Before him sat a large black sedan, a Mercedes S-class four-door with a black, all-leather interior.
Court figured the vehicle must have cost over one hundred thousand dollars.
“Thanks, Maurice,” he mumbled.
Opening the unlocked driver’s door, the Gray Man saw the keys were in the ignition. Looking at the dash, he noticed the car had fewer than four thousand miles on it. She was a beauty, and it would certainly make his eight- hour drive to Normandy quicker and more comfortable, but there were other ways to travel. No, what he really needed were weapons. In Europe they were far more difficult to come by than efficient means of transportation.
With anticipation, he popped the trunk of the Mercedes and walked to the back.
Four large aluminum cases stood side by side. Court pulled the first one on top of the others and flipped it open.
The corners of his mouth twitched upwards.
Heavy metal.
“My hero, Maurice,” he said.
An HK MP5, well-oiled and stored in a foam encasement; four magazines with thirty preloaded nine- millimeter rounds in each lay side by side in the foam; and two fragmentation hand grenades, one resting on either side of the MP5.
He loaded the submachine gun, chambered a round, and tossed it in the front seat of the Mercedes with all the spare magazines.
The second case contained two fragmentation and two flash-bang stun grenades, two door-breaching charges, and a small cube of Semtex plastic explosive with a remote detonating device. Court left this equipment in the trunk for now.
Brushed aluminum case number three housed a handheld GPS unit, two matched walkie-talkies, and a laptop computer. All this gear went into the backseat of the car.
In the final case Court found two Glock-19 nine-millimeter pistols and four loaded magazines.
Also in this container Court found a utility belt and two thigh rigs. One was for carrying a Glock on his right hip, and the other would hang on his left leg and hold magazines for the submachine gun and the pistol.
On a hunch he lifted the carpet up in the trunk of the Mercedes. There he discovered one more weapon, an AR-15 carbine assault rifle. Alongside the spare tire was a plastic container with three loaded magazines full of .223 ammunition, ninety rounds in all.
Court spent a few minutes powering up the sat phone and familiarizing himself with the GPS. All the while the police, fire department, and ambulance sirens continued to wail a quarter mile away at Maurice’s house.
This massive weapons cache told Gentry two things about his former mentor. One, though he was out of the CIA and living in the open, he still had some reason to believe he might need to blast his way out of a sticky situation.
And two, from the look of the top-notch automobile and the insane quantity and quality of the gear, it was apparent to Gentry that the rumors about his mentor had been true.
He
Maurice had surely known Gentry would come to this conclusion, yet still he offered up his cache to his young protege. It was the dying man’s last wish that Court use the hoard to get away and succeed in his mission, and not to judge him too harshly for it.
As Gentry pulled out of the garage, looked straight ahead through the tinted windows, and passed more first responders on their way to the crime scene on Rue de l’Eveche, his emotions were conflicted. Court had never misappropriated a dime in his life. He had never even run up per diem charges when working hits and black bag jobs for mobsters and drug dealers. No, he was a killer, but he was no thief. That Maurice had stolen from the company was disappointing, but in the end a great bit of those stolen funds Gentry planned to put to use. Court was at once both idealistic and pragmatic. Maurice’s thievery was wrong but, he told himself, he would not judge his old instructor too harshly. Instead, he’d redeem the old man’s honor, use every last goddamn bullet and gun to save the three innocents in Normandy and retrieve the personnel histories of all the assets in the Special Activities Division.
Riegel stood behind the Tech. Lloyd stood on his left. The young ponytailed man sat at his desk in front of computer monitors, headphones pressed to his ears.
From the expression on the young Brit’s face, the two men in charge of the operation could tell the news was not good.
The Tech said, “We have confirmation from our local sources that all of the South Africans are dead. There was a large explosion at the target location. Looks like it may have been a gas leak. No doubt brought on by gunfire or some other use of ordnance. The fire department is still working on the blaze; they don’t have a body count just yet, they only confirm there were no survivors. Multiple fatalities.”
Lloyd said, “Gentry?”
The Tech shook his head. “He was seen leaving the building minutes before the explosion.”
“Seen by?”
“A watcher who lost him in the crowd.”
“Come on!” screamed Lloyd. “Do I have to kill him myself?”
Riegel pulled his phone from his pocket and made a call. Waited a moment. “Yes, it’s me. I need a helicopter. Pick up the following items and get here before dark. Write all this down. Thermal imaging units, motion detectors, remote sensors, monitors, and cabling. You have all that?
“Also find Serge and Alain and get them on that helicopter. Tell them to grab anything else they need to put a three-hundred-sixty-degree electronic wall around Chateau Laurent.” Riegel hung up.
Lloyd stared at him. “What was all that about?”
“Electronic surveillance gear. Men to install and monitor it.”
“What’s it for?”
“It’s for Gentry. It’s for tonight.”
“There are still three hundred miles and thirty-five shooters between him and here. You don’t seriously think he’s going to make it through to the chateau, do you?”
“It’s my responsibility to ensure he dies. Whether he dies in Geneva, on a road in the French Alps, or out here on the lawn, it is my job to salvage your operation. I am going to use every instrument, every technical advantage, every warm body, and every gun I can put between his current location and his destination.”
The Tech looked up to the two men behind him. For the first time, the young Englishman showed emotion: fear. “Nobody said anything about him actually coming here. I’m not a field man, for Christ’s sake.”
Riegel looked down at him sternly. “Consider yourself promoted.”
The Tech turned back to his terminal.
Next Riegel called up to the tower and had the Belarusian sniper join him and Lloyd out in the back garden. The sniper met them by the fountain, his large Dragunov rifle cradled across his chest. Together they walked slowly past the bloodstained grass, towards the apple orchard that started at the end of the backyard and continued on for several hundred yards to the high stone wall that ringed the entire property. Riegel and the sniper sniffed the air, then knelt to the grass and put their hands in it. They looked at everything in their environment carefully. Lloyd just looked bored and annoyed.
Riegel spoke to the sniper in Russian. Lloyd stared off towards the orchard. “You understand the rules of engagement?”
“If it moves towards the chateau, shoot it.”
“That’s right.”
“Simple enough.”
Riegel’s hiking boots sank in the well-manicured lawn. He sniffed the air again. “Did you have fog this morning?”
“Yes. Visibility not more than two hundred yards. Couldn’t see as far as the apple trees until almost ten a.m.”
