The Gray Man

THIRTY-FOUR

Gentry had fired almost an entire thirty-round magazine at the tower looming above him as he closed on it as fast as possible. He wanted to finish the magazine with a couple of more accurately placed shots towards the tower, so he brought the black rifle up to eye level in front of him to make an attempt to get some sort of a sight picture through the round ghost ring sight on the gun’s carry handle. Just as he did so, the rifle slammed back into his face, ripped out of his hands, and flipped up through the air.

Court ran on, empty-handed.

After no more than four or five steps across the wet lawn, his face burning from the blow of his buttstock below his eye, he realized his M4 must have been hit by a round from a high-powered rifle. Though he’d lost his primary weapon behind him, he understood the gun had saved his life, deflecting a sniper’s bullet to his head. Without a loss of stride, he reached down and pulled the squat MP5 submachine gun from its resting place on his chest. He fired again at the tower, now no more than one hundred yards away. The MP5 was about as effective as a fly swatter for a sprinting man covering open ground and engaging a tiny, distant window without a sight picture, but he hoped it would at least keep some heads down.

The sniper had seen the running man reel from the impact of his shot, and then he lifted his head away from the scope to attend to his partner. The spotter had taken a piece of stone masonry to his face. His glasses were broken, and he was bleeding from the forehead, but he was coherent and not badly hurt. Just then, more gunfire erupted from the back garden. With surprise, the Belarusian sniper looked back down and saw the man he was sure he’d just put a bullet through continue his charge. From the reports of the gun in his hand, the man in the tower knew the Gray Man had switched to a nine-millimeter submachine gun. Quickly he sat back at the table behind the Dragunov. Took up his position behind the scope in under two seconds. Suddenly new cracks of rifle fire erupted, this time from behind him on the other side of the château. For a moment he did not understand what was going on, until the voice of one of his countrymen below came over the radio on the table.

“It’s the Libyans! They’re at the front gate! Tower, take them out!”

Reluctantly the sniper lifted the big Dragunov from the table and took it to the front portal of the tower. The Gray Man was someone else’s problem now; he needed to engage the distant targets, the Libyans.

The Gray Man was no longer distant. He was close.

Just outside the sniper’s tower, the black Eurocopter hovered low above the roof’s walkway. Four heavily armed Saudi operators in tactical gear poured out and dropped the six feet to the flat eastern roof. They ignored the gunfight now raging at the front of the building. Instead, they all took up positions behind the decorative battlements overlooking the back garden and the lone man running towards them over open ground.

As Gentry closed on his objective, he redirected his fire from the tower above the château to a first-floor window where bright muzzle flashes flickered. Gentry emptied his first magazine at the window in front of him. The walls around the window pocked, granite snapped off in dusty chunks, glass shattered, and the lace draperies whipped left and right as a few lucky shots from Court’s rifle found their mark though the space. It was difficult firing at a full sprint, impossible to accurately aim. Court saw no more muzzle flashes from the window but instead noticed the sleek, black Eurocopter above and in front of him, and the men who leapt from it.

“Fuck!” He was still seventy yards from cover. He pushed his legs even harder to get as close to the château as possible before the men now exiting the black chopper could get in position to open up on him. Here on the flat lawn he’d be a sitting duck to aimed fire.

Gentry pulled a fragmentation grenade off his vest as he ran, yanked the pin out with his teeth, and let the spoon fly. A large, blond-haired figure appeared in a window on the third floor directly in front of him, raised a handgun, and shot through the glass. Court dove forward at the wet, green grass to avoid the fire, landed on his right shoulder, and executed a forward roll. As he came out of the roll, he rose to his feet. His running and his somersault had given his body an incredible amount of momentum, momentum he used to throw the grenade as high and as far as he could. From forty-five yards away the potato-sized bomb whizzed through the air in an arc, rose over the edge of the parapets, and exploded, just missing the Eurocopter, which escaped into the sky, fleeing from the fight as fast as possible. The blast above the Saudis’ heads killed one man outright and injured one more in the neck and back. The other two had found cover in time, but they’d missed their opportunity to get an open shot on their target on the lawn.

At the front of the house, two Belarusians and two Libyans were already dead. The guards from Minsk were killed not far from the front gate. They’d been running back to the safety of the château when the vanload of operators from Tripoli busted through the ironwork, the Middle Eastern men firing their Skorpion machine pistols from the moving vehicle. The two Libyans were felled as the van screeched to a stop in the gravel drive. The sniper in the tower took out the operator in the front passenger seat with a round to the face, and the first man out the sliding back took three AK rounds from the only pair of Belarusians still outside the château.

The two remaining Libyans killed the men on the driveway and closed on the front door to the château. They poured automatic fire from their Skorpions into the windows on either side, kept disciplined distance between one another, and shouted calls for cover as they reloaded and repositioned.

Number Two fired half a magazine at each of the two hinges of the heavy oaken door, and then kicked it open. As he reloaded, it crashed into the building in front of him, and he caught a double-tap from a Northern Irish guard in the foyer, spinning the Libyan dead to the ground. The last living Libyan answered the Ul sterman with his Skorpion; blood and tissue splattered across the white wall behind the man in the foyer as he went down.

Riegel had never seen anything like it. The Gray Man had been in his sights; he wore a dark brown shirt with bloodstains on the waist, a drop-leg pistol holster on his right hip, and a magazine sub-load on his left. A black vest and a submachine gun adorned his chest. His head was shaved, and even at fifty yards, Kurt thought he could discern a fierceness in the eyes.

When Riegel drew his handgun and aimed it at the running man, he knew it was a long-distance shot for a pistol, but for a trained target shooter like the German, he should not have missed. But the running man had dropped just below his rounds at exactly the right time, rolled, risen back to his feet, and hurled a grenade into the air. Instinctively, Riegel dove to the ground next to the Tech’s desk, presuming the bomb was meant for him. The detonation blasted just above him on the roof. He heard shouts and screaming through the window now, and he quickly regained his position to get a few more shots off at Gentry as he closed.

But when he looked back out the window, the Gray Man was gone, and now there was no way to stop him from entering the building.

Incredible.

Just as Gentry had promised over the phone the evening before, the prey had become the predator.

Court slammed his back against the wall of the château and reloaded his weapon with a fresh magazine from his thigh rig. Two stories directly above him was the big blond man with the pistol. Above that man would be the shooters from the helicopter. He was reasonably certain he’d thinned their ranks some, but he held no illusions that he’d eliminated the threat on the roof.

To his left and right there were windows waist-high. Glass shattered from Gentry’s HK made them dangerous to enter without prepping them first. To his left were steps up to the main back door, around the corner to his left was the front drive and some sort of battle raging, and to his right was the long back wall lined with windows and then a small set of doors. In a crouch he rushed along the wall, shoulder scraping the stone to stay out of view of the shooters above him.

He was near the door when it opened outwards. As it swung open, he raised his weapon to fire a burst through the wood but hesitated at the last second. What if it was one of the Fitzroys? Court recognized he was not the best man to undertake a rescue operation. He had a tendency to shoot anything that moved in a combat situation; now he had to take that extra moment to ID his target.

A head peered around the edge of the door to him. It was big and Slavic, and when he saw the barrel of a rifle pass the door’s edge, Gentry satisfied himself of the validity of his target. He sent eight rounds through the door as he ran towards it. It was set to lock when it closed, but the doorstop of freshly dead goon kept it open for Gentry as he entered a darkened hallway.

At the first sound of gunfire on the back lawn, Claire and Kate Fitzroy ran to their sleeping Mummy and shook and screamed at her to wake. Once on her feet, Elise stumbled; the girls steadied her with both hands as they led her to the other side of the bedroom where Grandpa Donald sat upright on the four-poster bed. Claire relayed to all that Jim wanted them under the bed, and Grandpa Donald agreed. Mummy fell back asleep facedown on the hardwood. Claire and Kate huddled together in fear, peeking under the bed runner towards the door to the hallway, while Grandpa Donald remained above them.

After a loud explosion on the roof two stories above, Grandpa Donald called out to the guard, “McSpadden! McSpadden!”

Claire saw the boots of the Scottish guard move into the room. She heard the conversation above her, though she didn’t understand all of the words.

“Lad, best you do your runner now, but be a good chap and leave us a gun.”

“Fuck you, Fitzroy. It’s too late to run. I’ll need my guns to fight off your attack dog. Over the radio they say he’s already in the house.”

“McSpadden, if you see my attack dog, the last bloody thing that will save you will be a gun in your hand. You might take off your white underpants and swing them in surrender if you haven’t managed to soil them yet. Come now, lad. You understand what you’re up against. You can only save yourself by helping us.”

Claire saw the man shuffle his boots like he was going to run away, but instead he moved back to her grandpa. A hand reached down, lifted one of his trouser legs, and yanked a shiny silver gun from it.

Claire put her hand over Kate’s mouth to squelch a scream.

“I’ll leave you my backup. Just a little six-shooter.”

“It’s a fine one, laddie. Now, off you go, back out the door to guard us in case Riegel or that psycho Lloyd come to check. You see the Gray Man, tell him you’re with me.”

“Right, that’ll work just fine as long as he wants to chat me up first. I’m fucked, Fitzroy.”

The guard’s feet turned away and left the room. A few seconds later, Grandpa Donald slid off the bed and crawled under with them, the shiny gun clenched in his meaty hand.

“It’s all right, ladies. Won’t be long now. Jimmy boy is on the way.”

Riegel, Lloyd, and the Tech remained in the third-floor control room. Lloyd stood near the open door out to the hallway, his pistol dangling in his right hand, his dusky blue shirt collar open, and the knot of his tie hanging below it.

Kurt and the Tech were at the computers, near the shattered window and midway between the room’s two exits. They used radios to communicate with the remaining Belarusians throughout the building and the two French engineers on the first floor. One of the Scots was missing, but the other Scot and an Irishman were still on station.

Gunfire erupted suddenly on the roof. The big German presumed these would be the Saudis from the Eurocopter engaging the sniper team through the turret windows. He called the Scottish security officer and ordered him up to the third floor to cover the hall outside the room’s main exit.

Just then, one of the Belarusians announced that the Sri Lankans were here, coming up the front drive. A call went out to the sniper team on the roof, but there was no reply.

And no one knew where the Gray Man had gone.

Riegel knew his only mission now was his own survival. He did not need the Gray Man dead; that mission had expired. That said, if Gentry came through either the door to the hall on his right, or the doorway to the circular staircase to his left, if anyone came in from anywhere, he would put three rounds from his big Steyr into their face before he bothered to identify them.

He just had to hold out until the rescue ship arrived from the home office.

Court wanted to crouch low as he moved through the house, but the pain in his abdomen prevented it. If push came to shove, which surely it would, he could drop, roll, crawl, whatever he had to do. But he was afraid that if he had to squat low or dive to the floor, he might not be able to get back up. So he walked fully upright, nearly dragging his numb left leg behind him.

Into the huge kitchen now, he heard gunfire above him, on the third floor or the roof perhaps. On the first floor, near the foyer, it sounded to the Gray Man’s practiced ear like a one-versus-many battle had just ended, and now a new threat had arrived, maybe four-on-four. He recognized the distinctive reports of AK-47s and twelve-gauge shotguns, and shouts in what sounded like Russian on one side of the fight.

Court crossed the kitchen. He’d almost made it to a door towards the rear of the château, away from the shooting, when a black man in a brown suit appeared in the doorway in front of him.

Court trained his MP5 on the wide-eyed man. “Who are you?”

“Only the butler, sir. I have no part in this.”

Gentry grabbed the man by the throat and turned him up against the wall. With the hot muzzle of his weapon pressed against the thin man’s neck, the American frisked his prisoner quickly and found not a single weapon. Court tossed the man’s cell phone into a pot of water sitting on the stove next to him. He found no identification.

“What’s your name?”

“Felix.”

“Let me guess. Felix the Nigerian butler?”

“No, sir. I am from Cameroon.”

“Sure you are, buddy.”

Court pushed the man towards the door out of the back of the kitchen. The black man kept his hands in the air as he walked, Gentry several feet behind him. They crossed an ornate dining room with a fireplace with gilded trim and rounded the huge, oaken table. Tapestries and portraits lined the walls. Stepping into a small hallway with a door immediately on their left, Gentry whispered again to the man in front of him, “What’s in there?”

A hesitation. “It’s… it’s a bedroom.”

“Not sure? A butler who doesn’t know the rooms of the house?”

“I told you… a bedroom. I am new here, sir. I am scared.”

“Open it. Let’s see if you’re right.” Court drew his Glock and held it down the hallway behind him with his left hand, while he held the MP5 at Felix’s head with his right.

The suited man opened the door and turned back to the Gray Man. Court looked in over his shoulder. There were stacked sheets and blankets in shelves from floor to ceiling. It was not a bedroom; it was a large linen closet.

“If you are a butler, you suck.”

Felix said nothing. The gunfire at the front of the house continued without pause.

Court holstered the Glock on his hip and took his last fragmentation grenade off his vest. He pulled the pin and put it in his pocket, held the spoon down, and placed it in Felix’s sweaty hand. When the American assassin was certain his prisoner had a good hold, he said, “Don’t drop that. And don’t think you can use it against me. There is a six-second fuse. Plenty of time for me to shoot you dead and duck into a room to get clear of the blast.”

Felix’s voice cracked. “What am I to do with—”

“Just keep walking ahead of me. I’ll take it back from you and let you leave once I get to my objective. Don’t worry, you’ll be back home in Cameroon in no time.”

The corridor turned to the left and ended at a large set of double doors. Court shoved the confused man forward. Twice the man tried to speak, and both times Gentry hushed the strong African accent. “Open those doors,” Court demanded, still behind at the turn in the passageway.

“But I—”

Gentry pointed his submachine gun at his prisoner’s head.

Slowly, Felix turned back around, opened the door on the right, the grenade hidden behind his back in his left hand.

Almost immediately cracks of handgun fire echoed out of the room ahead, and oak splinters snapped off the heavy doors. Felix spun where he stood, fell facedown in the doorway.

Court spun out of the line of fire, dropped onto his kneepads with a grunt, and counted to six.

Serge and Alain moved towards the door to the library in a combat stance, their Berettas in front of them in outstretched hands.

Alain ID’d the man they just killed. “It’s zee Nigerian.”

“Merde,” said Serge, and he depressed the button on his walkie-talkie just as the grenade on the floor by the dead man’s body exploded.

Lloyd and the Tech both jumped at the sound of the hand grenade two floors directly below them. The noise came not from the raging gunfight in the foyer but instead back towards the rear of the building. The sound also came through the speakers of their radios. Kurt Riegel chanced a quick look out the window again. He saw the black Eurocopter drift in and out of the morning mist as it flew off to the south. Below, near the marble fountain in the garden, two men moved low in a crouch. They were black, small, they carried machine pistols, and they wore black ski jackets.

“The kill squad from Botswana has arrived, or maybe these are the Liberians.” Riegel said it to the room without emotion.

“It’s a virtual United Nations of assholes around here,” said Lloyd from behind.

The German watched the two Africans as they crossed the grass towards the steps up to the back door. He did not shoot at them. With the Gray Man in the building, Kurt felt there was a better chance these Botswanans would be more help than hindrance.

Riegel said, “Let’s barricade this room. The three of us will have to hold everyone off until the helicopter arrives from Paris.”

“Even if I survive this, you are going to kill me, aren’t you?” Lloyd asked.

Riegel answered as he slipped his pistol back into its shoulder holster underneath his jacket. “Gentry was right; you’ve got more to worry about than me right now. Come and help me.” He lifted a chair to put it in front of the door to the spiral staircase.

“Be that as it may,” said Lloyd, “I prefer dealing with any threat at the most advantageous opportunity.”

Riegel’s back was to Lloyd. He stopped, put the chair down, squared his shoulders, and turned slowly. The American attorney’s silver automatic was leveled at Kurt’s chest. They were twenty feet apart.

“Put down that damn gun. Come on, man! We don’t have time for this. There will be time enough for the af termath of the operation after we get out of here.”

The Tech sat at the desk and watched the two men intently. He said not a word.

Lloyd said, “I could’ve had the bastard. I could’ve saved the contract. Your operation failed, not mine.”

“If you say so, Lloyd.”

“No… I want you to say so. Take out your phone slowly. Call Mr. Laurent and tell him your plan was fucked up. Take responsibility for this.”

“And then you will shoot me? Think, Lloyd! He’ll know I was speaking under duress.” For the first time, they heard gunshots on the third floor, far down the corridor from their position. “We need to seal off the room now! We’ll talk after that.”

“Take out your phone. Make the call. No tricks.”

Kurt sighed and slowly reached into his jacket with his right hand. His eyes narrowed on Lloyd. Instead of the phone, Riegel put his hand around the butt of his Steyr. As he began to draw the gun from its concealment, prepared to dive to the side to duck the lawyer’s inevitable gunfire, he noticed Lloyd’s eyes had turned away from him and focused on something behind. Kurt took the opportunity to pull the Steyr, and he leveled it at the American’s chest. Just as he was about to fire at the distracted Lloyd, a voice called out from behind.

“Did I come at a bad time?”