had been drugged, that was for sure. They didn’t do it, it was someone else.” He paused. “And it wasn’t Drummond. No way.”
“Another gunman was present? What do you know about him?”
“They said he was good. Confident. They couldn’t get a good look at him. Spoke English, but every dumbass on Earth speaks English these days.”
Hulett noticed Tarik’s normally confident mood falter a little; he looked out the window of the high-rise, silent for several seconds.
The American understood. “You know who it was, don’t you?”
Tarik looked back to his mercenary again. “The data you transferred to me in the aircraft. I had my people look through it. It was a computer application and a database that Drummond took from us. A tool that helps us find the enemy before they find us.”
Hulett sat up straighter. Tarik was about to tell him who killed Ronnie Blight.
“We decrypted the information, thinking Drummond might have used this program in Venezuela in an attempt to keep people away from him. He was an outlaw in America, after all; it stood to reason America would come after him.”
“I’m listening,” said Hulett.
“Our cyber staff linked into the entire network of cameras in northern Venezuela, in the hopes we could find out who Drummond met with, if someone from the USA had made contact with him. We didn’t find any evidence that someone spoke with him before you killed him, but this morning an image was picked up many kilometers from Drummond’s house.”
Tarik nodded, then said, “The man recognized by the software is a former American CIA officer, but a man who has been disavowed by the Americans. He’s a rogue, a freelance assassin. One of the best, if not the best, in the business.
“We don’t know for certain if he was involved in what happened to Drummond, but they call him the Gray Man.”
Hulett sat up straighter. “Most folks I run with say there are about a dozen jokers out there calling themselves the Gray Man.”
“Then most folks you know are wrong. There is one man. And I have his name.”
Hulett’s nostrils flared like a bull. “Who is this fucker?”
“Courtland Gentry. Several years ago the Americans came to me for help in finding him. I was unable to provide much assistance; the man never showed up on my radar. But I do have images of him, and it is clearly the same person.”
Tarik thought for a while, then said, “We will have to keep an eye out for this man, and others like him. Our entire operation was almost compromised by Mr. Drummond, and I can’t have that happen again.”
Hulett shook his head. “This is getting a little too Jason Bourne for me. Look, Tarik, I’m a shooter. My guys are shooters. You give us a target, a clean target, and then we go and hit it. That’s how this shit works.”
Tarik countered. “That’s how it is supposed to work. But you killed thirty people the other night in Aden. Most of them Sunni. Not very clean, was it?”
Hades made a face, surprised at the apparent admonishment. He didn’t hide his anger now. “Sometimes we hit it clean. Sometimes, like in Aden the other night, some collateral catches it, but that’s just war. It’s precision counterterrorism, what we do for you. Bitch about me all you want, but this is a shit-ton cleaner than carpet-bombing cities, which is what you jokers would be doing if it weren’t for us.”
Tarik reached out and put a hand on Hulett’s knee to calm him. “That is fair, Hades. Honestly, I don’t care about the lives of some shopkeepers. We are fighting a cancer, and in so doing, some benign tissue is necessarily damaged.
“You and your small team are valuable additions to our fight in Yemen, but even so, the Emirates are struggling in that cesspool. Iran and its proxies are pushing not only there but in North Africa, in Syria. Their expansion around the world is shocking, and it is growing, and the UAE does not have the means to stop it. Our sometime partners in Saudi Arabia are helpless, as well.”
Hulett said, “Well, maybe if you didn’t have us off running errands in South America, we could help the cause.”
Tarik shook his head. “Our footprint in Yemen has been shrinking. The Shias are dominating. We are pulling forces out immediately.” He paused. With a pained expression he said, “That battle has been lost.”
Hulett didn’t know why he was getting this lesson, but he had a guess. “Are you