Back Blast: A Gray Man Novel

by Mark Greaney

  Court drifted away from Glen St. Mary as soon as he turned eighteen, and he ended up in Miami. There, looking for work, he took a job in security for a shady businessman and, with no clear understanding of what he was involved with, he slowly realized he had managed to become a henchman for a drug dealer. This career lasted exactly two months, and it ended abruptly when an attempt on his boss’s life at Opa-locka Airport caused Court to pull out his Micro Uzi and open fire.

  In five seconds three men were dead, and in thirty seconds more, Court was on his knees with his hands in the air, complying with the orders of the undercover DEA officer who stared him down over the barrel of his shotgun.

  The fact that the dead men were all Cuban assassins did not get Court off the hook and, by age nineteen, it looked like he’d spend the rest of his life behind bars.

  But a CIA officer who’d once taken a weeklong course at the tactical training center in Glen St. Mary found out about the older Gentry brother’s misfortune, and he sent recruiters to the penitentiary where Gentry was serving time.

  Accommodations were made, his record was expunged, and soon Court Gentry was in training at the CIA’s facility in Harvey Point, North Carolina, to become a singleton operator for the CIA.

  He never looked back, and he never returned to north Florida.

  Until now.

  Court lay prone under a pine tree, eighty yards from his father’s driveway. Through the scope of Zack Hightower’s rifle he had line of sight on the front door of the double-wide, and he could see all the lights were off in the windows inside. He’d detected no sign of surveillance, and an F-250 pickup truck was parked in the drive just exactly at the angle his dad had always parked his car, so he thought the odds were good his dad was home.

  As the sun came up a little more and the light grew, he took in more of the property.

  Court saw his old beloved Bronco sitting up on blocks next to the garage. It was half-hidden by the weeds and covered in grime from twenty years of accumulation from the crab apple tree above it.

  He’d come to rescue his dad, but for a moment he thought about saying “Screw it,” leaving his father to the enemy, and just rescuing his old truck instead.

  But not for too long. By eight a.m. he saw the first movement of something larger than a rooster on the property—a new gray Chrysler 300 rolling up the dirt road towards his father’s farm. It looked like it was probably a rental car, but after it stopped and two men climbed out, Court knew in a heartbeat these guys were either FBI or state investigators, or perhaps CIA officers posing as law enforcement.

  Court lowered his eye back into the rifle scope and tracked the men carefully as they parked by the F-250 and headed up to the front door of his father’s old trailer.

  The door opened after a few knocks, and Court put his eyes in his binoculars. His father answered, and he stood there in worn boxers and an old gray T-shirt with the logo for the NRA on the front.

  Court zoomed his binos in on his father’s face.

  “Jesus, Dad. You got old.”

  Court chastised himself immediately. The last time he’d seen his father’s face, James would have been in his late forties. Court himself had been a teenager, and since then his life had been hard lived, to say the least.

  He figured if anyone looked twenty years older than the last time the two had spoken, it would be Court.

  The three men on the little wooden porch talked for over a minute, and Court couldn’t hear a bit of it. The Walker’s Game Ear was in place, and he could clearly hear their voices, but with the ambient sounds of a steady breeze and the clucking chickens it was hard to make out much of the conversation.

  Finally Court heard one word, spoken by his father, in a surprised, questioning tone.

  “Breakfast?”

  These goons were asking to take Court’s dad to breakfast on this fine Saturday morning.

  And this told Court exactly where they were heading.

  He wanted to back away right now, but instead he waited, and he was glad he did, because James Gentry invited the men inside, presumably so he could change clothes. As soon as the door closed, Court began a quick but careful egress across a small field till he got to the higher brush near the pond, and then he stood in a crouch and began hurrying back to his Bronco.

  As soon as he made it to his vehicle, he pulled out all the clothes in his backpack and began digging through them. He wanted to pick just the right attire to wear for the surveillance he had planned.

  Five minutes later Court had already changed clothes, and he was pulling out of the trees and onto a dirt road.

  —

  There wasn’t just one diner that served breakfast in Glen St. Mary. There were two. But as long as Court could remember, his father had only gone to one of them.

  Court pulled into Ronnie’s dressed in jeans, work boots, a canvas jacket, and a baseball cap. With these clothes and the three-day growth on his face he looked like every trucker, every farmhand, every male for ten miles in any direction.

  He was the Gray Man—he knew he could remain invisible, even to the government types palling around with his father.

  Court was already sitting at the counter, a cup of black coffee in front of him and a plate of toast and eggs on order, when his father entered with two men in suits. The elder Gentry wore jeans and a Carhartt pullover, a Caterpillar baseball cap, and Roper boots, and he nodded to the young waitress behind the counter. She greeted him by name and gave a quick but curious glance to the two men, as did another table of old-timers, but no one looked Court’s way, not even his dad when he passed within feet of him on his way to his favorite table, a booth in the back corner.

  Court had his Walker’s Game Ear in his right ear and he had turned it up before the trio arrived, so when his eggs came he was able to position the hearing enhancer perfectly in line with the booth on his right while he ate.

  In this way he could hear every word the men said.

  “Again, Mr. Gentry. The two of you haven’t had any contact in how long?”

  Court listened to his dad sigh. He thought the old man sounded much older than he remembered him sounding, and his voice was slow, slurred a little.

  Court had the impression his dad was drunk.

  “I told you this morning, and I told your coworkers the other day when they came by.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Gentry, but we need you to tell us again.”

  “You fellers want to write it down this time? Might help you remember.”

  “Please, sir. How long?”

  A sigh. “It’s been nineteen years, give or take.”

  Court bit into his toast, and he heard the pages on a notepad flipping over at the corner booth.

  “What do you do for a living, sir?”

  “Social Security. I had a stroke a few years back. Can’t work.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Shit happens,” James said.

  Court wanted to look to his father, but he fought the urge. He ate his bacon and looked at his plate, finding himself relieved the man was not, in fact, drunk.

  One of the men said, “You had another son. Chance. He was a police officer for the City of Tallahassee.”

  A pause before the elder Gentry responded. “That’s correct.”

  “He was killed in the line of duty.”

  “Are you asking me, or telling me? Because I already know.”

  Court knew about his brother, but it still hurt to hear his dad talk about it. He chanced a half glance to his right, but still kept his ear turned towards the booth. He saw his father looking out the window now.

  He looks so damn rough, Court thought.

  “So . . . you are saying Courtland missed his own brother’s funeral?”

  Gentry looked back to his breakfast. He waited to hear what his old man had to say about that.
/>   “It’s crazy,” James replied. “The whole time that funeral was going on, I kept expecting Court to pop his head out from behind a tree, like he and Chance always did when they played cowboys and Indians as kids.”

  “How did that make you feel? Losing your son like that?”

  “Chance died serving his community. You go into police work knowing that’s on the table.”

  Court heard his father trying to be stoic, but Court wasn’t buying it. Chance’s funeral had probably just about killed him. It easily could have led to his stroke. Court felt like shit for not being there, but his access to the United States had been limited at the time, to say the least.

  Court knew that if he had come to his brother’s funeral, he probably would have been shot through the head by a Delta Force sniper and dropped into the hole meant for his brother.

  Killed while in the service of his community.

  The other goon took over now. “One thing is troubling me, Mr. Gentry. I’ve got to admit I think it’s pretty interesting that you haven’t asked us anything about your son. Aren’t you curious as to why we are here? Don’t you want to know if he’s in some kind of trouble?”

  James Gentry laughed boisterously, causing Court to flinch in his seat because the sound was so loud in his earpiece. Court caught himself in mid-flinch, then he looked into his coffee, hoping like hell no one had noticed his action.

  His father did not reply to this for several seconds. So long to where Court almost gave in and looked over to his right to see if something was wrong. But he fought the urge and concentrated on his coffee.

  Finally his father spoke again, but he sounded different. More slow, more measured. “I didn’t ask if he was in trouble, because I know he’s in trouble.” He lightened a little. “C’mon, gents. I was a cop for a long time. Sharp-dressed assholes like you don’t show up at my door to tell me my son has just won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.”

  Court fought a smile.

  “You boys haven’t asked me what I’d tell my son if he did show up down here in Glen St. Mary.”

  Court glanced at the booth quickly, pretending he was just looking out the window at the little parking lot. He saw the two strangers looking to each other—clearly the question wasn’t important to them.

  But James Gentry answered anyway. “Well, I’ll tell you what I’d say. I’d tell him to turn his ass around and go back to wherever he came from. There ain’t nothing for him down here at home but problems.”

  “Problems?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what the hell he’s gotten himself into this time, but this isn’t the place to come looking to get away from whatever’s after him.”

  Court slowly turned his head in the direction of his father now, and he saw that his father was looking right at him, all the way across the room.

  The older Gentry continued, still looking directly at his son. “All over this place there is trouble. Everywhere. I’d tell him this town is virtually crawling with it.”

  His dad was making himself clear. He’d recognized his son and he was tipping him off. The area was under surveillance. Not just these two guys. The fact that Court hadn’t identified anyone else just yet made him wonder if there were cameras, drones, or other measures out there he couldn’t possibly see, or if his dad had noticed the arrival of other new faces to town, faces Court would not realize did not belong.

  One of the men asked, “Why is it you think he might come back?”

  “Oh, I’m not sayin’ he would. But if he did come here, the only reason in the world would be because he thought maybe something he did might put me at risk. He’d feel responsible, I guess, and he’d come here to try to help. But if that should happen, I would just tell him that I was fine, as long as he wasn’t here, because I’d be worried about him here more than anywhere else.”

  “Why would he come here to help you out? You said you two have been estranged for nearly twenty years. What makes you think he gives a damn?”

  The senior Gentry seemed to think about this a long time. He’d turned away from looking towards Court, and now he looked at the two men in front of him. “I always figured he didn’t care. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he grew up between the old days and now, and just maybe he understands that both of us said and did things we regret, so it’s better we both forgive each other, because we’re all the family we have left.”

  The two men looked at James Gentry, and then at each other, confused by the softening change in their interviewee.

  Gentry continued, “Who knows? I guess if he did show up here, I would know all that was true. I’d like that, to tell you the truth, but then, like I said, I’d tell him to turn his ass around and get the hell out of here.”

  Court caught himself staring right at his dad, and his dad stared back at him while he said the last part. It was a terrible piece of tradecraft from the younger Gentry, but he’d been that focused on his father’s words.

  Court reached for his wallet, paid his bill with a twenty, then stood up from the counter.

  The waitress picked up his check and the cash. “Let me grab your change, hon.”

  “You keep it.”

  “Well, you have yourself a good day, y’hear?”

  “You, too.”

  He fought the urge to chance one more look towards the booth in the corner as he walked out the front door of the café and climbed back behind the wheel of his old Bronco, because he thought it highly unlikely he would ever see his father again.

  62

  Catherine King landed at Ben Gurion Airport after fourteen hours from Dulles through Zurich. She was tired from the flights, but as soon as she made her way through customs and pushed through the crowds to find the hired car waiting for her, she powered up her international phone and dialed a number back in the States.

  It was nine a.m. in Washington, and Catherine thought Andy Shoal might be sleeping off a long night of work, but to her surprise he answered on the first ring. “Shoal.”

  “Hey, Andy, it’s Cathy. I’m surprised I reached you so early. You up already?”

  “Never went to bed. I spent all night in Chevy Chase trying to find new witnesses. I struck out. I got to Dupont Circle a couple hours ago and, so far at least, I’ve got nothing to show for it here, either.”

  “Keep plugging away,” she said.

  “How about you? Did you contact anyone while flying over?”

  “I did. I exchanged e-mails with three former Mossad officers. Men I trust implicitly. They told me they know nothing about one of their assets being rescued in Trieste six years ago.”

  “And you believe them.”

  “I do, and that’s what makes this interesting. All three of these men, after first saying they didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, came back to me a couple hours later asking where I heard about this thing in Trieste. All three conversations turned threatening. Accusatory, even. It was surreal.”

  “Somebody got to them after they dug around for information.”

  “That’s it exactly. Mossad knows what I’m after, and they are getting prickly. Not sure why, but it’s curious.”

  “What’s your plan now?”

  “I’m heading to my hotel, but I’ll call the other investigative reporters and see if they’ve got any leads on the injured Mossad officer. Maybe this guy will be a dead end, too, but I’ve come all this way.”

  “Is there anything you need me to do over here?” Andy asked. Catherine could hear the hopefulness in his voice.

  “You are already doing it. Keep pounding the pavement. We have to find something that makes Six’s story about what is happing in D.C. plausible. Even if I find information over here about Trieste, that doesn’t mean Six is innocent of all those murders.”

  “Okay,” Andy said. “But if you need anything at all, you don’t have to bother your regul
ar team. I’m sure they’ve got a lot to do. Give me a call and I’ll jump on it.”

  “I know you will,” she said.

  —

  Andy Shoal hung up the phone and went right back to work. He told himself he was working harder than anyone else on Catherine King’s much higher-paid and much higher-regarded investigative team, and this was probably true. He’d already spent ten hours in Chevy Chase and Bethesda looking for any witnesses to the events that transpired there the previous Monday night.

  Undaunted after a long night with nothing to show for it, this morning he arrived in Dupont Circle. He’d spent the last two hours—minus a twenty-minute break to step into the nearby Krispy Kreme for a breakfast of coffee and donuts—interviewing anyone who would talk to him about the event in the metro station here on Wednesday. He was looking for someone who could say they saw Max Ohlhauser before he was killed, or identify anyone else at the scene who had been part of the melee. If this mysterious Six’s story was to pan out, if it was true he did not shoot Ohlhauser or the cops, then someone in this area just might have seen other people running around with guns.

  He’d met several individuals throughout the morning who had been here during the shooting. Most lived in neighboring buildings or else they were employees of the bars, restaurants, and little shops around Dupont Circle. A few people confided in him they’d seen nothing, and others greatly exaggerated their access to the events in question.

  One, a bartender at a Mexican restaurant who was getting ready for the brunch crowd, had, at first, seemed like he had a real contribution to make. He claimed to have seen wounded people being hauled out of the handicap elevator, just across the street from the window in front of his bar. Andy pulled out his notebook and started asking him follow-up questions.

  “The injured. How bad were they?”

  “They were bad off. Covered in blood, all three of them.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Like regular cops, I guess.”