by Mark Greaney
The new Gray Man.
Russ marveled at the irony. He would be the Gray Man.
He shook the thought out of his mind, and refocused his attention on his mission. He clicked the windage knob on his Leupold scope to account for a five-mile-per-hour full-value southerly breeze at a range of seven tenths of a mile. He centered his reticule on the iron gate at the entrance to the Dieweg Cemetery in the distance, and then he shifted his aim to an Israeli security officer standing to the side.
He’d like to shoot the man right now. He had no quarrel with the Israeli, but Russ truly enjoyed killing at distance. Striking a man dead with complete impunity. That he had no reason to kill the man meant nothing to Whitlock. What that sentimental fool Court Gentry called collateral damage, Russ knew to be simply natural selection. The survival of the fittest. The culling of the herd of irrelevant people populating the earth.
Still, he fought the urge to shoot the security man through the forehead. He’d get his chance to kill in moments, and that shot would reward him with much more than the burst of pride he got when he ended a life.
It would reward him with twenty-five million dollars.
He whispered to himself, his words so soft they made no frozen vapor between his eye and his rifle scope.
“Come on, Kalb. Let’s dance.”
A small murder of crows flitted between the high branches of the bare trees around Gentry, their angry accusing calls piercing the air, adding even more ominousness to the low dappled light of the gray woods.
Court climbed on, off the path and through dense forest now, certain he was closing in on danger but uncertain what he would do when he found it. He thought of Ruth and told himself that if he stood for anything at all, he stood for someone who had sacrificed everything to stop a psychopathic killer.
Maybe Court was crazy himself. Maybe the CIA had determined him to be unfeeling and uncaring and remorseless. But what was this emotion in him now if not empathy and compassion?
He also felt the bitter anger, felt it compel him forward, but he would not let the bitter anger control him.
No, he would slow himself, use his training and his cunning.
He would not, however, use his right arm. His hand was swollen and barely functional, and the arm itself quivered and throbbed inside the broken-branch splint.
He came to a clearing, and from it he could see the cemetery on a distant hill to the west. He looked around, tried to determine where a sniper would position himself, and realized the best place would be in the woods on the far side of the clearing.
Court pushed himself back into the trees and moved to his left, finally following fresh footsteps that crossed in the clearing far back in the hilly pasture, fifty yards or more below the crest of the hill on the far side of the cemetery, and surely behind any sniper overwatch. From here he made his way over a waist-high barbed-wire fence and into the trees again.
The crows of the forest cried, their movement above him in the bare branches constant, as if they were shadowing his progression in the forest. An audience to the impending show.
He was close now, he had to be. Another thirty yards and he would be at the front edge of the forest, the perfect location for a sniper to secret himself, giving him both a clear view of his target on the far hillside and cover from the woodline.
He followed the footsteps past a little ditch on his left that wound away to the south, and then, also on his left, a frozen pond lay at the bottom of a steep drop-off.
He followed a narrow walking path on a hill over the pond; with the frozen ground and the six inches of fresh snowfall his footfalls were soft and quiet, but he knew he had to leave the path to close on his target. He moved as slowly as he could, only once looking at his watch and finding he had run out of time, but unwilling to rush forward now, so close to his destination.
He had gone only a few yards off the path when he placed his right foot down on a large felled tree hidden under the snowfall. It felt sturdy, so he stepped up on it, then reached his right foot out to find another solid step.
Below his foot he felt a tree branch that jutted from frozen mud, and he decided it was large enough to take his weight. He stepped down on it, swung his other leg over.
The branch cracked, the sound shockingly loud in the still forest.
Shit. The noise was enough to send the crows above flying from their branches.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Whitlock watched the motorcade pull up to the entrance to the cemetery, and he pushed the pain in his hip from his mind, knowing he would need a soft heartbeat and a relaxed pulse to make the twelve-hundred-yard cold bore shot.
As the first members of the entourage appeared at the entry gate on the far hill, Russ heard the unmistakable crack of a tree branch twenty-five yards behind him.
His eyes narrowed.
And then they shut. He lowered his forehead to the buttstock of the rifle and rested it there.
Just like that, he knew his plan had failed. Gentry was here. Townsend had not managed to finish him.
In the back of his mind Whitlock knew this had been inevitable from the beginning.
Two locomotives on the same track.
But wait. He lifted his forehead off the butt of his rifle. If Russ could dispatch Gentry quickly and quietly, and he could make it back here to his gun in time, he still could salvage this. The thought of a twelve-hundred-yard sniper shot with a heart rate amped up from close-quarters battle seemed improbable, but Russ knew if he slung enough bullets down there at the cemetery, shot anything in the area he could get his sights on, then he might still pull this off.
It would be ugly, but if he got the job done he would still get paid.
First things first, Russ thought, and he rose silently to his feet, wincing with the pain in his hip.
Court arrived at the northwestern edge of the forest, and he saw a two-story house fifty yards to his left. The large backyard of the property ended near him, and a small greenhouse was positioned near the tree line. Court looked out past the yard and realized the greenhouse had a perfect line of sight on the cemetery.
This would be Dead Eye’s sniper’s nest.
To reach the greenhouse from behind Court made his way across a tree limb, then turned onto the path, over the frozen pond, careful to avoid making noise or slipping in the snow and falling down the hill.
He lowered to a crouch for the last twenty-five feet to the greenhouse, moved past a large oak tree on his right, then quickly glanced down to his left, wary of the drop-off to the frozen pond, forty or fifty feet down the hill.
Just as he cleared the oak tree he heard a whipping sound close behind him; his reflexes kicked in and he threw his left hand up instinctively.
A cord grabbed his hand, yanking it against his face and throat, and the cord pulled him back into the trees on his right.
It was a garrote, he knew instantly, and it bit into his neck on the right and squeezed his hand against his neck on his left. His broken right arm flailed around in its splint, trying to make contact with the man behind him, but he could not effectively defend against his attacker with it.
Whitlock pulled Gentry down on top of him; they were almost prone, but the thick brush by the oak tree kept them off the forest floor.
Russ pulled and pulled and pulled, frustrated by Gentry’s hand caught in his garrote, but he did not let up for an instant.
Court kicked his legs and fought to get his pinched hand out of the constriction. The hand was keeping him from choking to death, but without it he couldn’t put up any fight whatsoever, so he knew he had to free it somehow. He slammed his head back, trying to hit Russ in the face, but Russ was ready for that, and he moved his head out of the way.
Court uttered a guttural scream as the panic in him grew. He swung his torso left and right, desperate to break his hand free of the thin but strong cord.
Court swung his broken right arm up to his face and got his mouth on the end of the Ace bandage around the splint. As W
hitlock began shaking him left and right, doing his best to prevent his victim from mounting any kind of a defense, Court pulled the splint apart with his teeth. The two broken branches spilled out, and he managed to wrap his weak right hand around one of them.
Knowing well his maneuver would cause excruciating pain, Court threw his broken arm up over his head, and the sharp broken edge of the stick came back into Whitlock’s face, jabbing him on the cheek and narrowly missing his eye.
Russ loosened his grip on the garrote for just an instant as he shifted to get away from the attack to his face, and that was all the time Court needed to free his left hand.
Once his hand was out he grabbed the broken branch out of his right hand. He felt the garrote tighten anew around his throat, and his airway was completely cut off. His eyes bulged in their sockets and his face reddened.
With his left hand, Gentry took the stick and reached back to Whitlock’s waist, dug under the other man’s coat and belt, found the bandaging over his gunshot wound, and pried it off. As Russ began screaming in agony Court jabbed the stick into the infected hole, turning and digging down through tender muscle.
Whitlock let go of the garrote and thrashed away, grabbing at his side and swinging a punch at Gentry at the same time.
Court rolled in the opposite direction, tumbled down into the bushes clutching his throat and sucking in a chestful of icy air.
Both men took a moment to tend to their injuries in the middle of the mortal combat. But in seconds Russ was up to his knees and climbing to his feet above Gentry. He reached into the small of his back and pulled out his Glock 19 pistol.
Court launched out of the snowy bushes, lowered his left shoulder, and slammed into Whitlock’s midsection at speed. The gun flipped through the air and both men went down the embankment, rolling and sliding and banging off trees as they picked up speed.
Court fell out of control, but he did his best to hold his broken arm as he went down. Russ tumbled wildly, banging his wounded hip against the hard earth and unyielding tree branches on the hill.
Both men rolled out of control, taking brush and snow and pieces of stone with them in an avalanche. Russ reached out and grabbed a bare bush growing out of the embankment to arrest his fall, but the bush only ripped out of the frozen ground and tumbled on with him.
Court and Russ spun through the air and then, almost simultaneously, they hit the frozen pond. Their bodies slid out onto the ice ten, fifteen, twenty-five feet, the momentum of the downhill roll meeting the lack of friction on the ice and propelling them out a third of the way to the opposite end of the pond. They finally stopped sliding. Court was facedown and Russ was on his side, but when Russ tried to push himself up to look for the Glock, he was rewarded with a loud echoing crack. The combined force of the men’s bodies caused the icy surface of the pond to give way, and the two wounded Americans disappeared below the surface.
As he did each and every year, the prime minister of Israel finished his moment at the graveside of Piet De Schepper with a knelt prayer. He rose to his feet, brushed snow from the lower part of his coat, and put his hand on a neo-Gothic column next to the burial site.
“Until next year, my friend.”
He turned and began heading back up the pathway to the exit of the cemetery. As he walked he remarked to the principal agent on his close protection detail, “I can’t say I am too crazy about all the damn snow, but I do so love the tranquillity here.”
“Yes sir,” the security agent said. “It’s certainly peaceful, isn’t it?”
Court Gentry clawed at the eyes of the man on top of him at the bottom of the icy pond.
Under the ice they fought, their bodies spinning and their legs kicking through thick mud and trash. Neither man knew if the other had a weapon, so both fought and scrambled to keep one another’s hands under control. This was harder for Gentry, whose right arm was all but useless.
The water was so dank and dirty, and the ice covering the surface was so thick, that visibility at the bottom was virtually zero. The men clutched one another, arms and legs wrapping around their torsos, using their elbows and foreheads as weapons when hand and leg movement was restricted.
The cold was one continuous, mind-numbing assault to their central nervous systems that penetrated both men’s brains like they were being electrocuted.
Court broke free of Russ for an instant and pushed off the mud, trying to get above the waterline to fill his lungs. This part of the pond was only seven feet deep, so it was not far to travel, but instead of surfacing into the air, he only slammed his head against a ceiling of thick ice covering the pond.
Russ grabbed him by the waist and pulled him deeper again.
Court’s extremities were quickly going numb as his blood retreated to keep his core warm. His fine motor skills were depleting quickly with the lack of feeling and mobility, and his gross motor skills were dulling, as well.
But Russ was in the same predicament. He’d gone from trying to choke Court’s throat with his hands to just putting him in a headlock, hoping to drown him before he drowned himself.
The two assassins had been under the water, fighting for their lives and expending precious oxygen, for nearly a minute now. The burning in the lungs of both men became too much, and they both tried to leave the battle to find air. Together they found the opening in the ice, pushed heavy broken chunks out of the way with their heads and arms, and filled their lungs with wheezing inhalations.
As Court sucked in frozen air he punched out at Whitlock with his left hand, hitting him square in the jaw. Russ felt no pain thanks to the near-complete numbness, but the punch spun his head around.
Now Court climbed on Russ’s back and pushed him back under the water, but before Russ went below the surface, he caught a quick glimpse of the Glock pistol lying on its side on the ice in the center of the frozen pond.
Russ reached up and pulled Court under the water with him; he heard the man scream in agony as he did this, and he twisted the wounded appendage to exact maximum pain. He got above him in the water and began kicking, first at his injured right arm, and then at every portion of his body, pushing Gentry deeper by stomping on him. He took advantage of his superior position even more by using his boots to step on Gentry’s head and using his hands to boost himself out of the frigid water.
Russ climbed up on the ice, splashing water in all directions, then fell on his side next to the hole. His body convulsed with the cold, but he fought it, jacking his head left and right, looking for the pistol he’d seen a moment earlier.
There it was—twenty-five feet away, near the center of the pond.
He flattened his body to distribute his weight evenly, and he crept for it as fast as he could. As he moved he looked back at the jagged hole and realized Gentry had not yet surfaced. He’d been down for a long time, and Russ hoped he’d stay down.
But Russ knew Court was a fighter, so he concentrated on making his way across the slick surface to the gun.
Firing the Glock would ruin any slim chance Russ retained to get a shot off at Kalb, but his only sentient thought was on survival.
As Whitlock crawled forward, slower now because the ice below his body was thinning and he did not want to crash back into the water, he realized that, even if he didn’t have to shoot Gentry, his core temperature was far too low for him to have any chance at steadying the rifle for a long-range shot. His hit on Kalb was ruined, and he screamed in anger.
Another look behind him confirmed that Gentry was still submerged. Either he’d been unable to find the broken section of ice and was drowning while desperately feeling around above him, or else his body had gotten caught up in the weeds and trash and mud at the bottom of the pond.
Either way, Court Gentry was a dead man.
Russ was less than ten feet away from the Glock now. The ice was at its thinnest point here in the middle of the pond, but it had not cracked due to his slow and careful movement and the wide and evenly distributed pressure of his bod
y.
His hip hurt, even through the numbing effect of the ice water and frigid air, and his body was racked with exhaustion as well as the obvious onset of hypothermia. He reached a hand out to pull himself farther, and saw his fingers were blue gray and quivering.
One more look behind. He saw the trail he had created moving from the hole, a trail of blood and water left behind by his waterlogged clothing and bloody face and hip.
The big broken slabs of ice had resettled over the hole nearer to the bank, and it looked as if the hole was already refreezing, sealing the Gray Man below the surface.
Russ doubted he would need the pistol now, but he kept moving for it, knowing the gun would come in handy when he broke into the house up the hill to get warm.
Just then, directly below the surface of the pond and directly below his face as he crept along the surface, Russ saw a hand appear, pressed flat against the ice.
Court was trying to break out.
“Jesus Christ, Court! Just fucking die!”
The hand drifted down and away, then disappeared in the darkness of the dirty water.
Russ pushed on, moving closer still to the pistol, five feet away from his fingertips, and he rose slowly to his knees to reach for it.
The crows in the trees above him cried out in an angry chorus.
Russ stopped suddenly, froze as he saw the ice in front of him shatter, exploding upward as if a bomb had detonated below it.
Water sprayed from the new hole next to the black pistol, and from the water Gentry appeared, his face nearly as gray as the landscape around him but his eyes wide with fury and determination. He slammed his hand down on the gun and raised it at Russ in one sweeping motion.
“No!”
At a distance of less than ten feet the Gray Man shot Dead Eye in the chest, center mass, knocking him flat on his back. His legs caught under his body awkwardly, his arms flailed out wide as he fell back, and his head slammed the ice, cracking it in all directions.
