by Mark Greaney
Her father’s anger and consternation twisted her tiny insides into knots.
Her sister was downstairs, unaware and unworried, but Claire considered Kate the less mature of the two eight-year-old twins.
Finally Daddy put his phone in his pocket, shivered against the chill in the air, and turned to walk back up the drive. He’d not gotten more than a few steps when two brown cars pulled in behind him. He turned back to the cars as men began pouring out. Claire counted six in all, big men, leather jackets of different colors and styles. The first man to Daddy smiled and stuck out a hand, and Daddy shook it.
The other men filed around her father, up the drive and towards the cottage. Daddy looked to the men as they passed, and for an instant Claire saw his expression. It was first confusion, and then it was terror, and young Claire leapt to her feet in her little room.
And when the six men, all as one, reached into their coats and drew big black and silver guns, eight-year-old Claire Fitzroy screamed.
EIGHT
Kurt Riegel was fifty-two years old, and as tall, blond, and broad as his Germanic name implied. He had joined LaurentGroup just out of the German Bundeswehr, seventeen years prior, worked his way up from associate director of security in the Hamburg branch office, through a half dozen third-world foreign postings, each dingier and more dangerous than the last, and now he sat firmly ensconced in the Paris home office as vice president of Security Risk Management Operations. It was a long title, a fancy heading that belied a simple explanation of his job.
Riegel was the man one called if one needed something bad to happen. Off-the-books projects, black arts, human resource problems that required a visit from the heavies. Black bag, sneak-and-peek burglary squads, corporate espionage teams, media disinformation experts. Even hit men. When Riegel’s agents came to your office, it either meant they were there to help you clean up a difficult problem, or you yourself were the difficult problem someone had sent them to clean up.
Leading the “Department of Malicious Measures” virtually assured Riegel would climb no higher up the corporate ladder. No one wanted the chief head knocker out in the daylight, running the show. But Riegel did not mind the glass ceiling above him. On the contrary, he saw his position as virtually a tenured one, as he had erected a security dynasty around himself. In his four years as VP of SRMO, his agents had eliminated three political candidates in Africa, three human rights leaders in Asia, a Colombian general, two investigative journalists, and nearly twenty LaurentGroup employees who, for one reason or another, failed to tow the firm’s heavy line. Only one man at LaurentGroup knew of all the operations; Riegel compartmentalized those below him well, and those above him in the corporation knew enough of his tactics to recognize that they really didn’t want to know any more.
Problems arose, Riegel was called, problems disappeared, and Riegel was quietly appreciated.
This made Kurt Riegel an extremely powerful man indeed.
The big German’s teak-paneled office in the Paris HQ suited him well. It was, like Riegel himself, large and blond and strongly built but quiet and discreet, tucked near Competitive Intelligence and IT in LaurentGroup campus’s southern wing. Along his office walls hung over a dozen hunting trophies. There was a taxidermist in Montmartre who virtually made a living on Kurt’s African safaris and Canadian expeditions. Rhino, lion, moose, and elk all stared vacantly from their perches high on the walls around the room.
It was also here where he did his daily calisthenics every afternoon at five. He was nearly to his one hundredth sweat-inducing knee bend when his outside line chirped. Several lines he could ignore until he finished his set, but this was the encrypted number, the hotline, and he’d awaited this call for most of the day.
He grabbed a towel, walked to his desk, and turned on his speakerphone.
“Riegel.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Riegel. This is Lloyd, from Legal.”
Riegel sipped from a bottle of vitamin-infused water as he sat down on the edge of his desk.
“Lloyd from Legal. What can I do for you?” Riegel’s voice was powerful, like the artillery officer he once was.
“I was told you would be expecting my call.”
“I was contacted by the chief executive officer, no less. Marc Laurent himself told me to drop everything and focus all my efforts on a project you will have for me. He also told me to supply you with some muscle and a communications specialist. I hope the technician and the team of Belarusian paramilitaries I sent have been helpful to your situation.”
“Yes, thank you for that. The tech is here with me. The muscle is down in France at the moment, and they are doing as they are told,” said Lloyd.
“Good. This is the first time Marc Laurent himself has called and asked me to pay special attention to an operation. I am intrigued. What kind of mess have you boys over in Legal gotten yourselves into?”
“Yes. Well, this matter needs to be cleared up quickly, for the good of the company.”
“Then let’s not waste another moment. What else can I provide other than the team I have sent?”
Lloyd paused. Then he said, “Well, I hate to shock you with this, but I urgently need a man killed.”
Riegel said nothing.
“Are you there?”
“I am waiting for you to say something shocking.”
“I take it you have done this sort of thing before?”
“Here in Risk Management Operations we like to say that every problem can be dealt with one of two ways. A problem can be tolerated, or a problem can be terminated. If a problem can be tolerated, Mr. Lloyd, my phone does not ring.”
Lloyd asked, “Are you familiar at all with the Lagos Natural Gas contract?”
Riegel answered immediately. “I suspected this would be in reference to the Nigerian fiasco. Rumor has it some fool attorney over there in Legal forgot to proofread a contract, and the Nigerians are backing out of a ten-billion-dollar deal we have already put two hundred million into. I had a feeling I would be contacted on the matter.”
“Yes, well, it’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Doesn’t sound so complicated. I just need the offending attorney’s address. We’ll make it look like suicide. The stupid bastard should be enough of a good company man to go ahead and kill himself, but you can’t expect that kind of loyalty from a lawyer. No offense, Lloyd from Legal.”
“No! No, Riegel, you’ve got it wrong. We need someone else killed.”
Riegel cleared his throat. “Go on, then.”
Lloyd told the VP of Security Risk Management Ops of the assassination of Isaac Abubaker, the president’s refusal to sign the repaired contract without proof of his brother’s killer’s own death.
Kurt snorted. “We climb into bed with these dictators, and then we act surprised when they grab us by the nuts.” Riegel’s English was flawless, idiomatic American. He sat down behind his desk, grabbed a pen, and pulled a notepad across the leather blotter to him. “So we need to ID the hit man and dispose of him?” asked Riegel.
“He has already been identified.”
“You just need him eliminated? I was expecting something more complicated than this after Mr. Laurent’s phone call.”
“Yes, well, this assassin is no slouch.”
“The trouble with private killers is all in the identification. If you know who he is, I’ll have him found and dead within twenty-four hours.”
“That would be ideal.”
“I mean, unless we’re talking about the Gray Man. He’s a couple of cuts above the rest.”
Lloyd said nothing.
After the American’s long hesitation, Riegel said, “Ach, so! We are talking about the Gray Man, aren’t we?”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
It was Riegel’s turn to pause. Finally he said, “Certainly a complication… but not a problem. He is extremely good at keeping a low profile, hence his moniker. He’ll be hard to find, but the good news is he will have
no reason to expect we are coming after him.”
Lloyd remained silent yet again.
“Or will he?”
“I arranged an attempt on his life last night. It failed. He survived.”
“How many men did he kill?”
“Five.”
“Idiot.”
“Mr. Riegel, the Gray Man is clearly no idiot. His history shows us—”
“He is not the idiot! You are the idiot! A damn lawyer who tries to orchestrate a hit on the greatest alpha killer in the world. Some poorly planned, cobbled-together, hurriedly executed disaster of an operation, no doubt! You should have come to me immediately. Now he will be on guard, expecting whoever it was who organized the attempt on his life will just try again.”
“I am no idiot, Riegel. I have his handler in my custody. I have persuaded him to help us locate Gentry.”
“Who’s Gentry?”
“Courtland Gentry is the Gray Man.”
Riegel sat up as erect and broad and square as the desk in front of him. “How is it you know his identity?”
“I am not at liberty to say.”
“Who’s his handler?” Riegel did not like being the one on the receiving end of such information inside LaurentGroup. He had his own intelligence network for that. That some shit American barrister was passing this intel around like it was common knowledge made Riegel ball his fists in anger.
“His handler’s name is Don Fitzroy. He’s a Brit, has a straight operation here in London, even does some work for us occasion—”
Riegel’s balled fists closed together tighter. “Tell me, Lloyd from Legal, that you have not kidnapped Sir Donald Fitzroy!”
“I have. And I have his son and his son’s family held at a LaurentGroup property in Normandy.”
Riegel dropped his huge shoulders and put his head in his hands. After several seconds he looked to his speakerphone. “I have been notified, in no uncertain terms, that you are in charge of this operation. I am to provide you men, matériel, intelligence, and any advice I have.”
“That’s correct.”
“Then why don’t I start with some advice?”
“Excellent.”
“My advice, Lloyd from Legal, is to apologize to Sir Donald for the gross misunderstanding, release him and his family, retire to your home, put a gun in your mouth, and pull the goddamn trigger! Crossing Fitzroy was a huge mistake.”
“You can dispense with the advice then and just supply me with more men. Right now I don’t know where the Gray Man is, but I do know where he will go. Fitzroy will send him to Normandy. He’ll be traveling overland, east to west. I don’t know his starting point yet, but if you give me enough support, I’ll send them everywhere across Europe to hunt him down as he gets closer.
“Why will he go to Normandy? To rescue Fitzroy’s family?”
“Exactly. He will be told Nigerians have kidnapped them and are holding them until Fitzroy turns him over. He will take it upon himself to rectify the problem.”
Riegel drummed on his desk. “I agree with your assessment. He does have a reputation as a paladin, and he won’t trust the French authorities.”
“Precisely. I just need from you a surveillance team and a kill team. Right now your crew from Minsk is guarding his family in France, but I’d like Gentry dead before he gets to Normandy, as time is of the essence.”
“This is the Gray Man. You need more than this.”
“What do you suggest? I mean, other than me killing myself.”
Riegel looked up to the far wall of his office. The head and shoulders of a wild boar stared back at him. Slowly Kurt nodded to himself. “To get this done in the time allowed, you’ll need a hundred watchers.”
“You can get me a hundred surveillance experts?”
“Pavement artists, we call them.”
“Whatever. You can provide that?”
“Of course. And you will need a dozen teams of hunter-killers, spread out and placed all along each possible route, coordinated by a central command center, each with an incentive to be the unit that finds and kills the target.”
Lloyd’s voice showed his astonishment at the scale of the undertaking Riegel proposed. “A dozen teams?”
“Not company men, of course. Too many chances for comebacks on LaurentGroup. Not local talent, either. Local boys would be known to local police, and that would compromise the hunt. No, we need foreign operators from parts unknown, as you Americans like to say. Hard men, Lloyd from Legal, if you get my meaning. Hard men who do hard jobs when no other solution can be found.”
“You are speaking of mercenaries.”
“Absolutely not. The Gray Man has either dodged or dispatched every gang of hired hit men sent after him in the past. No, to be certain, we will need established field units. Government hit teams.”
“I don’t understand. Whose government?”
“We have branch offices in eighty nations. I have good relationships with the internal security chiefs in dozens of third-world countries. These men run stables of operators in their countries to keep their citizens and their countries’ enemies in check.”
Riegel paused while he thought through his plan. “Yes, I will contact my government counterparts in offices in the third world, hard places where I am likely to find hard men without the faintest shred of scruples. I will contact these men and, within half a day of this very moment, there will be a dozen corporate jets flying back from these armpit countries. Each jet will be packed tight with the baddest boys and the biggest guns, and each team will be tasked with the same mission. They will all be vying for the chance to kill the Gray Man.”
“Like a contest?”
“Exactly.”
“Incredible.”
“We’ve done it before. Admittedly on a smaller scale, but we’ve had cause in the past to bring in multiple teams to vie for a single objective.”
“But I don’t understand. Why would these governments help us?”
“Not the governments themselves. The intelligence agencies. Can you imagine what a bounty of twenty million dollars added to the coffers of the secret police in the nation of, shall we say, Albania, would do to the security and stability of the state? Or to the Ugandan Army? Indonesia’s Directorate of Internal Intelligence? These organizations work independently of their heads of state from time to time, when it suits the purposes of the organization or its leaders. I know which countries’ internal security apparatus will sanction their men to kill for cash; I have no doubt of it.”
There was a pause before Lloyd responded. “I get it. These intelligence agencies won’t worry about American retribution. They will know the CIA won’t hunt down the killers of the Gray Man.”
“Lloyd, the victorious team will probably tell the CIA themselves, seek bounty from the Americans, as well. Langley has been after the Gray Man for years. He killed four of their own, you know.”
“Yes, I know. I like your plan, Riegel. But can we do this quietly? I mean, without negative impact on LaurentGroup?”
“My office maintains shell corporations for deniability’s sake. We’ll use LaurentGroup aircrews in planes flying under the shells to infiltrate the kill squads and their weapons onto the Continent. It will be expensive, but Marc Laurent has instructed me to succeed by any means necessary.”
Riegel’s connections to the upper levels of the company couldn’t be denied, but Lloyd’s political instincts demanded that he reassert his position. “I remain in charge of the operation. I will coordinate the movements of the watchers and the shooters. You just get me this manpower.”
“Agreed. I’ll arrange our little contest, get everyone on station, but I will let you guide the teams. Keep me posted on the progress, and don’t hesitate to seek out my counsel. I am a hunter, Lloyd. Hunting the Gray Man on the streets of Europe will be the greatest expedition of my career.” He paused. “I just wish you didn’t fuck with Fitzroy.”
“Leave him to me.”
“Oh, I have every inten
tion of doing just that. Sir Donald and his family are your problem, not mine.”
“No problem at all.”
NINE
Gentry allowed himself to admit that his fortunes seemed to be changing. After limping northward towards the Turkish border for less than an hour, he was picked up by a patrol of local Kurdish police. The Kurds in northern Iraq love Americans, especially American soldiers, and from his tattered uniform and injuries, they presumed him to be an American Special Forces operator. Court did nothing to dissuade them of this assumption. They drove him into Mosul and cleaned him up and rebandaged his leg wound in a clinic built by the U.S. government. Within seven hours of dropping from the ass of an airplane without a parachute on his back, the American assassin found himself dressed in pressed slacks and a linen shirt, boarding a commercial aircraft bound for Tbilisi, Georgia.
The improvement in his circumstances was not due entirely to luck. One of Court’s fallback plans involved him finding his own way out of Iraq, and to prepare himself for this eventuality, he’d sewn a forged passport, forged visas for Georgia and Turkey, cash, and other necessary documents into the legs of his pants.
No, Gentry benefited from a little luck from time to time, but he did not rely on it. He was nothing if not a man prepared.
After passing through Georgian customs with a Canadian passport identifying himself as Martin Baldwin, freelance journalist, he bought a ticket to Prague, Czech Republic. The five-hour flight was nearly empty, and Court landed at Ruzyne Airport just after ten in the evening.
He knew Prague like the back of his hand. He’d worked a job here once and often used the neighboring suburbs as a place to hide out.
After a cab and a metro ride, he walked through the cobblestone streets of the Stare Mesto District, then checked into a tiny attic hotel room a quarter mile from the Vltava River. After a long, soaking shower, he had just sat down to redress his thigh when the satellite phone in his new backpack began to beep.
