Ballistic

FIVE

The manhunter stood alone in his hotel room, wiped sweat from his face, and opened the second-story window to let in fresh air that, while cooler than the musty room, smelled like rotten fish and donkey shit.

He fought a wave of nausea.

He turned off his radio and tossed it into his suitcase. The rest of his clothes were packed. He just had to zip up the bag, and he was out of this disgusting and humid hellhole. In ten minutes he’d be at the dock walking up the plank of the steamboat to Coari. In two days he’d arrive in a real city, even if he were only speaking in relative terms by comparing it to this backwater coffee stain on the map. Another two days and he’d be in Manaus, and there he’d run like an Olympic sprinter to the airport, catch a flight to Rio or Sao Paulo and then back home to Amsterdam.

Only then would he breathe easy again. He’d take a day or two to tend to his tulip garden, and then he would regroup. Reacquire his target.

He would find Court Gentry again. And next time, he told himself with finality, he’d get a team of wet boys who would not fuck up the entire operation.

He still could not believe it. Six men out of twenty killed. Including the AUC commander. Five of them by goddamned bee stings, and the other after slipping into a river full of crocodiles. Seriously? The helicopters had radioed that they were heading back over the border to Colombia with both their dead and their living.

And they were leaving him out here alone.

Bastards.

A knock at the door.

A chill ran up the manhunter’s sixty-two-year-old spine. He turned away from the window and pulled the old.32-caliber revolver from its leather shoulder holster under his arm. He held it up with a quivering hand.

Slowly and quietly he took the four steps to the door, the weapon raised in front of him.

“Who’s there?”

“Sir? Do you need help with your bags?”

The manhunter unlocked the bolt and flipped the latch, hiding his pistol behind the door as he opened it.

He sighed in relief. It was one of the little savages from the front desk.

“No. I can manage.”

“Yes, sir. The ferry leaves in twenty minutes.” With a nod the savage turned and headed back down the rickety staircase.

The manhunter shut the door. Locked it back tight. Holstered his ancient pistol as he turned back around to zip his suitcase shut.

On the other side of the room Courtland Gentry, his target for these many months, stood by the window. Gentry wore a short beard and hair longer than in any of the photos the manhunter kept, but it was undoubtedly him. He sported a cream-colored shirt, unbuttoned, wet, and filthy. Brown cotton pants, ripped at the thigh and blood smeared.

He held a speargun in his right hand.

The manhunter grabbed at his pistol in its shoulder holster as he cried out in shock.

The loud spring mechanism of the speargun firing snapped in the air of the hot room. The manhunter felt his body slam back against the wooden door; his arms flew out wide from his body.

Only by looking down, away from his target, did he see that he’d been run through by a long bolt from the weapon. He was pinned to the door through the stomach. Blood wet the insides of his legs as it trickled down from the wound.

After taking the time necessary to recognize what had happened, the manhunter looked slowly back up to his target. The American tossed the empty speargun on the tiny twin bed and came closer. With a growing weakness the manhunter softly pawed again at the pistol under his arm.

The Gray Man gently moved the manhunter’s hand away from the shoulder holster and pulled the revolver out. He looked it over, shrugged, and slid it into his pants at the small of his back.

“You’ve been on me since Chile, haven’t you?” The manhunter was surprised by the gentleness of the American’s voice. The Dutchman had lived and breathed Court Gentry for over half a year but realized now that he’d never heard him speak, had never even wondered what he sounded like.

Pain burned in the manhunter’s gut. Weakness grew in his extremities, in his eyes. Still, he said, “Since Quito.”

Court Gentry smiled. His face was close to the manhunter’s, his tone still soft and familiar like they were father and son. “I didn’t feel you in Ecuador.” He raised his eyebrows. “That was one hell of a chase, you and me.”

The manhunter’s legs went slack, and he cried out with the pain radiating from the spike through his belly. Quickly the Gray Man grabbed him, held him up against the door, braced him to take away a measure of the agony. The American looked up into the manhunter’s eyes. “You know how it is. Men like me. We can’t help what we are. It’s not our fault. The man who sent you… he knew who I was. What I was. He was the one who killed you. Not me.”

The manhunter’s eyes were vacant. Still, he nodded slightly.

“Give me his name, and I’ll make him pay.”

After a moment, the mouth opened. A trickle of blood ran down the Dutchman’s chin. He tried to speak; a small sound came out but no words.

Court leaned close to the man’s face.

The Dutchman winced with pain; his eyes relit somewhat, tempered with new concentration. He wanted to speak.

And finally he did. So softly Gentry had to lean almost into the man’s lips to hear him say it.

“Sidorenko.”

Gentry leaned away. Stood fully erect in front of the man. Nodded. Gregor Sidorenko, the Russian mafia kingpin and Court’s old employer, was apparently still sore about a double-cross Gentry had engineered the previous spring.

“I’ll punish him for sending you to me. You can rest now.”

Gentry pulled the spear out of the door, out of the man; the manhunter did not even feel the movement, nor did he feel himself being helped to the bed. He watched the American lay him down, lift his feet up one at a time, and pull off his boots, but he did not feel anything.

He wanted to rest. His eyes softened even more, and the last thing he saw before the lids shut was his target looking through his suitcase, taking his wallet and a first-aid kid and some clothes, and leaving through the front door.

The manhunter’s eyes shut then, and he thought of his tulips.

He would not see them soon after all, and that was a shame.