Gunmetal Gray

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

The morning activity was in full swing at the Phuket Backpacker Hostel. The little breakfast room was filled with young men and women from all over the world. Many sat in groups silently, hungover from partying the night before; some of the surfers getting a late start were rushing through their coffee and eggs. A few of the more intrepid guests looked over maps or read details of smartphone destinations to hike in the nearby hills.

The TV was on, but the sound was down, and few if any of the Westerners here knew anything about a shoot-out in the jungle many miles to the north. They were all here on vacation, and it would take an incoming tsunami to draw their attention to the local news.

The breakfast room was open to the lobby, so every head turned when a group of eight men, all bearded Westerners in their thirties and forties, came through the front door, blocking out the harsh morning light with their bodies. They wore sunglasses and ball caps, headsets in their ears, and packs on their backs, and, most notably to every single person in the hostel awake enough to see past their breakfast, all the men had big black and green guns in their hands.

A young lady behind the counter at the entrance said not a word as the men hustled by her, and a couple of young surfers from South Africa moved themselves against the wall quickly as the men approached.

The men shot straight to the back of the hostel and stepped around the door to room twelve, and while three twenty-something backpackers just stood in the hall and stared, some of the intense gunmen opened the door and filed in, while others maintained rear security in the hall.

Zoya Zakharova woke to a shake on her bare arm. She thought it was Court but was surprised to feel that he was wearing gloves. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and felt the continued effects of the Vicodin in her blood, along with the pain in her shoulder that was even stronger than the narcotic.

When she opened her eyes she saw them. Four men in the room with guns, more men in the hall outside. They were obviously Americans.

The man in front said, “Ma’am, we’re friends.” And then, “Do you have any weapons on you?”

“Nyet… No.” She rubbed her eyes again and looked around. “Where is… where is Court?”

“He sent us to help you, ma’am. We’ve got transport outside. I understand you’re hurt. We have a litter if you can’t walk.”

“What’s your name?” she asked the man.

He hesitated a moment, then said, “I’m Chris. I’m a friend of Court’s.”

She didn’t know if she believed him. “When do we see him?”

The man gave a little smile. “You know Court. You see him when he wants to be seen.”

She looked around the room and saw that Fan Jiang was gone. Slowly she understood what had happened. Court had taken off with Fan, and he’d told the CIA where they could pick her up.

And he hadn’t even said good-bye.

She was so mad she fought a scream.

She wanted to kill him and she wanted to cry.

Matthew Hanley hated mornings at work: the inevitable new crisis, the never-ending procession of things to sign, people to talk to, fires to put out. Today was the same as the others, other than the fact that the scale was a little larger than usual.

In front of him now was Suzanne Brewer, not his favorite person in the building by a long shot, and not someone he wanted to see waiting in the anteroom of his office when he walked in first thing, a still-warm bagel in a bag in his hand. She had her ubiquitous crutches with her, but her leg had improved enough to where she was putting some weight on it.

Twenty-five minutes later Hanley sat at his desk. The bagel was in the trash can, uneaten, and Hanley was looking at his phone, waiting for it to begin blinking.

Brewer sat in front of him with her ubiquitous tablet computer with which she maintained real-time contact with the communications team in charge of moving Court Gentry’s call from her phone to Hanley’s office. They’d also be checking that the encryption was maintained throughout the call, as usual, but Gentry was a pro, and he never screwed up.

Hanley’s phone finally lit up and Brewer looked down at her pad. “Okay, that’s going to be him.”

Hanley nodded, watched it ring several times, then snatched it up. “Hey, Court. You okay?”

The pause was brief. “I didn’t know if you’d talk to me or not.”

“You got me,” he said. “Remember, I told you you’d always have a direct feed if you needed it.”

“How could I forget? It was just a month ago. Bet you didn’t think I’d need it so quickly.”

Hanley paused. “Well… I had half a guess you might have some concerns on this one.”

Court said, “Let’s get to it. First concern… Zoya Zakharova.”

Hanley nodded as he spoke into the phone. “Yep, we got her. Travers and some of the guys picked her up this morning; right now she’s in the infirmary at our embassy in Singapore. Doing fine, is what I hear, but I’d be holding out on you if I didn’t mention she’s pissed about you running out on her.”

“Yeah,” Court said softly.

Hanley added, “Honestly, dude. I know how she feels. You ran out on us on this one, too.”

“Matt… tell me we did not sanction the murder of Fan Jiang’s parents.”

There was a silence while Hanley looked for the words. When he found them he knew how they’d be received. “Depends on your definition of the word ‘we.’”

“Dammit! You are becoming one of them, aren’t you? One of the paper pushers who parse every word like a Supreme Court justice. Have you even been in the job a whole month yet?”

“When I came into this office, I found a lot of balls in the air, and they were all coming down. I didn’t throw them, but it’s my job to catch them. If it weren’t me sitting here it would be another guy. And, I remind you, most other guys around here still want you dead.”

Court said, “This mission that I came in on the tail end of. This mission I was sent into that I knew nothing about. What is it called?”

Brewer had an earpiece in where she could hear Violator’s side of the conversation. She looked at her boss, obviously wondering how he would answer.

She displayed the shock on her face when her boss answered with the truth.

“It was called Aces High. We had an agent in the PLA, mid-level security guy. His name was—”

Court said, “His name was Song Julong.”

Another pause. Then, “Right… He wasn’t very productive, just an army officer in a dead-end billet. Still… he thought the walls were closing in on him. We don’t know why; he could never give us anything solid that led us to believe he was in danger. Perhaps there was some security review that shook him, some comment made by a colleague he interpreted to suggest he was in some trouble… he never told us.”

Court interrupted. “I’ll tell you. MI6 hired Donald Fitzroy to send men into Shanghai after Song. Those men scared Song into enacting his escape plan. His escape plan was earning his way out of China by coming up with a big score for the CIA. It was the only way you would pull him out. He did that by killing Fan’s parents so Fan would run into the hands of the West.”

Hanley did not respond to this.

Court said, “That’s right, don’t say anything. I’d rather you didn’t lie and tell me you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know. I… don’t know if that is the case. Maybe MI6 was trying to whack Song before he did anything stupid.”

“Well, that didn’t work.”

“Look, Court… this op was begun by my predecessor. Not me. Shit… you think I could have cooked all this up in the time I’ve been in here?”

Court softened. “No… I don’t think you thought it up. This smells like Denny Carmichael, working with MI6. Still… you’re the new guy. This is your watch.”

Hanley said, “Right. Pulling a PLA officer out of mainland China isn’t easy, as we’ve all seen in the past couple of weeks. Long ago Song made a deal with Carmichael. If he ever needed to run, he could get us something big, earn the resources we’d put into him over the years. Denny agreed that if that happened, we’d get him out.”

“And then?”

“And then a few weeks ago he contacts us, tells us he killed Fan’s parents, told Fan he had to run before he was executed, and told him how. We used the Taiwanese already in Hong Kong to go pick Fan up. Unfortunately, Colonel Dai got to the crossing, had men on both sides, and the whole thing went south. The Taiwanese missed Fan when he came over the border, and Fan didn’t know what to do. He joined up with Wo Shing Wo. Fan did that on his own; Song didn’t know that would happen.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“The British were aiding us in Hong Kong while we looked for Fan, and they caught a lucky break when known Chinese intelligence cutouts contacted Sir Donald Fitzroy. Fitzroy was already there, as you just mentioned. Frankly, I did not know why he was there. Not sure I ever thought to ask.”

Court said, “And Song? Did you get him out?”

Hanley paused. “We tried… Three days after Fan came over, Song went to the same crossing to make his run. We were ready and waiting for him, but he was strangled to death in the men’s room on the mainland side of the border. One of Dai’s men did it. We ID’d the assassin the other day. He was one of the two you killed in the Peninsula hotel in Hong Kong.”

“Why didn’t I know everything about Aces High from the beginning?” Court demanded.

Hanley snapped at this. “Dammit, son. You aren’t still in your little private hit man job. You aren’t working for a drug dealer in Sinaloa trying to whack a drug dealer in Guadalajara. You’re back in the big leagues now. You don’t get to know the whole game anymore. You get what we give you, and you work for us, or you don’t. I told you, you were free to take this job or leave it.”

“And then you told me the life of a man I owe my own life to was on the line. You knew what I’d do. You used that against me. You never used to be so manipulative.”

Hanley blew out a sigh. “I agree. I’m an insufferable shit now; comes with the desk I sit at.” He shrugged. “If it makes a damn bit of difference to you, I don’t enjoy it. Not sure I’ve looked myself in the mirror since I took this job.”

“Give it a try. You might find you look exactly the same as you did before you took that job.”

Hanley let the comment hang, wash over him, and then he said, “What about Fan? Are you giving him to us, or are we going to have to take him?”

“He doesn’t know about the murder of his parents… and I’m not going to tell him. Still… he doesn’t want to work for you. He just wants to be free.”

“We’d take care of him.”

“By taking away his liberty? Look at what you’ve accomplished already. He’ll no longer work for China, and that’s a real body blow to them. Having him out in the wind will hurt them as they try to redo everything he touched, change up everything he knew. They won’t be able to trust their own systems. That’s a victory for America, Matt. In this particular case, it’s more than we deserve, and it’s going to have to be enough.”

“Look, just think about—”

“See ya around, Matt.”

“Court!” Hanley shouted, but the phone call ended.

As soon as Hanley hung up the phone, he looked up and saw Brewer standing up in front of him, off her crutches, tablet computer in her hand, and a wide, wild look on her face.

“What the hell is it?” Matt demanded.

“Violator! His phone! It was new, as always, and his encryption software was set up, as usual, but he’d not enabled the geolocation spoof correctly.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we have his exact location pinpointed. He’s at a hotel in Phang Nga City, a couple hours north of Phuket. He’s in a room there right now! We moved Ground Branch back to the airport at Phuket. Their helos could be there in less than thirty minutes.”

Hanley sniffed. “Well, that’s a motherfuckin’ trap if I’ve ever seen one.”

“A trap?” Brewer was stunned, almost furious. This was the most excited Hanley had ever seen her, and he’d just popped her bubble.

The director of the National Clandestine Service shook his head now. “Not a trap. He’s not going to hurt our guys. But there is something at that location he wants us to know about. Alert Jenner, get his team there, stat, and have them in full load-outs, ready to fight a war if they have to. Stress to them that they are going into a hot LZ.”

“You think Fan is there?”

Hanley heaved his big shoulders. “I hope so. I hope there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, too, but I sure as shit wouldn’t bet on it.”

The three-story-high Thaweesuk Hotel in Phang Nga had a flat roof, which made the CIA pilots of the two Russian helicopters streaking one hundred feet over Phetkasem Road very happy. Phetkasem Road was too narrow to land in, but even if it had been twice as wide, the thick traffic and the jumbled strands of cable, electric, and telephone wires hanging from poles on both sides of the street would have made touching down there a risky proposition.

But the roof of the Thaweesuk Hotel was relatively pristine, so the first CIA helo flared to cut speed right in front of the hotel, spun hard on its X axis, and then flew carefully but quickly towards the building.

It was eight p.m., dark outside, but the streets were full of cars and the sidewalks full of pedestrians. Everyone looked at the two new Russian-built Ka-62s as they flew in tandem, one hovering directly over the street while the other moved above the hotel.

The first Special Activities Division Air Branch pilot maneuvered his craft over the roof three stories above the road and, within two seconds, six armed men leapt off, dropped the three feet to the surface, and ran for the access stairs as a single unit.

The helo didn’t wait around. It shot forward, climbed up into the dark, and began circling, with a sniper strapped in on each side scanning the hotel’s windows with powerful optics.

Only five seconds after the lead helo left the roof, the second helo flew closer to the building, and three long tactical rappelling ropes dropped out, uncoiling all the way down to the street. Three men on board the Ka-62 attached their terminal descenders to the ropes, then stepped out of the helo and began rappelling down the side of the hotel, facedown, at speeds that made it look as if they were sprinting vertically.

They landed at the front door, freed themselves from their lines, and brought their weapons to bear on men and women fleeing. The operators scanned faces and let everyone pass by, shouting in English and Thai for everyone to get the fuck out of the way.

The helo above dropped the lines and flew just five feet over the roof, and then at the back wall of the hotel three more lines flew from the open hatch and spun down to the back door of the hotel, and three black-clad men rappelled down face-first. The CIA paramilitary officers landed on their boots simultaneously, unhooked their lines from the beastly flying machine overhead, and lifted their weapons, pointing them at several men running out the rear door.

The Ka-62 lifted into the night, pulling the three tactical ropes up with it.

Walt Jenner, team leader of the SAD Ground Branch team, was the first to recognize Sir Donald Fitzroy. The portly Englishman was rushing out of the hotel, being pulled along by four other men, Asians in business suits. Jenner had no idea Fitzroy would be here, but the dossier on his mission here in Southeast Asia had mentioned him as a kidnap victim of the Chinese malefactors in the op, and it was known that Court “Violator” Gentry had been attempting to secure Fitzroy’s release.

Jenner quickly deduced that if this man coming his way was Fitzroy, then the four Asian men in suits pulling and pushing him along must be Chinese PLA men.

“Freeze!” Jenner put his laser sight on one of the Chinese, and the two Ground Branch paramilitaries with him, Greer and Stapleton, each picked their own target.

The five men stopped. Fitzroy instantly doubled over in exhaustion; clearly they’d been running down the stairs.

Jenner said, “Everybody put your hands up!”

One of the four Chinese men reached quickly into his suit coat. Greer fired three suppressed rounds from his HK MP7 Personal Defense Weapon and struck the man in the chest and solar plexus, and he dropped down dead.

The others raised their hands.

Greer, Stapleton, and Jenner pushed the remaining four men to the ground, and Jenner scanned for more threats while the other two began zip-tying their prisoners, including the Englishman. While this was going on, the voice of CIA officer Chris Travers came through Jenner’s headset. “Delta One, this is Two. How copy?”

“Solid copy. Go for One. You got the target?”

Court Gentry’s phone was still broadcasting from a room inside the hotel. They’d been able to discern in the helo during their landing that his signal was coming from one of the rooms on the northwest corner. This meant the six-man team that descended from the roof had to search rooms 310, 210, and 110 in order to find Gentry himself.

Travers said, “Negative, no joy. Say again, no joy. I have the phone in room 310, and it’s got a note with it, wrapped around it with a rubber band.”

Jenner and his two men began walking the prisoners to the hotel’s staircase to the roof for extraction.

When he heard there was a note left with the phone, Jenner let out a little sigh. “That dickhead Gentry is always playing games. What’s it say?”

Travers’s voice crackled through the headset. “‘Hi, boys. Thanks for dropping in. The gray-haired Brit missing his fingers is to be handled gently. Any Chinese nationals you find are hostile. Keep an eye out for Colonel Dai Longhai. He is the center of the opposition. Sorry I couldn’t make your night with a personal appearance, but if you are reading this, then you probably just kicked some ass, so it was worth gearing up. Get out of here before the local po-po shows up to take you someplace where you’ll have to eat fish head soup for the next twenty years.’” Travers added, “He signed it ‘Sierra Six.’”

Sierra Six had been Gentry’s call sign when he served in CIA’s Ground Branch, five years earlier.

Jenner spit on the floor in the stairwell in anger. He could hear the helos getting in position for the extraction. “Fucker,” he said into his mic.

Travers said, “I don’t know, boss. He’s a pain, but you kinda have to appreciate the man’s style.”

Jenner ignored the comment and looked at Fitzroy. “Which one of these guys is Dai?”

Fitzroy struggled up the stairs with his hands behind his back. “He’s not here. The man you shot was Major Xi, second-in-command. The other three are men who work for Dai.”

Jenner and the entourage reached the roof a minute later. Sirens approached the hotel from all directions.

The first helo lifted off with half the unit, and the second came in, but slower than Jenner wanted. He called the pilot through his radio to encourage him on. “Delta One to Kilo Alpha One Two; hurry up the exfil, bro. None of us down here want to eat fish head soup for the next twenty years.”

Travers was already in the other helo, but he actuated his mic just to laugh into it.