“That will be discussed when you arrive.”
The pause lasted long enough for Fitzroy to hear snippets from the second floor of the château below him. Elise was yelling at Phillip. Sir Donald knew the marriage was rocky, knew this pressure was the last thing they needed.
Finally Gentry spoke. “Do what you have to do, Lloyd. Put my documents out there; I don’t give a shit. I’m done with this.”
“Very well. I’ll spray your data to the world. Within a week, every mobster you’ve wronged, every enemy agency you’ve run against, every grumpy assassin you’ve beat out for a contract, they all will be after you. It will make the last forty-eight hours look like a vacation in a day spa.”
“I can handle it.”
“And Fitzroy dies. His family dies. Can you handle that?”
A slight hesitation. “He shouldn’t have screwed me.”
“Okay. You are a hard man, Court, I get it. But there is just one other thing I forgot to mention. Yours were not the only personnel files I filched from the agency. If you do not come to Normandy, I will distribute the names, photographs, and known associates files of all the operators in the Special Activities Division, active, inactive, retired, or otherwise indisposed. Every company triggerman will become just like you: burned, hunted, left hung out to dry because their services have been rendered useless and their names are popping up on every search engine on the Internet.”
It was a long time before Gentry spoke. “What the fuck is all this about? Why would you do that, just to get to me?”
“This isn’t just about you, you arrogant shit! You are insignificant in the scope of the real objective. But I need you here. I need you here, or I will scorch the earth clean of America’s best covert operators. I’ll see that every SAD asset and all their known associates are hunted dogs!”
Court Gentry said nothing. Fitzroy cocked his head, thought he could hear the clacking cadence of a train over tracks in the background of the connection.
Lloyd next said, “Of course, it will take a few days to dump all the personnel files of you and the SAD boys onto the net. There’s so damn much of it. I’ll have to start with something else. If you’re not here bright and early tomorrow morning, the first to check out will be the Fitzroy family downstairs. I figure I’ll begin with the little ones. The first-in, first-out principle. Know what I mean? I’ll kill the babies, kill the parents, and then top off my morning by killing old man Fitzroy here.”
Gentry spoke up finally. “If you touch Claire or Kate, I will find you, and I will torture you so slowly that the only prayer on your lips will be for a quick death.”
Lloyd clapped his hands. “That’s what I like to hear! Emotion! Passion! Well, you’d better get here in time for eggs and biscuits tomorrow, because snapping the necks of those pretty little girls will be the first order of business after breakfast!”
Fitzroy had been silent, sullen. He’d sat to the side during the conversation like a forgotten dog. But when Lloyd spoke his last piece, Sir Donald launched from his Louis XV chairand onto the American and grabbed at the young man’s throat. Freshly led wires to the computers and speakers became caught up in their legs, and equipment was ripped from the table. Lloyd’s swivel chair flipped up as the two crashed to the ground. Sir Donald tore off Lloyd’s wire-rimmed glasses and smashed his fists into the taut cheekbones of his adversary’s face.
It took almost ten seconds for the two Northern Irish guards to enter the room and pull the heavy Englishman off the young American solicitor. When finally they were separated, Fitzroy was shoved back in his chair. The two Scottish guards next rushed in and held his head and his arms. Shouts and screaming echoed all over the third floor as one of the Belarusians came up with chains found in the garage alongside the greenhouse. Fitzroy was strapped roughly into his chair, but he still fought against them all as chains were run over the arms and legs of the Louis XV and tightly around the arms and legs of Sir Donald. The cold steel links were strung around his neck, another loop at his forehead. Everything was secured with a huge padlock.
All the while Lloyd remained on the floor. He’d sat up, breathing heavily, pushed his hair back in place, and retightened his necktie. He found his glasses on the floor, bent the arms a bit to approximate their original shape, and put them back on. His face was scratched slightly, his arms and chin and neck were bruised, but he was otherwise uninjured.
Finally he climbed back into his chair and rolled back up to the desk near the telephone.
“Sorry, Court. Some technical difficulties there. We’re back with you. You still there?”
But Gentry had hung up.
Lloyd looked to Fitzroy. Fitzroy looked to Lloyd, basically because he could look nowhere else with his head immobilized with chains.
“He’d better stay on track, Don. He’d better stay on track, or you and your family are going to die slow and miserable fucking deaths! You take me for some Ivy League lightweight? So did the CIA. I was shuffling policy papers while the door kickers got all the glory. Well, fuck them, and fuck you! I can play as dirty as the best of the dirty tricks boys. I can and I will do what I need to do to see this through. Abubaker will sign the contract, and we’ll be readying our natural gas operation by noon tomorrow. You and yours will be forgotten by me. Between now and then you can live or you can die, I could not give a rat’s ass which. It’s your decision, Donny boy. Pull that shit again, and see if I give you a third chance.”
“Courtwillstay on track. He will come. And he will kill you.”
“He won’t make it here. But even if he does, the Gray Man who makes it here will be a very different man than the one you know. He’ll be hurt, short on time, short on sleep, short on gear.”
“Gear?”
“Yes. These types are lost without their gear.”
Sir Donald chuckled angrily. “You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. Court’s most valuable piece of kit is between his ears. The only weapon he needs is his mind. Everything else: guns, knives, bombs... they’re all just accessories.”
“Ridiculous. You’ve bought into the fairy tale of tactical operators. A glorified goon is all he is.”
“It’s no fairy tale, and there is no glory in what he does. He’s a man at work and as cold and as brutal and as efficient as a corner butcher going about his business. Get in his way, and you’ll see.”
“Oh, I have every intention of getting in his way.”
