Gunmetal Gray

Written by Mark Greaney & Reviewed by Detective Dru

Will this be Grey Man’s final mission?  Will this be the final Grey Man debriefing?  Read more to find out!!! Fan Jiang is a 26 year old hacker for China. He drugs his two bodyguards and escapes a hotel the last night of some tech conference. He heads toward Hong Kong on the run.  Meanwhile, a USA plane arrives in Hong Kong as two Chinese spies Wang Ping Li and Tao Man Koh surveil with intention to kill the onboard CIA. They work for the madman Colonel Dai who also employed the two now-dead bodyguards.

Court gets to his hotel and Wang and Tao get the room across from him. They get chewed out by Dai for abandoning his mission to tail this CIA man (state’s orders) Dai tells the two his ministry of defense orders are just as important as the state’s orders, so he demands they expedite their op by apprehending Court, interrogate him for intel then break his leg. Court is accosted in his room.  Court kills them both.

Ugh chapter five gives us an early eye roll chapter. The lengths taken to cover up for the two murders? Somehow remotely doctoring hotel CCTV footage, then three doppelgängers from the two rooms act out the rest of their stays so no one is the wiser. Highly implausible considering shots were fired and a man was thrown out a 20 story window. Also there’s a secret op within Court’s secret op. Hanley, acting director of CIA, wants Fan stateside to use against the Chinese.

Court visits some guy Mr Wu and inquires about the location of Donald Fitzroy. He does this deliberately to get the attention of Chinese state. He goes back to his new hotel that he told Wu he was staying at and waits for the Chinese kidnappers, who arrive on cue within hours. Super farfetched plot thus far.  They take him to the Peak, a huge mountain in Hong Kong. He is put in a wired room with Fitzroy. They make small talk and Donald says he failed twice to take out a hacker for Colonel Dai and now it’s up to Court to take the baton.

Dai and Court speak. Court convinces him he was not the CIA that murdered two of Dai’s men at the hotel earlier but instead smuggled himself in a freighter. He takes the contract that Fitzroy failed to execute and begins his hunt for Fan. Also the Wo Shing Wo are a Triad org that also is trying to kill Fan. Good, was hoping to convolute the story asap.  Chapter nine is a full on expo chapter. CIA wants Court to kidnap Fan so he can fortify USA websites.

Chapter ten is Fan’s POV. He hired Wo Shing Wo to protect him after he bolted, but they outsourced it to some Vietnam group Wild Tigers because the Chinese government was overwhelming. He’s now smuggled to Vietnam. He will provide PLA tech intel for White Tiger and WSW in exchange for protection.  FYI this book is painfully guilty of throwing far too many invested parties into this story.  It muddies it up so quickly and, frankly, the depth and breadth of all these various criminal silos within SE Asia should be a book unto itself.  Instead, we are introduced to one for 20-50 pages before they are swapped out for another.  Very disorienting and underwhelming.

Ugh. In chapter 11, Court magically figures out which bar Fitzroy’s men were at the other night because plot armor. He asks the bartender about it but can tell he’s lying. Then the only two other women in the bar just happen to be CIA. This book is not doing itself any favors.

Welp the women weren’t CIA. One is a Russian spy named Zoya! And she could tell that Court was an alpha agent because plot reasons. Gimme a f’ing break. Anyway, she leaves the bar after he leaves the bar, when two Russian snipers magically appear to talk shop with her. They’re anticipating a ship full of WSW and drugs that will know where Fan is. So again we have a minimum of five different parties hunting for Fan. One random interchangeable confrontation after the other with no rhyme or reason. All intel points to this being the last Grey Man debrief.

Court and Zoya both independently zero in on the same large cargo ship that appeared in the bay at night.  Gunshots ring out on the cargo ship just as the men are about to move on Court. He uses the distraction to light the bar he was at and its patrons on fire.  Court shoots his way out using a triad boss as a meat shield.  Zoya questions the Vietnamese captain they caught in their raid, he said Fan is in Saigon. Court finds a boat in the bay that Zoya sniped all three passengers and interrogated as well to no avail.  Zoya’s team kills their hostage and Court lets his go to find aid. Both mention the White Tigers. Court briefs Dai and Brewer. Dai will smuggle him to Vietnam.  Captain Tu, ultimately another pointless character, is introduced and he’s holding Fan while he hacks China.

Court and Zoya set up their local surveillance upon arriving in Vietnam, Court with webcams and Zoya with her two subordinates combing the area with a stack of photos. Court notices all these different spies and somehow knows where they’re from too. Silly. He calls Brewer because two of them are USA and amateurish. He retreats to his hotel when he sees on his cam that a guard was shot in front of the building he’s surveying.  Court tails a BMW that squirts from the same building and calls Brewer for intel while he’s chasing them west toward Cambodia.  Court arrives at the new Cambodian safe house.  Zoya and the Russians arrive.  Zoya’s sniper Mikhail sets up his sniper nest and of course Court notices it. So he can’t move for fear of being ID’d while White Tiger reinforcements show up in military vehicles.

Zoya’s team continues the mission despite her orders to fall back because of the arriving reinforcements. The Russians infiltrate and there’s gunfire. Zoya plans to climb the exterior to the third story window housing Fan. Court sees her and plans to wait for her to return with Fan then shoot her and escape.  Gunfire and the captain and Fan escape thru a secret passage but of course Court notices and killed both of Fan’s captors.  Court tells Fan they’re going to Cambodia. Zoya scans from the chopper that she retreated to. Zoya is taken off the mission because her all male team framed her for the failure. She resorts to Thai criminals to help find Fan before he’s in the wind.

Fan explains to Court that he was forced to fortify China Internet because they held his family as “family collateral.” They were killed in a car accident so he knew he’d be considered no longer trustworthy by China. So he poisoned his bodyguards and fled. In the present Court and Fan are intercepted by jungle folks on three boats.  Ugh another Asian crime group, this one Thai. Plus Fan just added another detail about making arrangements with Taiwan to defect. CIA had no knowledge of this so Court is hyper sus. He escapes his captors by swimming underwater real far then calling Brewer. Lazy Susan chapter in the form of a boat ride.

Turns out Fan’s family’s handler Song was a double agent to the west and set up Fan’s apprehension at the border, followed by a Brewer and Hanley expo dump. Yup another secret secret op named Aces High that’s the real mission that Court must not know about. Firmly at 85% sure this is the last Grey Man debriefing at this point.

Fan is held by this new Chamroon org as prisoner where he is forced to hack for sensitive data that the org can use to make purchases. Court surveils one of the Chamroon brothers at a club while a Russian does the same. Court argues with Brewer on tactics then calls Dai for reinforcements instead. Oleg is the Russian that replaced Zoya. He is in the Black Pearl nightclub and his team is guarding outside. Court creates a distraction and sneaks to the vip area where the criminals are.  Dai’s men arrive and start a fire because they can’t get in with weapons. They plan to poach the crime brother during evacuation.

Shootout. Court is gonna go back and save the whores! One of the hoes is actually Zoya; she double crossed Court during the escape and takes the injured Chamroon, demanding he call his brother so she can ascertain Fan’s location. Zoya and Court team up incoming…

Oleg and Zoya escape and somehow Court has a bugged phone in their car. He hears them argue about next steps because she knows where Fan is but wants to apprehend before alerting Moscow. Oleg wants to tell Lubyanka. One gun shot ensues.  Zoya dumps Oleg, Court tails her to her hostel then sneaks in her room.  The team up begins. They bond over being no longer welcome by their intel agencies. She says Fan is in Phuket, Thailand.  Court updates Brewer and Dai. Road trip to Phuket! They role play as a couple at a resort while performing recon on the Chamroon compound before they do what agents do.

Zoya tries to double cross Court but he was prepared. They admit their trust issues then become closer, then she says she will defect because it’s her only option. Court relays this to Brewer who kicks him off the Fan mission and makes the defector his priority. Court and Zoya are captured by Dai’s men out of nowhere.

Damnit, the book was picking back up and now chapter fifty one is just a convoluted mess again. Court and Zoya and Fitzroy are now all prisoners at Dai’s new hideout which just so happens to be conveniently close to the Chamroon compound. Dai’s men are storming the compound at midnight (USA to do the same at 1 AM how convenient) turns out everyone is working together to trick Fan’s parent’s handler Song into killing Fan’s parents because that would set off a chain of events that returned both Song and Fan to the west to be assets. Who cares it’s all so unnecessarily complicated. Bottom line USA and England and Russia are all scared of the Chinese potential to be superpowers so that’s why everyone is teaming up to F the Chinese.

Court and Zoya think the whole setup is another setup. Fan must not be at the compound, he must be in some yacht they can see - don’t bother inquiring about the logic. Court and Zoya will escape capture, free Fan and leverage him to free Fitzroy then sunset together.

Some group blows up the compound as Dai’s men approach it. Chamroon and now the Italian mafia observe from the yacht as Court and Zoya secretly board it. They find Fan and Court promises to help him get to Taiwan because USA are the good guys. The three escape but Zoya is shot.  Court arranges for CIA to scoop Zoya and offers Fan alive for Fitzroy alive. Court and Fan skip before CIA arrives.

Court talks to CIA director Hanley and curses him for manipulating Court to clean up this unethical op that was started by Denny Carmichael. Court left his gps on his phone and CIA tracks it to Fitzroy location…

Ugh. Brewer cooperates with Dai now? Anyway, Hightower shows up and they get the drop on Court, on Dai, and on Fan. USA are the bad guys. They’re all voluntarily detained etc. Brewer tells Court Zoya wants to talk to him. The number of double crosses in this book was absurd.

Six days later Court and Zoya visit. She will be held under Brewer for months in isolation per defect protocol. She hints to Brewer’s deceptive methods…Court and her part ways. We’ll always have Paris.

As an avid colorblind spy novel enthusiast, the Grey Man novels always held a special place in this reader’s heart.  But Gunmetal Gray was devoid of any color, opting instead for a paint by numbers cluster of convolution.