The Gray Man

THIRTY-THREE

“Shut it down,” Riegel said.

The two Frenchmen who’d been staring at the bank of monitors in the library for twelve hours straight did as they were told. They began flipping switches from left to right, turning off the images from the infrared cameras around the property.

Lloyd appeared behind them all in the library’s doorway and asked, “What are you doing?”

Riegel answered, “Infrared cameras are for the night, Lloyd. It is no longer night.”

“You said he’d come at night.”

“I did, yes.”

“But he’s still coming, right?”

“It does not appear so,” answered Riegel the hunter, his voice tinged with both confusion and dejection.

“We’ve got fifteen minutes to get a body for Felix. What the fuck are we going to do?”

Riegel turned to the younger American. “We have a helicopter overhead and over one hundred men and women looking for him. We have thirty guns right here at the château, waiting on him. We’ve shot him. We’ve stabbed him. We’ve sent him down a mountain, off a bridge. We’ve killed his friends, we’ve bled him dry. What else can we do?”

Just then the Tech’s voice chirped over the walkie-talkie feature of both men’s phones. “We have a couple of problems.”

“What is it?” asked Riegel.

“The Bolivians have left the contest. They just called from Paris to tell us they quit.”

“Good riddance,” snapped Lloyd.

“And the Kazakhs are not checking in.”

Riegel lifted his phone from his belt. “They never check in.”

“The Saudis’ chopper can’t find them on the road.”

Lloyd spoke into his phone now. “We would have heard gunshots if they were in battle with the Gray Man. Don’t worry about it. The bastards probably ran off like the Bolivians.”

Lloyd and Riegel walked back up the two flights of stairs to the third floor. Both men were dead tired, but neither would allow the other to see any sign of weakness. Instead they argued over what could have been done differently and what last-minute actions could still be taken.

They entered the control room and immediately noticed Felix standing by the window, his mobile to his ear. After a few seconds, the thin black man in the suit disconnected his call and turned to face the room. He had not spoken a word in hours. “Gentlemen, I am sorry to say your time is up.”

Lloyd stormed up to him, wild-eyed. “No! We’ve got ten minutes. You’ve got to give us a little more time. You saw him fall into the water. We’ve fucking killed him. We just need time to find whatever ditch he crawled into to die. Tell Abubaker you saw him fall—”

“Your instructions were to produce a body. You have failed in this undertaking. I have reported this to my president. I am sorry. It is my duty. You understand.”

Riegel’s broad shoulders dropped, and he looked away. He could not believe the Gray Man, if alive, had not come to save the kids.

Lloyd said, “Any second he’ll turn up. Abubaker doesn’t have to sign over the contract until he leaves office in another hour.”

“It is now a moot point. I notified the president of your progress… or should I say, lack of progress. He signed your competitor’s contract while we were on the phone together. I’ve been instructed to return to Paris to await further instruction.”

Riegel nodded slowly. He said to Felix, “You can fly back with the French engineers. They will be leaving for Paris within the hour.”

Felix nodded in polite appreciation. “I am sorry this endeavor did not work out for you. I appreciate your professionalism and hope our interests will coincide again someday.” The German and the Nigerian bowed to one another. Ignoring the American, Felix left the room to ready himself for departure.

Riegel looked to the Tech. “Notify the teams. It’s over. They have failed. Let them know I will contact their agency heads this afternoon to discuss some sort of… consolation.”

The Tech did as he was told. Then he flipped off the monitors in front of him. He pulled off his headphones and laid them on the table slowly. He ran his hands through his long hair.

The three men remaining in the control room each sat alone with their own thoughts for a few minutes. The morning light shone through the window, seemed to crawl across the floor towards them, taunting them with their failure. They were to have their man by sunrise, and sunrise now mocked them.

Lloyd looked down to his watch. “It’s five till eight. No sense in putting it off any longer.”

Kurt Riegel was looking into the bottom of his coffee cup. He was exhausted. Distractedly he asked, “Putting what off?”

“The obligations on the second floor.”

“Sir Donald, you mean?” Riegel straightened. “I’ll handle it. You’d take all day.”

Lloyd shook his head. “Not just Don. All of them. All four.”

Riegel looked up from his chair. “What are you talking about? You want to kill the woman? The children?”

“I told Gentry if he didn’t show, they would die. He didn’t show. Don’t look so goddamn surprised.”

“He didn’t show. That means he’s dead. Why punish a dead man, you idiot?”

“He should have tried harder.” Lloyd pulled the silver automatic from his hip and let it hang in his hand by his side. “Get out of the way, Riegel. This is still my operation.”

“Not for much longer.” There was menace in the big German’s voice.

“Be that as it may,” Lloyd said, “I still have a job to do, and I don’t see you stopping me. You can act all sanctimonious about that family, but you know they could identify us. Identify this place. They’ve got to die.” He pushed past Riegel and stepped into the hallway.

On the Tech’s desk, Sir Donald Fitzroy’s phone rang. Lloyd reappeared in the doorway instantly. The young technician quickly sat back down and slipped his headphones back over his ears. Felix stepped back into the room, curious, his attaché in his hand and a camel-colored raincoat over his arm.

The Tech put the call through the overhead speakers. Lloyd said, “Yes?”

“Good morning, Lloyd. How are things?”

“You are too late, Court. We lost the contract, which means you have failed. I don’t need the leverage of the Fitzroys anymore. I was just heading downstairs to put some bullets into them. Want to listen in?”

“You need them alive more than ever now.”

Lloyd smiled. “Oh really, and why is that?”

“Life insurance.”

“Yeah, Court? I watched you fall off that bridge last night. I don’t know where the hell you are, but you are in no position to—”

“Forget about the contract with Abubaker. Don’t worry about your boss firing you. Put out of your mind Riegel’s henchmen showing up at your door some cold night. Ignore all your future troubles. Right now, the only danger in your world is me.”

“How are you a danger to—”

“Because I’m heavily armed, I’m royally pissed, and I’m right outside.”

In the control room there was a silent flurry of activity. Riegel moved to the window quickly, pushed the lace curtains aside with a fingertip. He scanned the heavy mist over the back lawn. The Tech lurched across the desk to his handheld radio and frantically began whispering the news to the guards on the property. Felix pulled out his mobile and charged into the hallway, thumbing buttons as he moved.

Only Lloyd did not flinch. He stood as if his feet were stuck to the floor. “You’re bluffing. You just expect me to let the Fitzroys go because you say you are outside? What kind of an idiot do you take me for?”

“An idiot with an expiration date. And I assume LaurentGroup’s grim reaper is listening in. Riegel, the same goes for you. You brush a hair on the heads of those kids or Mrs. Fitzroy, and you will die in that house.”

Riegel spoke up. “Good morning, Mr. Gentry. If you are outside, why don’t you come to the front door? The Lagos contract is lost; our incentive to kill you has vanished. We’ve just called off the wet squads. The game is over. If you are really here, why not drop in for coffee?”

“If you doubt that I’m in the neighborhood, maybe you should try checking in with the four smelly guys in the blue Citroën.”

That sank in a moment. Riegel did not know what car the Kazakhs drove, but the Tech anxiously began trying to raise them again. As he did so, receiving no reply, he looked up to his two superiors with eyes of terror.

Finally Riegel said, “Most impressive. A man in your condition still able to dispatch four tier-one operators without a shot fired. As I said, we have no quarrel with you any longer. Please come in and we’ll—”

“You free the Fitzroys and hand over the SAD files, or I swear to God I will murder every last living thing in that house!”

Lloyd had been quiet, his hands on his hips and his sweat-stained shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. But now he moved. Storming across the room to the Tech’s desk, he leaned into the mobile phone’s microphone. “Fucking bring it, you gimpy piece of shit! In the meantime, I’m going to take a straight razor to those two stupid little bitches downstairs—”

Riegel pulled the American lawyer away from the phone, shoved him hard against the stone wall. He leaned in himself, cleared his throat. “Yes, Court? Could you allow us a few moments to discuss your proposal? You know how corporations are; we must call a meeting for everything.”

“Sure, Riegel. I’ll check back in a bit. Take your time, no rush.” The phone went dead.

Lloyd screamed to the Tech, “Get all the teams here, now!”

Riegel held up his hand to stay the Tech. When he spoke, his voice was more reasoned. “For what purpose, Lloyd? The contract is not at stake anymore. The game is over.”

“But the Gray Man is still out there!”

“That’s our problem, not LauentGroup’s. Marc Laurent will not spend a dime for the foreign kill squads to protect us. There is no more twenty-million-dollar bounty to be paid out.”

Clearly, Lloyd had not thought of that. He shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t have to tell the hitters that.”

Riegel shook his head. “So instead of fighting one wounded man now, you want to piss off Marc Laurent and a half dozen nations’ security services, fight our corporation and six countries later? I know you are insane, Lloyd; that’s been established. But are you suicidal, too?”

The Tech was looking back at his two bosses, waiting for instruction. Then he cocked his head to the side, put his hand to his headset. “Wait! All the teams are coming here anyway!”

“Good,” Lloyd said, glad the matter was settled.

“Why?” asked Riegel.

“Felix contacted them. He’s offering twenty million dollars cash from Abubaker to the team that kills Gray Man.”

“Perfect!” shouted Lloyd. “How soon till they—”

“Not perfect!” said the Tech. “He’s told them to kill anyone who gets in their way. Including the other teams! Including us. They are going to fight each other for Gentry’s head right here at the château!”

Kurt Riegel did not hesitate. “Pull all the Minsk guards inside the building! Alert Serge and Alain, and the three UK guards. We must defend these walls against all threats! The Gray Man or the kill squads.”

The Tech looked up at Riegel. “The Libyans will be here in moments! The Saudis are overhead now!”

Riegel looked out the window a final time. “Call LaurentGroup Paris. Have an evacuation chopper scrambled to get us out of here! Then raise the kill teams, tell them we can still work together. Tell them Court is outside. Tell them we won’t let anyone in the castle. They need to kill him before he gets in.”

The Tech spun in his chair and placed the call to the home office.

Gentry had no intention of calling Riegel back. Every second he delayed his attack on the château was another second the defenders could ready themselves, search the grounds for him, bring in more reinforcements. And it was more time they could use to kill the girls.

No, he had to move now. The grounds were awash in the morning’s light as he lay in the apple orchard at the back of the property. Through the gray mist he could just make out a faint outline of a large, looming structure on a rise ahead of him. He’d covered a quarter mile since he’d dropped over the wall, and he was still easily two hundred yards from Château Laurent.

The open ground in front of him was his biggest concern. Once he broke free from the coverage of the tree line and the thick fog hanging in the air, he would be completely exposed. Also, there was a helicopter flying circles high in the air. He could not see it, but its beating rotors announced its presence above the property.

This would be hard enough even without his multitude of injuries, but regardless of his poor personal circumstance, he knew there was no more time to waste. Court rose to his kneepads, then slowly up to a crouch. He felt blood on his left leg and knew it was again draining freely from the knife wound. The heavy dose of speed he’d introduced to his bloodstream would increase his blood loss significantly.

“Fuck it,” he said aloud. He unslung the M4 and hefted it in his arms.

He stood.

Then ran forward with every ounce of strength he possessed.

As soon as the Tech alerted the security cordon around the château that the Gray Man was outside, Serge rushed from the kitchen into the library and flipped the monitors back on. He knew the infrared cameras would pick up anyone hidden in the vapor. Intently he stared at one display and then the next. Back and forth he scanned. Soon his eyes locked on an image. His hand lunged for the radio on his desk. He broadcast to all elements in the château.

“Movement in zee back! Movement in zee back! One man, and he’s coming fast!”

Lloyd came over the radio. “Where? Where the fuck is he?”

“Coming through zee orchard. Mon Dieu, he can run!”

“Where in the orchard?” screamed Lloyd over the radio.

“He’s running right up zee middle!”

The spotter in the tower broke in over the same channel. His thick Belarusian-accented voice was calm, the antithesis of Lloyd’s shriek. “I do not have a target. We do not see any… Wait. Yes. One man, coming fast! We’ll take him!”

Maurice had left Gentry an impressive array of equipment, but Maurice was decidedly old school, and the gear Court was forced to use was not ideal to his needs. The Colt rifle in his hands wore iron sights; there was no scope or holographic sight like the high-tech wizardry Gentry preferred on his weapons. As he broke through the mist, the château forming clearer in front of him with each labored footfall of his sprint, he made out the turret of the tower above. He knew this would be a sniper’s hide, and he knew this man would have the best skill and the best scope and the best rifle and the best chance to put a stop to Court’s ridiculous one-man assault.

So the Gray Man raised his rifle to his shoulder, still at a dead run. Targeted fire with the iron sights while running was impossible; his goal was to simply pour as much lead as he could at the tower to keep his enemies’ heads down until he could make it to the building’s wall. Court knew there was no one in the house with as much close quarters battle training or experience as he. He just had to survive long enough to make it to close quarters to have any sort of chance of success.

The sniper saw the target shoot out of the fog in front of him. Wisps of vapor swirled in a vortex behind him as he ran. The thirty-year-old Belarusian adjusted his aim and placed his crosshairs on the sprinting man’s chest. He brought his finger to the trigger for a quick center-mass shot. He noticed body armor under the tactical vest and lowered the buttstock of the big Dragunov a millimeter to move the crosshairs up to the sprinting man’s forehead. As his fingertip began to press on the tight trigger, he sensed more than saw his target’s primary weapon rise in front of him. Flashes from the muzzle of the weapon and the cracks of rifle fire. The sniper heard pops and explosions in the stone and wood of the turret and smoky dust filled the air around him as high-speed metal jacketed rounds collided with hundreds-year-old masonry. His spotter cried out to his left, but the sniper was disciplined. He did not remove his cheek from the rifle; he did not remove his eye from his scope.

Confidently he pulled the trigger at the man storming towards him.