The Gray Man

“My skill set is not conducive to honest work.”

“Court Gentry was the Gray Man simply because he believed there existed bad men in this world who truly needed to die.”

“You see, Sir Donnie, Court Gentry’s compass never has pointed true north. He’s a hit man, for God’s sake. But all his operations, both with the CIA as well as in his private practice, have been against those he deems worthy of extrajudicial execution. Terrorists, Mafia dons, drug dealers, all manner of nefarious ne’er-do-wells. Court is a killer, but he thinks himself to be a righter of wrongs, an instrument of justice. This is his flaw. And this flaw will be his downfall.”

“We have a helicopter overhead and over one hundred men and women looking for him. We have thirty guns right here at the château, waiting on him. We’ve shot him. We’ve stabbed him. We’ve sent him down a mountain, off a bridge. We’ve killed his friends, we’ve bled him dry. What else can we do?”

“Luck was fleeting, arbitrary, fickle.”

“Court Gentry was a killer of men. These were men. And that’s all there was to it.”

“Just as Gentry had promised over the phone the evening before, the prey had become the predator.”

“Someday you will learn. All the things you’ve done, all the things in the past you thought were dead and buried—you think you’ve put them behind you, but you haven’t. You’ve just stored them away. Stored for the time when there is only you and a quiet room and your memories and the goddamned demons of those you killed.”

“channel as the rest of the team, but now he could not hear the transmission. Strange. Court turned to the three men next to him on the bench. From their posture, from their facial expressions, Gentry determined that, just like their leader, they weren’t decompressing after the tension of the extraction from the hot zone. No, they moved and looked like they were about to go into action. Gentry had spent sixteen years in covert operations, studied faces and evaluated threats for a living. He knew what an operator looked like when the fight was over, and he knew what an operator looked like when the fight was about to begin. Surreptitiously he unhooked the strap securing him to the bench and swiveled in his seat to face the men around him.”

“The men around the aircraft began to undulate as one. In the glare from the heat pouring out of the arid earth between his overwatch and the crash site, it took him a moment to grasp what was happening, but soon he recognized the inevitable outpouring of gleeful emotion from the butchers around the downed helicopter.”

“This was simple revenge, nothing more. Gentry knew his actions altered little in the scope of things, apart from changing a few sons of bitches from solids into liquids.”

“his back to the wall, sat a young American soldier. His eyes were open and blinking rapidly. Cradled in his arms was a second infidel. This man was black and appeared either unconscious or dead.”

“Gentry had spent sixteen years in covert operations, studied faces and evaluated threats for a living. He knew what an operator looked like when the fight was over, and he knew what an operator looked like when the fight was about to begin.”

“Fitzroy”

“Nations”