Gunmetal Gray Read online

  TITLES BY MARK GREANEY

  The Gray Man

  On Target

  Ballistic

  Dead Eye

  Back Blast

  Gunmetal Gray

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Mark Strode Greaney

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Greaney, Mark, author.

  Title: Gunmetal gray / Mark Greaney.

  Description: First Edition. | New York : Berkley, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016037708 (print) | LCCN 2016043046 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9780425282854 (hardback) | ISBN 9780698406858 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Assassins—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Espionage. | FICTION /

  Action & Adventure. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction

  Classification: LCC PS3607.R4285 G86 2017 (print) | LCC PS3607.R4285 (ebook)

  | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037708

  International edition ISBN: 9780399586798

  First Edition: February 2017

  Cover design by Steve Meditz; based on an original design by Richard Hasselberger

  Cover photography of exterior of buildings © d3sign / Getty Images; photograph of man walking up staircase © Yolanda de Kort / Arcangel Images

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Major (Ret.) Thomas H. Greer

  aka Dalton Fury

  A good man

  (1964–2016)

  CONTENTS

  Titles by Mark Greaney

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Characters

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank David Leslie, Scott Swanson, Sean Fontaine, Nick Ciubotariu, Igor Veksler, Darrin Ingram, Mike Cowan, Chris Clarke, Patrick O’Daniel, Lt. Col Hunter Rawlings (USMC), Devon Greaney, Devin Greaney, Dorothy Greaney, Jack Murphy at SOFREP.com, Benedetta Argentieri, Jon Harvey, Nichole Geer Roberts, Dalton Fury, Jeff Belanger, Jay Chase of Houston PD, Chris and David Arrington, Gino and Natalie Debouvry, Mystery Mike Bursaw, James Yeager at tacticalresponse.com, and James Fleming at warfighterconcepts.com.

  Special thanks to my agent, Scott Miller, and his great team at Trident Media Group, and my editor, Tom Colgan. Also special thanks to my publicist Loren Jaggers and all the talented people at Penguin Random House.

  Stay low, go fast, kill first, die last, one shot, one kill, no luck, all skill.

  —UNOFFICIAL NAVY SEAL SLOGAN

  There is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

  —T. S. ELIOT

  CHARACTERS

  Courtland “Court” Gentry: The Gray Man, code name Violator—freelance assassin/contract agent for the Central Intelligence Agency

  Matthew Hanley: Director of the National Clandestine Service, Central Intelligence Agency

  Suzanne Brewer: Officer, National Clandestine Service, Central Intelligence Agency

  Fan Jiang: Chief Sergeant Class 3, cyber intrusion specialist, People’s Liberation Army, Unit 61398 (Red Cell Detachment), 2nd Bureau, General Staff Department (3rd Department)

  Dai Longhai: Colonel, department director of security and counterintelligence, People’s Liberation Army, 2nd Bureau, General Staff Department (3rd Department)

  Xi: Major, counterintelligence officer, People’s Liberation Army, 2nd Bureau, General Staff Department (3rd Department)

  Sir Donald Fitzroy: Director and CEO of Cheltenham Security Services; former handler of Court Gentry

  Zoya Feodorovich Zakharova: Code name Banshee—officer, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR)

  Oleg Utkin: Code name Fantom—officer, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR)

  Vasily: “Anna One”—paramilitary officer and team leader, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Zaslon (Shield) Unit

  Tu Van Duc: Leader of Con Ho Hoang Da (the Wild Tigers), Vietnam-based criminal organization

  Bui Ton Tan: Officer, Vietnam People’s Police and employee of Con Ho Hoang Da

  Kulap Chamroon: Co-leader of the Chamroon Syndicate, Thailand-based transnational criminal syndicate

  Nattapong Chamroon: Brother of Kulap, co-leader of the Chamroon Syndicate, Thailand-based transnational criminal syndicate

  Song Julong: Major and security officer, People’s Liberation Army, People’s Republic of China

  PROLOGUE

  The two bodygua
rds lay unconscious on the floor, arms and legs splayed, an empty bottle of imported whiskey on the table between them. They’d both lost consciousness within seconds of each other, and then they slid out of their chairs and down to the carpet, wholly unaware they’d been drugged, utterly clueless to the fact that the man they were paid to watch over had spiked their booze with a week’s supply of nighttime cold medicine.

  And now the culprit sat on the couch across from them in the darkened hotel room, and he stared at the big men on the floor. His hands trembled as he rubbed his knees; bile from his stomach churned up and scorched his esophagus. He forced himself to swallow it back down so he could breathe.

  Twenty-six-year-old Fan Jiang made no noise, but his brain screamed, Go, Fan! Get up and run, now!

  But he could not make himself stand.

  When the two men on the floor finally woke, it would take them some time to come to their senses and realize their protectee had fled. Fan Jiang knew they would be slow to comprehend the situation, because it was clear to him Sergeant Liu and Sergeant Chen didn’t think that a little shit like him had the balls to make a break for it.

  The jury was still out on whether they were right or wrong, because fifteen minutes after the two men dropped, Fan still sat there paralyzed in the dark.

  The two Chinese army sergeants were close-protection security officers—bodyguards in the parlance of the trade. But the term had a double meaning when applied to these men watching Fan Jiang. True, it was the job of Sergeants Liu and Chen to protect Fan with their lives, throwing their own bodies between any threat and their protectee, if necessary.

  But it was also their job to bring back Fan Jiang’s dead body if he ever tried to run.

  And now it was time for him to run . . . but he just could not fucking get up and go.

  It was a rare occurrence when Fan Jiang was allowed to leave the military compound in Shanghai where he worked, but he’d been flown over here to Shenzhen along with his minders so he could attend the annual China Information Technology Expo. Fan was a sergeant in the People’s Liberation Army, a computer programmer, and one of the most highly placed cyber intrusion specialists in the nation. From time to time he or others in his unit were sent to see advances in computer tech from international vendors, to ask questions of foreign engineers, and to get a feel for how strong private industry’s encryption advances would be three, five, ten years out.

  So when he needed to travel, Chief Sergeant Class 3 Fan Jiang traded his uniform for civilian clothes and flew on Air China, with Senior Sergeant Chen and Chief Sergeant Class 4 Liu flanking him at all times, themselves in business suits.

  On the flight over, the security protocol called for the two security officers to take the window and aisle seats while Fan got the middle, and one of the protectors even followed Fan to the bathroom, standing just outside the door to make certain he had no unauthorized contacts.

  The three men stayed in a suite together at the Sheraton Shenzhen Futian Hotel, a few blocks from the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center, which meant that keeping tabs on Fan was a breeze for Liu and Chen in the off-hours. Each night when the trade show ended they all just went back up to the suite and ordered room service; Fan sat on his bed and ate while his two bodyguards dined on their rollaway beds between Fan and the door, their pistols on or next to their bodies at all times.

  But during the exhibition itself, it was all work for the bodyguards; the event lasted three days and for eight to ten hours each of these days Fan walked the huge exhibition center floor, posing as an engineer for a Chinese computer firm. Liu and Chen acted as Fan’s colleagues, but they said nothing while Fan did all the talking, taking business cards and promotional material and asking techie questions of techie types from all over the world. The two quiet men with him were well trained to keep him safe and to keep him in line, competing roles that could both be best managed only by close physical proximity and constant vigilance.

  The three days on the conference floor passed without incident, but the last evening in Shenzhen was critical, because Liu and Chen knew that anyone who attempted to go AWOL while traveling would likely do it either the moment they arrived at their destination, or on the last night. The last night was prime time for a man to do a runner, true, but meek little Fan had given them no trouble, nor could either of them envision a scenario that had him acting counter to his orders. He was a tiny, frail, bespectacled, fragile little geek, and when it came down to following commands, he was nothing if not a good soldier.

  Liu and Chen celebrated the end of the stress of walking the floors of a busy conference full of potential threats for three days, having to guard a man in the presence of literally thousands of foreign actors, by picking up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in a market across the street from the hotel.

  Neither of them recognized it at the time, but the Jack Daniel’s was the kid’s idea in the first place. He said he needed to get some cold medicine, so the three men entered the market. Fan and Chen walked over to the health aisles and the younger man picked out what he needed while Chen looked on and Liu stood at the front counter. Fan stopped at a liquor display, looked it up and down, and commented on how inexpensive the booze was here as compared to the prices he’d seen on the room service card by his bed. With a shrug he suggested to Chen that if they wanted to order a drink tonight with their meal they’d save the Ministry of Defense a lot of yuan by just picking up a bottle here.

  Liu and Chen were not allowed to drink on the job; Fan knew this, and he also knew they would see this as a perfect opportunity to subvert their orders and enjoy themselves, without anyone in their command being the wiser.

  A minute later the men walked out the door of the market with a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of Coke. Their plan had morphed from a quick room-service meal and then bed before the early flight the next day back to the locked-down compound in Shanghai, to a long evening of drinking and watching television.

  Now it was two thirty in the morning and the bottle of Jack was empty, as was the box of cold medicine. Liu and Chen were incapacitated, true, but Fan was positively frozen himself—worried they’d wake tomorrow and he’d still be right here, staring back at them like a stone statue of a terrified and guilt-ridden little man.

  Fan took another long look at the two men in the dark. He had nothing against Liu and Chen; they were not nice to him in any respect but they were government security men—Fan had been around the type since university, and he’d yet to meet one who’d treated a protectee of his low rank with any sort of deference or even kindness. But he knew that they had their job to do and he had his, and if Fan got away he knew they’d probably be placed in front of a firing squad for their failure.

  But Fan rationalized this away—this wasn’t his fault. He didn’t want to run.

  He had to run.

  Finally he forced himself to stand, to collect his things, and to heave his backpack over his shoulder. With this newfound momentum he moved as softly as he could across the room and opened the hallway door. He shut it behind him with even more care, then tiptoed away from the hotel room and up the carpeted hall, heading for the stairs.

  On the way there he did one last thing. With his heart pounding so hard he felt certain he could hear it echo off the walls around him, he reached out, put his hand on the fire alarm . . . and pulled it down.

  Alarm bells screamed in the still hall, and Fan ran for his life.

  It was on; there was no turning back.

  —

  Three hours before the first light of day, Chief Sergeant Class 3 Fan Jiang of the People’s Liberation Army Unit 61398, 2nd Bureau, General Staff Department (3rd Department), one of the most talented computer hackers on Earth and one of only a few entrusted with the virtual keys to China’s digital kingdom, left through the side entrance of the Sheraton in the middle of a large group of guests that overwhelmed hotel security: a fast-moving mas
s of humanity reacting to the fire alarm. When Fan was clear of the crowd on the street, he turned to the south and then headed off through the city, in the general direction of mainland China’s border with Hong Kong.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  HONG KONG: SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

  OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

  10 DAYS LATER

  The sleek executive jet descended out of the gray clouds just three miles west of runway 07 Left. As it lowered its landing gear, a set of binoculars focused on the plane, watching it streak over the water on its final approach.

  “I’ve always wanted to kill a CIA officer. With my own hands. I’ve dreamed of the day, wrapping my fingers around his throat, squeezing the life from him, watching his eyes bug out and then go blank.”

  The comment was in Mandarin, and it came not from the man with the binoculars but from his partner, on his left. Both stood on the roof of an airport outbuilding, doing their best to ignore the stifling morning heat. The man with the binoculars also did his best to ignore his colleague, and he kept his focus on the approaching aircraft.

  He replied in Mandarin, as well. “Dassault Falcon. Might be a model Seven X. This should be our target.”

  “Can you read the tail number?”

  “Negative. Still too far.”

  “Killing a CIA man won’t be anything like that guy I strangled Monday. I predict a CIA man will have real muscles in his neck. He’ll be a real fighter.”

  With a muted sigh, the man with the binoculars said, “Why are you talking like this, Tao?”

  “Because if someone gets off that plane, I predict Control will order us to terminate them. What do you think?”

  “I think you are almost as crazy as Control.”

  The man behind the Pentax binos kept his gaze fixed on the airplane as it touched down, then slowed on the runway. He checked the tail number now that it was close enough to make out through the ten-power lenses.

  “It’s a match.”

  “Good.”