Dark Spies

by Matthew Dunn

  The spokesperson’s expression was somber as he answered, “He’s a highly trained and effective operator. This is a dangerous manhunt. I can’t emphasize that enough. If he’s spotted, no members of the public must approach Cochrane. Nobody.”

  After the hotel room television was turned off, Oates turned to Scott and asked, “What’s HRT?”

  “Hormone replacement therapy.”

  The former SAS soldiers laughed.

  “Feds are using hormones to capture Cochrane.”

  “Trying to make him have a sensitive side.”

  Scott turned serious. “Hostage Rescue Team. Some of my pals in Delta and DEVGRU joined HRT. They’re good.”

  “As good as the Regiment?”

  The SAS.

  “Don’t be a dickhead.”

  “Thought not,” Oates said. “You worried you might have to slot some of those pals of yours?”

  Scott shrugged. “Shit happens.”

  Oates grabbed his knapsack containing food, drink, three cell phones, and two handguns. Scott had already collected his things from his adjacent room. “Where we taking over from Amundsen and Shackleton?”

  Scott nodded toward the blank TV screen where moments ago they’d seen the J. Edgar Hoover Building. “Outside the cross-dresser’s place.”

  A reference to the FBI founder’s sexual peccadillo.

  “Gage already there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Best we go and keep her company, then.”

  The long FBI ops room was filled to capacity with Bureau men and women unpacking boxes, arranging their desks, checking phone lines and computer terminals, placing mementos and framed photos of loved ones on their work stations, and catching up with colleagues they hadn’t seen for a while. Including Alistair, Patrick, and Sheridan, the room contained fifty-four people, most of whom were wearing suits, with the exception of eight men who were wearing sweaters, jeans, and boots. Unlike all the other agents, Pete Duggan and his seven HRT colleagues had no need to unpack anything. Their two SUVs, both parked in the building’s secure basement parking lot, contained everything they needed—Springfield Armory’s M1911A1 Professional handguns, Heckler & Koch MP5/10A3 submachine guns with laser aiming devices and SureFire tactical lights, Heckler & Koch HK416 rifles, ammunition, communications and surveillance equipment, stun grenades, plastic cuffs, fire resistant overalls, Kevlar helmets and body armor, and respirators.

  The room smelled of coffee, aftershave, perfume, and testosterone, and the combined scent was one that Marsha Gage had been surrounded by on many occasions. As she stood watching her team from one end of the room, she recalled the first time she’d had to give a briefing to a task force. Back then, it had been a daunting prospect, and she remembered the butterflies in her stomach and trying to relax through breathing exercises. But since then, years of detective work, and having kids who didn’t give her one second to think about nerves, had made briefings like these a walk in the park.

  Still, this was the first time she’d ever been put on a manhunt to capture a rogue intelligence officer. And though she’d handpicked five agents for the team who were experts in counterintelligence, she knew for a fact that no one on the task force had ever come up against someone like Cochrane. She breathed in deeply. “Okay, everyone. Listen up!”

  The room grew silent as all looked at her and ceased their activities. Alistair and Patrick moved to her side, Patrick folding his arms and adopting a look that suggested he was going to kill anyone in the team who asked something dumb, Alistair leaning against a wall with one foot resting over the other and a look of nonchalance.

  She pointed at a whiteboard containing two photos of Will Cochrane: one in which he was clean-shaven and wearing a suit and tie, the other the International Avenue border crossing shot. “We’re after Will Cochrane. He works—correction, worked—for the two gentlemen by my side. Both are spooks, so try to keep hold of your wallets and sanity if you go anywhere near them.”

  One of the agents called out, “They got names?”

  Patrick answered, “We do, but you don’t need them. I’m CIA, and”—he gestured toward Alistair—“my friend here’s MI6. Cochrane was a joint U.S.-U.K. asset. We’re here as advisers to Agent Gage.”

  Marsha said, “He’s been sighted crossing the Canadian border into Maine. It’s possible he broke into a house in Springfield, because whoever did stole a set of clothes that matched Cochrane’s size, grabbed some food, and left a lot of cash to pay for both. Either way, we believe that Cochrane’s heading southwest along the East Coast toward D.C.”

  One of the team members asked, “Why D.C.?”

  Marsha stared at Sheridan, wishing she could hold a gun to his head and make him tell her and everyone else in the room what Ferryman was. “He wants to know details about a CIA mission.”

  More questions were fired from the team.

  “We think he’s still armed?”

  Marsha nodded. “Yes.”

  “Any assessment on his mental condition?”

  “No doubt he’s had better days, but he’s trained to operate for long periods in hostile locations.”

  “Is he wounded?”

  “He might have some cuts and bruises, but based on the way he moved during the border crossing, we don’t think he’s got any serious physical problems.”

  “How much cash has he got on him?”

  “I’m told by my CIA colleagues that he had ten thousand dollars when he was deployed to Norway.”

  “ID?”

  “An alias passport and credit card in the name of Robert Tombs.”

  “How did he get to Canada from Norway?”

  “Most likely he had help from assets we don’t know about.”

  “Has he got assets in the States?”

  Marsha glanced at Patrick.

  The CIA officer answered, “Before my team was disbanded, two of Cochrane’s colleagues were paramilitary Agency.”

  Roger Koenig and Laith Dia, both of whom had served with Will on three missions.

  “They’re very loyal to Cochrane, and no doubt would help him if they could. For that reason, I redeployed them overseas as soon as we suspected Cochrane might be heading this way.”

  Marsha hadn’t known that, and wondered if there was anything else the damn spies in her team weren’t telling her.

  Patrick added, “Cochrane was raised in the States, but his parents are dead and his sister lives in Scotland and doesn’t have contact with her brother. As far as we can tell, he’s got absolutely no one here who can help him. That’s our assumption.”

  The youngest member of the team—a male who’d been selected by Marsha because of his cyber intercept expertise, but had no idea about old-fashioned detective work—smirked and stated, “We know where he’s headed and he’s on his own. He’s screwed.”

  Marsha locked her intimidating gaze on the junior. “Millions of people commute along the East Coast every day, and they take thousands of different routes.”

  The cocky young technician should have kept his mouth shut, but he didn’t. “He’ll stand out like a sore thumb.”

  “What, like one of the Boston Marathon bomb suspects did when he went on the run? Boston police traced him to a twenty-block radius and shut down the city. But it still took a day to locate the suspect, and even then he was found by a civilian. Plus, they were hunting an untrained kid.” She walked to a map of the States and pointed at a dot that looked no bigger than a pinhead. “Here’s Boston.” She swept her arm fully outstretched in a complete circular movement over the map. “And by contrast, this is the area we have to search for Cochrane.” She pointed at the technician. “I need you because you’re good with algorithms. But beyond that your opinions are useless to me, so keep your head down and your mouth shut unless you’ve got something important to contribute.”

  Now he was quiet, with a look on his face that said he’d just been sucker-punched.

  Pete Duggan called out from the far end of the room, “Ma
’am, would one of your intelligence advisers be able to comment on Cochrane’s capabilities?”

  Marsha was relieved to be once again fielding questions from seasoned members of the team, and particularly Duggan, whom she deeply admired and had specifically asked to be included. She looked at Patrick, who said nothing. She looked at Alistair.

  The MI6 controller pushed himself away from the wall and smiled, his superb intellect encapsulated by the glint in his blue eyes. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m always reminded on occasions like this to jettison loquaciousness in favor of dicendi campus.”

  Marsha rolled her eyes as she placed a hand on Alistair’s forearm. “Speak in words we can all understand.”

  “That’s broadly the English translation of what I just said in Latin.” Alistair’s eyes changed from charm to steel. “William Cochrane spent five years in French Special Forces.”

  Duggan asked, “The Legion? GCP?”

  “Correct. I didn’t care about that when he joined MI6. What mattered to me was that I wanted to put him through a year of hell. I thought it would break him, as it had done to others before him. It didn’t.” Alistair studied Duggan. “You look like a man who knows a thing or two about hardship.”

  When Duggan responded, it was in a tone that was neither bragging nor disrespectful, the tone of a professional operator. “I was in Seal Team 6. Spent most of my career in water. It was a hardship and humbling.”

  “And the longest you’d spent in said water?”

  “Thirteen hours and four minutes. Me and another guy, both of us in scuba gear and on the surface of the Indian Ocean with a rope between us while waiting for a mobile U.S. sub’s antenna to break through the sea, snag the rope, draw us together as it sailed onward, and put us on its back. Was cold and dark out there.”

  Alistair nodded. “I’m sure it was. Cochrane’s longest time in water during his training program was four days, nine hours, and thirty-two seconds. And it was in the North Atlantic. During November. He had food, and water, and a dry suit and buoyancy aids, but not much else.”

  One of the agents frowned. “Superspy?”

  “No.” Alistair wagged his finger. “Human being. Like anyone in their right mind, he doesn’t like misery. And that’s his strength. His mind can overcome his body’s craving for rest and warmth and no further pain. That’s why he survived the program I put him through. When he’s in the field, he’s constantly fighting the very natural desire to give up. He’s no super anything. He is who he is.”

  Marsha pointed again at the map of the States. “Non-Bureau law enforcement agencies are taking the lead on trying to capture him while he’s still in transit, including being all over public transportation routes. But they’ve got one heck of a task. We, on the other hand, are going to focus on ground that we can control. The only way he’s going to get the answers he wants is to grab someone in the CIA and make that person talk.” She looked at Sheridan, imagining Cochrane putting his hand around the officer’s throat. “The D.C. area is where we’ll get him, and I’ll lock down the entire city to do it if necessary.” She checked her watch. “Okay. I’m going to task all agents in this room individually. Pete—after that, I want to speak to you and your men so we can run through response and takedown drills.”

  Pete Duggan nodded. “One thing I’m confused about—how come Cochrane made the International Avenue crossing and showed his face? Strikes me, guy like him would know all about covert infiltration.”

  Marsha agreed. “It’s possible he was desperate or simply made a mistake, though I don’t buy that.”

  “Guess we’ll just have to ask him when we got him in a cell.”

  Alistair was once again leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. “You won’t need to. William deliberately chose to use the crossing knowing that it would be reinforced with extra men. He let us see him because he wanted us to know he’s in the States.”

  Marsha turned to the MI6 officer. “What?”

  Alistair opened his eyes and looked right at Marsha. “Once he’s found out the truth about why he’s on the run, he wants you to get very close to him, though I must warn you it will be completely on his terms.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  In the rural outskirts of Moscow, Antaeus lit a candle and carried it into his study. He could have availed himself of the room’s electric lights or its gas lamps, but sometimes he just liked being in near darkness, with the smell of wick and wax, and light that erratically flickered to produce a partial, indistinct representation of the surroundings.

  He sat down at his old wooden desk and lit a cheroot that was a gift from a Dutchman whose tobacco emporium was one of the best in Europe. The shop also happened to have a tunnel to a listening post where the Russians could eavesdrop on the American embassy in The Hague.

  The chalkboard was in front of him; names on it appeared and disappeared each time a scant breeze nudged the candle’s flame left and right.

  Senator Colby Jellicoe.

  Charles and Lindsay Sheridan.

  Ed Parker.

  Gregori Shonin.

  Project Ferryman.

  Cobalt.

  The key players in Antaeus’s plan to cause a major catastrophe and derail the United States.

  Only Will Cochrane stood in his way of achieving that result.

  He looked at Will’s name on the other side of the board, drew a circle around it so that the arrow from the code names of his four assassins was touching it, and drew four more arrows pointing at the circle from different angles.

  Against the first new arrow, he wrote, STATE & COUNTY POLICE FORCES.

  The second arrow, THE MEDIA AND CONCERNED U.S. CITIZENS.

  The third, MARSHA GAGE/FBI/HRT.

  The fourth, SHERIDAN/CIA/AUGUSTUS & ELIJAH.

  Five arrows in total that wanted Will Cochrane incarcerated or dead.

  Cochrane stood no chance of getting anywhere near Project Ferryman.

  But something was nagging Antaeus.

  He held the candle close to the reptile tank containing the chameleon. Its pigmentation had altered to reflect the fact that earlier today Antaeus had cleaned the tank and replenished it with lighter-colored foliage. He was sure the reptile liked to frequently change its appearance. Just like Ellie Hallowes.

  Antaeus was sure that Hallowes was the only person who didn’t want Cochrane captured or killed. The nature of her deep-cover work made her dislocated from the unconditional loyalty prevalent in mainstream Agency operatives. That meant that even though Cochrane broke rules to protect her, she wouldn’t blindly agree with the rules that had put Cochrane on the run.

  Instead, she’d help him if she could. And the best way she could do that was to read the Ferryman files and relay what she had read to Cochrane. Yes, that’s what had been troubling him. Hallowes was the threat to his otherwise watertight strategy. But how would she relay what she’d discovered to Cochrane? Not by standard forms of communication, because she’d know that she didn’t have the Agency’s full trust and it could be monitoring her. That left old-school tradecraft. A dead-letter box. In a location agreed upon by Cochrane and Hallowes. One she could easily access without garnering suspicion from the Agency by being absent for too long. Washington, D.C.

  Antaeus smiled and picked up his telephone.

  The rolling, frost-covered vista of Middleburg, Virginia, was magnificent and all the better for being seen on horseback. Catherine Parker and Lindsay Sheridan were both proficient riders, and it had been Catherine’s idea to get out of D.C. for an afternoon so that the two women could get some bracing air, exercise, and time out from the craziness that came with being married to the Central Intelligence Agency.

  Wearing jodhpurs, riding boots, helmets, and warm jackets and gloves, the women rode side by side at a fast trot along a valley that contained pine, ash, and oak trees. The horses were stabled at the Salamander Resort & Spa, and were their regular mounts when they could get out for a visit. But their last ride together had been over four mon
ths ago, so today’s venture was long overdue.

  They reached a large pond that was glistening under the winter sunshine and looked like a perfect place to let the horses rest and for the women to catch their breath. Catherine called out, “Time for an aperitif?”

  Lindsay smiled. “Now you’re talking.”

  They stopped, dismounted, and tethered their horses to trees. Catherine withdrew a hip flask and unscrewed its cap. “I stole some of Ed’s best Scotch.” She took a swig and handed it to Lindsay. “It can be our little secret.”

  Lindsay swallowed the fiery liquor and nodded her head in appreciation. “Tastes even better, knowing it’s illicit.” She removed her helmet and scratched her scalp where the hat had rubbed it. As she looked at the water, she exclaimed, “God, it feels good to get away.”

  Catherine knew she was referring to her husband, but kept quiet.

  “Sometimes it’s hard to breathe when I’m around Charles.”

  “He’s not here now.”

  Lindsay looked at Catherine with a smile that suggested she thought her friend’s comment was naive. “Trouble is, I can feel his presence all the time.”

  So many times, Catherine had wanted to ask Lindsay the question she was contemplating right now, but she’d always feared what reaction she’d get. She hesitated, and asked, “Why don’t you just leave him? Start a new life?”

  Lindsay bowed her head and said quietly, “Guess you’ve been waiting to ask me that for a long time.”

  “I didn’t want to meddle, I—”

  “It’s okay, Cathy.” She returned her gaze to the water. “I think about it all the time. Wonder what it would be like to be in a relationship with a nice man. Thing is though—when you’re young, it’s easy; you just hitch up your skirt, flash a bit of leg, and you’ve got a crop of men to pick from. Not so easy at our age though, is it?”

  Catherine was about to tell her she was wrong, but stopped and placed her hand on Lindsay’s back. “Maybe you just have to find out.”

  Lindsay turned to Catherine, her eyes watering. “I think . . . I think I’m not strong enough to walk out on him. You know, I fantasize that the decision is made for me. It’s awful”—tears were now running down her face—“awful, but I keep thinking it would be best if he was dead. Killed. Died. Dead.”