Gunmetal Gray

CHAPTER FIFTY

Court woke well before the first light of dawn. The room was darker now than it had been with the evening’s moonlight, and here in the closet it was pitch-black, but he didn’t need to see a thing. He was behind her, with his bare chest against her back and his arm around her naked stomach and his nose in her hair at the back of her head. He didn’t know where his clothes were — he’d have to do an after-action review later to relive the events of the past several hours, just to reassure himself that it had actually happened.

Court looked out of the closet, waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim. He found everything still in its place and no new threats in the world, a world that felt very different suddenly. He moved his hand from in front of her to rub his eyes, but she lay still. Returning his hand, he brushed his fingertips across her stomach, feeling her abdominal muscles move as she breathed. He retracted his hand a little to her hip, and he felt warm skin over her hip bone. He stroked up a few inches and stopped. There was something there on the skin on her back. A scar, no more than half an inch in diameter. He knew it was a bullet wound instantly, because he had similar marks on his own body. He lingered there, touching it out of curiosity, then realized what an awful thing he was doing and started to move on, angry at himself.

Zoya spoke, and though her voice told Court she’d been sleeping, she displayed neither a hint of shyness nor anger. “That was a 7.62 round. In and out. Three years ago. I was wearing body armor, but not side plates. Stupid.”

“Side plates suck,” Court said.

“Not as bad as getting shot.”

“No argument from me.”

She added, “Must have been a ricochet, didn’t even break the ribs.”

“Where did this happen?”

“Chechnya.”

“I hear that place is a hellhole.”

She rolled over to face him, though they couldn’t see each other at all in the darkness of the closet. “Most every place I’ve been sent is a hellhole.” And with that she kissed him deeply. “But it’s not so bad right here.”

He started to put his hand on her body again, but she clasped his fingers in hers. He thought she’d had enough of his touch, and he was about to apologize, but she surprised him by saying, “That one is nothing. Feel this.” She placed his hand on her upper back, between her shoulders and just to the right of her spine. This scar was three times the size of the other.

“What happened there?”

“Knife in the back. I pissed a guy off in a bar. If it hadn’t hit my vertebra it would have gone straight into my heart.”

“Where did this happen?”

“Can’t say.”

Court smiled a little. “How is he doing? The guy you pissed off.”

“Oh, he’s really pissed off now.”

Court imagined this was an understatement.

Now she reached out and put her hand on Court’s rib cage, traced the pink gash there. She must have felt it during their lovemaking, because he knew she couldn’t see it now.

Without prompting, Court said, “Nine-millimeter. This one didn’t break the ribs, either, but it took off a lot of meat.”

“It’s pretty fresh.”

“Yes.”

“Where did this happen?”

“Can’t say.”

“Who did it?”

He paused a moment. Normally, there was no reason for him to tell the truth. But with this woman, he couldn’t think of a reason to lie. He said, “Saudis.”

“Assholes.”

“These guys were.”

They both had other scars, other stories, but the talk of old fights gave way slowly to quiet, to softer touches over untainted skin, and then to new passion. Soon there was no more talking between the two of them. No more past, no more pain. There was just now.

Court figured it was close to nine a.m. now. He could see her face plainly, even in the closet, and he moved a strand of hair out of her eye and behind her ear.

She had been dozing while Court lay there, just thinking, but she woke now, then rose up onto an elbow, her eyes locked on his. She said, “Zoya. That’s my name. Zoya Zakharova.”

Court smiled. “Zoya.”

“It’s okay if you don’t tell me yours. I just wanted you to know mine.”

Court took what she said at face value, and he did not tell her his name. He had been thinking about something else when she spoke, and instead of shifting to follow along with Zoya’s train of thought, he said, “Let’s say the helicopter comes in today, and we move in to get Fan… do you have a plan for after?”

Zoya’s eyebrows furrowed; Court could not interpret the meaning behind the expression. Finally she shook her head slowly. “I don’t want to jinx today by worrying about tomorrow.”

“Maybe you could let me think about tomorrow for you.”

“What do you mean?”

He said, “You won’t be safe going home, you know that. You won’t be safe in a lot of places. SVR has reach, as you know.”

She smiled a little, but she’d lost the glow of just a few seconds earlier. “So you are going to protect me?”

“I can help. I can talk to some people. I’m sure they can bring you into the U.S. You’ll be safe there.”

“You’ll talk to people at CIA, you mean.”

Court nodded. “They are the ones that can make it happen. I’m sure they’d want to question you… but you can come to some sort of an agreement before you commit to anything.”

Court thought his idea was solid, and he thought Zoya would immediately agree it was the best plan, so her response surprised him greatly. “What are you doing?”

He cocked his head now. “What do you mean?”

Her body language had changed, her eyes had narrowed precipitously, even her breathing was different.

“Are you trying to recruit me?”

“Recruit you? No, of course not. I’m not suggesting you work for the Agency, just that you use them to get into the U.S. After that you can do whatever you want.”

Zoya said, “Right, and just think about how important you will be at CIA. You capture a Chinese defector and an SVR operative. You can do whatever you want.”

“Capture? I’m just trying to help. I’m worried about what might happen if—”

“Sure you are.” She smiled, but Court could plainly see anger in her eyes. “It took me too long, but I’ve finally got you figured out.”

“Meaning?”

“When you bugged Oleg’s car you thought you would learn something about Fan, but instead you heard an SVR compromise herself permanently to her organization. You knew I’d be desperate, ready to cling to any lifeline, and you came right in, tricked me by appealing to my sense of the mission. You’ve brought me along to go after Fan, but from the beginning this was about getting me into the U.S., just like Fan. The last two days have just been to set the trap.”

She sat up now, climbed out of the closet, pulled on warm-ups and a T-shirt from her bag. She stormed out of the closet, leaving Court there, staring at the ceiling.

Court was utterly gobsmacked. He truly had no idea how to respond. Finally he just said, “For God’s sake, that’s ridiculous.”

Zoya reappeared back over him a few seconds later. “Is it? Do I have it all wrong?”

“Yes, you do. I’m just trying to help.”

Zoya lowered back down, straddling Court now. He looked at her in confusion for an instant, but he kept his hands down.

“What are you—”

She interrupted him. “I’m sorry. As I told you, I have trust issues.”

His guard rose quickly, but not quickly enough.

Zoya held the Montblanc pen up into his face, pointing it right at his nose. She depressed the trigger, and the charger exploded in his face with a solid pop.

But nothing came out.

She pulled the pen away slowly. The American stared at her, his own eyes narrow now.

“Do you want to get off me, or would you rather I throw you all the way across the fucking room? It’s your call, but make it quick.”

Zoya slipped off the man, then walked over to the bed and sat down.

Court stood now, pulled his cargo shorts on, and stepped into the bedroom. He took a chair across from her and sat back down. “The Montblanc was positioned in my pack with the clip facing in and the lid just slightly loose. You put the clip back exactly right, but you tightened the lid. I noticed in Bangkok, just after I left you alone in the room. I removed the powder canister here, the night before last.” He pulled it from his pocket and held it up between his thumb and forefinger.

Zoya said, “So much for trust.”

Court replied with derision. “Look who’s talking.”

She got up now, stormed past Court to the patio, then sat on a recliner by the pool. He followed her out. She put her head in her hands, and after a long time she spoke.

“I’m sorry.”

Court stood in the doorway. “Yeah. Me, too. I put the blowgun back because I wanted to see if you would try to use it.”

She pulled her head out of her hands and looked across the suite at him. “I thought you were too good to be true.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You don’t know my life.”

Court thought about it a moment, then crossed the patio and sat down in front of her. “I think I do. Like you said last night, you and I have a lot in common. We’ve traveled down the same road, can’t you see that? I see it, I see what you are up against now, and I was just trying to help.”

“Why?”

Court looked out to sea. The massive yacht was still there. A brilliant white in the morning sun. “I have my reasons.”

“When you said you would talk to the CIA about taking me in, I thought you were trying to do to me what you have been sent to do to Fan. Obviously recruiting me would help your career. Why wouldn’t you want that?”

“It won’t do shit for my career, because I’m not an employee of the CIA.”

“Right. That’s what everyone in CIA says.”

“True. It’s also what people who aren’t in the CIA say. I’m one of those people.”

Zoya wasn’t buying it; Court could see it on her face.

“I do contract work for them, but only on my terms. I am getting paid for the Fan assignment, but they only knew I would do it because of a personal reason.”

“What personal reason?”

“If you’d managed to drug me, you’d already know, because I’d tell you everything.” Court stood. “But since your plan failed, I am free to tell you that it’s none of your fucking business.”

Zoya rubbed tears from her eyes.

Court stepped back into the room, grabbed his phone, and slid the Glock into his waistband, covering it with his T-shirt. “I’m going out to make a phone call. If you want to go, you are free to go while I’m gone, or whenever the hell you want to. You are not a captive.”

Court went to the door, but Zoya called to him.

“Wait.”

He turned back to her but said nothing.

She said, “I’ve betrayed your trust in me. Trust I did not deserve.”

Court did not reply.

She looked away. “Tell your handler I will discuss the terms of my defection at her convenience.”

He turned and left the room.

Ten minutes later Court sat at a table in an open-air restaurant between the resort’s main swimming pool and the beach. A few guests sat at the nearby open-air bar, a few people were doing morning yoga on the beach, and the bartender was making an espresso for a sleepy elderly man in a sun hat reading a copy of the German magazine Der Spiegel. There were a few resort guests at the pool nearby, but Court’s immediate area was clear.

A few more guests, mostly families, lay on the sugary sand or splashed in the waters of the bay. In the distance a helicopter took off from the big yacht that had arrived the night before, and then it flew off to the north.

Court took out his phone and dialed Brewer’s number, then gave the response to her identity challenge. As soon as his identity was confirmed, Court’s CIA handler said, “I’ve been waiting all damn day for you to call.”

Court said, “You’ll forgive me when I tell you what I have for you. How would you like to recruit a new foreign asset and score a defection from a tier-one opposition intelligence service at the same time?”

Brewer was taken aback. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The female I told you about who was working with the Russians.”

“What about her?”

“She’s here with me in Phuket. She wants to defect and is willing to speak with you about terms.”

Brewer was baffled by this. “You flipped her?”

Court had never flipped anyone in his life. He wasn’t a case officer; he didn’t recruit and run agents. He said, “No, not really. She’s in a serious jam with Lubyanka, and they’ll kill her if she goes back to Russia. I think she sees us as her only option. Obviously she possesses a lot of intel, considering her position in the SVR.”

“Okay, you’ve got me on the hook. Tell me what you know, but do it quickly, because I have intel for you.”

Court filled his handler in on Zoya Zakharova, but he left out the sex and the fact that she’d killed another operative, and he glossed over the fact that she’d attempted to drug him just minutes earlier. There was a lot to his short relationship with this woman, and it was all he could do to give a dispassionate accounting of what had happened without putting in his own spin. At the moment he was pissed at her, and he had decided he wasn’t going to let her breach Chamroon’s estate with him when he jumped the fence.

Court had his own trust issues, after all.

Brewer took it all in, then said, “Obviously we’d like to speak with her. I’ll talk to Matt and see how he wants to proceed.”

“Okay.”

Brewer added, “And just for the record. You have my permission to pick up as many girls as you like while you are working… just as long as they are high-ranking intelligence officers from opposition first-tier agencies who wish to defect.”

“Funny,” Court said, and he wondered if he’d really given off the impression he’d entered into a relationship with Zoya, or if Brewer was just making a little quip. He pushed the thought away and said, “As far as Fan… I am operating on the assumption that the helicopter will arrive at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been around the periphery of the estate, but I was waiting till tonight to breach.”

“You can cancel your plans.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because Fan Jiang managed to send a coded message to the U.S. ambassador to Thailand. He is asking for us to rescue him.”

Court couldn’t believe it. “When did this happen?”

“Our ambassador just got it two hours ago, but it was sent ten and a half hours ago. It got scooped up into a spam folder because it was literally a piece of spam, but somehow the ambassador’s secretary found it. Fan says he doesn’t know where he is being held, but we were able to use data from the e-mail to pinpoint a cell phone tower that was used to send the message. It’s located adjacent to the Chamroon estate there in Phuket, which means Fan is already there.”

Court knew he couldn’t have missed the helicopter arriving, but perhaps Nattapong Chamroon had been wrong about that indicator of Fan and Kulap’s presence. Maybe Fan came overland, arrived by boat, or even got here before Court and Zoya arrived. He asked, “How do you know the e-mail actually came from Fan?”

“He gave specific information only he would have known about his escape from China,” Brewer said. “Ground Branch is spinning up right now. They are arranging the helicopters, and they will hit the estate around one a.m.”

Court didn’t like it. “That’s not a good idea. Let me get in there. It’s a big building, jungle all around. I can try to pinpoint where they are holding Fan and then—”

“Negative. We’ve lost him so many times in the past two weeks already. If you go in there early and are detected, he’ll be long gone before the operators hit. Either Chamroon will move him or the Chinese will find them.”

“The Chinese don’t even know about Phuket.”

“That can change at any time.”

Court wasn’t happy about Brewer’s decision, but he saw no way to stop her from sending in Ground Branch. “I’ll stay on the outside of the compound, but I’ll try to get a better fix on his location. I don’t trust your intel.”

Brewer said, “Nothing wrong with the intelligence that ID’d Fan’s location, although I have to say I’m disappointed in the human intelligence asset who picked himself up a Russian girlfriend and is now probably hanging around in his hotel room with no pants on instead of working to acquire his target.”

Court’s jaw muscles flexed. He took a few breaths before responding, then said, “I’ll find where they are keeping Fan if he’s here.”

Brewer said, “No, you will not. You will check out of your hotel and start heading back to Bangkok by midnight. I can’t have you anywhere near the area when the raid comes. Call me back when you are on the road, and by then I’ll have instructions for how to proceed with Ms. Zakharova. She is your objective now. Let Ground Branch handle Fan Jiang. That op is over for you.”

The call ended there; Court didn’t like it, of course, but he could make no reasonable excuse to Brewer as to why he had to be the one to rescue Fan.

It seemed to him that at every turn, the one insurmountable hurdle in his own plan for this operation was finding a way to save Donald Fitzroy from Colonel Dai. He owed Fitzroy, and he knew he was Fitzroy’s only hope, but it continued to look like saving the life of the Englishman was going to be a bridge too far.

The old man had already had two fingers lopped off, but by this time tomorrow he’d probably be in a shallow grave in the hills over Hong Kong.

Court thought about all this as he climbed the stairs back to the villa, along with the hundred other things running through his mind: the fact that CIA paramilitaries were just hours away from hitting the property east of him and either finding a dry hole, which would be bad, or picking up Fan Jiang, which would be worse for Sir Donald.

Court unlocked the door to his ocean-view suite, walked through the small entryway, and entered the sitting room there. He was surprised to see Zoya sitting on the sofa across from him, especially so because her hair was wet and she wore only a towel.

He had stepped fully into the living room now, passing a wall behind him on his left, and as he did so he focused on Zoya, saw her back ramrod straight, her eyes focused on him, but apprehensive, nervous.

Court sensed danger, close and immediate. He turned his next footfall into a forward roll by lowering his left shoulder and pushing off with his right leg. As he went down to the ground his right hand slipped under his T-shirt and formed around the grip of his Glock jutting there from the waistband of his cargo shorts.

He rolled over on the carpet and came up in a crouch, his pistol out in front of him and pointing back towards the blind spot in the room he’d just passed.

Four Asian men stood there along the wall; they had pistols of their own pointed back his way.

A voice came from the bedroom on Court’s right. English with a heavy Chinese accent. “Try it. I’d welcome the opportunity to have you shot right here.”

Court turned to look into the bedroom. Three more men stood there. Two held small submachine guns out at hip level, and the third was clearly in charge; this was obvious simply from his body language. He stood there in a suit and tie, his hands clasped behind his back.

Court recognized the man. He was Major Xi, Colonel Dai’s second-in-command.

He said, “Engage those four men, so these two men will shoot you down and then shoot your attractive friend here, as well.”

Court lowered the Glock, placed it on the floor, and pushed it towards the four men in front of him. As he did this he addressed the one man in the suite he knew spoke English. “I don’t guess you guys are just here to work on your tans.”

Xi didn’t laugh. He said, “We will take you to see Dai.”

Court shook his head. “We can’t go to Hong Kong. Fan is here.”

The man smiled. “The colonel is not in Hong Kong. He is here in Phuket. We will take you to him now.”

Court turned back to Zoya, and her expression was clear. What the hell is going on, who the hell is Colonel Dai, and why did you lie to me?

Court found her ability to ask three questions with just a glare impressive, if a little disconcerting.

Court turned back to Major Xi. “I’ll go, but she stays here. She’s not part of this.”

“Then you shouldn’t have brought her here. You aren’t in a position to dictate anything to me, Mr. Gentry. She is coming with us.”

Court cringed at the sound of his own name.

To Zoya Major Xi said, “Get dressed.”

She stood from the sofa, and as she walked past Court in the living room to get her clothes from the closet, Court whispered to her.

“I can explain.”

She did not break stride. “I can hardly wait.”