Munich is a statistically safe city—safe for most everyone not named Lars Klossner. But the forty-seven-year-old German had spent two decades cultivating a reputation that necessitated the four German and Austrian ex–special forces close-protection detail who moved in box formation around him whenever he was in public, and the armored Mercedes G65 utility vehicle that rolled along nearby, driven by an armed driver in constant radio contact with the detail.
It was past midnight now, and Klossner had spent Friday evening at his regular table at Zum Durnbrau, a traditional German restaurant that began its life as an inn in the fifteenth century. After dinner and drinks he enjoyed an evening walk through the city center, and he pretended that he was just one of the crowd, even though his “mates” were actually his bodyguards and his silver Mercedes rolled along behind, ready to swoop in and cocoon the big German within two inches of steel armor, then race him out of the area.
The list of people wanting to end Klossner remained fluid. Right now he was aware of two contracts on his life, but his feelings would be hurt to learn there weren’t at least two or three more.
As he walked through the crowded Marienplatz in the city center this cool and clear Friday evening, he certainly didn’t appear to be a man who needed any more security than anyone else in the square. He had a Santa-like beard and a massive, Santa-like belly, and though he was obviously a middle-aged man he was dressed like a German hipster: a designer hoodie and a 2,500-euro puffy jacket, 1,600-euro eyeglasses, and a red knit cap that made him look like he was posing for a catalog that sold adventure wear to those who had never sniffed a whiff of adventure in their lives.
Although he didn’t stand out as a dangerous individual, Klossner was a man who had forged great success in the industry of violence. He ran a network of security experts that performed all manner of military training on four continents. From Bolivia to Gabon, from Guyana to Niger, from Indonesia to Yemen, Klossner Welt Ausbildungs, GMBH, provided top-flight private military instruction to anyone who could pay.
With training on anything from basic firearms handling all the way up to battalion-sized field tactics, KWA mercenaries stood ready to train the armies, rebel groups, and private security forces of the world.
Klossner’s company did not field hit men or spies, per se; his was not, on the surface anyway, a cloak-and-dagger outfit, but his specialty was dealing with nations and organizations that had difficulty securing high-quality instruction cadres from abroad because of issues of politics, corruption, or human rights abuses.
And there was an especially shadowy side to Klossner’s operation that did not show up in the accounting books. It was known by all who hired KWA to train or lead their troops that the foreign mercs they employed could be offered off-hours work in a covert direct-action realm.
If one worked as an employee of KWA, one knew that his contract might have him training or organizing paramilitary forces in El Salvador or cold-blooded rebel marauders in South Sumatra, but he also knew he might also “moonlight” running black ops in these war zones himself.
KWA’s stable of talent was well paid, but most people who worked for the German security firm didn’t do so because it was their first choice. Instead, most KWA employees worked there because they were encumbered by something that kept them from being employed at one of the upper-tier security companies around the world. They had criminal convictions, they had been tossed out of other organizations for violating rules of engagement, or they fought drug or alcohol addictions.
Or else they were just evil.
Boiled down to its essence: Lars Klossner was a bad guy who contracted bad guys to go fight for and train bad guys. His was a closed loop of dirty.
* * *
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After his walk through the center of Munich, Lars Klossner and his security turned onto Max-Joseph Strasse and then entered the vestibule of an ornate apartment building. They were buzzed in by the lobby guard, and then the entourage headed for the elevator. Outside on their right, the silver Mercedes rolled into a large lighted garage, and the garage door closed quickly behind it.
While the driver parked and shut down his vehicle, a private elevator took Klossner and his detail up to his vast third-floor penthouse, and here the protectee waited in the hallway with a pair of his men while the other two checked out his living quarters to make sure it was safe to leave their boss alone for the night.
After the all clear, Klossner stepped into his private quarters, while his security men retired to their end of the penthouse, took off their leather coats, and unslung their weapons. They pulled earpieces out of their ears, and only then did they relax. The chatting came instantly and easy, and when the driver of the Mercedes arrived a few minutes later, all five of them grabbed beers, called their wives and girlfriends, and began watching an FC Bayern soccer match they’d recorded during the week.
In his quarters, Klossner turned on his stereo, undressed, and took a hot shower. Afterwards, he toweled off and wrapped his rotund frame in his robe. He’d just begun brushing his teeth when he looked up into the mirror over the vanity.
Something moved in the low-lit bedroom behind him.
Lars Klossner looked harder into the mirror, the toothbrush hanging from his mouth, and he saw a figure in black leaning against the far wall of the bedroom. The man held a suppressed pistol in his right hand against his thigh, business end down.
The man’s left hand rose; he held something in it. Suddenly the music stopped. The man by the wall tossed the stereo remote onto the bed.
The toothbrush came out, the German spit and washed his mouth out with bottled water, and he spit that out, too. He looked back into the mirror at the man standing there in the dim light.
Klossner turned around slowly, facing the figure in the darkness. “Wer sind Sie?” Who are you?
“Speak English, Lars.”
The German flicked his eyes to the door. “I have bodyguards, you know.”
“Yeah? Is that what you call them?”
Klossner’s face twitched a little. The door remained closed; there was no sound of footsteps rushing up the hall.
“Dead?” he asked.
“Nah,” the figure replied. “Just oblivious. You can call out to them if you want to . . . but you really don’t want to.”
The man with the American accent stood by a light switch. To Klossner’s surprise, he reached over and flicked the switch with the tip of the suppressor of his pistol.
Several lamps in the room turned on simultaneously.
The German blinked hard again. “Mein Gott. Violator? Is that you?”
* * *
? ? ?
Court Gentry used the tip of his Gemtech suppressor to flip the lights back off, enshrouding himself and Klossner again in the dim.
“No one calls me that anymore.”
“Ah, yes. Now you are the Gray Man.” The skin on the heavy German’s face suddenly looked almost as white as his beard. “How did you get in?”
Court had slipped in through the garage behind the Mercedes, then knelt behind the vehicle, removed his shoes, and crammed them in his backpack while the driver turned off the engine and climbed out. He’d followed the driver up the three flights of stairs, staying one floor behind him on the ascent, and timing his soft footfalls so he’d remain undetected.
When the driver unlocked the back door to Klossner’s penthouse, Court began racing up the stairs on his stocking feet, pulling a folded envelope from his back pocket as he went. The driver entered the hallway, and the hydraulic closer began pushing the door closed behind him. Court was rushing to the other side of the door, still silent but taking the stairs three at a time now. Just as the door met the door frame, Court slid down onto his knees on the landing and shoved the envelope forward between the latch in the door and the strike plate in the doorjamb. The thick folded paper impeded the automatic latch from slipping into the strike plate mortise and locking the door, and this prevented the door from locking when it closed.