The Gray Man (Gray Man, #1)

by Mark Greaney

As with any legend, many of the details were enhanced, enriched, or wholly fabricated. One of the details of the myth of the Gray Man that was true, however, was his personal ethic to only accept contracts against targets that he felt had earned the punishment of extrajudicial execution. This was entirely novel in the world of killers for hire, and though it enhanced his reputation, it also caused him to be extremely choosy about his operations. Gentry took the toughest of the tough ops, went into bandit country alone, faced legions of enemies, and built a reputation and a bank account that was unrivaled in his admittedly low-profile industry. In four years he had satisfactorily performed twelve operations against terrorists and terrorist paymasters, white slavery profiteers, drug and illegal weapons runners, and Russian Mafia kingpins. Rumor had it he’d already made more money than he could ever need, so the inference was that he did what he did for the purpose of righting wrongs, protecting the weak, making the world a better place through the muzzle of his gun. The myth was a fantasy, not reality, but unlike most fantasies, the man at the center of this one did exist. His motivations were complex, not the comic-book stimuli that had been ascribed to him, but at his core he did consider himself one of the good guys.