To Kill a Grey Man by D C Stansfield Page A

would now be showing, he worked out roughly where
the phone icon would be and touched the screen.   Now he worked out where the phone numbers would be.   He had used this phone hundreds of times, he would
let the memory of it guide him.   He then
held his finger down on what he hoped was the number three.   This was the speed dial to The Firm.   He was relieved when he heard a familiar
voice at the end of the line.

 
    Without any preamble he ordered a car to come as soon as possible to
his address and an urgent appointment with an eye doctor.

 
    “Understood,” said the voice.   “I will call you back in five minutes.”

 
    The Grey Man put down the phone and moved carefully round the room
banging into chairs.   He finally managed
to scramble into some clothes.

 
    .    .    .    .    .    .

 
    In Whitehall Sir Thomas received a call.
    “Morning Sir,” said a voice.   “We have had a unusual request from The Grey
Man.   He is asking for a car and to see
an eye doctor.   I thought you might like
to know.”

 
    “Thank you very much,” said Sir Thomas with a smile and
hung up.   He could feel his adrenalin
pumping as he made his next call.   If The
Grey Man wanted a car he reasoned that meant he could not drive and was now, hopefully,
fully blind.   He got straight through to
John Sea.

 
    “You are a GO,” he said.

 
    Martin got the call thirty seconds later.   Two minutes after that both Land Rovers were
loaded and were barreling away from their hideout.

 
    Surge had just started his morning run.   Collins was eating his breakfast.

 
    The five miles to The Grey Man’splace
were covered in seven minutes.   Both Land
Rovers were pushed to the limits down the country lanes.   Martin in charge of one, Big Rob the other.   Martin crashed through the front gate, stopped
and spun the vehicle round with the back pointing towards the house.   Him and his two men de-bussed.   Both fired grenades through windows in the
top floor of the house.   Martin took out
a special shotgun which was designed by the special forces for this very job and blew off the hinges of the front door.

 
    Meanwhile Big Rob and his opo had crashed the back gate and
swept across the field.   They both jumped
from the Land Rover and threw grenades through the upper back windows.

 
    The explosions were deafening.   Big Rob and his guy then dropped to the ground
laying behind the Land Rover as flat as possible as Martin and his team dropped
their weapons and opened the back of their Land Rover.   Mounted on a strong tripod was the L1A1
12.7mm (.50) Heavy Machine Gun (HMG), developed from the best machine gun ever
made, the Browning M2.5 caliber.   This
weapon was belt driven and could fire 635 rounds a minute.   Martin swept up the stock as his number two
fed the belt and he racked the ground floor of the house from one side to the
other.   Walls, doors, windows and bricks
would not stop the huge rounds and the house started to disintegrate with smoke
and dust billowing into the air.   The
bullets passed right through the house and over Big Rob’s head.

 
    After thirty seconds of continuous fire and as prearranged,
Martin stopped and both teams took up their Heckler and Koch Sa80’s assault
rifles and ran towards the crippled building.   Anyone inside would surely be dead but they had to make sure.

 
    As soon as the Land Rovers had crashed the gates, the
alarms had sounded in the basement.   The
Grey Man had made plans, once he knew that he was under surveillance, to
protect himself and his computers but he had no idea they would come with so
much firepower and no idea he would be blind.

 
    He scrambled around on the floor searching for his
emergency rucksack and as the noise grew louder and louder he focused on
finding the secret exit.   One of the
reasons he had chosen this house was the fact that it had been used by rebels
during the Jacobite risings in the 18 th