by Mark Greaney
Russ smiled. “I am not an import/export consultant from Canada.”
“Oh?” said the younger man with one raised bushy eyebrow.
“I can give you my real name.”
“You are not Michael Harkin? Do you realize you could be punished for applying for a Lebanese visa under a false identity?”
Russ laughed. Sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed now, he was the epitome of self-assuredness. “Do you want my name or not?”
“If you wish.”
Russ’s smile faded and he leaned forward a little. “My name is Courtland Gentry.”
TWENTY-TWO
The older man seemed unfazed, but the younger was not able to hide a reaction; his eyes widened just slightly, but he recovered. “Is that a name that should mean something to us?”
“If your organization is worth anything, then yes, it should mean quite a lot, in fact.”
The older man was genuinely confused; the younger turned to him and spoke low and fast in Farsi. Russ did not speak the language, but it, like Arabic, was a member of the Indo-European family of languages and he recognized the sound of it.
The older man asked his colleague for clarification, then turned to the American on the tattered sofa in front of him. With feigned nonchalance he reached for his tea and took a slow sip. “We are to believe that you are the Gray Man?”
“That name was given to me by others. There is nothing official to it.”
Both men looked incredulous, but the younger one said, “What is it that you want?”
“Your superiors at VEVAK have been pursuing a business relationship with me for some time. I wanted to discuss this with them, in person, but I did not want to just walk through the front door of an embassy. Your diplomatic buildings throughout the world are under surveillance by American intelligence, and I’d rather avoid our relationship coming to light. So I came through the back door, so to speak.”
Again the two men conferred for a moment in Farsi; Russ just watched them talk. They seemed to have no idea what to do, so he decided to help them out. “Gentlemen, I suggest you contact the highest-ranking member of your service you can get on the phone, and tell him I am here and ready to do business. They will send someone, someone who will verify my identity through whatever means VEVAK has to do so, and I will wait patiently until then.”
Without another word the younger of the two stood and headed out of the room, down a hall to the rear of the flat, pulling out his mobile phone as he walked. The older man sat in silence for a moment, then held up a finger to Russ, stood, and went into the hall. He left the door open as he conferred with the two security men standing there, and seconds later they entered, their jackets open and their eyes locked on the man on the couch. They took up positions near the doorway to the kitchen, some twenty feet away from where Russ sat.
Russ smiled at them and nodded, then turned to the older VEVAK officer. “I assure you, I am a friend.”
“Yes. I need you to wait, please.”
“Of course.”
“Would you like some more tea?”
“Love some.”
Russ Whitlock sat on the sofa alone for more than an hour. From the rear of the flat he heard conversation; it sounded like both VEVAK men were working telephones frantically, but neither popped his head out to let him know what was going on. The two security men in the living room were professionals; they did not even look directly at him but just stood there, doing their best to show themselves to be competent badasses who were ready for anything.
Russ passed the time brainstorming ways to kill them.
Finally there was a knock at the door. The guards looked concerned, but they did not move; it was the young intelligence officer who appeared from the back and opened it, then embraced the visitor, an attractive and well-groomed man in a blue double-breasted suit. He entered with a smile, car keys, sunglasses, and mobile phone in his hand, and he placed them on the counter by the kitchen with a delicate movement.
Russ could see instantly by the deference given to him that this man was the local power. Beirut was ground zero for Iranian intelligence outside Tehran, so Russ knew this man must be quite high on the food chain, indeed. Perhaps the local VEVAK assistant chief of station, Russ surmised, but he did not ask.
Russ stood to meet him, and they shook hands.
“My name is Ali Hussein.” This name was akin to John Smith in Iran, and Russ figured it was phony.
They shook hands. “Court Gentry.”
“That remains to be seen,” Ali said with a smile, and he held Whitlock’s hand for a long moment. The two men were close now, their faces a foot apart, and now Russ detected a hardness, a malevolence behind the polished veneer of nice clothes and nice manners. This man was no assistant station chief riding a desk for an intelligence agency. Instead, Russ determined very quickly that this man was Quds Force, a special unit of the Iranian Republican Guard tasked with exporting Iranian power around the world.
Ali Hussein was a dangerous hombre, indeed.
Good. This was the asshole Russ had come to see.
Ali and Russ sat down across from one another in the living room, and the Iranian retrieved a folded sheaf of papers from the breast pocket of his coat. “I have some information about the Gray Man. I am going to ask you some questions. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Ali smiled. “I hope so.” He looked back to the kitchen just as the young VEVAK officer stepped out with tea on a tray.
“Mamnoon.” Thank you, he said, then returned his attention to the American across from him.
He asked, “What is your CIA code name?”
Russ did not hesitate. “Violator.”
“And your CIA call sign?”
Whitlock raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I am impressed with your knowledge. My former agency does not give you the respect you deserve.”
“Can you answer my question?”
“My call sign with my SAD unit was Sierra Six.”
“SAD?”
“Special Activities Division.”
“You were a commando.”
“Something like that.”
Ali Hussein nodded thoughtfully before continuing with the questions.
“Your place of birth?”
“Jacksonville, Florida.”
“You have a sister. What is her name?”
“I had a brother. His name was Chase.”
Ali Hussein did not react to this. He only glanced back down to the page in front of him.
Russ was comfortable with the questions because he had read Court’s dossier; he knew it backward and forward. And there was another reason for his comfort. Russ himself had leaked a tiny portion of Gentry’s file to Iranian intelligence months earlier, so that his answers would coincide with their knowledge.
But the next question was not a part of the intel he had leaked.
“You completed an operation in 2004 in the Bekah Valley. A Syrian brother, a member of al Qaeda in Iraq, was kidnapped from his home by you and your colleagues, and he was rendered to a CIA prison in Morocco. What can you tell me about that operation that would prove to me that you were there?”
Russ had read about this mission in Court’s dossier, but he did not know where Iran came by the information. “I apologize,” Russ said. “I am, as you know, no longer a member of the Central Intelligence Agency, but I remain a patriot. I love my country, and I am not here to commit treason by giving classified information to a foreign intelligence agency.”
The Quds man said, “We have ways of obtaining that information from you.”
“If you do anything to mar our new friendship, then you are a fool, Ali Hussein, because what I am here to offer you today is worth one hundred times the intelligence value you could gain from learning details of a decade-old operation.”
“What is it that you are offering us?”
Russ leaned back on the sofa now and crossed his legs. “I want to relieve you of your biggest problem.�
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Ali Hussein cocked his head. “What is our biggest problem?”
“Not what. Who.”
“All right . . . who is our big—”
The Iranian stopped in midsentence, because he had the answer to his question. “Ehud Kalb.”
Russ nodded. “Your government has proposed this to me before. My former handler, Gregor Sidorenko, told me that you extended this contract to me, and only me, over a year ago. At the time I was unable to accept your offer.”
CIA had been reading Sid’s mail for a long time, and through them Russ knew that Iranian cutouts had gone to Sid to extend the offer, unaware that by this time Sid and Court had become mortal enemies.
Ali looked at him, not trusting, not convinced, but intrigued. “You are saying you have reconsidered?”
“Possibly. If the terms are improved.”
“The Gray Man wants to assassinate Ehud Kalb for Iran?”
Now Russ shrugged. “Not for Iran. Sorry, but that is not my objective. I will do it for twenty-five million dollars. Before you tell me you don’t have this kind of money, I know you and the intelligence agencies of the wealthy Gulf States would find it worthwhile, and certainly worth . . . what? A half hour of crude production to pay to decapitate the nation of Israel.”
“If we offered this to you a year ago, and I am not saying we did. But . . . How do you know we have not simply arranged for someone else to do this?”
Whitlock leaned forward quickly, shaking his finger dramatically. “You don’t dare; you will give no one else the opportunity, because you know that whether they succeed or fail, it will be revealed, somehow, some way, that Iran was the one who extended the contract. Iran cannot have that happen, because Iran knows it would be attacked, sanctioned, embargoed, blockaded, and otherwise squeezed and punished for attempting to decapitate the Jewish state.”
The Quds Force operator did not disagree with this, but he also looked like he was out of his depth in the conversation. Russ expected this; he knew his plan would have to be kicked upstairs several times in the Iranian government before finding someone who could extend a formal offer.
“Please wait here.” Hussein stood and headed toward the back of the apartment.
“Of course,” Russ said as the man disappeared.
He returned in twenty minutes. “My colleagues would like you to come to Iran to meet with them.”
Russ shook his head. “Out of the question.”
Hussein nodded as if he expected this answer.
“They want to know why the world’s greatest assassin would come, alone, to Beirut. Why did you not have an intermediary reach out to us? That would be standard tradecraft for this type of arrangement.”
“I just killed my last handler on Sunday.” Hussein’s eyes widened as that sank in. Russ added with a shrug, “I’ve decided I will make my own arrangements from now on.”
After a nervous clearing of the throat, Ali said, “They are not convinced you are who you say you are.”
“But?”
“But there is a way you can convince them.”
Russ knew what was coming next, and he also knew it was going to be a problem.
“They want to know about Kiev.”
Ali Hussein was impressed. “Exactly. If you are the Gray Man, then you know that there were Iranians present during the event in Kiev three years ago.”
“Of course I know. And they were not just Iranians. They were Quds Force operatives.” Russ’s eyes narrowed. “Friends of yours, maybe?”
Ali Hussein just shook his head. “No.”
“Well, nevertheless, I saw the Iranians.”
“What else did you see?”
“You are asking me for a complete after-action report of my Kiev operation?”
“It would settle any doubts as to your identity.”
“I never kiss and tell.”
Hussein seemed disappointed. “Then you must allow us time to investigate you and your proposal. I can’t tell some stranger that he has Iran’s blessing to target the prime minister of Israel. You can see how that could ultimately be very harmful for Iran, should something go wrong.”
“I can’t wait for you to perform your due diligence. If I am to take this contract, I must act immediately. The prime minister will be making a trip to Brussels, London, and New York next week, and then he has no more scheduled travel for several months. The time is now.”
“Then prove you were the man at the Vasylkiv Air Base the evening of April 8, two thousand—”
“I will not tell you about Kiev. But I will prove to you I am who I claim to be.”
“How?”
“Go back to your telephone, have your superiors give you a name. One name of one man. Or woman, I do not care.”
“What man? What woman?”
“The person your organization would most like eliminated in the next five days. Someone located in Europe, that is a requirement, simply for geographical expediency. Other than that . . . I don’t care. They can be behind guarded gates, a public figure with security. It doesn’t matter. I will leave Beirut this afternoon, I will find this person, and I will rid the Iranian government of this problem immediately. Who could make this promise other than the Gray Man?”
Ali Hussein did not hide his surprise at the offer. Twice he began to speak, but twice he stopped himself.
Whitlock added, “No charge. And no comebacks to you. If I succeed, you win. If I fail, you lose nothing. We are not working together.”
“You are saying you will kill anyone on the continent of Europe? Within five days.”
“Yes.”
Hussein said nothing for several moments. He seemed, to Russ, to be a powerful man unaccustomed to the concept of running out of the room every few minutes to get approval from on high. But after a time he stood from the sofa. “I will make a call. You have not convinced me of anything, but perhaps my colleagues will entertain your request.”
Whitlock smiled and gave a polite half bow, supercilious, though he doubted Hussein would pick up on it. The Iranian left the room, and Russ turned his attention back to his tea and his fantasies of killing the guards.
It was midafternoon by the time Ali returned to the apartment and extended a hand with a folded sheet of paper. In the interim the number of security around Russ Whitlock had increased threefold. Russ ignored the half-dozen men with guns exactly as he would imagine Court Gentry would ignore them, and he looked at his watch with an annoyed or bored expression every few minutes.
Russ took the folded paper, but he did not look at it.
Ali said, “There is a name for you. He is—”
Whitlock interrupted. “It doesn’t matter who he is. I will take care of it, we will be in touch, and I will expect your organization to uphold its end of the bargain.”
“By giving you the Kalb contract.”
“Correct. Twenty-five million dollars, deposited into a numbered account at a bank in Dubai.”
“I must tell you, this is truly a remarkable boast you have made.”
“It is a boast, yes, but I don’t see it as remarkable. It is, quite simply, what I do.”
“The name on that sheet of paper is a hard target.”
“Then I’d better get to work.” The men shook hands, and Russ made his way through the scrum of gunmen in the room toward the door.
TWENTY-THREE
Court arrived in Stockholm on the Tallink Ferry after a twelve-hour Baltic Sea cruise that left him exhausted. There was nothing physical for him to do on the boat, but he forced himself to stay awake, to maintain constant vigilance, a tiring and stressful task for someone already tired and stressed after the actions of the past few days. But the ferry crossing was uneventful; the Estonian authorities had added security at the departure point in Tallinn but not on the ship itself, and now Court looked forward to finding a place in a massive city where he could disappear, simply go to ground and rest until it was time to move on.
He had a taxi take him to the
center of town, and although he had to fight the urge to lay his head down on a snow-covered bench in a park, he forced himself to begin an SDR that lasted until the early afternoon, walking through the Olstermalm district, taking cabs and streetcars and buses, occasionally stopping in cafés for coffee and protein to stay awake.
He strolled through a department store, entering through one door and leaving through another, but while passing through he went into the housewares department and bought a high-quality paring knife with a four-inch blade and a vinyl sheath. He would rather arm himself with a Glock, but they were not exactly off-the-shelf items here in Sweden. Firearms were available for hunting, but Court wouldn’t very well be able to fill out the form for the background check necessary to buy one, so he’d just have to protect himself with his brain, his body, and a kitchen utensil.
Once he felt certain he was not under surveillance he branched out, beginning his hunt for a secure-enough rooming house or other cheap place to stay.
It was nightfall before he found a suitable location on Rastatgaten, just north of the city center. He stood on the sidewalk under a window with a handwritten sign offering rooms, and he looked up and down the street, deciding the security situation here would suit his needs.
He entered a steakhouse on the ground floor of the building to inquire, and was sent back outside and up a narrow stairway adjacent to the restaurant. He stood alone in a dark hall for a while, but soon a Serbian man who spoke English came up the steps and offered him his choice of three rooms. Court looked them over and settled on a corner flat with windows that offered views up the streets in two directions. The room was tiny; the bed was just a mattress on the cold wooden floor and the kitchen consisted of a card table with a chair, a hot plate, and a teakettle. The toilet and shower were down the hall and shared with a few other rooms on the floor.
It was a dump, but it was also low profile with a fair line of sight on the street. Court was well accustomed to austere living conditions; he’d slept in shit holes on four continents, so he told the Serbian man he’d take it.
