He strummed his fingers on a little notebook full of pencil scratches. Then he looked up. “Yes. I suppose you could pass as a Kiwi. I’ve had a few New Zealand passports for a long time. Most of my clients these days are Africans or Arabs . . . Can’t pull off a Kiwi, needless to say. Like I said, these books have been around a while, but Laszlo can doctor the serial number when I put in your information without tainting the hologram. No way it can be traced back to a missing lot.”
“Fine.”
Szabo sat back down and blew out a sigh that showed Gentry the movement was tiring and uncomfortable for him. “Five thousand euros.”
Gentry nodded, pulled the money from his pack, showed it to Laszlo, but did not hand it over.
“What about your appearance? I can photograph you as you are, or we can create something more professional.”
“I’d like to clean up first.”
“I’ve got a shower. A razor. A suit coat and tie that should fit you. You ready yourself while Laszlo works on the papers.”
Court walked down a hall and sniffed his way to a bathroom that reeked with body odor and mildew. The shower was equipped with soap and razors and shears, all laid out for operators and illegal immigrants and criminals who needed to camouflage their nastiness for a few minutes in order to pose for a photograph intended to portray them to cops and border control agents as little Lord Fauntleroys. For the first time in three months Gentry shaved his beard. He’d laid his Walther on the little shelf with the shampoo and the razors. It was covered with lather by the time he finished.
Gentry cleaned up his shavings. He saw each brown hair as DNA evidence, so he spent more time collecting his beard than he had cutting it off.
He looked at himself in the mirror while he combed his brown hair to the right in a wet part that would disappear when it dried. He was aging in the face, the creases of sun and wind and life itself deepening into his skin. He could tell he’d lost weight since he’d begun the Syrian operation, and soft bags of discoloration hung under his eyes.
When he was twenty-six, he’d once gone four days without sleep. He’d been tracking an enemy agent in Moscow and was following him to a dacha in the country, when Court’s piece of shit two-door Lada broke down in the snow. The Gray Man had to stay on the move overland to keep from freezing to death.
Now, at thirty-six, he feared he looked much worse after four days of work than he did back then when his extraction team pulled him, half-frozen, out of the ice and into a helicopter.
After he dried off, he pulled his rain-soaked pants back on. He was careful to keep the soggy bandage in place on his leg. He cinched his belt and climbed into his boots and socks. He dressed in a white dress shirt Laszlo had left out for him that was too small for his neck, tied the cheap tie with it carefully, a big knot covering the open collar. A blue jacket that felt like cardboard bunched at his shoulders. He didn’t even try to button it. Court slid his pistol onto his hip, tossed the extra mags and his multi-tool in his pocket, and went back into Laszlo’s lab.
Szabo sat in a wheelchair at a drafting table, leaning over an open passport with a razor. He looked up at his customer for a long moment. “Quite a metamorphosis.”
“Yeah.”
“Sit for the picture, please.” There was a small plastic chair on a riser in front of a blue background hanging from the ceiling. A digital camera on a tripod was connected to a computer on a desk a few feet away.
Court stepped up on the hollow wooden riser and sat in the chair. He fumbled with his coat and tie while Szabo rolled the wheelchair into position behind the camera. “We need to think of a name for the passport. A good Kiwi name.”
“It’s up to you. Whatever is fine.”
The camera flashed, and Gentry began to stand.
“A couple more, please.”
He sat back down.
“I have a name for you. Don’t know if you will like it.”
“Anything is—”
“It’s flashy. Dramatic. Mysterious.”
“Well, I don’t think I need—”
“Why don’t we call you Gray Man?”
Gentry stared blankly into the camera as it flashed in his face.
Shit.
Szabo glared at him.
Gentry began to stand.
He felt movement in his seat. He had shifted his weight to his feet, but his heels felt like they were dropping, Before he could react, his arms flew up to his sides, his borrowed coat bunched up higher on his neck, and his knees raised in front of his eyes. He was falling backwards, the plastic chair sliding back with him. The light around him vanished, and he dropped into darkness, finally landing on his side, his fall cushioned by something soft and wet.
The impact, though cushioned by padding, still knocked the wind from his lungs. Reactively he leapt to his feet, pulled the pistol from his hip, and spun in all directions to both engage any threats and get his bearings.
It was a brick-lined pit, a cistern of some sort. Looking up, he saw he’d fallen twelve feet or so from where the riser had opened up to swallow him. Before he could reach for it, the chair raised into the air, its leg held with a thin chain. It clanged back over the edge of the riser and disappeared. A Plexiglas trapdoor closed above him, sealing him into the dank container.
Slowly, Szabo leaned over the side, looked down through the plastic at his captive, and smiled.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” shouted Gentry in utter frustration.
“I presume you are armed. Beasts like you usually are. You might want to think before firing a weapon in there.” Szabo used the tip of his cane to tap the clear lid over the hole. “Two inches of hardened Plexiglas; you’ll be dodging your own ricochets.” He then tapped his forehead with a bony finger. “Don’t be stupid.”
“I don’t have time for this, Szabo!”
“On the contrary. A little time is all you have left.” Szabo backed away from view.
THIRTEEN
Gentry ripped off the jacket, the tie, the shirt, and looked around the pit. It was a seven-foot-wide circle, seemed to be some sort of old sewage well. A cylindrical wall of stone around him too sheer and slick with mildew to climb. The mattresses on which he’d fallen were smelly and rotting. There was a drainage problem to be sure. He looked under the mats and discovered an old iron water pipe. He wrapped his hand around it and found it to be hot. Budapest’s thermal baths were a tourist draw; this pipe likely pumped hot springwater from one location to another. Water pushed through it, dripping and steaming a little where it disappeared into the wall.
Court looked up and around. This would be a particularly awful place to die.
Ten minutes later, Szabo returned. He stood over Court and smiled.
Gentry said, “Whatever you are planning on doing—”
“I remember you. You thought I’d forget? Two thousand four. Central Intelligence Agency super special A team.”
Court knew Szabo had not seen his face in the operation in ’04. Still, he shouted, “That’s right, and my field team knows where I am right now.”
“Pathetic. You aren’t with the agency anymore.”
“Where did you hear that?”
The sixty-year-old Hungarian disappeared for a minute. He returned above the pit, placed a sheet of paper facedown on the glass six feet above his prisoner’s head.
Gentry looked up at his own face, an old head shot taken by the CIA for some dirty documentation. Above the photo were the words, “Wanted for questioning by Interpol.” It was just a photo and a description. His name was not given.
