Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
The four Kazakhs wore small Ingram machine pistols with folding wire stocks under their winter coats.
Their running stood out to a policeman, and he called out to them as they sprinted across the street.
He took them for foreigners up to no good and made a few hand motions to tell them to slow down.
One member of each kill squad also carried a digital video camera attached via Bluetooth connection to their mobile phones. This way they could prove to those at the command center that they were the unit responsible for the termination of the subject and the team who warranted the top prize.
This was, after all, still a contest.
Each team knew from their earpieces that the other was approaching the last known whereabouts of the target from the opposite direction; this rushed them as much as the need to close on the target before he disappeared.
This was more than a hunt—it was a competition, and to these teams, professional pride meant as much to them as did winning the money.
“All elements, this is the Tech. We have two watchers three blocks east of the last target sighting. Neither watcher has reported any signs of the target. He may have stepped into a hotel or café on the street, turned south into the Latin Quarter, or north towards the Pont Neuf to cross the river.”
Both teams, closing from opposite directions, slowed and conferred after getting this last intel from the Tech.
Then both teams continued on. The Botswanans ran east on the Saint Germaine, the Kazakhs west on the Saint Germaine.
They spread out to cover both sides of the street in groups of two or three, each small team of hunters looking in doorways, alleyways, cafés, and hotels along the way.
—
Song Park Kim ran along the roofs of the buildings, got ahead of his quarry’s last sighting. His earpiece came to life. From the distinctive beeps, the Korean could tell the transmission was not open to the other teams and watchers. He was the only one receiving.
“Tech to Banshee 1, do you read?”
“I read.”
“Find a way down to street level, and I will guide you to him. He’ll ID the other teams and the watchers and try to get away. They will force him to flee, and he won’t be expecting a single assassin. I’ll put you in position to stop him.”
“Yes.”
Kim stepped over the edge of a six-story apartment building’s roof, fluidly found footing on a windowsill.
Lowered himself down, reached across to a drainpipe, and swung his legs over.
The pipe was poorly attached to the wall, so he used it only to make his way to a fire escape, followed it down, and dropped the final few feet to the ground, six floors of descent in under a minute.
“Banshee 1 is on the street, Tech. Guide me to the target.”
“There are two teams closer than you, Banshee 1. We think he’s turned onto the Rue de Buci, sticking with the crowds for security. You can move two blocks north and be in position to cut him off if they don’t spot him.”
“Yes,” said Kim, but he had no intention of following this direction.
The Korean felt he could read the Gray Man’s thoughts.
Kim had been hunted many times, and from this experience, he felt he could divine this hunted man’s every move.
If teams of foreign agents were following him through central Paris on a Saturday night, Kim would notice, and so would the Gray Man.
If dozens of static watchers were placed in his path, Kim would be immediately aware of it, and so would the Gray Man.
He might not identify every single adversary, but the Tech had thrown so many bodies into the operation, it would have to be obvious to an operator as skilled as the Gray Man that he was facing a full-on wet operation, that all the stops had been pulled and all normal rules of engagement and restraint were out the window.
There would be no safety in a crowd. The gunmen that the Gray Man surely had spotted by now were going to take the first opportunity to destroy their target, and bright lights and passersby would be more hindrance than security blanket to the hunted man.
Yes, Kim could feel what the Gray Man was feeling just now, and he allowed this symbiosis to guide him, not the directives of the Tech.
This melding of the minds between Kim the hunter and the Gray Man the hunted steered the Korean assassin through the misty night, three blocks to the east, to a darkened alleyway just a half block off the noise and lights and swarms of diners and revelers.
He knew the river Seine was just a hundred meters to the north, meaning if the Gray Man detected the heavy surveillance, he would need to turn south to melt into the night; the north would afford him nothing but a bridge or two, natural choke points that he would avoid at all costs.
Song Park Kim found the darkest spot in the little alleyway, twenty-five meters north of the Boulevard Saint Germaine and twenty meters south of the Rue de Buci.
He could move off in either direction in seconds if the watchers spotted the target nearby.
But Kim had a feeling this little alley would be the site of his final confrontation with his adversary.
There were restaurants and nightclubs brimming with patrons just yards from his darkened hiding space.
Plus there were competing kill teams close by.
He did not want to draw attention to his act by using a firearm, so he left the MP7 in the backpack on his shoulders.
Instead, he pulled his folding knife from his front pocket, flicked open the matte black blade, and tucked his body deeper into the dark to await his prey.
—
Court Gentry felt his black suit moistening from the sweat running down his back as he walked east on the Rue de Buci.
In his right hand his umbrella swung by his side with each step; he fought the urge to use it as a cane because his feet were hurting from the lacerations he’d picked up in Budapest the day before.
But it wasn’t the walk that caused him to sweat, it was the eyes scanning the street in front of him.
Thirty yards distant he saw a young couple huddled together on a bench, talking to one another but actively checking the male passersby.
Court had found a bald-headed man about his own age to follow behind; he kept his eyes ahead of the man to see if he was garnering attention that seemed out of place.
This would indicate to Gentry he’d been spotted and identified via radio to other surveillance teams in the area.
Immediately the young lovers fixed on the bald man for a few seconds, one seemed to speak to the other about the man, and then their eyes moved on, satisfied he was not the subject of their surveillance.
Court knew immediately he had been compromised.
He’d seen at least ten watchers so far and was reasonably sure he’d slipped every one of them, but there must have been someone he missed, some asset static in a dark window or a car on the street or somewhere Gentry could not get a fix on him, and this asset had broadcast Court’s appearance and direction to every watcher and hunter in the city.
Quickly, Court chanced a glance back over his shoulder.
Three dark-skinned men were moving quickly, looking in a shop window, not twenty meters behind.
Across the street there were two more. These guys were part of the same squad, and they were scanning the north side of the street, looking over tables full of diners in front of a café.
Shit. Court turned left down a little passageway off the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie and followed it in the dark.
At its end was dim light from a quiet passage twenty yards on.
The watchers would be sparse off the main drag of the Left Bank as long as they didn’t know he’d spotted the surveillance on him.
Court walked into the dark, his eyes on the light ahead, the tip of his umbrella scuffing the wet cobblestones. The noise echoed in the black, covered passageway.
Court needed to catch a cab back to the Gare Saint-Lazare, pick up his Mercedes, and head on to Bayeux.
This stop in Paris, like the stop in Budapest yesterday afternoon and the one in Guarda last night, had been all but useless.
At least this time he had gotten away without being hurt, and that was something, though he really needed more help before—
From the close dark, there was a flash of movement. Quickly from his left came the figure of a man. Before Court’s lightning reflexes could react, he sensed further movement low, an arm swinging towards him. Gentry moved his own right arm to parry it, but he was too slow.
He was never too slow.
Court Gentry felt the knife stab into his belly and shear through soft flesh just above his left hip bone.