by Mark Greaney
“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?”
THIRTY-FIVE
“You’re bleeding bad, Court,” said Lloyd. His pistol remained pointed at Riegel, his back remained to the open doorway to the third-floor corridor, but his eyes were on the bloody man in the tactical gear. The Gray Man had appeared silently through the door from the spiral staircase, and while Lloyd had been fixated on Kurt’s hand inside his jacket, Gentry had gotten the drop on him. He held a squat, evil-looking submachine gun at eye level, its barrel centered on Lloyd’s chest.
“Drop the gun,” said Gentry.
“Who are you speaking to?” asked Kurt, his back to the Gray Man. To see Gentry, he would have to take his eyes off of Lloyd, and he was not about to do that.
Court replied, “If you have a gun in your hand, asshole, then I’m speaking to you.”
Lloyd said, “You aren’t going to make it much longer, Court, old buddy. Your face is white. You’re weak. Your blood is staining the floor.”
“I’ll live long enough to kick your ass. Drop your weapons. You, at the table. Stand up slowly.”
The Tech was the first to do as he was told. He stood with his hands high over his head, shaking from fear.
Lloyd began lowering his pistol. Kurt Riegel followed suit. The German turned his eyes from Lloyd to look at the Tech for an instant.
And in that instant, Lloyd put a bullet through Kurt Riegel’s chest.
The big German grabbed the wound and then fell to his side. The Steyr bounced away on the hardwood floor.
The Tech screamed in fear.
The Gray Man fired a burst at Lloyd as he disappeared through the doorway to the hall.
* * *
Court fought a dizzy spell, an inevitable consequence of his dropping blood pressure. He wobbled on his knees, and his eyes glazed over. His brain seemed to reboot, and when his head cleared, he realized he’d lowered the MP5 to his side. Quickly he raised it at the man with the ponytail and the headphones who stood by the desk with the computers. The man had not moved a muscle apart from the quivering in his shaking hands over his head. Gentry realized he could have been knocked down with a feather there for a few seconds. He was glad the man in the ponytail was too terrified to try it.
“Who are you?” Court asked.
“Just… just a technician, sir. I run the comms and whatnot. I have no quarrel with you.”
“At least you didn’t try to tell me you’re the butler.”
“Sir?”
Court crossed the room to the man. On the way, he kept his weapon trained on the open door to the corridor, and he kicked the Steyr pistol farther away from Riegel’s body as he passed. On the Tech’s desk Court found the classified SAD files. “Is this everything?”
“As far as I know, sir.”
“No backups? No copies?”
“I don’t believe so.”
Court scooped them up and tossed them into the fireplace. He ordered the Tech to set them alight.
Once the files began to burn, the Gray Man turned the technician around and pushed him back down to his seat, facing the equipment in front of him. “You’re the one who communicates with the men hunting me?”
“Oh, no, sir! Not me! I just maintain the elect—”
“Then I guess I don’t need your ass, do I?”
The Tech began nodding quickly. Changed his tune in a single note. “Yes, sir! I am in charge of all communication and coordination between the pavement artists and the government operatives.”
“Good. Call them all. Tell them I just jumped out the window, and I’m escaping through the orchard in the back.”
“Right, away, sir.” The Tech’s hands shook mightily as he flipped switches on his radio console to bring up every radio channel at the same time. “All elements, this is the Tech. Subject has exfiltrated the château. He’s moving to the north, through the orchard on foot.”
“Well done. Now, take off your belt.”
The Tech did as he was told quickly and offered it to the Gray Man.
“Bite down on it hard.”
“Sir?”
“Do it!”
Wide-eyed, the Tech put his belt in his mouth.
“You biting down?” asked Gentry.
The Tech nodded.
“Good.” Court smashed his rifle’s butt into the man’s temple. The Tech started to fall from his chair, but Gentry caught his unconscious head and laid it facedown on the table in front of him. Gentry then fired a full magazine into the computers and radios on the desk.
Court reeled from another dizzy spell, but recovered and reloaded the rifle. He checked on the burning documents in the fireplace. Satisfied that this part of the operation had been successfully completed, he exited into the third-floor corridor, his small rifle out in front of him.
* * *
Claire Fitzroy was the first to hear the footfalls outside the door. There’d been some close shooting, right outside even, a few minutes earlier, but since then it had been quiet. But now someone else was coming. She squeezed Grandpa Donald’s shoulder tightly from fear. Her little eyes blinked hard from the stress, but they stayed focused on the bottom of the door to the hallway.
She heard the clang of metal on wood, more shuffling, and then the rattling of the latch. The door opened slowly, and Claire felt her grandpa’s thick arm squeeze tighter around the gun in his hand, now pointed at two sets of feet entering the room.
The left boot of the man in the back was wet and red.
“It’s Ewan, Sir Donald. Don’t fire.”
Claire started to crawl out with Grandpa Donald, but he pushed her back. He’d no sooner stood up when she heard talking.
Grandpa said, “Bloody good to see you, my boy!”
“Where are the girls?”
Claire recognized Mr. Jim’s voice, and now nothing could have stopped her from crawling out from under the bed. When she stood, she ran to him, crashed into his leg and waist, and hugged him tighter than she’d ever hugged anything in her life. It was a few seconds before she backed away and looked up at him. He wore a black vest on his chest and guns and bags on a belt and hanging off his legs. In his hand was a rifle, and his face and bald head were white as parchment paper and his brown pants were covered in blood.
His eyes were red and watery.
Sweat dripped from his face like rainwater.
Grandpa Donald noticed the stains on Jim’s clothes, too.
“Is that your blood, lad?”
“No, it’s not. But I was borrowing it.”
“Bloody hell, man. You need a doctor.”
“I’m good.” Gentry motioned to
the Scottish guard standing next to him. “This guy says he’s with you.”
“Ewan has been quite helpful.”
“You trust him enough for me to hand him a weapon?”
There was a slight pause. “I do.” And then, “Just watch yourself, McSpadden.”
“Aye, sir.”
Court unslung the MP5 from his neck and handed it to McSpadden. Gentry pulled his Glock from his hip rig, kept it in his hand at his side. “Where’s Lloyd? I think I hit him, but he got away from me. I figured he’d be down here taking hostages.”
“Haven’t seen the cunt,” said Grandpa Donald, and Gentry looked down to Claire and Kate.
“Don. The language.”
“Sorry.”
Court looked around. “And Elise?”
McSpadden and Sir Donald pulled Mrs. Fitzroy from under the bed by her arms. McSpadden hefted her onto his shoulder and held the Heckler & Koch submachine gun out in front of him as he moved. Ewan led the way, with Sir Donald limping from his wounds behind him, wielding the stainless steel revolver. The two girls followed on the heels of their grandfather, and Gentry brought up the rear, staggering behind slowly now, bracing himself on the corridor’s walls and the railing of the stairs. Once Claire tried to hold him up, but he just smiled at her, said he was fine and that she should stay close to her grandfather.
The caravan moved slowly, as it was comprised chiefly of children, the injured, and the wholly unconscious. After a time, they made it down the stairs to the first-floor foyer. Gentry called out from behind, “Girls! Look right at your grandpa’s back. Straight ahead, you understand? Don’t look around the room.” Around them in the huge hardwood and stone entry was utter carnage. Four bodies right inside the blasted-open doors, two more bloody corpses in the middle of the room, and another two on the staircase alongside them as they descended. Both of the little girls began to cry. Kate coughed in the thick stench of cordite and blasted stone dust and burnt wood. At the base of the stairs, a prostrate figure moved and writhed. It was a bearded Middle Eastern man. He was alive, on his side. McSpadden passed him, as did the rest. Court was the last one to the injured man. Their eyes met for a second, but Court did not slow to help him.
The Gray Man showed no mercy to his enemies.
They moved out of the foyer and into an open sitting room, untouched by battle. The walls were lined with large family portraits. McSpadden paused to get a better hold on the Fitzroy woman, and Gentry leaned against the wall for a moment’s rest. Just then, a shirtless man entered from the far doorway. He was one of the Belarusian guards. He had a neck injury he’d wrapped with a towel, but his Kalashnikov remained in his right hand. Surprised by the entourage in front of him, he lifted his weapon quickly. Sir Donald opened fire with the revolver, blasting the shirtless man back through the doorway and onto his back.
The girls covered their eyes and shrieked.
Court lifted his head slowly when it was all over. He had not even been aware of the threat. Quickly, he spun his head back around him, certain Lloyd would be standing behind him, but there was no one there.
Court’s knees weakened, and he fell backwards, stumbled into and over a narrow table, and smashed it to the floor. Fitzroy and the two girls ran to him and pulled him back to his feet. They steadied him while he regained his balance.
“I’m all right. Keep moving.”
The six of them made it out a side door to a pathway that led around to the graveled parking circle in the back. Still, the Scotsman led the way, the unconscious woman over his shoulder. In the distance of the misty apple orchard, they could hear a smattering of gunfire. Apparently the kill squads were engaging one another in the fog. Sir Donald found a large, black BMW sedan, saw the keys in the ignition, and instructed everyone to climb in as fast as possible. Court had lagged behind; Claire turned and ran back to him, held him up, and this time he did not protest. Twice Gentry looked back over his shoulder for any sign of Lloyd. Both times his head spun and reeled with the movement. At a snail’s pace, he staggered, only able to do so now with the nominal assistance of an eight-year-old girl.
* * *
Claire struggled to hold Jim up. It seemed as if with each step he put more weight on her shoulders. He grunted and winced as they moved along the gravel towards the big, black car. The guard from Scotland gave his gun to Grandpa Donald and put Mummy in the backseat, and Kate climbed in with her. The guard got behind the wheel, and Grandpa sat in the front passenger seat. The engine started, and Jim nudged Claire in front of him, urged her to run on ahead to the car. She did as she was told, climbed into the backseat, and turned to help pull her rescuer in behind her. Jim was a few steps back but nearing. He smiled weakly as their eyes met.
A single gunshot rang out from the château. Claire was looking at Jim as his eyes widened and his body lurched forward, nearly propelling him to the vehicle but not quite. The American dropped to his kneepads on the gravel, looked up to the Scotsman behind the wheel, and cried out “Go!”
The big car lurched ahead. Claire’s door slammed shut with the movement. She shrieked as she spun around to look out the back window. She banged her little hands against the glass.
On the gravel behind them, Jim teetered forward off his knees, then fell hard on his face.
A dust cloud from the car’s wheels in the gravel whited out Claire’s view of the man left behind.
THIRTY-SIX
Court pulled himself pitiably across the gravel drive with his arms. His legs barely moved, and pebbles stuck to the blood on his forearms and face and in the sweat on his scalp. It was five yards to the wet grass. From there it was two hundred yards to the edge of the apple orchard. At the pace he was moving, it would be night-fall before he reached any measure of cover.
It was hopeless, but he moved without rationale, only instinct. Get out of the kill zone. Destination unimportant.
“Yo! Tough guy? Where the hell you think you’re going?” Lloyd’s shout came from behind. It was followed by the crunching of shoes on gravel. The footfalls closed quickly.
“I have to admit… you’ve lived up to your hype. You torched the SAD files and you got the Fitzroys. Looks like you managed to save everyone’s ass but your own.”
Court kept crawling on his bloody forearms, into the cold, wet lawn. Lloyd finally stepped on his back to stop him. The Gray Man looked over his shoulder with a wince. The lawyer held a small Beretta pistol out in front of him. His left arm and shoulder were bloody and limp. Lloyd seemed unfazed by his wounds.
“I shot you in the back. Not terribly noble, I suppose. I didn’t know you had a vest on. Bet that still hurt, huh?”
Court rolled slowly on his back. The morning sky had blued considerably since he’d entered the château, maybe fifteen minutes earlier. Lloyd stood over him and looked straight down. Court knew his Glock had skidded away somewhere when he fell. He had no strength to lift his head to look for it.
“I still don’t remember you, Lloyd,” Gentry said it through a raspy cough.
“Well, you’ll remember me in hell, won’t you? My face will be the last fucking thing you see.”
Lloyd lifted the pistol to Court Gentry’s face, and a shot rang out.
Lloyd cocked his head, a show of confusion. The young lawyer staggered forward a half step. Blood appeared on his lips and in his nostrils. His eyes remained on Court, though the lids narrowed. He steadied himself and again raised the gun to Court’s chest.
From behind came another shot, then another. Lloyd spasmed with each crack. His Beretta fired, but it was low by his side now. The bullet kicked up a spray of white stones between Gentry’s legs as the Gray Man just lay on his back and watched.
Lloyd dropped his pistol in the gravel, then crumpled down on top of it, dead.
For several seconds Court just stared at the sky. Finally he forced his head up, looked back to the château. Riegel was in a third-floor window, the glass shattered in front of him, his pistol now trained on Gentry.
S
lowly, the German lowered his gun to his side.
The two men just looked at one another for a few seconds. They were both too weak for words, too far apart for eye contact. But the long acknowledgment showed a sense of mutual respect: two warriors, each recognizing the efforts of the other.
Kurt Riegel fell backwards and disappeared from view.
Court dropped his head back in the grass. Through the ringing in his ears he noticed the distinctive sound of a helicopter. It was not the black Eurocopter; it was a bigger ship, steadily approaching from the east.
His head did not rise back off the dewy grass, but he rolled it to the right in time to see the large white Sikorsky land seventy-five yards away. LaurentGroup was written in blue on the side. Armed men poured from the vehicle, a half dozen or so. They began moving towards the château carefully. Then the aircraft disgorged a trio of men in orange jackets carrying backpacks: doctors or EMTs or some other sort of emergency personnel. Lastly, three men in suits crouched low as they ducked under the rotor’s wash. One carried a notebook of some sort, another hefted two large briefcases, and a third, who was much older, wore his suit coat across his back like a cape.
Like a Frenchman.
Court lost interest in the activity and went back to enjoying the beautiful sky. A minute later, or maybe it was ten, a rifleman stood over him, but he seemed to be more interested in Lloyd’s body lying alongside. The Frenchman shouted into a radio.
Shortly thereafter, the three men in suits appeared. Court raised himself up to his elbows as they approached.
The older man with the coat for a cape was unfamiliar to Gentry, but Court figured from his bearing and his dominion over the other two that this could be none other than Marc Laurent.
“Monsieur Gentry, I presume?”
Court said nothing. The little man with the notepad on Laurent’s right stepped forward and kicked him with an expensive-looking shoe. Court did not feel the blow; his entire body had gone numb. “When Monsieur Laurent asks you a question, you answer!”
