“Surely you are making this up.”
Lloyd ignored him and continued. “It was an ad hoc, special sanction tactical team, made up of what we call in the business, high-speed, low-drag operators. The very best of the very best. Not James Bond types. No, with these guys there was considerably more emphasis on the dagger and less on the cloak. For a few years they were the CIA’s best wet unit. They killed the ones we couldn’t render, they killed the ones from whom we did not expect to be able to extract much useful information, and they killed the ones whose deaths would sow the most fear in the hearts and minds of the terrorists.
“And then four years ago it went bad. Some say politics was involved; others are convinced Gentry screwed up an op and outlived his usefulness. Still others insist he turned dirty. For whatever reason, a burn notice went out on him. Then a shoot-on-sight directive. He was targeted by his former colleagues in the Special Activities Division. Gentry did not go quietly; he killed some Golf Sierra teammates intent on killing him and then went underground, off the grid. Spent time in Peru, Bangladesh, Russia, who knows where else. Within six months he was out of money. Went into the private sector, working for you, doing what he does best. Head shots and sliced throats. Sniper rifles and switchblades.”
There was a soft knock at the door to the office. Fitzroy’s secretary leaned in. “I’m sorry, sir. You have a call.” She shut the door behind her.
Fitzroy stood, and Lloyd followed. The young American said, “I can wait outside.”
“No need. Our business is done.”
“You would be making a big mistake by sending me away. I need you to have your extraction team terminate the Gray Man. If you don’t feel the offer I have extended is sufficient, I will make a few calls and see what I can do. What I cannot do, Mr. Fitzroy, is return to my employers without this matter resolved.”
Fitzroy had had enough. “Your company has misjudged. They can’t bribe me as they would some tin pot African dictator.”
A severe look came into the eyes of the young American. “Then I extend my apologies.” They shook hands, but the friendly gesture did not reach up to their cold eyes. As Lloyd walked towards the door, he detoured to the left and stepped over to a framed copy of the Economist article hanging on the wall. The title read, “Former Spymaster turns Corporate Security Tycoon.” Lloyd pointed to it and turned back to the older Englishman.
“Great article. Lots of information.”
He then regarded a photo on the wall of a younger Fitzroy with his wife and teenage son. “Your son has two daughters now, does he not? Lives here in London, a town house in Sussex Gardens, if I remember correctly from the Economist.”
“That was not in the Economist article.”
“Wasn’t it?” Lloyd shrugged. “Must have picked that up somewhere else. Good day, Sir Donald. We’ll be in touch. You may expect a package within the hour.”
He turned and disappeared through the door.
Fitzroy stood alone in his office for a moment.
Sir Donald did not scare easily, but he felt the unmistakable chill of fear.
FIVE
Two hours before dawn and already the abandoned airfield was sweltering hot. The hulking Lockheed L- 100 positioned at the end of the runway idled with its lights off so as not to be detected from a distance, but the flight crew sat in their seats and their hands twitched near the throttle. The propellers blew dry dust and sharp sand into the wind-worn faces and parched throats of the five men standing on the tarmac at the foot of the aircraft’s lowered ramp. All eyes were fixed to the south, out past the little shack of a terminal, out past the chain-link fence, and out into the infinite darkness of western Iraq.
The five men stood within feet of one another, but normal communication was impossible. Even at idle, the aircraft’s Allison four-blade engines filled the air with a steady hum that shook the earth. Without the Harris Falcon short-distance radios and the throat mikes, the men’s words would have been lost like the landscape beyond the reach of their night vision goggles.
Markham fingered the Heckler & Koch submachine gun hanging off his chest with his left hand and pressed the radio transmit button on his load-bearing vest with his right. “He’s late.”
Perini bit on the end of the tube hanging over his shoulder, sucked warm water from the half-empty bladder in his backpack. He spat most of it onto the sand-strewn airstrip in front of his boots. His Mossberg shotgun dangled unslung from his right hand. “If this mo-fo is supposed to be such hot shit, how come he can’t make his exfil on time?”
“He’s the shit all right. If the Gray Man is late, he has a good reason,” said Dulin, hands on his hips and his squat-barreled submachine gun horizontal on his chest. “Stay sharp; it’s just a short op. We pick him up, babysit him over the border, and then forget we ever saw the bastard.”
“The Gray Man,” McVee said with a degree of reverence. “He’s the guy who killed Milosevic. Snuck into a UN jail and poisoned the son of a bitch.” His MP5 submachine gun hung from a sling, the fat silencer pointing straight down at the tarmac. He propped his elbow on the butt of the squat weapon.
Perini said, “Nah, bro. You got it backwards. He killed the guy who killed Milosevic. Milosevic was going to name names. UN officials who helped him with the genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo. The UN sent a hitter in to poison old Slobo, and the Gray Man killed the hitter, after the fact.” He swigged and spat another mouthful of warm water. “The Gray Man is one bad son of a bitch. He don’t care, he don’t scare.”
Markham reiterated his earlier decree. “He’s fucking late, is what he is.”
Dulin looked at his watch. “Fitzroy said we might have to wait, and we might have to fight. Every hajji for fifty klicks is hunting Gray Man’s ass.”
Barnes had been silent, but now he spoke up. “I heard he did that job in Kiev.” He paced, farthest from the ramp of the aircraft, sweeping the dark with the three-power night vision scope on his M4 assault rifle.
“Bullshit,” said Dulin, and two of the others immediately agreed.
But McVee sided with Barnes. “That’s what I heard. The Gray dude did that shit solo.”
Markham said, “No way. Kiev was not a one-man op. It was a twelve-man A-team at the very least.”
Barnes shook his head in the dark. “Heard it was one gunner. Heard it was the Gray Man.”
Markham replied, “I don’t believe in magic.”
Just then there was a simultaneous crackle in the earpieces of the five men. Dulin held a hand up to silence his team, pressed the talk button on his chest rig. “Repeat last transmission.”
Another crackle. Then another, finally disjointed words popped through the static. “Thirty seconds… move… pursuit!” The voice was unrecognizable, but clearly the message was urgent.
“Is that him?” asked Barnes.
No one could say.
Again a burst of life from the comms, clearer now. They looked towards the open gate at the front of the little airfield. “I’m coming hard! Hold your fire!”
Dulin replied into the comm. “Your signal is intermittent. Say again your location?”
A pop of static. “… Northwest.”
Just then they heard a crash to the north and a honking horn. Everyone had been looking to the south. They turned their heads and gun barrels north to the sound of the noise and saw a civilian pickup truck, one headlight dead and black, smash through the fence and bounce out of the sand and onto the tarmac. The truck was moving at an incredible clip, directly towards the L-100.