The Gray Man

TWENTY-TWO

No one told the Belarusians at Château Laurent about the helicopter. Consequently, pandemonium ensued when a Sikorsky S76 appeared over the woods to the south, banked hard, and landed at the helipad next to the gravel car park.

Lloyd alone had been informed of the impending arrival of the helicopter from Paris. He sat in the control room, listened to the rotor wash beat against the leaded glass window next to him. He’d sent the Tech downstairs for a lunch break, and he’d pushed Fitzroy’s chair, with Sir Donald chained to it, into an adjoining bathroom.

Lloyd just sat there alone and stared at the stone wall in front of him.

Three minutes later, the door behind him opened. Lloyd did not turn around immediately.

“Lloyd? Lloyd?”

Slowly, the American attorney rotated his swivel chair to face the newest guest to the château. Riegel was a big man, six five at least. He had swept-back blond hair with flecks of gray and bushy blond eyebrows. He wore thick khaki pants and a casual suede sport coat. His shirt was open at the collar. He was twenty years or so older than Lloyd, but he’d not let his body soften, and already his powerful voice and overbearing countenance told Lloyd the afternoon would be difficult and taxing.

Lloyd did not get up. “Mr. Riegel. Welcome to Château Laurent.”

Riegel was angry. “Did it not occur to you to mention to the guards I would be arriving? I’ve had three Belarusians just tell me they almost fired on my transport.”

“That would have been unfortunate.”

Riegel looked like he was going to continue the argument, but instead he let it go.

“Where is Abubaker’s representative?”

“Mr. Felix is downstairs. We’ve put him up in a room adjacent to the library. I told him I’d call down if I had news.”

“You heard Gentry slipped through the noose again.”

“I heard.”

“We have Geneva covered, though. If he turns up there, we will get him.”

“So you continue to say.”

“We may not have dropped him dead in a street with one shot, but we are beating him down with simple wear and tear. He will run out of weapons, ammunition, escape routes, time, and blood before long.”

“Hope you’re right. I’m running out of hostages.”

Riegel sat down in the Tech’s chair. “As I told you on the phone en route, Marc Laurent has ordered me here to provide on-site consultation. Don’t look at me like that. I don’t want to be here any more than you want me. This fucking mess you’ve created and exacerbated will not help my career, regardless of the outcome. I am just the cleaner, the man to keep a terrible situation from becoming even worse. When Laurent heard about the hostage being shot by a guard… well, he just said, ‘Kurt, get over there. Do what you have to do.’ ”

Lloyd’s response was tinged with tired sarcasm. “Monsieur Laurent needn’t worry. I doubt it will happen again. No more daddies to die here.”

“Where is the Fitzroy family now?”

“Locked in a room downstairs on the second floor.”

“Do they know about the shooting?”

“Kids don’t. Mom does.”

“What is her demeanor?”

“One of my close-protection detail injected her with enough sedative to keep her docile for a while.”

Riegel just nodded. “And where is Sir Donald?”

Lloyd motioned to a door across the room. “In there.”

“How did the shooting occur?”

Lloyd shrugged. He seemed momentarily disinterested in the entire operation. “One of the little shits made a run for it. Sniper on the roof saw her and radioed down. I was busy at the time; my radio was off. When the guards took off after her, Phil went nuts, thought they were going to hurt her, I guess. He barreled over two armed Minsk boys in the hallway, shot out the back door to get his daughter.”

“And?”

“And the sniper took him out.”

Riegel looked out the window to the back lawn. “The poor son of a bitch was just trying to protect his family. He’d have brought her back; he wouldn’t have run out on the others. No father would ever leave his family behind.”

“I don’t suppose our sniper is much of a family man.”

“Sir Donald knows?”

“Yeah. I told him.”

“How’d he take it?”

“No emotion at all. Just sat there.”

“All right. I am going to speak to him, try to explain this was an accident.”

“Lots of luck.”

“Why don’t you take a break, Lloyd? You look like shit.”

Lloyd stood up. Riegel saw the blood on his dress shirt but said nothing.

Lloyd said, “I am still in charge.”

Kurt Riegel shook his head in disbelief. “Fine by me. I don’t want responsibility for any more of this disaster than I have to take on. I am just here to consult. Maybe offer helpful suggestions. Like not losing track of eight-year-old girls, and not shooting hostages who pose no danger nor threat of escape, and not forgetting to tell your security that a friendly helicopter will be landing in their midst. Suggestions of that sort.”

Lloyd stood and headed for the staircase to the kitchen without a word.

Riegel crossed the room and opened the door behind which Lloyd said he’d find Sir Donald. The German was surprised to be looking into a large, tiled bathroom. Fitzroy was seated in a chair in the middle of the candlelit chamber. He looked up at Riegel with wet and bloodshot eyes. His head and hands and ankles were secured to the chair with thick iron chains, his dress shirt was shredded on the floor next to him, he sat in a sweat- and bloodstained undershirt. His face had been beaten, and there were fat splotches of blood on his torn tweed trousers. Kurt Riegel took them for puncture marks.

“Scheisse,” Riegel said. He stepped out of the room, leaned out into the hall, and called out to the two Scottish guards near the stairs. “I want the prisoner’s bindings removed; I want him cleaned up. Bandage his legs. And someone find him fresh clothing! Dammit, man, move!”

Fifteen minutes later, Riegel sat on a stool by the edge of a canopied bed in the master quarters on the second floor. Sir Donald lay on the bed and stared back at him. The Englishman had been unshackled and cleaned up and dressed in fresh clothes. A wet bandage hung on his left temple where an ineffective blow had cut his skin. The bruises on his chin and eyes had received little attention.

Neither man spoke at first, although Fitzroy had declined coffee with a shake of his head. His eyes hung low and malevolent.

Finally Riegel found a starting place. “Sir Donald. My name is Herr Riegel. First allow me to sincerely apologize for your treatment. I had no idea Lloyd was going to… Well, no excuses. I take responsibility for this. I will make it right.”

Fitzroy said nothing, though his glare indicated no show of appreciation would be forthcoming.

“I have food and water on the way to you. Something heavier perhaps? A brandy, maybe? You Englishmen often enjoy an afternoon nip. Am I right?”

Still no response from the aged prisoner.

“Further. My deepest condolences for your son. Nothing I can say or do can—”

“Then don’t bloody bother.” Don’s voice was sandpaper, gravel.

“Understood. I just want you to know… no one intended for this to happen. Again, no excuses. I should have been here on site all along. As soon as I heard about the accident, I was on the way. Your son did what any father would have done. He should not have been shot.” Then he said again, “He only did what any father would have done in such circumstances.”

Fitzroy seemed to think about this, but he did not respond.

“From now on I will be overseeing your care and the care of your family. Mr. Lloyd will coordinate the initiative to find and neutralize the Gray Man. I will also be in charge of the defenses here, to make things ready in the unlikely event Mr. Gentry manages to slip past the hunters we have out in the field looking for him.”

“He’ll be here soon enough, Fritz.”

Riegel smiled a little and sat up. “He has managed to neutralize or effect the neutralization of the Albanians, the Indonesians, and the Venezuelans, and the Libyans suffered one inadvertent casualty during his escape from them. Meaning he has brought about the complete destruction of three kill squads and depleted the manpower of a fourth. Still, there are nine teams between him and ourselves. Forty men or so. Plus one hundred pavement artists searching for him. Plus a fourteen-man security detail in cordon here around the château. Plus a technician here monitoring the phones and computers of all Gentry’s known associates along his probable route. And there is word he is injured. Surely he is tired. His resources are thinning.”

“He’ll be here.” Fitzroy’s voice was matter-of-fact.

The German smiled obligingly. “We’ll see.” Then his eyes turned darker. “Sir Donald, you are a professional. Surely you understand your situation. I would only insult your intelligence by telling you we will let you go when this matter with the Gray Man is resolved. You know as well as I that we cannot merely open the gates and let you walk out. Not to be dramatic but… as they say in the movies, you simply know too much. No. Regardless of the outcome with Gentry and the Lagos contract, you will not be leaving Château Laurent with your life. Ah, you knew that; I am glad to see this in your eyes.

“But I will make this promise between two professionals. The twins and your daughter-in-law will not be harmed. They have gone through enough. I just need to keep them here until Mr. Gentry’s arrival. Then they are free. As long as the Gray Man does not contact others, bring police or military down upon our little château here, there will be no danger to the woman and her daughters, regardless of whether or not President Abubaker signs the contract.

“I also promise you will suffer no more indignities at the hands of Mr. Lloyd.”

Fitzroy nodded and lifted his chin. “I want my son’s body respected.”

“It goes without saying. I’ll see a proper casket is brought in. We’ll ferry Phillip back to Britain via helicopter. He will be delivered to the place of his wife’s choosing as soon as she returns home.”

Fitzroy nodded slowly. “You do that, and you find a way to keep the girls out of the line of fire when the Gray Man shows up tonight, and I will be in your debt and be no trouble to your mission.”

When the Gray Man shows up tonight. Riegel fought a little smile and won. “You have my word as a gentleman. Anything else I can do for you to make you more comfortable until the battle for the castle?” He could not help a little sarcasm.

“I would very much like to speak with Claire if I could. A bit of a worrier, she is. I hate to think what is going on in her head right now. Just a little chat between a grandfather and his granddaughter in private.”

“Claire is one of the twins? I am sure I can see to that.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

Ten minutes later, Riegel stood across from Lloyd in the kitchen. They both drank coffee and ignored sandwiches on a platter on the large stone island in front of them.

“Why did you torture Fitzroy?”

“He wasn’t taking the situation seriously.”

“You are insane, Lloyd. I presume this insanity has been formally diagnosed, maybe back in your childhood, and you managed to hide that detail of your psyche from the CIA and Marc Laurent.”

“Sticks and stones, Riegel.”

“Leave Fitzroy alone.”

“You have a bigger problem than me, Kurt. We need an asset in Switzerland to clean up the mess Gentry created.”

“Meaning?”

“The Tech just got word from a watcher in Lausanne. He tells us two of the Venezuelan operators were taken alive by the Swiss. We need assurances that they won’t talk.”

“So you want them killed?”

“How else can we be certain of their silence?”

Riegel shrugged. “Without LaurentGroup, Venezuela’s oil stops flowing. Without LaurentGroup, what oil they have for export doesn’t make it across the sea to the refineries. Chávez needs us as much as we need him. A couple of shooters who could neither manage to succeed in their mission nor die trying will not jeopardize the good relationship we have with that lunatic. I’ll make a call to the director of the General Intelligence Office in Caracas, let him know that even though they failed in their mission, I’ll send him a consolation prize if he sees that his agents keep their mouths shut. When the Swiss allow officials from the Venezuelan embassy to meet with the two surviving operators in jail, I have no doubt the message those two bastards get will be very descriptive in what will happen to their families back home if they don’t take the fall for the operation. One mention by them to the police of a multinational corporation’s recruitment of several third-world intelligence agency’s hit squads to kill a man traversing Europe and… well, those men’s wives, kids, parents, and neighbors will be tossed into the Venezuelan version of a gulag.”

Lloyd was impressed. “That’s one reason you didn’t use mercenaries, isn’t it?”

“Mercenaries don’t have anyone to answer to but themselves. I much prefer using men who are subject to other avenues of influence that I can manipulate.”

Lloyd nodded. “So now we just have to find Gentry.”

“We have LaurentGroup assets at every choke point in Geneva, every location of a known associate, every hospital. We have phones and police radios monitored by the Tech here. We have the South Africans in the city center, ready for deployment. If one of my watchers sees the Gray Man, we will have a hit squad on him in fifteen minutes.”

Fitzroy had not eaten, though he’d sucked down two brandies and some bottled water. The treatment he’d received from Lloyd had left him worse for wear but unbroken. Knife jabs to the thigh, open-handed strikes to the head. They were the actions of a desperate man, nothing more.

As a young intelligence officer working in Ulster in the seventies, Don was kidnapped from a taxi stand by a carload of hooded Provos. They took him to a warehouse, spent ninety minutes beating him with lengths of pipe. By the time the SAS quick reaction force fast-roped down from the helicopter, killed three of the five IRA men in the ensuing gunfight, and the other two execution-style against the warehouse wall, the twenty-six-year-old spy had suffered six broken bones and permanent reduction in vision in his left eye.

The work-over he’d received from Lloyd was nothing like that. The American had the zeal but not the talent for administering pain. Plus he had no big cause or belief. Just one part personal dementia and two parts anxiety brought on by the desperation of his predicament. In this entire enterprise, Fitzroy decided, perhaps only Court Gentry was more imperiled than young Lloyd. Fitzroy presumed Laurent would likely order this Riegel fellow to kill the American lawyer if the contract was not signed by Julius Abubaker tomorrow morning at eight a.m.

Sir Donald, for his part, was beaten up but certainly not beaten down. He had a plan of sorts; he intended to use his wits and his tradecraft and a lifetime of experience manipulating those around him to achieve that which he could not accomplish alone. Though confined to a bed, Sir Donald Fitzroy planned cruel revenge on those who dared cross him, his family, and his top assassin.

The door to the master bedroom opened slowly. Fitzroy downed the last of his brandy and placed the snifter on the bedside table next to him quickly.

Claire entered warily, unsure. Then she saw him and ran across the room to her grandfather. She hugged him tightly around his thick neck.

“Hullo, darling. How are you?”

“I’m all right, Grandpa Donald. You’re hurt!”

“A little spill on the stairs, love. No worries. How is your sister?”

“Kate’s fine. She likes it here.”

“You don’t like it here?”

“No. I am afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of all the men. They are mean to us. Mean to Mummy and Daddy.”

“Are you behaving yourself?”

“Yes, Grandpa Donald.”

“That’s a good girl.” Fitzroy looked out the window for a moment. Then he said, “Claire, my dear, I’d like to play a little game. Would you like that?”

“A game?”

“Yes. One of the men here… watching over us. He came with me in the helicopter this morning. I’ve heard his mates call him by the name Leary. An Irishman. Do you know which one I am talking about?”

“With the red hair?”

“That’s my girl.”

“Yes, Grandpa. He sits in a chair down at the bottom of the stairs.”

“Does he now? Well, Claire, I noticed Mr. Leary has a telephone clipped onto the pocket of his big blue jacket. I don’t suppose he wears his jacket in the house. It’s probably in a closet, on a floor, maybe lying on a sofa downstairs. I was thinking that maybe we can have a bit of fun with Mr. Red Hair, and you can sneak around like a little kitty cat and slip the phone out of his jacket. Do you think you can do that?”

“I saw his jacket on the coatrack. I saw the phone. When he goes into the kitchen for tea, maybe I can take it.”

“That’s a good girl. Please try to do that for Grandpa Donald. After you get it, I want you to hide it in your pocket or in your sweater, and then tell the guards you want to come see me.”

“What if they won’t let me?”

“You could tell them you are Kate. Can you pretend to be Kate? Tell them your sister got to come see me, so it’s only fair.”

“I don’t look like Kate, Grandpa.”

“Trust me, my dear, to these men you look exactly alike. Just change your clothes, tell them you’re Kate, and you’d fancy a chat with your dear old grandpa.”

“All right. I will try to steal a phone for you and sneak it back.”

“It’s not stealing. It’s just a game, love.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s not a game. I’m not a little kid. I know what is going on.”

“Yes, of course you do. I thought you might. Please don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

“Where’s Daddy?”

Fitzroy’s pause was short, his countenance unfazed. Sir Donald had been lying to his agents for nearly a half century. He found it no big trick to lie to his kin. “He’s in London, love. You’ll be home soon, as well. Run along now, and go carefully.”