The Gray Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

serve my best interests.”
    “On the contrary. This hit man of yours is a product like any other. This sort of product has a short shelf life. Six months, a year, certainly not more than three. And then he will be dead or incapacitated. Worthless to you as a generator of revenue. What I offer you will fill your coffers for the life of your firm.”
    “I don’t sacrifice my men for business.”
    A slight pause. “I understand. I will speak with Paris. Maybe I can sweeten the pot.”
    “The flavor of the stew doesn’t enter into it. It is the stew itself I don’t fancy.”
    Lloyd leaned closer. There was a faint trace of menace in his voice. “If I can’t sweeten the pot, I will be forced to stir it. I need your assassin terminated. I’d like to use a carrot. But I am prepared to use a stick.”
    “I suggest you go carefully, lad. I don’t like the direction this discussion is veering.”
    The two men stared at one another for several seconds.
    Lloyd said, “I know you have an extraction team on the way to pick up the Gray Man tonight. I want you to order your men to terminate him. A single phone call and a financial incentive should take care of this matter quickly and cleanly.”
    Fitzroy’s eyes narrowed. “Where on earth did you hear that?”
    “I’m not at liberty to disclose my intelligence sources.”
    “You’re bluffing. You know nothing.”
    Lloyd smiled. “I’ll give you a quick taste of what I know, and then you decide if this is all a bluff. I suspect I know more about your boy than you do. Your killer’s real name is Courtland Gentry, goes by Court. He is thirty-six years old. American, his father ran a SWAT school near Tallahassee, Florida, where Gentry grew up. The boy trained with tactical officers on a daily basis. He was instructing SWAT teams in close quarters battle techniques by the time he was sixteen. When he was eighteen, he fell in with a bad crowd in Miami, worked for a Colombian gang for a while, was arrested in Key West for the shooting death of three Cuban drug dealers up in Fort Lauderdale.
    “A CIA big shot who had trained at Court’s father’s shoot house snatched the kid out of prison, sent him to work in a secret division within the Operations Directorate. He worked covert ops around the world for a few years, black bag jobs mostly, until 9/11, when he was placed in the Special Activities Division, working in an agency irregular rendition task force. Officially known as Special Detachment Golf Sierra, it became affectionately known, to those few who knew about it at all, as the Goon Squad.”
    “Surely you are making this up.”
    Lloyd ignored him and continued. “It was an ad hoc, special sanction tactical team, made up of what we call in the business, high - speed, low - drag operators. The very best of the very best. Not James Bond types. No, with these guys there was considerably more emphasis on the dagger and less on the cloak. For a few years they were the CIA’s best wet unit. They killed the ones we couldn’t render, they killed the ones from whom we did not expect to be able to extract much useful information, and they killed the ones whose deaths would sow the most fear in the hearts and minds of the terrorists.
    “And then four years ago it went bad. Some say politics was involved; others are convinced Gentry screwed up an op and outlived his usefulness. Still others insist he turned dirty. For whatever reason, a burn notice went out on him. Then a shoot - on - sight directive. He was targeted by his former colleagues in the Special Activities Division. Gentry did not go quietly; he killed some Golf Sierra teammates intent on killing him and then went underground, off the grid. Spent time in Peru, Bangladesh, Russia, who knows where else. Within six months he was out of money. Went into the private sector, working for you, doing what he does best. Head shots and sliced throats. Sniper rifles and switchblades.”
    There was a soft knock at the door to