by Mark Greaney
The Tech breathed a sigh of relief that deflated his lungs. “Yes, sir.”
The Botswanans and the Kazakhs were closest; they ran from different ends of the Latin Quarter, arms down by their sides to keep their coats from flapping open as they jogged and revealing their weapons, their eyes fixed to the next obstacle in front of them and ears tuned to the radio headsets in their ears. The Tech relayed the last known whereabouts of the target. He was out of the initial watcher’s field of view now, but pavement artists were moving closer, and their intel would be relayed.
The Botswanans, five men, each carried sidearms, caliber .32, a relatively weak bullet, but they augmented their marginal firepower with their tactics. These men were trained to execute three-round strings of fire called a Mozambique Drill: a pair of rapid shots to the chest and then a third, coup de grâce, to the forehead. The term and the tactic came from fighting in Mozambique, when a Rhodesian soldier found his small-caliber handgun had trouble downing an African with shots only to the chest, so he added a headshot for added effect.
The four Kazakhs wore small Ingram machine pistols with folding wire stocks under their winter coats. Their running stood out to a policeman, and he called out to them as they sprinted across the street. He took them for foreigners up to no good and made a few hand motions to tell them to slow down.
One member of each kill squad also carried a digital video camera attached via Bluetooth connection to their mobile phones. This way they could prove to those at the command center that they were the unit responsible for the termination of the subject and the team who warranted the top prize.
This was, after all, still a contest.
Each team knew from their earpieces that the other was approaching the last known whereabouts of the target from the opposite direction; this rushed them as much as the need to close on the target before he disappeared. This was more than a hunt—it was a competition, and to these teams, professional pride meant as much to them as did winning the money.
“All elements, this is the Tech. We have two watchers three blocks east of the last target sighting. Neither watcher has reported any signs of the target. He may have stepped into a hotel or café on the street, turned south into the Latin Quarter, or north towards the Pont Neuf to cross the river.”
Both teams, closing from opposite directions, slowed and conferred after getting this last intel from the Tech. Then both teams continued on. The Botswanans ran east on the Saint Germaine, the Kazakhs west on the Saint Germaine. They spread out to cover both sides of the street in groups of two or three, each small team of hunters looking in doorways, alleyways, cafés, and hotels along the way.
Song Park Kim ran along the roofs of the buildings, got ahead of his quarry’s last sighting. His earpiece came to life. From the distinctive beeps, the Korean could tell the transmission was not open to the other teams and watchers. He was the only one receiving.
“Tech to Banshee 1, do you read?”
“I read.”
“Find a way down to street level, and I will guide you to him. He’ll ID the other teams and the watchers and try to get away. They will force him to flee, and he won’t be expecting a single assassin. I’ll put you in position to stop him.”
“Yes.”
Kim stepped over the edge of a six-story apartment building’s roof, fluidly found footing on a windowsill. lowered himself down, reached across to a drainpipe, and swung his legs over. The pipe was poorly attached to the wall, so he used it only to make his way to a fire escape, followed it down, and dropped the final few feet to the ground, six floors of descent in under a minute.
“Banshee 1 is on the street, Tech. Guide me to the target.”
“There are two teams closer than you, Banshee 1. We think he’s turned onto the Rue de Buci, sticking with the crowds for security. You can move two blocks north and be in position to cut him off if they don’t spot him.”
“Yes,” said Kim, but he had no intention of following this direction. The Korean felt he could read the Gray Man’s thoughts. Kim had been hunted many times, and from this experience, he felt he could divine this hunted man’s every move. If teams of foreign agents were following him through central Paris on a Saturday night, Kim would notice, and so would the Gray Man. If dozens of static watchers were placed in his path, Kim would be immediately aware of it, and so would the Gray Man. He might not identify every single adversary, but the Tech had thrown so many bodies into the operation, it would have to be obvious to an operator as skilled as the Gray Man that he was facing a full-on wet operation, that all the stops had been pulled and all normal rules of engagement and restraint were out the window. There would be no safety in a crowd. The gunmen that the Gray Man surely had spotted by now were going to take the first opportunity to destroy their target, and bright lights and passersby would be more hindrance than security blanket to the hunted man.
Yes, Kim could feel what the Gray Man was feeling just now, and he allowed this symbiosis to guide him, not the directives of the Tech. This melding of the minds between Kim the hunter and the Gray Man the hunted steered the Korean assassin through the misty night, three blocks to the east, to a darkened alleyway just a half block off the noise and lights and swarms of diners and revelers. He knew the river Seine was just a hundred meters to the north, meaning if the Gray Man detected the heavy surveillance, he would need to turn south to melt into the night; the north would afford him nothing but a bridge or two, natural choke points that he would avoid at all costs.
Song Park Kim found the darkest spot in the little alleyway, twenty-five meters north of the Boulevard Saint Germaine and twenty meters south of the Rue de Buci. He could move off in either direction in seconds if the watchers spotted the target nearby. But Kim had a feeling this little alley would be the site of his final confrontation with his adversary. There were restaurants and nightclubs brimming with patrons just yards from his darkened hiding space. Plus there were competing kill teams close by. He did not want to draw attention to his act by using a firearm, so he left the MP7 in the backpack on his shoulders. Instead, he pulled his folding knife from his front pocket, flicked open the matte black blade, and tucked his body deeper into the dark to await his prey.
Court Gentry felt his black suit moistening from the sweat running down his back as he walked east on the Rue de Buci. In his right hand his umbrella swung by his side with each step; he fought the urge to use it as a cane because his feet were hurting from the lacerations he’d picked up in Budapest the day before.
But it wasn’t the walk that caused him to sweat, it was the eyes scanning the street in front of him. Thirty yards distant he saw a young couple huddled together on a bench, talking to one another but actively checking the male passersby. Court had found a bald-headed man about his own age to follow behind; he kept his eyes ahead of the man to see if he was garnering attention that seemed out of place. This would indicate to Gentry he’d been spotted and identified via radio to other surveillance teams in the area.
Immediately the young lovers fixed on the bald man for a few seconds, one seemed to speak to the other about the man, and then their eyes moved on, satisfied he was not the subject of their surveillance. Court knew immediately he had been compromised. He’d seen at least ten watchers so far and was reasonably sure he’d slipped every one of them, but there must have been someone he missed, some asset static in a dark window or a car on the street or somewhere Gentry could not get a fix on him, and this asset had broadcast Court’s appearance and direction to every watcher and hunter in the city.
Quickly, Court chanced a glance back over his shoulder. Three dark-skinned men were moving quickly, looking in a shop window, not twenty meters behind. Across the street there were two more. These guys were part of the same squad, and they were scanning the north side of the street, looking over tables full of diners in front of a café.
Shit. Court turned left down a little passageway off the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie and followed it in the dark. At its end
was dim light from a quiet passage twenty yards on. The watchers would be sparse off the main drag of the Left Bank as long as they didn’t know he’d spotted the surveillance on him.
Court walked into the dark, his eyes on the light ahead, the tip of his umbrella scuffing the wet cobblestones. The noise echoed in the black, covered passageway.
Court needed to catch a cab back to the Gare Saint-Lazare, pick up his Mercedes, and head on to Bayeux. This stop in Paris, like the stop in Budapest yesterday afternoon and the one in Guarda last night, had been all but useless. At least this time he had gotten away without being hurt, and that was something, though he really needed more help before—
From the close dark, there was a flash of movement. Quickly from his left came the figure of a man. Before Court’s lightning reflexes could react, he sensed further movement low, an arm swinging towards him. Gentry moved his own right arm to parry it, but he was too slow.
He was never too slow.
Court Gentry felt the knife stab into his belly and shear through soft flesh just above his left hip bone.
TWENTY-NINE
At two a.m., a shaft of light poured into the blackened second-floor bedroom. Sir Donald lay awake. The rest of the family had been moved into his room so that they could all be watched over by just one guard. Claire slept fitfully on her grandfather’s left; Kate snored on his right. Elise was so medicated it was hard to tell if she was with it or not. She lay sprawled across a chair and ottoman on the other side of the room.
Donald saw the silhouette of the Scottish guard, the one named McSpadden. He figured he was in for a covert beating and wondered if he could take much more.
McSpadden walked up to the bed, ignored the little girls, and whispered to Fitzroy, “I’ll do you a deal, old man. Here’s a phone. Snuck it out of one of the Ivan’s kit bags. They’re all at battle stations now; I’m the only one on the floor.”
“Bugger off. I’m trying to sleep,” said Fitzroy.
“Plenty of time for that come the morning if you’re dead.”
“You don’t think I can smell a trap? Why would a tosser like you just hand me a bloody phone?”
“Because . . . because I want some . . . consideration when this is through.”
Fitzroy cocked his corpulent head and pressed it deeper into the pillow to focus on the man standing above him. “What sort of consideration?”
“The Gray Man . . . Heard he did Kiev. If he did Kiev and he did half the other ops they say he did, if he did the team in Prague and Budapest and the teams in Switzerland . . . Hell, he just might make it here. He makes it here, and my gun’s going in the dirt, I’m doing a runner. I’m not fighting it out with that cold bastard. Got a couple of things to live for, I do. You understand me? Yeah, he shows up, and I’m doing a runner, and I don’t want Donald bleeding Fitzroy or his crazy attack dog coming after me, you see?”
The Scot held out the phone to Fitzroy, and he took it.
“On the level?” asked Fitzroy.
“You’re probably dead as dust come the morning, Sir Donald. I’m not sticking my neck out too far. But if you do make it, remember Ewan McSpadden was the one who helped you.”
“I’ll do that, Ewan.”
“Call your dog, tell him if he makes it . . . I’m the bloke with the green shirt and the black trousers. My gun will be in the dirt; he needn’t worry about that.”
“Good lad, McSpadden.”
The Scot receded into the dark; the shaft of light reappeared and then narrowed and extinguished behind him.
The knife dug deeper into Gentry’s stomach. The pain was horrific. Knee weakening. Bowel loosening. Something was happening that Gentry didn’t understand, so he looked down, saw he’d somehow caught the attacker’s wrist with the hook of the umbrella. Gentry pulled down and away on the umbrella’s shaft, did not have the strength to pull the knife out of his body, but at least his effort kept the blade from sinking in more than a couple of inches. Painful, excruciatingly painful, but much better than the knife digging in hilt deep or worse, cutting up into his gut like a fish filleted.
With all his might Court pulled down on the umbrella with his right hand. With his left, he reached out at the attacker. He fisted him in the chest weakly, because there was little strength in reserve after the exertion from his right arm and the pain deep in his belly. The assassin punched back, tried a head butt, but Court leaned away from it in time.
Court reached across his body to his waistband, took poor hold of the Glock pistol with his left hand but drew it anyway, just pulled it free of his belt as the assassin knocked it away.
The steel and polymer weapon clanged to the cobblestones, rattled off in the dark.
Their free hands fought one another, the attacker in the dark warding off an attempted eye gouge and Gentry deflecting an open-handed blow to his Adam’s apple that would have surely killed him, the tempered steel shaft stabbing into him notwithstanding.
The attacker gave up on trying to yank the knife up to the sternum or push it in deeper; the umbrella’s hook on his arm prevented him from accomplishing either task. Instead, the blade cut down, came to rest against the hip bone and gouged into it.
Gentry stifled a scream. He was nearly out of his mind from pain but knew more killers were yards away. Any slim chance he had at survival against the blade in him and the man manipulating it would disappear if more men intent on his demise heard his cries.
Court changed tactics himself. He pushed forward with his legs and shoved his chest into the smaller man, an Asian he could clearly now see. He slammed him into the wall, which only served to jab the knife in him a fraction of an inch deeper.
Court followed this with a head butt that slammed the two men’s foreheads together with a crack louder than any other sound in the alleyway since the fight began. The umbrella still held the Asian’s right hand down. Court pushed again with his body, and the Asian stumbled backwards all the way across the alley and slammed into the other wall. Court was still attached by the knife’s blade, so he moved along with his attacker. The light was better over here and, through the agony that threatened to cloud his mind to mush, Court saw the straps of the backpack and realized the man was now trying to take hold of something behind him in the bag with his free hand.
Court grabbed the Korean’s wrist with his own free hand and slammed it back into the brick wall.
“What’cha got?” Court asked, his voice quavering with pain and exertion. “What’s in the bag?” There was enough light for eye contact on this side of the covered alley, and their eye contact did not waver, though both men’s lids twitched with the expenditure of effort. One pushed forward, the other pushed back. “What’s in the bag?”
Gentry yanked sideways with the umbrella, pulled the Asian quickly off balance, used the moment to reach behind the man to the pack pressed against the wall. The American had to tighten his abdominals to do so, and his voice cracked as he groaned in agony.
The Asian turned the knife; the two-inch-deep wound opened with the twist and Gentry felt blood run freely across his crotch and down the insides of both legs.
“Ahhh.” It was quieter than a scream, but it echoed in the alleyway nonetheless. Court had the bag now and got a hand on a zipper. Kim knocked the hand away with the side of his head. Another head butt from Gentry stunned the assassin, and Court quickly opened the top of the backpack and reached inside with his left hand.
“What’s this? What’s this?” he asked as tears began streaming down his face. The tears dripped into the spit that sprayed from his sobbing mouth as he spoke. The discharge flew into his attacker’s face with his words. “This what you want? This what you’re after? Huh?” Court pulled the end of a small black sub gun from the bag, stared into the new fear in the eyes of his adversary. Kim reached back and got his hand around the squat suppressor of the weapon, then pushed harder on the knife hilt, Court tried to back off of the blade but could not, and the shaft sank another millimeter into his gut.
/> Court slid his finger into the trigger guard and fired the MP7. Kim had left the fire selector switch on semiauto, just as Gentry would have. The barrel was pointed at the brick wall behind Kim, and rounds exploded off the masonry and debris whizzed around them both. As fast as he could, Gentry pulled the trigger. Each ignition of a cartridge in the breach caused recoil, which made Court’s body jerk, which allowed the knife in his gut to bite into a new morsel of flesh and bone. Three rounds, five rounds, ten rounds, twenty rounds. Kim screamed in agony and let go of the weapon’s silencer, nearly white-hot now from the gunfire. He wrapped his burned hand around the hand that held the knife, and now with both clenched fists and all his might, he tried to force one last, fast, massive thrust of the blade through to the Gray Man’s spine.
The American’s blood pumped over his scorched fingers.
Gentry brought the empty HK down in one quick action, smashed the hot barrel into Kim’s face, breaking his nose.
Both men fell to the cobblestones, their connection finally broken. Kim lay on his back, head against the bullet-pocked wall, blood gushing out his nose, and his burned hand cradled in his lap. His chest heaved from exertion. Gentry lay on his side in the center of the alley, his chest also heaving, the black hilt of the black knife jutting obscenely from his lower abdomen.
Court tried to pull the knife free, cried out as he did so. The Asian, exhausted and stunned from the concussion, clambered to his knees and frantically crawled across the cold stones to close the distance between them.
At five feet he leapt into the air, desperate to get his hand on the knife before the Gray Man pulled it out of his stomach.
An instant before he landed on his target, the full length of the black knife’s blade appeared in the low light, slick, wet with blood. Court slashed it back-handed across the wide-eyed Asian’s throat as he came down. Arterial blood spewed forth.
