beam. The curvature of the sharp spike sent it back out of his skin, a half inch on the other side of the stab wound.
Court screamed into the seat belt wedged in his mouth.
Justine took the thread with her gloved hand, pulled the instrument backwards the way it came, and re- threaded the needle. Even with a quarter dose of morphine going through her patient, she felt his teardrops on her arms as she made her second suture, close to the first.
For ten kilometers she continued. She did not look away from her work as she sewed him up, but she spoke to him in soothing French throughout, just as she would an injured dog. Above her, her patient winced and groaned. Miraculously, to her way of thinking, he continued to drive, execute gentle turns as needed, once even braking slightly. Justine assumed the road ahead and his need to concentrate on it was the only thing keeping him coherent.
She used gauze to swab away the blood as she worked, poured antiseptic from the bottle she’d staged between his legs to get a better view of the pumping wound.
Finally she said, “Almost done. I only have to pull it tight and tie it off. Just a few more seconds now.” Above her she heard him panting and sobbing. There was a rhythm to his sounds that distressed her; she knew he could go into shock at any time. “Here we go . . . I will be as gentle as possible.” She pulled on the thread, the wound closed beautifully, and the last of the bleeding stopped immediately. “Yes, perfect. Now I just tie it and—”
The tires below her ran over a series of bumps. The Mercedes’s suspension was awesome; she barely felt the rough surface. But when the bumps did not stop after several seconds, she looked up to check on her patient.
She was horrified to see his head hanging down just above her, his eyes closed.
Jim had passed out.
The black Mercedes ran off the road and crashed at five thirty a.m.
THIRTY-ONE
All ten Belarusian guards were on station around the property: six outside, two at ground-floor windows, and two in the tower above. Serge and Alain, the two electronic security engineers, sat in the ground-floor library, their bloodshot eyes scanning back and forth across the screens, watching the infrared images around the perimeter of the building. Every five minutes, they used walkie-talkies to communicate with the patrols.
The Libyans were the only hunter-killer squad still in the area. They fought exhaustion as their van patrolled Bayeux. They were certain by now they were out of the big money. The other teams who had been in the area had since been sent to Paris to search for the target, as had every pavement artist within 300 miles. The Libyans had been given a clear chance at the target back on the hillside in Switzerland, and they had failed, so now they were ordered to sit tight and wait, were facing a hundred-to-one odds at best they would get another crack at the Gray Man.
No one expected Gentry to make it to Bayeux now.
Riegel, Lloyd, the Tech, and Felix sat in the control room in low light, sipped coffee, and watched computer monitors displaying the rocking and bouncing images broadcast from digital video cameras held by the watchers and kill teams in Paris. The Tech was still organizing the search around the Seine. By now Riegel and Lloyd both conceded Gentry must have made it out of the water downstream and staggered off, so the net was widened and then widened again on both sides of the river.
By five thirty a.m., there was fresh news in Paris that generated a flurry of activity around the chateau. A watcher listening to police radio had learned about a break-in at a minor emergency clinic in the Fifth Ar rondissement. This was upstream from where the target went into the river, but the Tech had sent a watcher over to find out what he could. The owners of the clinic had arrived and announced the medicines and blood and equipment stolen were all items necessary for wound management.
Riegel stood behind the Tech. “We’ll have to split the search. Keep the Bolivians and the Sri Lankans in Paris. Tell the Botswanans to come here via the highway, see if they can spot him on the way. Send a helicopter up to pick up the Kazakhs. They are the most skilled gunners; I want them here. They can patrol the back roads around the property, checking anything that moves. And alert the Libyans in Bayeux! They need to stay there to watch the train station and the routes through town. If the Gray Man is somehow still in the fight, he’ll be here before daybreak.”
The Tech muttered to himself, “We bloody saw him. We bloody well saw him hurt. We bloody well saw him fall into the water.”
Lloyd slapped him on the back of the head as he stormed out of the room, heading downstairs to tell the men monitoring the infrared cameras that their target may be on the way.
“Please! Please, Jim! You must wake!”
Court Gentry opened his eyes. Above him, a figure loomed close in the dark. Instinctively, he reached out and took the figure’s neck and grabbed it tight and slammed it to the ground next to him as he tried to roll on top of it.
Court fell on Justine in the tall, wet grass.
“Sorry,” was all he could say as he climbed off of the French girl. He moved sluggishly, his body clearly impeded by drugs.
She was slow to get up as well. It was dark, and he could make out her wide eyes best of all. She sat up next to him finally, and he looked away uncomfortably. He took stock of his surroundings.
He was seated in wet grass, both of their backs leaned against the Mercedes. They were in a field, the black sedan four-fifths through a thicket. Gentry assumed the road was on the other side. The glow of the moon was diffused by the mist above him, but he could make out the lumbering movement of cows in the muddy field near the car.
The air was cold.
“What . . . what is . . . Where are we?”
“I could not wake you. We are west of Caen, still thirty minutes from Bayeux.”
“Shit. What time is it?” The American slowly remembered his mission, as if it appeared from out of the fog of his drug-addled brain.
“It is almost seven. The sun will be up in under an hour.”
“We crashed, didn’t we?”
“No, monsieur,
It was coming back to him, but slowly. He put his hand down to his injured belly, though it was barely hurting at the moment. He wore a clean brown shirt. Through it he could feel bandages cinched tight.
He looked down at his new pants. “You dressed me?”
Justine looked away, out to the dark field. “I found the clothes in a bag in the car. After the wreck.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Not bad. Some bruises. We were lucky. You ran off the road onto a cow path through the hedgerow. We crashed through these trees. The car is stuck. After the wreck I gave you a little medicine, bandaged you, and dressed you. We have been here ever since. A little while ago a helicopter flew over. It scared me. I thought maybe they are looking for us.”
Court’s head was clearing by the second; he was back with it now. “I’ll never make it in time.”
“You told me eight a.m. We can still make it before then.”
“I needed to be in position before the sun came up.” Gentry sighed, let it go. He stood slowly, found it less difficult than he expected. “What did you give me?”
I gave you some painkillers, and I put bandages very tight around your waist to lower the pain.”
Gentry was checking the wrappings through the shirt as she spoke. “Good. I don’t feel too bad.”
“It won’t last. The pain will return soon. I did not give you the other drug. Zee DextroStat. I read zee bottle. It is a very strong amphetamine. If you take one of those pills, your blood pressure will increase. If my stitches are
