To Kill a Grey Man: The Assassin The Grey Man and the Surgeon, #2

By D C Stansfield

This is a standalone story that can be read without reference to any other novel but it includes the main characters from "The Assassin, The Grey Man and The Surgeon" by D C Stansfield.

"Question," said The Grey Man to The Assassin. "How do you kill a man who hides in a crowd?"
"Easy," said The Assassin. "Kill the crowd."
The Grey Man is a legend in the covert world of espionage. He has complete control over the powerful organisation called 'The Firm' which supplies the infrastructure for all the Secret Service departments across Europe. Sir Thomas Robertson, "C", head of MI6 wants that control for himself.
The findings of a routine medical show The Grey Man is going blind. Sir Thomas realises this is the break he needs and decides to have him murdered.

However, it is not as simple as killing one old, blind man. The Grey Man has two friends, who he has worked with for decades and are the best in the business. One an assassin, who has been dealing death for nearly thirty years and the other a breaker of men, nicknamed the Surgeon, so vicious, it is rumoured everytime he hits a man he cuts him.
Taking no chances, Sir Thomas calls on all his resources including the shadowy figure of John Sea who runs a large part of the UK underworld. "I want them all dead" he declares.
So begins a life and death chase across the South of England.
Can these three men on the verge of retirement take on The Underworld, The Firm and the Secret Service?

What is understood by all, is that this is a game for high stakes and people are going to die!

• Language: English
• Publisher: D C Stansfield
• Release date: Jul 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223149552

Book preview

Said The Grey Man to The Assassin,

How do you kill a man who hides in a crowd?

Easy, said The Assassin,

Kill the Crowd.

Chapter 1

The Beginning

East Sussex is an English county, south of London.  Rich in history and heritage, it has many tiny country lanes so narrow that the boughs of the trees on each side of the road meet to form a canopy, only allowing strong sunlight and rain to filter through.  At the end of these lanes there are invariably small villages complete with thatched houses, a cricket green, a pond and pubs that are so old and the ceilings so low that a modern man has to duck so as not to hit his head.  It is a place where middle England hang their hats and it is quietly disappearing as the 21st Century starts to take hold.

It all began in one of these peaceful little villages almost in the centre of East Sussex just five miles east from where Rudyard Kipling had his country manor, six miles south from Conan Doyle’s house and a stone’s throw from A.A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood where Winnie the Pooh was born.

At one end of the village, at the top of the High Street is a large, old pub with bay windows and an ancient, solid oak door.  Directly opposite is a butcher’s shop where men in red striped aprons and straw hats talk all day about their cuts of meat as they lay them out on polished stainless steel cold plates.  Next along is an assortment of tea rooms and charity shops and in the middle of the High Street is one of the newest buildings, a picture house built, so it proudly says on the outside, in 1911 to show moving pictures and it still does to this day.

The High Street is finished off by another pub that had recently changed hands.  In all it is a place for people who work in assurance and insurance, banking and finance to come home to after their long days in the city.

All of which made it so unusual to see a young thug walking down the High Street like he owned it, repeatedly slapping his hands together in front of his face and talking to himself loudly.  Every person he met studiously avoided looking at him as he was obviously as high as a kite.  Many people crossed over the road to avoid him.  Those that know him call him Paul the Chemist, due to the fact he could get you any drug you liked.  He was having a great time he was lovin’ it, lovin’ it, lovin’ it.  Business was good.  The dealing was paying well enough to feed his own habits and to put a few bob in his back pocket.  Plus for the first time in years, the Old Bill was not breathing down his neck.

Saturday nights for him were now heaven, mainlining heroin, injecting straight between the toes or under his armpit so no mark would show on his sculptured heavily muscled body, this insured a trip like no other.  Sundays, chilling with the boys smoking marijuana, normally pure Lebanese which left him mellow all day and Monday through Friday popping one speed tablet after another to keep him high with of course a few steroids for good luck.

His normal day job, if you can call it that, was doing a little dept collecting for a dodgy protection racket and to make repossessions of anything valuable from poor unfortunates who could not pay the heavy boys in London.

The repossessions he enjoyed the most, carting people’s prize possessions away as they watched helplessly was terrific fun and he could employ a little muscle when he wanted to, giving out a few slaps to people who he knew would not complain or fight back as he was representing the big boys and nobody messed with them.  The rest of his time was spent in the gym obsessively pumping iron, hour after hour as long as the speed and steroids fueled the burn.

A few months ago life had not been so good.  He had pushed his luck in London and was getting lent on hard by the police, but a beautiful suggestion had come his way.  A good time girl he knew called Nicki who had just had a baby, had been offered a new council flat in the sticks with the rent, electricity and gas all being paid by the dole office.  A nice offer but she wanted to stay with her boyfriend in London so she had offered it to Paul for £500 down and £100 a month or, as she put it, Slip me a monkey now and a ton a month and it’s yours.

Sweet thought Paul.  So him and the boys moved in.

‘The boys’ were two other body builders, Donkey and Charisma Jim.  Donkey was a large, bald headed twenty-something thug who thought he was called Donkey due to what swung between his legs but actually it was because he was as thick as a plank.   Charisma Jim was a short, nasty looking man who thought he was called Charisma because of his sparkling personality.  The joke being he was the most boring man on earth.

The three of them were inseparable.  Life was drug dealing, drug taking, intimidation and the gym.

Paul had been concerned initially about the level of business he might get when he had arrived but was pleasantly surprised by how many people were desperate for the product and willing to travel to get it.  Unlike London, drugs were in short supply here and he was the only game in town.

He was so busy so quickly with so many customers that he could not believe the local police would not be all over him until he saw the force in total.  On the third Thursday morning after his arrival, the police pulled into town and the fresh faced constable on his bike rode past Paul’s window, new clean uniform with socks pulled over his trousers and bicycle clips to hold everything in place.  The plod took one look at Paul, turned away and peddled fast in the opposite direction.  Result, laughed Paul.

Paul decided that now this was his manor and set about showing the locals who was in charge.  He fitted a 1000 watt stereo system in the flat and had it pumping music 24/7.  Nobody complained.  The local corner shop turned a blind eye to a bit of shopping with no payment and the pub at the top of town gave out free beer to stop any problems occurring.  The fact that there had not been any problems until Paul had arrived was never discussed.

The only place Paul was wary of was the pub at the bottom of the High Street. He had walked in there one night to be met by a middle-aged, fit looking man who he later found out was the new landlord.  Everyone called him Surge.  Sorry boys he said, This is not for you.  Think you would have more fun elsewhere.

Donkey was just about to go mental when Paul decided to cut his losses.  There was something about this guy he did not like, the way he stood in front of them all so calmly, no fear, not appearing to give a damn, the voice low and authoritative.  Paul had been round the police all his life and there was something about this guy that reminded him of the Old Bill, Maybe an ex-copper, he thought, so since things were going so well he decided it was best to back off.

He stopped Donkey and said, Sure mate.  No worries and they left.  But Paul thought they would be back sometime in the future and wondered what the pub would look like burnt to the ground with the landlord still inside.

Chapter 2

The Assassin

Collins the Assassin would never forget when he had received the telephone call which brought him back from the brink.  It was the Monday after he had returned from Israel.  He had been sitting in the front room of his large, old house in a London suburb and had been up all night thinking about what to do next and whether he could carry on.

He had recently avenged his wife’s murder with the help of his son Jonathan, The Grey Man and The Surgeon and then had taken his son to Israel to try to ‘go home’.  But almost as soon as they landed he knew it was all wrong.  This new Israel looked and felt so different from his youth.  He took Jonathan to some of his old haunts, the place where he learnt to be a soldier, where he had met his wife and they had married and where it had all started but the magic was gone.

He had promised himself during that mission that when the murderers were all dead he would go to Israel to live his final years bringing his life full circle, but he now realized his home had been where his wife lived and Israel was a foreign land.  Once Jonathan had decided to continue with university in England, they had both flown back. 

As he sat alone, his thoughts flew back over the years.  To join the army as a very young man was normal in those days.  When he was growing up, Israel was a young country and needed defending.  Soldiering to him had come so easy.  He had a talent for weapons far superior to his peers.  With a rifle, any rifle, he found that just a few minutes spent zeroing in the scope meant he never missed, but his real talent had been with handguns.  A quick heft to feel the weight and balance and then the gun felt like part of him.  He never appeared to aim, just hit whatever he pointed the gun at, it was quite remarkable.

After many years of soldering he had gone into the Secret Service becoming a watcher and then an assassin, which is where he had met and worked with The Grey Man and The Surgeon.  When the three of them were at their peak, no one could touch them and they were much sought after.  For over twenty years they ran together on various missions around the globe developing an awareness and understanding beyond any other teams.  But just as he had started to feel every one of his sixty five years and was settling down into retirement, his wife had been murdered and he had gone back on the hunt.

The house felt cold and empty as if with his wife dying she had taken a piece of home with her.  The loneliness sat on him like an illness, a never ending pain, a hopelessness.  Even though they had spent many nights apart, for the past thirty years she had been a continuous presence.  The daylight started trying to filter through the heavy curtains but he still sat there in the dark trying to work out his next move, always a decisive man, this lethargy felt strange and worrying.

So the call when it came, was a welcome shock.  It was The Grey Man.

Would you like some work? he said.

Sure, said Collins.

Okay, said The Grey Man.  We have a problem that only you can fix.  A quick question: how do you kill a man who hides in a crowd?

Easy! said The Assassin kill the crowd.

Collins, now full of energy and purpose, went upstairs.  In his bedroom was a false wall which when taken down led to a small workshop full of the tools of his trade.  Rifles, shotguns and rows of handguns lined the walls, all lovingly looked after.  He sat at the laptop and downloaded a file from The Grey Man which he studied for well over two hours.  The depth of information on the mark was as usual, extraordinary.  Collins spent time looking at the man’s picture and committed the face into his memory.  He called up The Grey Man.

It reminds me of a hit we did in Moscow back in September 2001.  Do you remember? he asked.

Oh yes, said The Grey Man.  I think that would do nicely.

The Assassin then set out his needs.  Any problems getting me these things? he asked.

No.  I don’t think so. said The Grey Man.  We have a branch or two of The Firm in Italy that can easily satisfy this order.

Four hours later Collins was on a flight to Pisa, Italy.  As he landed he walked out the front of the airport pulling along a small overnight luggage bag.  He followed the red line marked on the pavement to help tourists to car park 5a and looked for the small Fiat.  The sun was beating down and the heat hit him hard.  As he approached the car he got a text with a number on it.  He pulled out his phone and his front door keys, as he dialed the number he pretended to push a fob on his keys.  The door sprung open as the phone number operated an electronic switch in the car, this prevented keys having to be hidden or sent in advance, one or The Grey Man’s inventions.  He opened the boot to store his overnight case and found a leather holdall.  Collins looked round to ensure he was alone.  In the holdall was a grey folded raincoat and wrapped inside was a small earpiece, two guns and a cross holster for housing them and a waist strap for the ammunition with four magazines.  He removed the earpiece and got in the car.  He reached across to the glove compartment and took out the ignition keys and the prepaid ticket to get out of the car park.

He slipped on the earpiece and The Grey Man’s voice came to him clearly.  They were operational so there was no small talk.  He gave Collins the postcode and name of the hotel just outside Pisa and Collins punched it into the sat nav and then drove slowly along the wonderful old streets, past the famous and beautiful leaning tower which was next to a magnificent church and out into the Italian countryside.  Within a few miles he came to a big modern hotel obviously built to house the thousands of tourists to Pisa.  Collins checked in under his work name of Fowler, paid in advance for three days and gave over his passport, a hotel requirement in Italy.  This was checked, registered and given back.  Passport, credit card and driving license all supplied by The Firm and all legitimate.  He settled into his room and slept for a few hours.  When he woke, he ordered a light meal from room service and settled down for the night.

The hit was a difficult one which is why Collins was chosen.  A small, rotund Italian business man, Filippo Falvale, a former Mafia foot soldier had set up a side line selling weapons and explosives to terrorist organizations around the world, a market that was growing and was very lucrative.  Some of his weapons had found their way into the UK and the powers that be wanted him stopped.

Unfortunately Filippo was a shrewd operator.  Everything and everyone was guarded and searched twice.  He and his family lived in a huge mansion on top of the highest hill in the district with nowhere for a shooter to find an angle.  Similarly the hotel he stayed in where he did most of his work and where they brought his women, was the highest building around so a long range shot was out of the question.  He only travelled in a convoy of identical armoured limousines and constantly switched the positioning so it was difficult to judge what vehicle he was in.  All food was made by his personal chef with provisions from his own gardens and livestock farms.  He only moved from one of his properties to the next, even this hotel which he owned had its own reinforced penthouse, private entrance, special double thick concrete floor with limited access from the elevator and closed parking.  He also went everywhere surrounded by a group of six to eight huge, fully armed minders.  In amongst this crowd he could hardly be seen let alone got at.

On the Wednesday morning Collins got a call from The Grey Man.  Filippo’s right hand man had phoned down to the garage telling the chauffeur to have the car ready in half an hour.  Time to move, thought Collins.

The Assassin started to dress, black jeans, black silk shirt and waistcoat.  Over this he slung the overlarge, two gun holster with cross straps across his back.  He slipped in both guns and checked they fitted and it was easy to get a quick draw.  Around his waist was the ammunition belt and he ensured both guns were loaded.  Over this he wore the soft grey raincoat one size too big which was loose enough