Gunmetal Gray

CHAPTER TWO

Courtland Gentry sat in the front passenger seat of the Mercedes, much to the confusion of his driver. Normally passengers sat in the back and their luggage rode in the trunk, but Court had hurried off the aircraft and into the front of the car to disrupt any potential surveillance at the FBO, and since the driver didn’t know anything about tradecraft, he thought this American to be some kind of a weirdo.

Court hadn’t seen the two men on the roof, but he saw them now, or at least he saw the black Aurion varying between six and ten car lengths behind his Mercedes, always there, despite the turnoffs, red lights, and off-and-on gridlocked traffic of a Hong Kong workday.

Court had picked up a tail and he hadn’t even been on the ground here in HK for ten fucking minutes.

Terrific.

He considered bailing out of the Mercedes somewhere en route to his destination to lose the surveillance detail, but he figured this driver was probably an informant for Chinese intelligence, and the man would just pass on the fact that his passenger had, with no warning, dived from his hired car and dashed up some alley.

Nope, that wouldn’t do. Court’s cover for status had to be maintained, which meant Court would just pretend like he didn’t see the black car lurking behind him.

He’d been here to HK before, but only once. To the extent he had a regular beat, East Asia certainly wasn’t it, so he did his best to push the tail car out of his mind and instead spend his time doing all he could to observe the fabric of life on the streets around him. He noted what the police cars looked like, where the street signs were located, the flow of traffic, and the manner of dress of the commuters. He made a mental note of the cardinal positions of several major buildings in view. He’d spent hours of his flight over from the States prepping for his op here, but he’d not had time to digest more than a thumbnail sketch of this area of operations and, as he had learned countless times in the past, not only was the map not the territory, but most preconceived notions about a place were dead wrong.

You really had to experience a location to know it at an operational level.

Court had a lot of work to do to get up to speed, but his assignment here was as time sensitive as they came, so he’d have to work out the atmospherics of this AO while on the job.

His car drove onto the Tsing Yi Bridge, and he glanced back in the passenger-side mirror to confirm that the black Aurion continued to follow. It was in a reasonable position for a tail car; Court gave these boys credit for knowing their stuff, but he had been either the tailer or the tailee thousands of times in his life, so sniffing out a car on his six was nothing to him.

Both vehicles left the bridge, continued south along the water, and finally entered the Hong Kong district of Tsim Sha Tsui, on the southern tip of Kowloon. The black sedan was still back there, which meant to Court this tail on him was a simple affair. There were no teams of vehicles in radio contact leapfrogging all around, which was what he would have expected if mainland China’s Ministry of State Security was working here and had ordered up a large surveillance package on him. Either the guys in the tail car were working for some group not tied to the Chinese intelligence services, or else Chinese intel found him more of a curiosity than a real concern, so they just sent a couple of men to see where he was heading and what he was up to.

Looking away from the mirror, he got his first glimpse of his hotel. The five-star Peninsula Hong Kong sat at the southern tip of Kowloon, just across the street from the harbor ferry terminal. He was anxious to get into his room — not so he could rest after the two-leg, nineteen-hour flight from the United States; rather so he could whip out his encrypted phone and call his handler. He would let her know about the surveillance, and he would let her have it, because this bullshit wasn’t his damn fault, and it could ruin this mission before it began.

No, Court told himself. This wouldn’t hurt the op. It couldn’t, because his assignment here was possibly the most important of his life. The potential for gain was exponentially larger than any intelligence haul he’d ever heard of short of wartime.

And lives were on the line, including the life of a man who had saved Court Gentry years ago.

Court told himself he would not fail. Regardless of the hurdles ahead, he would see this through somehow, even if he had these Chinese motherfuckers breathing down his neck for the duration of his assignment.

The Mercedes drove around the fountain in front of the Peninsula and stopped under the awning. A bellman opened the back door, but Court climbed out of the front seat with barely a nod to his driver. He handled his own luggage and passed the attentive bellmen with a curt nod, like he was a businessman who did this every day of his life.

A stunning fleet of green Rolls-Royce Phantoms, eight in total, were lined up near the entrance to the hotel, and Court pretended to give a damn about them, just as a foreign businessman might. He knew the cars were here to take the well-heeled guests to and fro around Hong Kong, and he wouldn’t mind going for a ride in the back of a luxurious classic car, but this wasn’t going to be that type of assignment. No, he figured he’d likely spend his time skulking alone in shady alleys and cracking heads in opium dens and strip clubs.

Despite the nice hotel and his nice suit, he fully expected to find himself serving as a low-grade ground pounder on this gig, not a high-flying cocktail circuit spook.

After slowing a moment to fulfill his cover by looking over the Rolls-Royce fleet approvingly, he returned to his brisk pace and entered the lobby.

Five minutes later he was checked into his twenty-fifth-floor room. It wasn’t a suite but it was roomy and ornate. It came with a dramatic floor-to-ceiling view of Victoria Harbor. Beyond the congested waterway, the massive skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island shot skyward. Past the stunning urban landscape, lush hills dwarfed the buildings, and Victoria Peak, the highest point in HK, was completely hidden by the low cloud ceiling.

Court took in the view just for a moment before dropping his roll-aboard and his backpack on the bed, fishing in his luggage for his mobile phone and its battery, and reassembling the device.

He turned on his room’s impressive stereo system, made sure the surround-sound speakers were each playing with the “all channel” stereo mode to remove the chance that a hidden surveillance mic happened to be positioned near a speaker that was only blaring music intermittently, and then he chose a station playing some annoying techno that was sure to madden anyone who might be eavesdropping. Court then entered the spacious bathroom and turned on the spigot in the tub. The sounds of water moving through pipes in the walls would play havoc on a microphone positioned nearby.

More than once in his own career he’d had to yank headphones from his ears and throw them across the room to save himself from the roar of a filling tub or the thunder of a flushing toilet.

Court’s mobile was encrypted with nonproprietary, off-the-shelf software that had been tweaked to improve the performance of the encryption but not augmented with any gadgetry that would give away the fact that Court got it from the Science and Technology Division of the CIA. It would withstand examination by experts at even top-tier intelligence organizations. If they ever got their hands on it, he’d seem like a paranoid businessman, an antisurveillance technology geek, but he would not look like a government spy.

Gentry’s primary cover was as an American businessman, but his secondary cover was that of a freelance assassin — a hit man without portfolio — and he wasn’t about to give that away by using gear with the Agency’s fingerprints on it.

It took a moment for his phone to establish a connection, but when it went through, the call was answered on the first ring.

“Brewer.”

Court checked his watch and saw that it was ten p.m. in Langley, Virginia, and he wondered if Suzanne Brewer was still in her office.

He said, “Violator.”

“Identity challenge, Roadster.” He heard a hint of relief in her voice. Court knew she’d been anticipating his call.

“My response is Renaissance.”

“Challenge response confirmed. I assume your operation is proceeding nominally.”

“Not even close. There’s a problem.”

“A problem? By the clock on my desk you should just now be arriving at your hotel. Is your bed too lumpy?”

“I’ve got a tail.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Are you—”

Court interrupted. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“How the hell did you manage to pick up a tail?”

“My plane landed, and there was a surveillance team waiting for me in a car as I left the airport.”

Another pause. “That’s problematic.”

“Problematic? At Langley, yeah, I guess that’s how it looks. Here, from my angle, it looks like an utter clusterfuck. How am I supposed to do this job with eyes on me?”

Brewer remained detached and professional. “I understand your concern, Violator. I’ll begin a review immediately, look into the aircraft, see if there is a chance—”

“Who knows about this operation?”

Brewer answered without hesitation. “You, me, and Hanley. Full stop.”

Matthew Hanley was the CIA’s new director of the National Clandestine Service. Court had a long history with Hanley, whereas his relationship with Suzanne Brewer was less than twenty-four hours old. But she was his handler, his single contact, his one lifeline with the Agency on this operation. He had to work with her, and to some extent, he had to trust her.

But Court wasn’t a trusting guy. “You’re sure about that?”

“Absolutely certain. Look, this isn’t about you. Can’t be. Whoever it is that’s following you doesn’t know who you are. They must just somehow know the plane belongs to us, so whoever climbed off the plane is now their target.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Brewer said, “I’m always right. We just met, so you can’t know that yet, but you will learn soon enough.”

“You sure as hell weren’t right about the jet.”

“That wasn’t my jet. That was the transport Hanley arranged. I’m as new to this op as you are.” She thought a moment. “If the Chinese know it’s an Agency asset, then we won’t use it again. When the job is done, I’ll fly you out of there on a clean aircraft, I promise you that.”

Court gazed out the window and down at the harbor, twenty-five floors down. Dozens of different watercraft of all sizes and types were in sight. “Maybe I’d be safer on one of these old junks bobbing in the harbor.”

“That’s your call, but until you complete your op, no slow boats for you. The clock is ticking. You know what’s at stake here.”

Court breathed into the phone for a moment. “The men tailing me. Do they pose a physical danger?”

“How can I answer that? I don’t even know who they are.”

“I only spotted one vehicle, but the surveillance was competently conducted. I’m guessing they are MSS. My question is: have any Chinese intel operatives killed any Agency operatives in the past… I don’t know, ten years?”

Brewer was unequivocal in her response. “Negative. It’s been more than twenty years, actually. And you’re in Hong Kong, not Beijing. Hong Kong has autonomy, in theory, anyway. If MSS is roving around there in force, it would only happen after the Chinese broke a lot of rules.”

“But it could happen.”

Brewer walked back her last comment. “Sure. We know MSS is there in Hong Kong, obviously. Your entire operation is based on the presumption that the Chinese are conducting intel ops in HK. I’m only saying it isn’t the same as it would be if you were on the mainland, in Beijing or Shanghai. Also there are transnational criminal groups in HK — the Triads, a few of whom China holds some sway over.”

“So you’re saying the MSS might send some local gang to target me.”

She thought this over before answering. “I guess it’s possible if they felt they had to. But you won’t give them a reason, now, will you?”

Court lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “For some reason, I tend to find my way to people’s wrong side.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to be on your best behavior.”

Court blew out a sigh. “Look, I’m going below radar.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I need to lose these guys, to shake any possible compromise. I won’t be checking in for a while.”

Brewer took her time responding. Then she said, “Well, you are certainly experienced in working alone.”

“And I’m sure you are experienced in conducting reviews of company failures.” It was a shitty thing to say. Court knew he didn’t need to get off on a bad foot with Suzanne Brewer, but he’d been on his own for five years, and was unaccustomed to this bullshit. He was back with the Agency for the first time in a half decade, in a thin quasi relationship, anyway, and he wasn’t a team player who knew how to pick and choose his battles.

Brewer could have gotten her hackles up, Court realized, but instead she remained professional and even contrite. “Remember, you aren’t there on a direct-action mission. You make contact with your target, garner as much intel as you can about the situation, then report in and get out of there. This isn’t you against the bad guys.” She added, “Sorry about the glitch here at the beginning.”

Court Gentry softened. “It’s not your fault. I’ll check in down the road.” He hung up, then listened to the techno music for a minute more. Soon he climbed off the bed, crossed the room, and turned that shit off.

Twenty-five floors below, Wang Ping Li and Tao Man Koh sat in a conference room in the administrative suite of the Peninsula hotel, watching silently while the day manager stood and left the room. The man had been angry about informing on one of his guests, and he’d made a show about demanding Wang and Tao’s credentials, but it was only a show, and while both operatives knew they could have filed a report on the manager’s recalcitrance, they weren’t here in HK to gauge the party loyalty of hoteliers.

And anyway, after a little huffing and puffing, the manager was playing ball. He’d already told them that the guest who’d arrived in the Mercedes was traveling under the name Roger Hartley, and he was ostensibly a businessman from Ohio in the United States. The intelligence officers didn’t have the man’s passport to look at; hotels here in Hong Kong, unlike in China proper, were under no obligation to take their guests’ passports, and the five-star properties like the Peninsula distanced themselves from China by not doing so.

But even though on the surface the Peninsula acted high-minded about guests’ rights, in truth Roger Hartley’s room was already bugged with listening devices; most four- and five-star hotels in HK maintained rooms wired by MSS as a matter of course, though the bugs weren’t turned on unless there was a specific need. Tao would make a call to initiate twenty-four-hour monitoring of Hartley’s room now that he had the room number, and he’d follow up hourly with the listeners for updates.

The manager returned with a pair of key cards and handed them over without a word. This would give Tao and Wang access to the room directly across the hall from Hartley; as it happened it had been vacant, but if a guest had been staying there, the annoyed hotel manager would have moved them out under some emergency-repair ruse. Through a pinhole camera Wang and Tao would attach to their door’s peephole they would have a perfect view of Hartley’s door, and through the motion-detector setting on the device they’d be sure they wouldn’t miss him leaving his room.

The manager had also handed over extra copies of cards that would get them into Hartley’s room itself, in case they wanted to make entry when the man was out.

After passing over the key cards, the manager walked the two intelligence operatives out of the conference room and back into the lobby. He bid them an insincere good day, then turned and went back inside.

Tao looked to Wang. “He was disrespectful.”

“No time to make trouble for him. He gets a pass for now. Let’s go to the room.”

Tao nodded, then said, “Should we call in more eyes to assist?”

“Who? Everyone else here is working for Ministry of Defense. When Colonel Dai finds out we’ve been pulled off his operation, he’ll be angry enough. If we start removing others to help us, he’ll lose his mind.”

The two men headed for the elevators. As soon as the door closed, the mobile phone rang in Tao’s jacket. He looked at the incoming number, then immediately handed the phone over to Wang.

“It’s him.”

Wang took the phone from Tao and answered with a report, not even waiting to be asked where the hell they were. “Way, ni hao, Shangxio.” Yes, hello, Colonel. “We were ordered by our Beijing Control to divert from your operation here and proceed to the airport. An American CIA Dassault Falcon Seven X, tail number—”

Wang stopped talking abruptly and just listened; Tao could tell he’d been interrupted. The elevator stopped and the two men headed up the hall.

Wang spoke again, more softly now. “Yes, sir. Our orders were made clear to us. We then followed our subject to the Peninsula, and we have taken a room across from—”

He stopped speaking again; Tao could hear the voice of the man through the phone at Wang’s ear.

The two men were already in their room with the door shut when Wang spoke again. “I understand, sir. But this came from our department… not yours. Apologies, but despite our seconding to you, our chain of command retains authority to—”

For a third time Wang was interrupted. Tao looked on while Wang listened, nodded compliantly, and ended the call. He looked uncomfortable but made no remarks to his junior colleague.

“What did he say?” Tao finally asked.

“What do you think? He’s mad we left his op to follow the MSS directive, as if we had a choice.”

Tao was the junior man, but he chanced a comment. “Colonel Dai has his own ass on the line on this operation for some reason. The next call we get from him will be the one ordering us to terminate the subject.”

Wang took off his suit coat, still a little damp from his time on the hot roof at the airport. “He’s after a promotion, or maybe, as you suggest, there is some other reason for his personal involvement. If Dai fails here, it will be men like us who will suffer.”

Tao held up a finger. “No. Not men like us. It will be us, exactly. That’s why we should terminate the CIA man and—”

Wang waved a hand in the air. “I’ve been doing this longer than you, Tao. Get it out of your head. We’re here on a surveillance job for MSS, and then we will go back to being two more good little soldiers for Ministry of Defense. Nobody is killing anybody until we find Fan Jiang, or until someone gets in our way.”

Tao said, “Roger Hartley is in Dai’s way already. And Colonel Dai doesn’t mess around.”