Gunmetal Gray

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Court spent the entire afternoon in a small windowless compartment deep in the bowels of the USS Boxer. His door was shut and he never saw the captain, the XO, or the lieutenant colonel commanding the battalion of Marines on board. He barely even spoke to the Marine who led him down the ladderways and up the passageways to this little claustrophobic space.

He assumed Brewer had arranged everything. His compartment had a single bunk and an attached head, a small refrigerator with water, a coffin locker stocked with packaged food, civilian clothing, and medical equipment. A small desk attached to the wall was adorned with a laptop with Internet access, and two phones: a smartphone and a satellite phone. Accessories for the phones and computer lay on top of a small backpack.

Court wondered if someone on the Boxer had gotten all this equipment from sailors on board in exchange for cash from the CIA. Logistics and outfitting wasn’t his department, but he was used to working alone, and he had to take into account the possibility for compromise in every face of the operation.

Court spent half the afternoon appreciating the fact that he was able to lay low here. The other half of the afternoon he questioned whether he was a prisoner. He wondered if Brewer had given orders to the Marines to watch over him and keep him, essentially, in a cell here on the amphibious assault ship till she found a way to get him shit-canned from his assignment.

He figured he’d only know the truth when it was time to leave. If he found himself on his own in Bangkok, then Brewer was leaving him in play. If a dozen young testosterone-filled bald-headed dudes in brown held guns on him and ordered him to stay on board till someone came to collect him… then he would know this was over.

That would mean Fan might be lost to the Thais, or to the Russians, or to the Chinese.

It would also mean, with absolute certainty, that Sir Donald Fitzroy was a dead man.

Court worried it might already be too late for Fitz. Going over a day without checking in with Dai might just send the Chinese colonel down to the basement of his big house on the Peak with a gun in his hand and Sir Donald’s head in his sights.

By early evening, when they were just a few miles from port in Bangkok, Court was finally able to connect with a Thai cell network, and he locked himself into his small room and dialed a number on the smartphone using the unbreakable off-the-shelf encryption app he’d been using throughout this operation.

Court sat down on his bunk and waited, knowing he was initiating a very difficult and important conversation.

Dai answered immediately. “Way, ni hao?” Yes, hello?

Court decided he needed to go on offense from the outset to keep Dai focused on his operation. “Your boys did something stupid yesterday in Saigon. It’s made my work a lot more difficult.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m on a dry-goods hauler, heading for Bangkok.”

“Why are you going to Bangkok?”

“Because I’m on Fan Jiang’s heels. Let me guess. You don’t even know he’s in Thailand. Are your guys still running around Vietnam looking for him?”

“Fan is in Bangkok? With who?”

“I’ll need your help for that. I chased him into Cambodia; then he got picked up on a river by a group of criminals run out of Bangkok. I think he was kidnapped. That’s pretty much all I know.”

Court worried Dai would want a play-by-play of last night’s events, and he was right.

“Back up and tell me everything that happened.”

Shit, thought Court. Here goes nothing.

Court knew how to lie; he used vast swaths of truth to sell the verisimilitude of the event, and only changed details that would have compromised him in the smallest manner possible.

Court explained that he had discovered the old colonial villa in the Mekong Delta after tailing the BMW sedan to the area, but he was caught inside the property and unable to move after the arrival of the People’s Army infantry. This was true, more or less. Then he recounted the arrival of the Russians and relayed his concerns that they would try to kidnap Fan.

The only major changes to the facts began when Fan and the other two men left the barn of the villa. Court’s new version had Fan escaping alone to the west, making it miles into Cambodia with Court close on his tail, where Fan was picked up by a group of Thai gangsters in powerboats.

He worried Dai would find it hard to believe Fan could accomplish so much by himself, and Court briefly considered telling Dai the Vietnamese men Fan escaped with had helped him for most of the way. But he wasn’t sure Dai didn’t have someone on the ground at the villa by now. If Court told the Chinese commander the two guys lying dead in the field behind the villa had helped Fan escape over the Cambodian border, Dai would know Court was full of shit.

There was one huge flaw in Court’s story, of course. He could not reasonably explain why he did not contact Dai at any point to bring dozens of armed Chinese agents down upon the scene to kill everything that moved and eliminate the compromise.

No, he could not reasonably explain it, but he could unreasonably explain it. “My damn phone got wet in the rice paddies during the infiltration. I couldn’t establish comms till I got a new one, which I stole from a sailor on this ship.”

When the American finished his story and his explanation of why he’d been radio silent for a day, he waited quietly until Colonel Dai replied. And when Dai replied, it was instantly obvious that Court’s powers of influence and persuasion weren’t going to work on the colonel.

“I know everything there is to know about Fan Jiang, which means I know he could not possibly escape from Con Ho Hoang Da, the Russians, and you, then travel overland seven and a half miles, crossing a national border only to be picked up on a river by Thai criminals. I do not believe your story for an instant. I do not know what your game is, but I do know that your efforts have failed to date, and a price must be paid for that. I will encourage you to do what you said you would do, by showing you my willingness to do what I said I would do.”

“What are you talking about?” Court asked, although he was afraid he knew exactly what Dai was talking about.

Dai did not answer, which gave Court an immediate feeling of disquiet. There was a shuffling over the phone, and then someone said something in Mandarin, but Court could not tell who was speaking.

Other voices now, their words indecipherable.

The sound of footsteps; Court sat up straighter on the bunk. “Dai? Dai? Talk to me. Don’t forget, I’m the one you’re pissed at. I’m also the one close to the target. I’m the one you have to keep on mission, and if you do anything—”

Court heard the first voice he recognized, the first words he understood. Sir Donald Fitzroy was far from the telephone, but he spoke loud enough for Court to hear him. “What’s all this? What do you want?”

Court shouted now into the phone. “I swear to you, Colonel, if you do it, I will fucking walk from this job, and you will never get Fan! He’ll end up in Moscow or D.C. before the week’s out! You’ll be shot, and your nation’s secrets will go to your enemies.”

Either Court was not persuasive, or Colonel Dai was not listening. Fitzroy shouted in alarm, and then he screamed. Court knew the sounds of a grown man in abject terror, and he knew the sounds of a grown man in hyperbolic, excruciating pain.

And over the next several seconds, Sir Donald Fitzroy made both sounds.

Court stopped yelling into the phone. He put his head down between his knees, still sitting on the little bunk. Still with his phone to his ear. The shrieks of pain and horror and pain continued for another half minute. Then it went quiet for a time, before Court could hear heavy, gruff breathing in the background.

He sat up quickly. Sir Donald was still alive.

“Don? Don?”

And after what seemed like an eternity, Fitzroy came on the line. His words were spoken in soft wheezes; Court could hear thick mucus in his throat, and the old man was obviously in agony. “I… I am here, Court.”

Court squeezed the phone tighter. “What did they do?”

It took Fitzroy a long time to answer, and the stress in his voice made him hard to decipher. “Two fingers… sawed off with a straight razor. My fucking hand’s bleeding like a headless chicken!”

Court’s jaw clenched and his eyes stared across the room at nothing. “I’m sorry, Don. I’m trying.”

“Sod the lot of them, Court! Just turn around and go, leave all this, this shit behind! Look… this is bigger than you know. This whole operation is worse than you can possibly understand. Just go. Walk away from this insanity while you still can.”

“I can’t do that.”

Dai was back on the line now. “No… you cannot do that. You are being paid for a job. If you complete the job you will also earn the bonus of retrieving Sir Donald… or most of him… or whatever is left of him. Whether you fly him first class out of Hong Kong on British Airways or have him shipped in refrigerated freight on a cargo plane… that is a question of how well, and how quickly, you fulfill your end of the transaction.”

Court wished he could reach through the line and gouge the colonel’s eyes out. Instead he just said, “I’ll get Fan in Bangkok. Just calm the fuck down and give me some time.”

“Time has always been the one precious commodity in this endeavor. Now there are two. Time… and the body parts of your friend here. You give me results, or you will soon run out of both.”

Court sighed. “I’ve told you. He is my meal ticket, not my friend.”

“Yes… you told me that. But you gave away your true motivation by your tone just now. If Fitzroy was just the man who could secure future contracts for you, the loss of two of his fingers would not be nearly as stressful for you.”

“That’s not—”

“Now… go to work.” Colonel Dai disconnected the call. Court dropped the phone on the bunk next to him and leaned his head back against the wall of the little compartment.