The Gray Man (18 page)
The wire transfer appeared in Szabo’s account as he was furiously making a third call to Fitzroy. The CIA was due to arrive within ten minutes, he’d cut it way too close, but now the money was received, and he could leave. He hung up the phone as Fitzroy answered. Next he checked back in on the Gray Man one final time, bade him adieu and bon chance, finished packing his suitcase, and then hobbled out of his studio/laboratory /workshop, shuffling down the hall as quickly as his paralytic body would allow.
He was almost to the door when the phone rang. Thinking it was the CIA station chief giving him an update on the progress of the operators on the way, he decided to answer. They wouldn’t have called if they were moments away.
He lifted the phone off the hook. “I have fulfilled my side of the bargain. It is time for you to fulfill yours,” said Fitzroy.
“I am impressed, Sir Donald. My phones are scrambled, how did you—”
“I have my ways, Laszlo. Now, free the Gray Man before they come for him!”
The sweat already dripping down the sixty-year-old Hungarian’s back turned ice-cold. Fitzroy knew who he was. Szabo realized he’d be watching his back for the wily Englishman for the rest of his life.
“I will release your boy immediately.”
“You wouldn’t be talking out of both sides of your mouth, would you? Playing a game with myself and the CIA.”
“You have my word as a gentleman.”
“Very well, Laszlo. Enjoy the money.” The line went dead.
Szabo thought about taking a final step up on the riser, one more glance into the pit, but he decided against it. He hurriedly limped back down the hall, suitcase in hand.
He stepped to the small iron door, but it flew inwards as he reached for it. Bright lights shone into the Hungarian’s eyes, though it was dark and raining outside. In shock he leapt back, tripped over his bad leg, and fell onto his back. Squinting the lights away, he saw a team of men dressed in black, hooded faces, a half dozen gunmen with short-barreled weapons held to eye level. Protruding from each rifle was a powerful flashlight. The first man to him dropped onto a black kneepad. He lifted Szabo by the neck.
“Going somewhere?” He spoke softly in English. It was the CIA. Szabo could barely see eyes behind the operator’s goggles.
“I . . . I was waiting for you. Just putting the bag in the car, you see. I’ll be heading out after you boys finish.”
“Sure. Where’s the subject?”
Szabo was helped back to his feet. All the men in the narrow hall kept their weapons trained ahead.
“He’s in the front room, at the end of the hall. Step up on the riser and look down. He’s twelve feet down in the cistern, covered with a thick sheet of—”
“Show us.” Szabo read the man’s voice. There would be no negotiation. He turned and hobbled back up the hallway with the American paramilitaries.
Inside the low-lit room the leader of the SAD unit positioned his five men against the walls and stepped to the riser slowly. Laszlo urged him on, told him there was nothing to be afraid of, managed to drop the station chief’s name no less than three times as a way to let the CIA gunmen know he was “one of them.” Finally, the heavily armed and armored leader stepped up on the riser and peered warily over into the glass.
Laszlo called out, still trying to curry favor. “He probably has a gun, but he can’t use it while the lid is shut. He’d have to be quite a dancer to dodge a ricochet in that little space. Your boss promised Laszlo he’d be taken care of. Maybe I should call him and you can all have a talk so you see everything Laszlo’s done for your side. Laszlo the Loyal, he calls me.”
The tac team leader leaned over farther. Then farther. He took a knee over the Plexiglas. Turned slowly around, back to Szabo. “What the fuck is this?”
Laszlo did not understand. “What do you mean? It’s the Gray Man, all wrapped in a nice bow for my friends at the CIA—”
“Did you kill him?” asked the American operative, standing up now and turning to face the Hungarian.
“Of course not. Why do you ask me this?” Quickly the master forger hobbled on his cane towards the riser to see what was wrong.
Court had not sat as idly for the past seventy minutes as Szabo had presumed. As soon as the Hungarian left him alone, he’d pulled his necklace over his head, stripped off the thin leather to reveal a wire saw. He used this to cut away at the exposed water pipe below the mattresses. He’d cut it down in two places to where a few more passes of the wire’s teeth would open the pipe and fill the cistern with hot springwater in a matter of minutes.
Once this was done, Gentry pulled his pistol, ejected the round from the chamber, and retrieved the spare mags from his pants. Using his waterproof boots for a collection bin and the pliers on his multi-tool, he’d pulled each cartridge apart, poured the potassium nitrate-based gunpowder in the boot. When he had the powder from thirty of the thirty-one bullets he carried on his body collected, he disassembled one of his magazines, removed the spring, reattached the plate, filled it tight with gunpowder from his boot, and then placed the follower at the top, packing the explosive agent tighter in the metal magazine. Court used the magazine spring to bind the follower securely in place.
Lazlo checked in on him from time to time. The old cripple made so much noise climbing up on the wooden riser it was no trick for the Gray Man to stuff his arts-and-crafts project below a rotten mattress in time to avoid detection.
Next Gentry took off a sock, filled it with the empty cartridges, because the powder would not ignite without help from the primer each cartridge contained. He crammed the powder-filled magazine in the sock and lashed everything together tight with his bootlace.
In his fist he held it. It was a big, heavy sock and roughly the power equivalent of a hand grenade.
Gentry feverishly ripped several lengths of fabric from a mattress, tied them together to make a thin strand about ten feet long. He reloaded his Walther pistol with his one remaining round, left the magazine well empty, and tied the gun with more mattress strands to where the muzzle of the three-and-a-half-inch barrel was placed point-blank at the sock full of primers and explosive. The long strand he tied to the pistol’s trigger.
Finally, Gentry took off his pants. He tied the legs tight at the ankles and then again at the crotch. This created two chambers filled with air. They wouldn’t stay water tight for long, but long enough for Court’s needs. He used his last shoelace to tie the grenade to the pants. He sat with the pants draped over his legs so Laszlo would not easily notice he wasn’t still wearing them.
Lastly, he pulled wads of soggy foam from a mattress to use as earplugs when the time was right.
Satisfied with his preparations, Court waited.
Soon Szabo leaned over and said good-bye, then disappeared. This was the Gray Man’s cue. Frantically, the American cut the water pipe. Within a minute the cistern had filled more than knee-deep with water as hot as a bath. Court stood and held the grenade with the pistol affixed to it and the pants with the air chambers, all in his hands.
He stood there in his underwear and waited for the water to rise.
Within three minutes he floated up with the water and the mattresses, treading in place. After six minutes, the cistern was filled nearly to the top. He fought panic; he knew there was no guarantee his contraption would work or, even if it did, that it would be powerful enough to blow open the trapdoor.
When the water was three inches from the Plexiglas ceiling, Court forced himself to hyperventilate in the little space. He filled his lungs to capacity and then ducked down below the surface, positioned the floating bomb at one of the hinges. He pushed a mattress between himself and his bomb, then he swam down to the bottom of the cistern, one hand holding the line of mattress fabric that led to the pistol’s trigger and the other hand wrapped around the water pipe to hold him at depth. Looking up to make sure everything was in place, he saw his contraption had floated away from the hinge. Quickly, with depleting air reserves, he shot up to the top. Now there was no air here left to breathe. He fought the mattress to the side, repositioned the bomb, and struggled again to the bottom. The day-old gunshot wound in his right thigh burned with the flexion of his muscles. Panic, frantic exertion, and oxygen depletion all seemed to compete with one another to squeeze on his heart and crush it tight deep inside his body.
Finally he reached the water pipe and took hold. He looked back up and saw his device was in place.
Shortly before he pulled the cord, he saw a dark figure step onto the riser and kneel down, then turn back to face someone in the room.
The team leader said, “He must be dead. This hole is filled with—”
With a muted pop, the black-clad operator lifted into the air. The Plexiglas burst below his feet, white water sprayed in all directions, pieces of sharp plastic tore into the ceiling above. The operator crashed to the left of the riser, a tidal wave of warm water sloshing over him.
The other armed men dived for cover. Szabo fell on his back in the middle of the room.
The leader was alive. He scrambled to his knees and retrained his weapon on the riser to his left.
“Jesus! All elements, stand fast!” he shouted, his ear-drums ringing from the explosion.
Just then, small men in civilian attire and rifles held high poured into the room from the hallway, and gunfire erupted all around.
Laszlo Szabo was the first to die.
FIFTEEN
Even with his ersatz plugs, Court’s ears screamed from the pressure of the blast. He pushed off with his feet at the bottom of the cistern and shot to the surface. He had no idea who was waiting above for him. The CIA? Laszlo back for a last check on him? Ultimately, it didn’t matter; he needed air.
He’d built momentum on the way up, so when his head broke the surface of the water, he shoved open the plastic door. Both hinges were broken off, and the Plexiglas was cracked through. He sucked in a huge breath of air and scrambled over the side, rolling off the riser and down to the floor, enveloped in a wave of the warm water. He found himself along the wall in the back corner of the room. All around was the sound of close gunfire and shouting men, but Court could see no one around the platform’s edge. He rolled to his knees, into a low crouch, and bolted towards the back hallway, his wet feet slapping the linoleum. He didn’t take time to look back. Whatever was going down in this room, Gentry had no intention of getting in the middle of it with no firearm and no idea who the players were.
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