Court grabbed the Korean’s wrist with his own free hand and slammed it back into the brick wall.
“What’cha got?” Court asked, his voice quavering with pain and exertion. “What’s in the bag?” There was enough light for eye contact on this side of the covered alley, and their eye contact did not waver, though both men’s lids twitched with the expenditure of effort. One pushed forward, the other pushed back. “What’s in the bag?”
Gentry yanked sideways with the umbrella, pulled the Asian quickly off balance, used the moment to reach behind the man to the pack pressed against the wall. The American had to tighten his abdominals to do so, and his voice cracked as he groaned in agony.
The Asian turned the knife; the two-inch-deep wound opened with the twist and Gentry felt blood run freely across his crotch and down the insides of both legs.
“Ahhh.” It was quieter than a scream, but it echoed in the alleyway nonetheless. Court had the bag now and got a hand on a zipper. Kim knocked the hand away with the side of his head. Another head butt from Gentry stunned the assassin, and Court quickly opened the top of the backpack and reached inside with his left hand.
“What’s this? What’s this?” he asked as tears began streaming down his face. The tears dripped into the spit that sprayed from his sobbing mouth as he spoke. The discharge flew into his attacker’s face with his words. “This what you want? This what you’re after? Huh?” Court pulled the end of a small black sub gun from the bag, stared into the new fear in the eyes of his adversary. Kim reached back and got his hand around the squat suppressor of the weapon, then pushed harder on the knife hilt, Court tried to back off of the blade but could not, and the shaft sank another millimeter into his gut.
Court slid his finger into the trigger guard and fired the MP7. Kim had left the fire selector switch on semiauto, just as Gentry would have. The barrel was pointed at the brick wall behind Kim, and rounds exploded off the masonry and debris whizzed around them both. As fast as he could, Gentry pulled the trigger. Each ignition of a cartridge in the breach caused recoil, which made Court’s body jerk, which allowed the knife in his gut to bite into a new morsel of flesh and bone. Three rounds, five rounds, ten rounds, twenty rounds. Kim screamed in agony and let go of the weapon’s silencer, nearly white-hot now from the gunfire. He wrapped his burned hand around the hand that held the knife, and now with both clenched fists and all his might, he tried to force one last, fast, massive thrust of the blade through to the Gray Man’s spine.
The American’s blood pumped over his scorched fingers.
Gentry brought the empty HK down in one quick action, smashed the hot barrel into Kim’s face, breaking his nose.
Both men fell to the cobblestones, their connection finally broken. Kim lay on his back, head against the bullet-pocked wall, blood gushing out his nose, and his burned hand cradled in his lap. His chest heaved from exertion. Gentry lay on his side in the center of the alley, his chest also heaving, the black hilt of the black knife jutting obscenely from his lower abdomen.
Court tried to pull the knife free, cried out as he did so. The Asian, exhausted and stunned from the concussion, clambered to his knees and frantically crawled across the cold stones to close the distance between them.
At five feet he leapt into the air, desperate to get his hand on the knife before the Gray Man pulled it out of his stomach.
An instant before he landed on his target, the full length of the black knife’s blade appeared in the low light, slick, wet with blood. Court slashed it back-handed across the wide-eyed Asian’s throat as he came down. Arterial blood spewed forth.
Song Park Kim thrashed in the alleyway and died in seconds, his lower torso ending up across the Gray Man’s body.
Gentry dropped the knife on the cobblestones and pushed the dead man’s still-spasming legs off him. The body rolled unceremoniously onto its back, and all movement ceased. Court unfastened his tie with one hand and wadded it into a ball. He took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself and then pressed the ball down into the hole in his abdomen. Blood ran down his white shirt onto the pavement.
“Jesus!” he screamed, tears and spit and snot covering a face contorted with pain. He felt the nausea brought on by abject agony but quelled it by focusing on his work.
Normally he was careful about his DNA, but now he didn’t bother. It would take a bathtub of bleach, a five- man cleaning crew, and a full day to sanitize this scene, and Court had nothing of the sort.
The pressure of the wadded necktie actually reduced the pain when he flexed his abs; without it, he would not have been able to stand. But he did stand, stumbled, steadied himself on the alley’s wall, and shuffled on. He heard voices behind him. Passersby had been alerted by the noise of the scuffle. Police and killers would be here in seconds. He stumbled around the corner to a shopping passage. The stores were closed for the night, and there were no window shoppers. With his body slumped over, his face white, he staggered away from the orgy of blood behind him.
He moved north off into the cold night, his life’s blood draining down his leg and dripping onto the paving stones at his feet.
Thirty seconds later, one of the Botswanans shoved his way through a panicking crowd and found the Korean’s body, the dark alley a blood-dripping horror show in the beam of light from the African assassin’s tactical flashlight. He called it in to the Tech.
“There is a dead man here. He is Asian. Nearly decapitated.”
Lloyd and Riegel stood behind the Tech as the Botswanan assassin’s accented English came over the speakers.
Mr. Felix entered the room, stood back in the shadows, and watched intently.
The Tech flipped a switch on his bank of electronics in front of him. “Banshee 1. Do you read? Banshee 1, how do you copy?”
There was a shuffling sound on the speaker. Lloyd and Riegel looked up in hope.
“He can’t come to the phone right now, don’t bother to leave a message,” said a mocking African voice. The Botswanan had obviously pulled the radio set off the dead Korean and was speaking into it.
Riegel said, “The Korean was probably the best man we had on this job. His organization is going to be furious he was lost on this operation.”
“Fuck ’em,” snapped Lloyd. “They should’ve sent us someone who could complete the task. When they gave us only one man, I knew their heart wasn’t in this game.”
“You are an idiot, Lloyd. Do you have any idea what that assassin has done in his career?”
“Sure do. He left a greasy stain in a Paris alleyway. The rest I couldn’t give a flying fuck about.”
Just then the Botswanan hunter came back over the speakers. “There is a blood trail leading north. We’ll follow it; we’ll find him.”
“You see,” said Riegel. “Banshee 1 served his purpose.”
Three minutes later, a watcher came over the net. “Fifty-four to Tech.”
“Go ahead, Fifty-four.”
“I’m in a fourth-floor window near the Place Saint-Michel. I believe I am tracking the subject on my camera. I can send it to you for verification.”
It took ten seconds to make the connection. When the plasma monitor in the control room sparked to life, the lights of Paris shone brightly, silhouetting the Notre Dame Cathedral. The Seine was a glimmering ribbon bisecting the city. The camera did not seem to be centered on anything in particular.
“Where is he?” shouted Riegel the hunter, wild from the chase now, frantically searching for his quarry. “Fifty-four, tighten up on the subject!”
“Look at him. He’s toast!” shouted Lloyd with excitement. “Who do we have close by?”
The Tech answered before Lloyd finished posing the question. “The Kazakhs are thirty seconds out. You’ll see
