The Gray Man (24 page)
It had been an awful day and an awful night, and now that Claire had awakened, she knew it had been no bad dream, and today would likely be just as horrid.
As Claire sat at the edge of her bed in the low light and worried, she thought she heard a funny noise in the distance. Soon it was louder, came closer to the château. The skies above her home in London were filled with helicopters, so it didn’t take her long to identify the distinctive sound of a propeller.
She stood with her face to the window. The helicopter came over the woods on the far side of the big fountain in the big back garden. Its black rotors spun above its white body as it approached the far edge of the gravel car park, then it turned to the side, landed on its wheels, and sank down. The door on the side opened, and four men in suits climbed out.
The whipping wind of the helicopter blew open one man’s suit coat, and even from sixty meters Claire could see the pistol holster against the man’s white shirt.
More men with guns.
As the blades whipped above them, four more men stepped out of the chopper. The first man was black and wore a brown suit. The next man hauled two suitcases. He had a long ponytail and ran forward towards the château. Then came a man carrying a briefcase. He was thin and wore a black suit with a raincoat over it. His shiny black hair was short and messy in the wind, and Claire could tell, even in the distance, that he was someone important. The way he looked about, stormed forward on the balls of his feet, and gestured to those around him.
The next man who exited the helicopter was larger, older, bald except long white hair around his ears that lashed around below the spinning propellers. Claire pressed her face to the glass, squinted to get a better look.
Then she shouted out loud, waking Kate behind her with a start, though she’d somehow managed to sleep through the helicopter’s approach and landing.
“Grandpa!”
Fitzroy was allowed a minute with his son and daughter-in-law in the kitchen on the ground floor of the château. Phillip and Elise were subdued and confused and a little too scared to be angry.
From there he was shuffled up to the third floor to a large room that was set up similar to the conference room at the LaurentGroup subsidiary in London. There was a seat for him, a big Louis XV armchair. Lloyd had his own chair, a sleek, black, modern model. The Tech was already on station, setting up equipment on a long bank of tables that had been hauled in from other rooms and pushed together to suit his needs. He was just now flipping switches on laptops and radio sets, bringing the new operation’s center online.
The room had three doors leading from it. One was to an adjoining bathroom, the second was to the main hall, and the third, Fitzroy noted when one of the Belarusian guard force came through it to speak privately with Lloyd, was the entrance to a small spiral staircase that surely went both up towards the tower above them and continued down to the lower floors.
The new arrivals from London were still just settling in when Sir Donald’s phone vibrated on the table next to his chair. A wire ran from it to a speaker box on the table. As Lloyd pushed the button to answer, the Tech shouted to the room that he was not yet ready to trace the call.
“Cheltenham Security,” said Sir Donald. His voice was tiring, scratched.
“It’s me,” said the Gray Man.
“How are you, lad?”
There was a long pause. Finally, “You told them about Guarda.”
Fitzroy did not deny it. He said softly, wearily. “Yes, I did. I am truly sorry.”
“Not as sorry as you’re gonna be when your family dies. Good-bye and good luck, Don.”
Lloyd stood in the middle of the room. Quickly he walked to the table, leaned over the phone, and spoke. “Good morning, Courtland.”
There was no reply on the line for so long that Lloyd picked up the little phone and looked at it to see if the call was still open.
“Who the hell is this?”
“Court, you may not want to be so hard on the good knight here. I am afraid I put him in an utterly untenable position.”
“Who are you?”
“You don’t recognize my voice?”
“No.”
“We used to work together. It’s Lloyd.”
There was nothing.
Lloyd continued, “From Langley. Back in the halcyon days, you know.”
“Lloyd?”
“That’s right. How have you been?”
“I don’t remember a Lloyd.”
“Come now, Mr. Gentry. It hasn’t been that long. I worked for Hanley, helped run you and some of the other assets on the sharp end back in the Goon Squad days.”
“I remember Hanley. Don’t remember you.”
Fitzroy could see that Lloyd was genuinely offended. “Well, you knuckle draggers and door kickers never were known for your social IQ.” He looked over at Sir Donald. Embarrassed, perhaps? He waved a dismissive hand. “Doesn’t matter. What does matter is, even though you may feel disinclined to come here to Normandy to help your fearless leader, you might consider keeping your current travel itinerary for now. Because, let me assure you, there
is
still something here you
do
want.”
is
still something here you
do
want.”
“There’s nothing I want bad enough to knowingly walk into a trap. Good-bye, Floyd.”
“It’s Lloyd, no
F
, double
L
, and you might want to stay on the line to hear my sales pitch.”
F
, double
L
, and you might want to stay on the line to hear my sales pitch.”
“Were you the one who put out the burn notice on me four years ago?” asked Gentry. His voice was measured and sounded dispassionate over the phone, but Fitzroy knew a question like that must come filled with emotion and intensity.
“No. I didn’t burn you. At the time I disagreed with the decision. I thought you still could have been useful to us.”
“So who burned me? Hanley?”
“That’s a discussion for another day. Maybe we’ll talk it over when you get here.”
“It’s a date. Bye.”
“At the moment you should be less worried about who burned you in ’06, and more worried about who will burn you tomorrow if you don’t drop in for a visit.”
Gentry snorted into the phone. “Can’t be burned twice.”
“Sure you can. When I left the agency, I took out a little insurance policy. I saw what happened to you and a few other men. I knew what barbarity the politicians who run the company were capable of when a heretofore successful operation falls out of favor with the men and women who have to testify before Congress. I told myself, ‘Lloyd, you’re too smart to go down like dumb old Court Gentry and the others.’ So I did what I had to do to ensure my survival.”
“You stole secrets.”
“Like I said, I’m a survivor.”
“You’re a traitor.”
“Same thing. I copied documents detailing operations, sources and methods, personnel files.”
“Personnel files?”
“Yes. I have them with me right now.”
“Bullshit.”
“Just a moment.” Fitzroy watched Lloyd thumb through some papers in a gold folder on the table. There was a stack of similar folders alongside the one the young American picked up. “Gentry, Courtland A. Born 4/18/74 in Jacksonville, Florida. Parents Jim and Lyla Gentry. One brother, deceased. Entered grammar school in—”
“That’s enough.”
“I’ve got more. I’ve got it all. Your agency history with the Special Activities Division and the Autonomous Asset Development Program. Your Golf Sierra exploits. Your known associates. Photos, fingerprints, dental records, et cetera, et cetera.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to come to Normandy.”
“Why?”
“That will be discussed when you arrive.”
The pause lasted long enough for Fitzroy to hear snippets from the second floor of the château below him. Elise was yelling at Phillip. Sir Donald knew the marriage was rocky, knew this pressure was the last thing they needed.
Finally Gentry spoke. “Do what you have to do, Lloyd. Put my documents out there; I don’t give a shit. I’m done with this.”
“Very well. I’ll spray your data to the world. Within a week, every mobster you’ve wronged, every enemy agency you’ve run against, every grumpy assassin you’ve beat out for a contract, they all will be after you. It will make the last forty-eight hours look like a vacation in a day spa.”
“I can handle it.”
“And Fitzroy dies. His family dies. Can you handle that?”
A slight hesitation. “He shouldn’t have screwed me.”
“Okay. You are a hard man, Court, I get it. But there is just one other thing I forgot to mention. Yours were not the only personnel files I filched from the agency. If you do not come to Normandy, I will distribute the names, photographs, and known associates files of all the operators in the Special Activities Division, active, inactive, retired, or otherwise indisposed. Every company triggerman will become just like you: burned, hunted, left hung out to dry because their services have been rendered useless and their names are popping up on every search engine on the Internet.”
It was a long time before Gentry spoke. “What the fuck is all this about? Why would you do that, just to get to me?”
“This isn’t just about you, you arrogant shit! You are insignificant in the scope of the real objective. But I need you here. I need you here, or I will scorch the earth clean of America’s best covert operators. I’ll see that every SAD asset and all their known associates are hunted dogs!”
Court Gentry said nothing. Fitzroy cocked his head, thought he could hear the clacking cadence of a train over tracks in the background of the connection.
Lloyd next said, “Of course, it will take a few days to dump all the personnel files of you and the SAD boys onto the net. There’s so damn much of it. I’ll have to start with something else. If you’re not here bright and early tomorrow morning, the first to check out will be the Fitzroy family downstairs. I figure I’ll begin with the little ones. The first-in, first-out principle. Know what I mean? I’ll kill the babies, kill the parents, and then top off my morning by killing old man Fitzroy here.”
Gentry spoke up finally. “If you touch Claire or Kate, I will find you, and I will torture you so slowly that the only prayer on your lips will be for a quick death.”
Lloyd clapped his hands. “That’s what I like to hear! Emotion! Passion! Well, you’d better get here in time for eggs and biscuits tomorrow, because snapping the necks of those pretty little girls will be the first order of business after breakfast!”
Fitzroy had been silent, sullen. He’d sat to the side during the conversation like a forgotten dog. But when Lloyd spoke his last piece, Sir Donald launched from his Louis XV chair and onto the American and grabbed at the young man’s throat. Freshly led wires to the computers and speakers became caught up in their legs, and equipment was ripped from the table. Lloyd’s swivel chair flipped up as the two crashed to the ground. Sir Donald tore off Lloyd’s wire-rimmed glasses and smashed his fists into the taut cheekbones of his adversary’s face.
It took almost ten seconds for the two Northern Irish guards to enter the room and pull the heavy Englishman off the young American solicitor. When finally they were separated, Fitzroy was shoved back in his chair. The two Scottish guards next rushed in and held his head and his arms. Shouts and screaming echoed all over the third floor as one of the Belarusians came up with chains found in the garage alongside the greenhouse. Fitzroy was strapped roughly into his chair, but he still fought against them all as chains were run over the arms and legs of the Louis XV and tightly around the arms and legs of Sir Donald. The cold steel links were strung around his neck, another loop at his forehead. Everything was secured with a huge padlock.
All the while Lloyd remained on the floor. He’d sat up, breathing heavily, pushed his hair back in place, and retightened his necktie. He found his glasses on the floor, bent the arms a bit to approximate their original shape, and put them back on. His face was scratched slightly, his arms and chin and neck were bruised, but he was otherwise uninjured.
Finally he climbed back into his chair and rolled back up to the desk near the telephone.
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