The BeppoSAX gratis survey

We present the preliminary results of the BeppoSAX GRATIS Survey, an ongoing survey in the 2-10 keV energy band based on short exposures of ``random'' parts of the sky. At present GRATIS covers about 20 deg<SUP>2</SUP> of the high galactic latitude sky with a flux limiting sensitivity of 3-4 10<SUP>-13</SUP> erg s<SUP>-1</SUP> cm<SUP>-2</SUP>. GRATIS source counts are in good agreement with those of ASCA and BeppoSAX deeper surveys and provide an unbiased estimation of the bright end of the 2-10 keV LogN-LogS relationship. A BeppoSAX follow-up observation of one of the GRATIS X-Ray sources shows evidence of a strongly absorbed spectrum, indicating that it could be a heavily absorbed (type 2) AGN, as predicted by population synthesis models for the X-Ray Background. .