The Gray Man

there was the man alone in his parked car. He was Middle Eastern, strummed his fingers on the dash like he was listening to music, watched the crowd as they passed. Number four stood at the bus stop in front of the Luxembourg Gardens, like he was waiting for a bus, but he never even glanced at the front of any of the buses that pulled up to see where they were going.

Five stood on a second-floor balcony, held a camera with a lens the size of a baguette, and pretended to take photos of the vibrant intersection, but Court wasn’t buying it for a second. His “shots” were up and down the pavement below him and across the street at the alcove. Nothing of the well-lit Pantheon up the road to his left. Nothing of the typically French produce stands and the beautiful iron fencing around the Luxembourg Gardens.

And number six was a woman, alone, in the cafe just a few tables ahead of Gentry. He’d made sure to get a table towards the back but near the window that ran along the side of the eatery. From here he could keep an eye on everyone in the room with him while covering his face with the paper, and yet still look to his right to Van Zan’s place and those around it. She had done the same thing, sitting just ahead.

Number six was slick. She spent 80 percent of her time looking down to her big, foamy mocha, not bouncing every glance out the window. But her mistake was her dress and her attitude. She was French—he could tell by clothes and countenance—but she was alone and did not seem to know anyone in the cafe. A pretty French girl in her twenties who spent Saturday night alone, away from friends but still out in the crowd, in a cafe unfamiliar to her, in a part of town she did not know.

No, Court determined, she was a pavement artist, a watcher, a follower, paid to sit there and keep her big doughy eyes peeled.

After eating his little sandwich and finishing his coffee, after giving up on his great plan to set up a foolproof escape route after saving the Fitzroys, he decided he needed to get away, get out of town, get up to Bayeux and work something out. His spirits had ebbed to their lowest point since yesterday morning—he was even more dejected than he’d been when sitting in the moldy pit in Laszlo’s laboratory—but Gentry knew the absolute worst thing he could do right now was sit and sulk. He dropped a wad of euro notes on his table and slipped down a back hall to the bathroom. After relieving himself, he continued down the hall, ducked into the kitchen like he belonged, walked straight to a back door and then through it onto the Rue Monsieur le Prince.

No one in the kitchen looked up at the man in the black suit.

The Gray Man had that ability.

Five minutes later, Riegel stood again on the walkway on the roof and stared through the crenellations at the moonlit gardens. The scent of the apple orchard in the distance mixed with the cold darkness. Riegel hoped to clear his head a bit, to get away from Lloyd and the Tech and the Belarusians and the incessant radio reports from the watchers in Paris who had yet to see anyone and the kill squads who had yet to kill anyone. His phone chirped in his pocket. His first inclination was to ignore the call. It was probably one of the foreign intelligence service chieftains wondering why their team hadn’t checked in and how the fuck they could have all been wiped out working on a commercial job. Riegel knew he’d spend months or years smoothing over this catastrophe, and that was only if the Lagos contract did get signed by eight a.m. If not, and Riegel did not want to even think of this, but if not, he’d likely lose his job or at least his position. Laurent had too much riding on this to not put every possible pressure to bear.

Riegel felt like his head was on the chopping block much like Lloyd’s. Not literally like Lloyd. Riegel was certain Laurent would eventually order Riegel to have Lloyd killed if the operation failed. Riegel would not die for this fiasco like the young American, but still, his career would be ruined if his corporation’s excesses in Africa were brought to light by that shameless son of a bitch, Julius Abubaker.

The phone rang again. With a sigh that blew vapor into the night, he pulled the phone from his pocket.

“Riegel.”

“Sir, it’s the Tech. There’s a call for you on the landline. I can send it to your mobile.”

“The landline? You mean the chateau’s phone?”

“Yes, sir. Wouldn’t say who he was. He’s speaking English.”

“Thank you.” A click. Riegel asked, “Who is speaking, please?”

“I am the guy you just can’t quite seem to kill.”

A chill ran up Kurt Riegel’s spine. He did not know Fitzroy had given his name to the Gray Man.

After a moment to collect himself, he said, “Mr. Gentry. It is an honor to speak with you. I have followed your career and consider you a very formidable adversary.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“I’ve been looking over your file.”

“Interesting?”

“Very.”

“Well, read up, Kurt, because I intend to pull my file out of your cold, dead hands.”

Kurt Riegel chuckled aloud. “What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to make a social call.”

“I have hunted all manner of quarry in my life, big and small, including quite a few humans. This is the first time I have had a social conversation with my prey shortly before the kill.”

“Same here.”

There was a short pause. Then Riegel laughed. His laughter carried across the dark expanse of the chateau’s rear garden. “Oh, I am your prey now?”

“You know I am coming for you.”

“You won’t make it, and if you somehow do make it to Normandy, you certainly won’t make it to me.”

“We’ll see.”

“We know you are in Paris.”

“Paris? What are you talking about? I’m standing right behind you.”

“You are a funny man. That surprises me.” Riegel said it with a chuckle, but he could not help himself from looking back over his shoulder and at the empty walkway around the chateau’s roof. “We have all your known associates covered with literally dozens of watchers.”

“Really? I wouldn’t know.”

“Yes. You must be going from one old friend to the next. You are identifying my surveillance teams because you are good, but you are not good enough to become invisible. So you must turn away from your potential source of aid. Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”

“Proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

“As soon as we see you, we will swoop down. I have nearly as many guns in Paris as I do sets of eyes.”

“Lucky for me, I’m not in Paris.”

Riegel paused. When he spoke again, his tone had changed. “I want you to know, Phillip Fitzroy’s death was a regrettable accident. I was away at the time. It should not have happened.”

“Don’t bother to try to charm me with professionalism. That won’t save you when I come. You and Lloyd both are dead men.”

“So you continue to say. You should know, I recovered the telephone Sir Donald took from the guard. Your intelligence source from inside the chateau has been eliminated.”

Court said nothing.

“It’s looking bleak for your side, my friend.”

“It is. Maybe I’ll just walk away. Give up.”

Riegel considered this. “I don’t think so. When you went south to Geneva, I thought perhaps you were leaving the chase. But no. You are a hunter, as am I. It is in your blood, isn’t it? You can’t turn away. You have your quarry, your objective, your raison d’etre. Without men like Lloyd and me to target, you would be a sorry soul, indeed. You will not walk off into the morning. You will come for us, and you will die along the way. You must know this, but you would rather be killed by your prey than give up the hunt.”

“Perhaps we can make an alternate arrangement.”

Riegel smiled. “Ah. Now we come to the reason for your call. Not just being social, then. I am listening with interest, Mr. Gentry.”