months.

“She’s not dead.”

The men in this establishment who meant to do him harm were, temporarily, at least, forgotten; all his focus shifted to a phone conversation he’d had with an old friend, months earlier.

The man was empathetic, but insistent. He was also clinical in his delivery, and this only served to piss Court off even more.

“We assess with high confidence that Zakharova was executed in Moscow on June 19th, at six-fifty-three AM. The cause of death was hanging. I’m very sorry.”

Court took another slow sip of his whisky now, his eyes closed, his head pounding and his heart so unbelievably heavy.

Eventually, though, the whispered mantra came again.

She’s not dead.

He had to say the words, whether there was any evidence to believe them or not, because he had to convince himself that there was a reason for what was about to happen, some achievable objective lying just on the other side of all he was about to put himself through.

The woman was the goal, the only goal, and the woman simply had to be alive for any of this bullshit to make sense.

With fresh determination he pushed the despair out of his consciousness, if only for the moment. The stab of agony in his brain lessened, his body tightened, his muscles flexed, readying for action.

Court blinked out the mist, flashed another glance up to the mirror, and got down to work, ranking the threats in the room according to who seemed the most switched on, who seemed the most capable, the most motivated, the most lethal. His powers of perception on such matters had been honed by two decades in harm’s way, so he made his assessments quickly and coolly.

He’d already identified five enemy in the room, and in order of importance, one and two were definitely the pair sitting in the booth over his left shoulder. They’d been looking his way through the crowd, but casually, one had been on his phone, twice, likely either reporting to someone or else receiving instructions. They had guns on their hips that bulged their coats, and to the trained asset the men’s eyes were the eyes of stone-cold killers.

But they seemed relatively relaxed, kind of like they did this shit all the time.

Court took in their demeanor, stored it as data in his tactical brain, and adjusted his plan accordingly.

Number three on the threat list sat down the bar, three patrons to Court’s right. The man, early thirties with bushy eyebrows and narrow eyes, had been staring at the asset in the mirror, unable to mask his interest and his ire. He looked straight up pissed off, an unprofessional trait in a gunman, which made him somewhat less intimidating than the cool pros in the booth behind.

Four and five on Court’s threat matrix stood by the door. They were older, in their forties, they held beers in their hands, pretended to watch a soccer game on the TV between Dynamo Bucharest and FC Voluntari, but the American caught them glancing away right at the moment the Bucharest striker slipped behind the enemy defense, received a perfectly placed chip from the right midfielder, and half-volleyed a go-ahead goal. Even though the match was a repeat, it was a strange time to turn from the screen, and stranger still that the pair used the opportunity both to scan the bar where Court sat and to look over at the two men in the booth for guidance, solidifying the hierarchy of this team of gunmen in Court’s mind.

The pair by the door were both strapped. One man had a swell under his blue down jacket at the appendix, big enough to be a full-sized double-stack semi-automatic pistol. The other, a bald guy in a brown leather coat, had adjusted his outerwear on his left side at the hip a couple of times, an unconscious grooming cue, an indicator that there was something positioned there that he wanted to be sure remained ready for easy access.

It would be a gun, of course, and number five was either a lefty or else he had a cross draw holster.

Cross draw was stupid, it would mean the man was a rank amateur, because it took longer to reach across the body and pull a weapon.

But if he was a lefty the gun would be right where it needed to be for quick access.

After another scan of the mirror, Court felt satisfied he had completed his first task of the evening. There were thirty-six people in this room, the staff included, and he had pegged these five as his opposition.

And all five of them knew that he was a threat, as well, which meant his oppo would be closing on him very shortly.

He figured the pair in the booth planned on making the approach, shoving a gun in his ribs and giving an order of some sort to force him outside. Then they’d do it right out there on the street, because the street out the front door of this shit hole had no doubt seen its share of murder.

They’d use guns for the coercion phase of their plan, but blades for the actual killing to keep the noise down, Court assumed.

Or would they? He looked at the men in the booth again. They appeared incredibly self-confident; they might just intend on dragging him outside, shooting him in the skull, and then strolling calmly to their car.

Regardless of the enemy’s plan, however, Court was sure of one thing.

None of it was going to happen.

No, he saw this all going down a different way, because unbeknownst to any of them, the American at the bar had the true advantage.

Court’s advantage, simply put, was that he did not care. Did not care who lived or died, who witnessed the carnage, and who got caught up in it.

Court only cared about one thing in this world, and the health and safety of the thirty-six other motherfuckers around him was most definitely not it.

He would not be going outside. No, he’d start the fight right here, smack dab in the middle of everything. It was five-v-one, but the advantage Gentry held over his enemies was that none of them would expect him to draw right here in the middle of a crowd. He’d have his gun up and rocking before these assholes even knew they were in a fight for their lives.