“Your instructions were to produce a body. You have failed in this undertaking. I have reported this to my president. I am sorry. It is my duty. You understand.”
Riegel’s broad shoulders dropped, and he looked away. He could not believe the Gray Man, if alive, had not come to save the kids.
Lloyd said, “Any second he’ll turn up. Abubaker doesn’t have to sign over the contract until he leaves office in another hour.”
“It is now a moot point. I notified the president of your progress… or should I say, lack of progress. He signed your competitor’s contract while we were on the phone together. I’ve been instructed to return to Paris to await further instruction.”
Riegel nodded slowly. He said to Felix, “You can fly back with the French engineers. They will be leaving for Paris within the hour.”
Felix nodded in polite appreciation. “I am sorry this endeavor did not work out for you. I appreciate your professionalism and hope our interests will coincide again someday.” The German and the Nigerian bowed to one another. Ignoring the American, Felix left the room to ready himself for departure.
Riegel looked to the Tech. “Notify the teams. It’s over. They have failed. Let them know I will contact their agency heads this afternoon to discuss some sort of… consolation.”
The Tech did as he was told. Then he flipped off the monitors in front of him. He pulled off his headphones and laid them on the table slowly. He ran his hands through his long hair.
The three men remaining in the control room each sat alone with their own thoughts for a few minutes. The morning light shone through the window, seemed to crawl across the floor towards them, taunting them with their failure. They were to have their man by sunrise, and sunrise now mocked them.
Lloyd looked down to his watch. “It’s five till eight. No sense in putting it off any longer.”
Kurt Riegel was looking into the bottom of his coffee cup. He was exhausted. Distractedly he asked, “Putting what off?”
“The obligations on the second floor.”
“Sir Donald, you mean?” Riegel straightened. “I’ll handle it. You’d take all day.”
Lloyd shook his head. “Not just Don. All of them. All four.”
Riegel looked up from his chair. “What are you talking about? You want to kill the woman? The children?”
“I told Gentry if he didn’t show, they would die. He didn’t show. Don’t look so goddamn surprised.”
“He didn’t show. That means he’s dead. Why punish a dead man, you idiot?”
“He should have tried harder.” Lloyd pulled the silver automatic from his hip and let it hang in his hand by his side. “Get out of the way, Riegel. This is still my operation.”
“Not for much longer.” There was menace in the big German’s voice.
“Be that as it may,” Lloyd said, “I still have a job to do, and I don’t see you stopping me. You can act all sanctimonious about that family, but you know they could identify us. Identify this place. They’ve got to die.” He pushed past Riegel and stepped into the hallway.
On the Tech’s desk, Sir Donald Fitzroy’s phone rang. Lloyd reappeared in the doorway instantly. The young technician quickly sat back down and slipped his headphones back over his ears. Felix stepped back into the room, curious, his attaché in his hand and a camel-colored raincoat over his arm.
The Tech put the call through the overhead speakers. Lloyd said, “Yes?”
“Good morning, Lloyd. How are things?”
“You are too late, Court. We lost the contract, which means you have failed. I don’t need the leverage of the Fitzroys anymore. I was just heading downstairs to put some bullets into them. Want to listen in?”
“You need them alive more than ever now.”
Lloyd smiled. “Oh really, and why is that?”
“Life insurance.”
“Yeah, Court? I watched you fall off that bridge last night. I don’t know where the hell you are, but you are in no position to—”
“Forget about the contract with Abubaker. Don’t worry about your boss firing you. Put out of your mind Riegel’s henchmen showing up at your door some cold night. Ignore all your future troubles. Right now, the only danger in your world is me.”
“How are you a danger to—”
“Because I’m heavily armed, I’m royally pissed, and I’m right outside.”
In the control room there was a silent flurry of activity. Riegel moved to the window quickly, pushed the lace curtains aside with a fingertip. He scanned the heavy mist over the back lawn. The Tech lurched across the desk to his handheld radio and frantically began whispering the news to the guards on the property. Felix pulled out his mobile and charged into the hallway, thumbing buttons as he moved.
Only Lloyd did not flinch. He stood as if his feet were stuck to the floor. “You’re bluffing. You just expect me to let the Fitzroys go because you say you are outside? What kind of an idiot do you take me for?”
“An idiot with an expiration date. And I assume LaurentGroup’s grim reaper is listening in. Riegel, the same goes for you. You brush a hair on the heads of those kids or Mrs. Fitzroy, and you will die in that house.”
Riegel spoke up. “Good morning, Mr. Gentry. If you are outside, why don’t you come to the front door? The Lagos contract is lost; our incentive to kill you has vanished. We’ve just called off the wet squads. The game is over. If you are really here, why not drop in for coffee?”
“If you doubt that I’m in the neighborhood, maybe you should try checking in with the four smelly guys in the blue Citroën.”
That sank in a moment. Riegel did not know what car the Kazakhs drove, but the Tech anxiously began trying to raise them again. As he did so, receiving no reply, he looked up to his two superiors with eyes of terror.
Finally Riegel said, “Most impressive. A man in your condition still able to dispatch four tier-one operators without a shot fired. As I said, we have no quarrel with you any longer. Please come in and we’ll—”
“You free the Fitzroys and hand over the SAD files, or I swear to God I will murder every last living thing in that house!”
Lloyd had been quiet, his hands on his hips and his sweat-stained shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. But now he moved. Storming across the room to the Tech’s desk, he leaned into the mobile phone’s microphone. “Fucking bring it, you gimpy piece of shit! In the meantime, I’m going to take a straight razor to those two stupid little bitches downstairs—”
Riegel pulled the American lawyer away from the phone, shoved him hard against the stone wall. He leaned in himself, cleared his throat. “Yes, Court? Could you allow us a few moments to discuss your proposal? You know how corporations are; we must call a meeting for everything.”
“Sure, Riegel. I’ll check back in a bit. Take your time, no rush.” The phone went dead.
Lloyd screamed to the Tech, “Get all the teams here, now!”
Riegel held up his hand to stay the Tech. When he spoke, his voice was more reasoned. “For what purpose, Lloyd? The contract is not at stake anymore. The game is over.”
“But the Gray Man is still out there!”
“That’s our problem, not LauentGroup’s. Marc Laurent will not spend a dime for the foreign kill squads to protect us. There is no more twenty-million-dollar bounty to be paid out.”
Clearly, Lloyd had not thought of that. He shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t have to tell the hitters that.”
Riegel shook his head. “So instead of fighting one wounded man now, you want to piss off Marc Laurent and a half dozen nations’ security services, fight our corporation and six countries later? I know you are insane, Lloyd; that’s been established. But are you suicidal, too?”