The Gray Man (10 page)
Riegel said nothing.
“Are you there?”
“I am waiting for you to say something shocking.”
“I take it you have done this sort of thing before?”
“Here in Risk Management Operations we like to say that every problem can be dealt with one of two ways. A problem can be tolerated, or a problem can be terminated. If a problem can be tolerated, Mr. Lloyd, my phone does not ring.”
Lloyd asked, “Are you familiar at all with the Lagos Natural Gas contract?”
Riegel answered immediately. “I suspected this would be in reference to the Nigerian fiasco. Rumor has it some fool attorney over there in Legal forgot to proofread a contract, and the Nigerians are backing out of a ten-billion-dollar deal we have already put two hundred million into. I had a feeling I would be contacted on the matter.”
“Yes, well, it’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Doesn’t sound so complicated. I just need the offending attorney’s address. We’ll make it look like suicide. The stupid bastard should be enough of a good company man to go ahead and kill himself, but you can’t expect that kind of loyalty from a lawyer. No offense, Lloyd from Legal.”
“No! No, Riegel, you’ve got it wrong. We need someone else killed.”
Riegel cleared his throat. “Go on, then.”
Lloyd told the VP of Security Risk Management Ops of the assassination of Isaac Abubaker, the president’s refusal to sign the repaired contract without proof of his brother’s killer’s own death.
Kurt snorted. “We climb into bed with these dictators, and then we act surprised when they grab us by the nuts.” Riegel’s English was flawless, idiomatic American. He sat down behind his desk, grabbed a pen, and pulled a notepad across the leather blotter to him. “So we need to ID the hit man and dispose of him?” asked Riegel.
“He has already been identified.”
“You just need him eliminated? I was expecting something more complicated than this after Mr. Laurent’s phone call.”
“Yes, well, this assassin is no slouch.”
“The trouble with private killers is all in the identification. If you know who he is, I’ll have him found and dead within twenty-four hours.”
“That would be ideal.”
“I mean, unless we’re talking about the Gray Man. He’s a couple of cuts above the rest.”
Lloyd said nothing.
After the American’s long hesitation, Riegel said, “Ach, so! We
are
talking about the Gray Man, aren’t we?”
are
talking about the Gray Man, aren’t we?”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
It was Riegel’s turn to pause. Finally he said, “Certainly a complication . . . but not a problem. He is extremely good at keeping a low profile, hence his moniker. He’ll be hard to find, but the good news is he will have no reason to expect we are coming after him.”
Lloyd remained silent yet again.
“Or will he?”
“I arranged an attempt on his life last night. It failed. He survived.”
“How many men did he kill?”
“Five.”
“Idiot.”
“Mr. Riegel, the Gray Man is clearly no idiot. His history shows us—”
“
He
is not the idiot!
You
are the idiot! A damn lawyer who tries to orchestrate a hit on the greatest alpha killer in the world. Some poorly planned, cobbled-together, hurriedly executed disaster of an operation, no doubt! You should have come to me immediately. Now he will be on guard, expecting whoever it was who organized the attempt on his life will just try again.”
He
is not the idiot!
You
are the idiot! A damn lawyer who tries to orchestrate a hit on the greatest alpha killer in the world. Some poorly planned, cobbled-together, hurriedly executed disaster of an operation, no doubt! You should have come to me immediately. Now he will be on guard, expecting whoever it was who organized the attempt on his life will just try again.”
“I am no idiot, Riegel. I have his handler in my custody. I have persuaded him to help us locate Gentry.”
“Who’s Gentry?”
“Courtland Gentry is the Gray Man.”
Riegel sat up as erect and broad and square as the desk in front of him. “How is it you know his identity?”
“I am not at liberty to say.”
“Who’s his handler?” Riegel did not like being the one on the receiving end of such information inside LaurentGroup. He had his own intelligence network for that. That some shit American barrister was passing this intel around like it was common knowledge made Riegel ball his fists in anger.
“His handler’s name is Don Fitzroy. He’s a Brit, has a straight operation here in London, even does some work for us occasion—”
Riegel’s balled fists closed together tighter. “Tell me, Lloyd from Legal, that you have not
kidnapped
Sir Donald Fitzroy!”
kidnapped
Sir Donald Fitzroy!”
“I have. And I have his son and his son’s family held at a LaurentGroup property in Normandy.”
Riegel dropped his huge shoulders and put his head in his hands. After several seconds he looked to his speakerphone. “I have been notified, in no uncertain terms, that
you
are in charge of this operation. I am to provide you men, matériel, intelligence, and any advice I have.”
you
are in charge of this operation. I am to provide you men, matériel, intelligence, and any advice I have.”
“That’s correct.”
“Then why don’t I start with some advice?”
“Excellent.”
“My advice, Lloyd from Legal, is to apologize to Sir Donald for the gross misunderstanding, release him and his family, retire to your home, put a gun in your mouth, and pull the goddamn trigger! Crossing Fitzroy was a huge mistake.”
“You can dispense with the advice then and just supply me with more men. Right now I don’t know where the Gray Man is, but I do know where he will go. Fitzroy will send him to Normandy. He’ll be traveling overland, east to west. I don’t know his starting point yet, but if you give me enough support, I’ll send them everywhere across Europe to hunt him down as he gets closer.
“Why will he go to Normandy? To rescue Fitzroy’s family?”
“Exactly. He will be told Nigerians have kidnapped them and are holding them until Fitzroy turns him over. He will take it upon himself to rectify the problem.”
Riegel drummed on his desk. “I agree with your assessment. He does have a reputation as a paladin, and he won’t trust the French authorities.”
“Precisely. I just need from you a surveillance team and a kill team. Right now your crew from Minsk is guarding his family in France, but I’d like Gentry dead before he gets to Normandy, as time is of the essence.”
“This is the Gray Man. You need more than this.”
“What do you suggest? I mean, other than me killing myself.”
Riegel looked up to the far wall of his office. The head and shoulders of a wild boar stared back at him. Slowly Kurt nodded to himself. “To get this done in the time allowed, you’ll need a hundred watchers.”
“You can get me a hundred surveillance experts?”
“Pavement artists, we call them.”
“Whatever. You can provide that?”
“Of course. And you will need a dozen teams of hunter-killers, spread out and placed all along each possible route, coordinated by a central command center, each with an incentive to be the unit that finds and kills the target.”
Lloyd’s voice showed his astonishment at the scale of the undertaking Riegel proposed. “A dozen teams?”
“Not company men, of course. Too many chances for comebacks on LaurentGroup. Not local talent, either. Local boys would be known to local police, and that would compromise the hunt. No, we need foreign operators from parts unknown, as you Americans like to say. Hard men, Lloyd from Legal, if you get my meaning. Hard men who do hard jobs when no other solution can be found.”
“You are speaking of mercenaries.”
“Absolutely not. The Gray Man has either dodged or dispatched every gang of hired hit men sent after him in the past. No, to be certain, we will need established field units. Government hit teams.”
“I don’t understand. Whose government?”
“We have branch offices in eighty nations. I have good relationships with the internal security chiefs in dozens of third-world countries. These men run stables of operators in their countries to keep their citizens and their countries’ enemies in check.”
Riegel paused while he thought through his plan. “Yes, I will contact my government counterparts in offices in the third world, hard places where I am likely to find hard men without the faintest shred of scruples. I will contact these men and, within half a day of this very moment, there will be a dozen corporate jets flying back from these armpit countries. Each jet will be packed tight with the baddest boys and the biggest guns, and each team will be tasked with the same mission. They will all be vying for the chance to kill the Gray Man.”
“Like a contest?”
“Exactly.”
“Incredible.”
“We’ve done it before. Admittedly on a smaller scale, but we’ve had cause in the past to bring in multiple teams to vie for a single objective.”
“But I don’t understand. Why would these governments help us?”
“Not the governments themselves. The intelligence agencies. Can you imagine what a bounty of twenty million dollars added to the coffers of the secret police in the nation of, shall we say, Albania, would do to the security and stability of the state? Or to the Ugandan Army? Indonesia’s Directorate of Internal Intelligence? These organizations work independently of their heads of state from time to time, when it suits the purposes of the organization or its leaders. I know which countries’ internal security apparatus will sanction their men to kill for cash; I have no doubt of it.”
There was a pause before Lloyd responded. “I get it. These intelligence agencies won’t worry about American retribution. They will know the CIA won’t hunt down the killers of the Gray Man.”
“Lloyd, the victorious team will probably tell the CIA themselves, seek bounty from the Americans, as well. Langley has been after the Gray Man for years. He killed four of their own, you know.”
“Yes, I know. I like your plan, Riegel. But can we do this quietly? I mean, without negative impact on LaurentGroup?”
“My office maintains shell corporations for deniability’s sake. We’ll use LaurentGroup aircrews in planes flying under the shells to infiltrate the kill squads and their weapons onto the Continent. It will be expensive, but Marc Laurent has instructed me to succeed by any means necessary.”
Riegel’s connections to the upper levels of the company couldn’t be denied, but Lloyd’s political instincts demanded that he reassert his position. “I remain in charge of the operation. I will coordinate the movements of the watchers and the shooters. You just get me this manpower.”
“Agreed. I’ll arrange our little contest, get everyone on station, but I will let you guide the teams. Keep me posted on the progress, and don’t hesitate to seek out my counsel. I am a hunter, Lloyd. Hunting the Gray Man on the streets of Europe will be the greatest expedition of my career.” He paused. “I just wish you didn’t fuck with Fitzroy.”
“Leave him to me.”
“Oh, I have every intention of doing just that. Sir Donald and his family are your problem, not mine.”
“No problem at all.”
NINE
Gentry allowed himself to admit that his fortunes seemed to be changing. After limping northward towards the Turkish border for less than an hour, he was picked up by a patrol of local Kurdish police. The Kurds in northern Iraq love Americans, especially American soldiers, and from his tattered uniform and injuries, they presumed him to be an American Special Forces operator. Court did nothing to dissuade them of this assumption. They drove him into Mosul and cleaned him up and rebandaged his leg wound in a clinic built by the U.S. government. Within seven hours of dropping from the ass of an airplane without a parachute on his back, the American assassin found himself dressed in pressed slacks and a linen shirt, boarding a commercial aircraft bound for Tbilisi, Georgia.
The improvement in his circumstances was not due entirely to luck. One of Court’s fallback plans involved him finding his own way out of Iraq, and to prepare himself for this eventuality, he’d sewn a forged passport, forged visas for Georgia and Turkey, cash, and other necessary documents into the legs of his pants.
No, Gentry benefited from a little luck from time to time, but he did not rely on it. He was nothing if not a man prepared.
After passing through Georgian customs with a Canadian passport identifying himself as Martin Baldwin, freelance journalist, he bought a ticket to Prague, Czech Republic. The five-hour flight was nearly empty, and Court landed at Ruzyne Airport just after ten in the evening.
He knew Prague like the back of his hand. He’d worked a job here once and often used the neighboring suburbs as a place to hide out.
After a cab and a metro ride, he walked through the cobblestone streets of the Stare Mesto District, then checked into a tiny attic hotel room a quarter mile from the Vltava River. After a long, soaking shower, he had just sat down to redress his thigh when the satellite phone in his new backpack began to beep.
Court checked it, saw that Fitzroy was calling, and continued to work on the gunshot wound. He’d talk to Don in the morning.
Gentry was understandably pissed about the extraction team turning on him.
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