by Mark Greaney
Basset spun back to the ISIS men scrambling around the hillside and he fired, and by now two more prisoners had taken weapons and were in the fight.
* * *
• • •
Court staggered out of the water when the crazed shoot-out was over, then fell into the salty mud.
Basset limped over, holding on to his own right forearm with his bloody hand. The young Syrian had been shot in the arm and the foot, and he also bled from where he’d cut himself. But he ignored his injuries, dropped to his knees next to the American, and put his hand on the man’s back. “My friend! We did it! You did it! But more Daesh will surely come. We have to go!”
Court looked up at him, coughed lake water, and vomited into the dirt. “How . . . how many did we lose?”
Basset helped Court to his feet. “I don’t know. Many. But many more of us are left. We will take the truck and go.”
“Go where?” Court asked. He barely had the energy to stand.
“Anywhere!” Basset said with a wide smile.
“I like this plan,” Court said, and then he dropped face-first into the mud.
Basset called some men over to help move the American to the truck.
CHAPTER 79
Captain Robert Anderson sat in the main cabin of the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter as it streaked impossibly low over the dark desert landscape, and he steeled his stomach to what was about to come.
Over the cabin intercom he’d been notified by the pilot that they were moments from hitting the hills, and when that happened, this low and fast flying was going to make life difficult for him and the eight other men here in the back of the helo.
Of course he knew the computers on board kept the machine from slamming into terrain, but he also knew that every time he flew nap-of-the-earth he got nauseous.
He almost never puked, but he always felt like he was going to puke.
Just as he told himself to put the motion of the helo out of his mind, his headset came alive again.
“Captain, we got a FRAGO comin’ in from the JOC.” A FRAGO was a fragmented order, meaning an addendum to an operations order in place. Their current order was to leave Syria, to head north straight up towards the Turkish border as fast as possible, and Anderson hadn’t expected any FRAGOs to interfere or delay this order, because his Joint Operations Center had seemed very insistent he carry it out as soon as possible.
Anderson said, “Roger. Send FRAGO.”
The captain listened to the transmission for over a minute, then made some notes on a pad he kept in his load-bearing vest. A smile grew on his face. “Copy all. Zulu out.”
Seconds later, the UH-60 banked to the northwest, picked up even more speed, and entered the hills. It lurched upwards to miss a steep rise, and Robby Anderson immediately regretted eating the two candy bars he’d downed not twenty minutes earlier.
* * *
• • •
A half hour after receiving his FRAGO, Anderson and the rest of his twelve-man A-team leapt out of their two helos in a rugged mountainous area to the northeast of Palmyra. He knew they couldn’t remain on the ground for any time at all without endangering his men and his helicopters. Fortunately, he had no plans to hang out here for the rest of the evening.
With his weapon on his shoulder, he and his team pushed forward into a walled structure, where they found a large Russian Ural truck parked alone. The men cleared the area, making sure there were no hostiles, and then Anderson himself climbed into the bed of the vehicle. He found a man sitting Indian style, his hands in the air, and another lying on his back with his face partially bandaged. Anderson illuminated him with the flashlight on his rifle and confirmed he had the two he was looking for. “ID confirmed. I need two up here to help me move them.”
The two men were carried off the truck and into the back of the helo; less than three minutes after landing, the helicopter rose into the air, then returned to its stomach-wrenching nap-of-the-earth flying to the north.
* * *
• • •
Inside the Blackhawk, the new passenger prone on the deck lay still, until a Green Beret medic held smelling salts under his nose.
Then the man lurched a little, and opened his eyes.
Captain Anderson knelt down over him. “Sir? Sir? Can you hear me?”
The American Anderson only knew as Slick seemed to come to his senses quickly. “Oh, hey, Robby. What’s goin’ on?”
“You know. Not much. The usual.”
The man smiled a little, and looked around. “Yeah.”
“You’ve lost some blood, and you’re probably dehydrated. We’ll fix you up.”
“Thanks.”
Robby nodded. “Had a rough couple of days, I see.”
“The usual. Where’s Basset?”
Basset waved from the other side of the helo when the American looked his way. A medic was tending to his bloody forearm, hand, and foot.
Robby said, “He called my command about forty-five minutes ago and gave us your coordinates. We just happened to be passing through, so we swung by to pick you up.”
“Passing through?”
“Yep. We’re exfilling Syria. Getting the hell out before anyone knows we were here.”
“I thought you said you’d be here a couple more months.”
“Yeah . . . well, that was before.”
“Before what?”
“Sir, if you don’t know, then you’re pretty much the only man on Earth that doesn’t.”
Court thought he understood. “He’s dead? Azzam’s dead?”
A slow smile grew on Anderson’s face. “Ahmed Azzam is dead as dirt. State TV confirmed it this afternoon. Killed by terrorists while personally leading the fight on the front lines of Palmyra.”
The American nodded. “Yeah, that’s exactly what went down.”
Robby turned somber now. “Yusuf and Khalid didn’t make it.”
Court nodded. “They are heroes of their nation.”
“No doubt about it.” Robby looked into the night for a moment.
The man said, “Someone gave you the okay to come get me?”
“Affirm. I’ve got orders to get you to Incirlik, Turkey. After that, you can do whatever you want.” He smiled. “I suggest a vacation.”
“You won’t believe this, but this was my vacation, Captain.”
Robby looked at him like he was insane, then handed him a bottle of water.
Court said, “You got a sat phone?”
Robby moved to the bulkhead and took a phone out of his backpack. He handed it to the man on the gurney. Court dialed a number, then looked at Robby, who took the hint and moved away.
After several seconds the line went live. “’Allo?”
Court put a finger in his left ear and held the phone hard to his right. “It’s me.”
Vincent Voland did not hide his shock at hearing the American’s voice. “Mon dieu, you are alive!”
“Tell me about Jamal and Yasmin.”
“They are in Jordan, with me, and they are safe.”
Court blew out a long sigh of relief.
Voland said, “You did it, didn’t you?”
“You mean Azzam? No, I didn’t, but apparently it got done.”
“Right,” Voland said incredulously. Clearly he believed the Gray Man had assassinated the Syrian president, but he didn’t press. Instead he said, “I have someone else here who wants to say hello, but first, I need you to believe me.”
“About what?”
“I gave you some bad information when we last spoke, but I was acting on the best intelligence I had at the time.”
“What are you talking about?”
The phone was silent for several seconds, and then Court heard a woman’s voice. “Monsieur? This is Bianca. I want to thank you for everything you have
done for my son.”
Court couldn’t believe it. “You’re alive?”
“Yes. I am, Jamal is, and Yasmin is, as well. All thanks to you and Monsieur Voland.”
Court just laid his head back onto the gurney and stared at the ceiling of the Blackhawk’s cabin. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
EPILOGUE
It was a nice summer evening for Sebastian Drexler at the chateau in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. He sat on the deck and looked out at the stars, watched deer and rabbit run across the hectares of private land, and enjoyed a Cheval Blanc Bordeaux from 1970.
Things were nice, but they weren’t perfect. This wasn’t his chateau; it belonged to Meier Privatbank, but he was living here now. For the past month he had been in charge of the protection detail watching a client of the bank, a woman with a Swiss passport that claimed her name was Ara Karimi, and she was a refugee from the Syrian war.
No, things weren’t perfect at all. Ara Karimi was, in truth, Shakira Azzam. The woman had arrived in country on a private jet with her children right after the death of the president of Syria, and through special circumstances arranged by the bank, she’d not had to appear in person at any consulate or embassy to obtain her documentation. She’d just flown into the country, gotten a few stamps on her visa and passport from an immigration official who was “a friend” of Meier, and then she’d come here.
Drexler had been on the same flight from Syria, and although she had been the last person in the world he’d wanted to see before he was put on board the ship in Greece, once he got to Syria and found out Azzam was dead, she became his ticket home to Switzerland. Her life was in danger during the tumultuous days after Ahmed’s death, and she was one of Meier Privatbank’s most important clients. They wanted her safe from harm, and Drexler was uniquely positioned to make that happen.
Accidentally so, but he was there, nevertheless.
He’d gotten the family out in an SAA plane to Lebanon, and from there they used the Swiss documents to make it into Europe. The kids had immediately been relocated away from the mother, for everyone’s benefit. The two daughters were given new identities and sent to boarding school in Lausanne.
And now Drexler was back home in Lauterbrunnen, which was good for him.
But far from perfect.
Shakira sat in front of him now on the deck, the bottle of wine between them. She was carrying on about her plan to retake the reins of leadership in Damascus. As he looked at her, regarded her new short black hairdo, the Botox she’d gotten in Bern that puffed out her lips and fattened her eyelids, and the tanning she’d done to turn her skin several shades darker, he had to admit she looked different, but to him she was still the same Shakira. Drexler nodded along, engaging in her power fantasy just to keep her happy, because keeping her alive and happy was his job.
He felt confident in his skills to accomplish the former. Less so, the latter.
* * *
• • •
Drexler had been ordered by the bank to protect Shakira for the first few months of her exile. To this end he had a dozen men on the property at any one time, and he had every manner of alarm and sensor known to man.
He did not, however, have fighter planes in the sky, so there was no one to prevent a skydiver from stepping off a limestone cliff thousands of feet above the U-shaped valley where Lauterbrunnen sat, dressed head to toe in black, and then HAHO jumping, steering his parachute precisely so that he came down silently on the back deck of the chateau, not ten meters from where Sebastian and Shakira sat with their wine, plotting her return to power.
A pair of security men stood in the attached living room, and they saw the billowing black chute as it appeared over the man as he landed behind Drexler, and they pulled firearms and moved towards the windows.
But the man under the collapsing canopy saw the men and he was faster and more sure of his mission than they. He shot them both with a silenced Ruger Mark II integrally suppressed pistol, three times each in the chest and throat.
Both men died before they fired a round, and the gun that killed them was no louder than an electric typewriter clicking out a few letters.
Shakira and Drexler both stood and faced the man who expertly dropped his chute with one hand on his quick-release, while holding his pistol on them with the other.
“Don’t make a sound,” the man said, and Drexler remembered the voice.
“You.” There was marvel in his tone.
“Me,” the man said, executing a magazine change of the Ruger so fast Drexler had not even been able to take advantage of it.
“What do you want?” Shakira asked. She didn’t know who this was.
The man said, “The kids. Are they here?”
Neither she nor the Swiss man standing next to her answered the question. Drexler said, “You are the Gray Man. You’re quite famous.”
“And you are Sebastian Drexler. You’re quite an asshole.”
* * *
• • •
Court held his pistol on the woman, and although she didn’t look much like the photos he’d seen of Shakira al-Azzam, he knew it had to be her.
Drexler said, “You decapitated the Syrian government. But there’s a new ruler, he’s an Alawi, he’s Ba’ath Party, and he says he will continue the war. What the fuck do you think you’ve accomplished?”
Court said, “Ask Ahmed. Ask Shakira.” A pause. “Go ahead, ask her. I’ll wait.”
Drexler looked to Shakira, and then back to Court.
Court said, “Yeah. I know it’s her. You can’t go posing for Vanity Fair and then try to hide your identity.” Court scanned the living room, made sure no one was there. He said, “Yeah, I didn’t bring peace, love, and understanding to Syria overnight, and that sucks. But the new guy in charge knows the old guy in charge got fragged for being an asshole. It might not make much difference, but the status quo in Syria wasn’t exactly working for anyone.
“Maybe I didn’t end the war, but I helped kill Ahmed, I pissed off the Russians and Iranians, and I killed a bunch of jihadis.
“I chalk this up in the win column, even before today.”
“What’s today?” Shakira asked.
“Today is when I kill Sebastian Drexler and Shakira Azzam.”
Drexler cleared his throat. Flashed his eyes into the living room. It was empty still. “Was this all for money? Or have you bought into the lies of the West?”
Court said, “Half million dead. Millions injured. Millions displaced. Those lies?”
“All lies,” Shakira said, and Court could hear the cracking of terror in her voice now.
Drexler said, “You’ve won, Gray Man. You’ve already won. Why not take your victory, along with the spoils?”
“Meaning?”
Drexler said, “Listen, man. My bank can provide you with—”
Court fired once; the .22 caliber round slammed into Drexler’s right knee, dropping him to the deck floor. He grabbed at the wound in pain.
Court said, “I promised Voland that I’d make it hurt. I’ll give you a few seconds’ agony, then end it for you.”
“Fuck you!” Drexler cried out as blood appeared between the fingers clutching his knee.
Court pointed the gun at Shakira now, and although she did not move a muscle, he could see her face redden several shades as the panic began to well in her.
She said, “Sir . . . I could make you a very rich man.”
“Did money buy you happiness?”
“It . . . well . . . it helped a great deal.”
“At the end of the day, you’d have been better off poor back in the UK. The world would have been better off, as well.”
She saw the bribery wasn’t working, so she said, “As you know, I have children. Two daughters. I am all they have left.”
The man with the pistol held it steady. “There was a
version of me who would have cared. I don’t really know where that guy went . . . but he’s gone now.”
“Let me show you photos of them. They are wonderful—”
“They’ll have money, and whatever security that it will buy. And they’ll probably have some sense that a great wrong was done to them. I hope they channel that rage into something productive, but I can’t help them. I can only exact revenge for all those who are dead because of you.”
Her voice grew with each word as she tried to alert security men to the danger. “Revenge? Revenge? Is revenge really worth any—”
Court shot Shakira Azzam through the heart. She fell back and landed next to, but facing away from, Sebastian Drexler, and their blood pooled together. He shot her still body twice more.
Court said, “It’s not worth much, no. But it’s worth more than you.”
He started to shift back to Drexler, who had not moved and seemed resigned to his fate, but the door into the living room opened fifty feet away. A man saw Court standing on the deck and pulled his weapon. Court shifted to him to fire, and as he did so Drexler leapt up on his good leg and dove over the top of the deck railing.
It was two stories straight down to a steep hillside below.
Court shot the guard, but another came behind him a moment later. Court himself rolled onto and over the railing, scaled quickly off the other side, but stopped on a lower balcony. Here he ran to the northern side of the balcony, out of sight from where he’d climbed from above, and climbed down from there.
Court had to drop the last several feet and he landed in a roll, blunting the impact of the drop. He began sprinting away, pulling a pair of night vision goggles from a dump pouch on his hip as he ran.
He knew Drexler could not have gone far, even if he survived the fall, but where Drexler went over would be full of security men in moments, so Court ran off in the other direction.
* * *
