by Matthew Dunn
This early in the morning, I briefly felt anonymous and secure. I was on the outskirts of the city, navigating on foot solely by the sight of skyscrapers in the center of the metropolis. There was no need to get too close to the center, but drawing nearer to the tall buildings would bring me into areas containing shops and other much-needed amenities.
I had to see the twins. It was vital the boys heard from me that I didn’t murder the woman in the hotel. I felt truly awful for letting them down. I wanted to tell them to stay strong until I could pick matters up where they left off and start our new life together. But I couldn’t investigate the murder victim and what had happened in the Waldorf. Only the cops could do that—though, armed with new information, I hoped I could read between the lines and establish a line of inquiry that would be invisible to detectives.
And then, that would be the end of the road.
I’d hand myself in. If I hadn’t already died from exposure.
As I walked fast, head low and hands in pockets, residential suburbs became industrial zones, before transforming into the cheaper end of the commercial district. People were around me, most of them looking dog-tired and irritable as they shuffled off to work. They didn’t care about me. But if they’d bothered to look, I was betting they’d think I was just some guy who’d finished a night shift on a construction site.
I spent two hours in the area, buying a bus ticket, food, today’s edition of the Washington Post from a convenience store, and a new set of clothes from a men’s store.
In forty-five minutes, I’d be making the five-hour bus journey to Roanoke.
On a park bench, away from the busier areas around me, I checked the newspaper’s classifieds section, cross-referencing it to the encyclopedia given to me by the Waldorf’s concierge. As promised, there was another entry in coded numbers. The message read:
HOW ARE YOU TODAY? A BIT TIRED AND FORLORN? FORGIVE ME IF I SEE THE FUNNY SIDE OF THAT. YOU ARE A MURDERER NOW. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE WHO GO CRAZY. BUT I SUPPOSE YOU THINK YOU CAN SURVIVE A BIT LONGER. ALL A MAN LIKE YOU NEEDS IS TO AVOID IMPETUOSITY AND RETAIN A BIT OF CASH IN YOUR POCKET. SORRY ABOUT THAT. MORE TOMORROW.
I frowned.
Sorry about that?
That sentence gave me a sinking feeling.
I walked to an ATM across the street. I wanted to withdraw my permitted maximum of five hundred dollars. I reckoned my dwindling savings could keep me on the streets for another week or two. After that, prison could take care of me.
The latest message had been a taunt, but cleverly written so the author didn’t implicate himself. This was his dish served cold. But revenge for what? This was eating away at me. After fourteen years of working in MI6, I’d made infinitely more enemies than friends.
There was a legion of people who wanted me dead.
I entered my cash card and keyed in my details. Insufficient funds. I tried again. Same response. I checked my balance. Zero.
Shit.
For the first time since waking in the Waldorf, genuine panic struck me with such force that I had to grip the side of the ATM to avoid crumpling to my knees.
Had the cops done this to my account? Taken everything away from me so that I couldn’t move? I doubted that. The police thought I was a desperate killer. Doing this to me would make me even more desperate. In the law’s eyes, I would become an even bigger danger to American citizens.
No, this was the work of the man or people who’d orchestrated this nightmare.
That was the other thing that kept me moving.
I wanted to come face-to-face with him.
When that happened, I’d show him what I was capable of.
Chapter 11
Technically, Billy and Tom were playing outside of their great-uncle and -aunt’s home. But once out of eyeshot of Robert and Celia, they gave up any pretense of looking happy. Instead, the ten-year-old twins sat together and spoke in the way that young children do when they’re confused by events around them and unsettled.
Below them was the beautiful valley that so often had been the place of their adventures, where they could let their imaginations roam as they pretended to be Native Americans hunting for fish or other wild creatures, soldiers in a jungle, Hobbits looking for Treebeard, anything that engaged their fertile minds.
Now the valley with its river and woodlands didn’t register. The boys were lost in thought, their eyes burning, feeling that everything was being churned up.
“Uncle Robert and Aunt Celia are acting a bit strange,” Tom declared.
Billy nodded while circling his finger in the ground. “I think they must be mad at Uncle Will for being late. Aunt Faye is mad, too.”
“Why is he late?”
“He’s lost, remember?”
“He should ask a policeman to help him.”
“Probably that’s what he’ll do.”
It came from nowhere, but suddenly Tom burst into tears, his body shaking. “I miss Mommy and Daddy.”
Billy started crying, too. He hugged his brother. “Me, too . . . me, too.”
“Daddy shouldn’t have been in the . . . in the . . .”
“SEALs.” Billy always remembered the name of Roger Koenig’s former unit by associating it to the sea mammal.
“And the other thing he did. The secret stuff. I think that’s why Mom was killed. Somebody bad came looking for him.”
No one in their family had told the boys what had really happened. Roger had already been dead when Katy Koenig was brutally stabbed to death by an assassin. He’d been working on a highly classified mission as a CIA paramilitary operative in Beirut when men shot him in cold blood. Katy was murdered by the same men back in the U.S., simply to send a message to Will Cochrane that more of his beloved friends would die if he didn’t back down from seeking revenge for his dear friend Roger’s death.
Billy stood up, not caring that he had bits of gravel and soil stuck to the skin below his shorts. “Is Aunt Faye here to look after us until Uncle Will arrives? She seemed so sad when she looked after us before.”
“She was Mom’s sister. That’s why.” Tom tried to rally his immature brain into some semblance of adult insight. “Maybe she’s here again to learn how to look after us again. Uncle Robert and Aunt Celia are helping her.”
Billy agreed. “I hope Uncle Will gets here soon. I can’t wait to see our new home.”
The boys were no longer crying. Tom suddenly felt a moment of hope. “He always buys us toys. Do you think he’s got us some new ones in the house?”
Billy’s thoughts were now on the same topic. “Maybe some new DS games. If he’s got a Microsoft account, he can download some games on our Kindles.”
“If not, we can show him how to get an account.”
In tandem, the twins looked at the valley and beyond, genuinely trying to spot him driving up the solitary road that led to the Granges’ property.
“He’ll be here soon.”
The matter was settled. Will Cochrane would be arriving any moment, ready to be their guardian and guide them through life.
Both boys’ faces lit up when they saw a police cruiser in the distance.
“He’s here!”
“The police found Uncle Will!”
The tall sixty-three-year-old gentleman—a slender figure with silver hair, green eyes, a smooth visage that suggested refinement and vast intellect, and a voice that was soft and beguiling—was today jettisoning his usual formality of wearing a suit during the working week and tweeds on the weekend. Right now he didn’t need to be anywhere other than on the deck of his large berthed yacht; the sea air was balmy enough for him to be wearing slacks and an open-collared shirt.
But he was still working, always did, sitting at a table with numerous cell phones, a laptop, and a copy of the Washington Post. He was deep in thought, his fingertips pressed together, around him Long Island’s Montauk Yacht Club and its dozens of moored luxury vessels, possessions of the wealthy who frequented the harbor for onshore ro
unds of golf while their wives flocked to the Hamptons to spend thousands on designer clothes and jewelry.
He wasn’t like them, though his fortune was now considerable. Wealth brought many advantages, but he had little interest in whether he could buy the latest Ferrari or upgrade his Andreas L motor cruiser to a Sycara V. What mattered to him was that money bought people and power, though his hand was for the most part invisible and unknown in the work he did.
His business was influence—steering political decisions in new directions, assisting major corporations with acquisitions they previously deemed impossible, deflecting potential damage and making it a potent force for his customers, arranging the disgrace of the most stubbornly resolute opponents.
To do this, he would use whatever tactic was required. Instead of specializing in a particular field, he had a general knowledge. If a problem presented itself, the man would close his eyes and let thousands of thoughts race through his mind; then, when he had logically deduced the correct solution, he would open his eyes and smile.
His current vocation was in many ways as far removed as it could be from his previous job of battlefield surgeon, a role that had taken him to nasty parts of the world where he would act as God in a makeshift operating theater strewn with wounded soldiers and their screams. That said, it was his role as a surgeon that had prepared him to be so formidable in his current line of work. A surgeon must find the correct solution to the manifold conditions that can afflict the human body in war. In business, he was no different, though he used his skills to punish and damage, not heal.
His name was Edward Carley.
It was soon going to be lunchtime. His crew was inside the vessel, cooking him salt-baked cod, parsley sauce, mange-tout, and herb mashed potatoes. As usual, he’d be eating alone. His wife had died a few years ago of a condition that even he couldn’t reverse, and neither of them had ever had children. His work as a colonel in the army had precluded any inclination to settle down to a domestic family life. He didn’t mind that he’d be partaking of his meal in solitude. He was at his most content when left in peace to collect his thoughts.
A guest arrived on his yacht, one of his associates, though the man had absolutely nothing in common with his employer.
His name was Viktor Zhukov, a medium-height Russian with jet-black hair. His body was lacerated with scars and was as strong as high-tensile steel. Most of the scars came from his brutal training and deployment in Spetsnaz, Russia’s special forces. The rest were gained in the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities where he’d turned his skills to crime and had gained a reputation as a murderer. It was a reputation that was thoroughly deserved and had brought him to the attention of the man whose yacht he was now standing on. Carley had given him a new identity so that his criminal record was clean. Carley controlled Zhukov with brutal efficiency and respected his track record. He had never failed to complete a job, no matter how distasteful.
As usual, Zhukov was in the black suit he wore when managing his legitimate trading company in Washington, D.C.
“Good morning to you, sir.”
Carley barely glanced at him. “My offer to put a scalpel to your mouth and correct your lisp still stands.”
“But it gives me . . .” Zhukov struggled to find the word.
“A degree of distinction?”
The Russian thought about the phrase before nodding in approval. “Distinction. I like that.”
Carley’s expression was cold. “All matters are in hand. You’ve been observing?”
“For days.”
“Confident?”
“Certain.”
It was all Carley needed to hear. Zhukov was not a liar or egotist. If he said he was certain of success, he meant every word.
Carley said, “I’m extracting the men and women who’ve helped you so far. They must leave America and lie low for a few months. Their equipment will be left behind at your safe house. A new team is flying in this afternoon. You remain in charge. Brief them on what you know. They know barely anything about me. Keep it that way.”
“Understood.”
Carley’s mind was thinking on multiple levels, and not just about this job. Tonight he was dining with an influential senator who’d turned to Carley for help because the politician had been accused of embezzling money out of a joint U.S.-Chinese oil deal. “As far as Cochrane goes, we’ve put him on the run and shut down his revenue stream. That’s only the beginning. Tomorrow we escalate matters. I will send him another message in the Washington Post. You will do your task to the best of your abilities. That will keep him alive, because he won’t put a gun to his head if you’re successful. We will kick him out of purgatory and kick him into hell.”
Zhukov didn’t understand the English word purgatory. But he understood everything else. He had to, because even Zhukov wouldn’t dare to misunderstand Carley’s orders. He knew enough about the man to be terrified of that happening.
Enough, including one stark fact.
Edward Carley had been dismissed from the army after being diagnosed as a full-blown psychopath.
Part Two
The Descent
Chapter 12
Though it was dark in the cabin of the British Airways flight over the Atlantic, too many passengers were still pressing their call buttons and requesting drinks. In the confines of economy class, Dickie Mountjoy was apoplectic that people didn’t just shut up and sleep, instead of behaving like spoiled kids crying out to their parents for more drinks. He hadn’t been on an airplane since he was in the army. It seemed to him to be a place where people were trapped; there was a clear division between the passengers who needed and the crew who sometimes gave.
Next to him was a thirty-year-old American woman called Barbara who’d introduced herself to Dickie after she’d boarded and had told him that she was returning home to New York to be reunited with her boyfriend after a period of cooling off.
Beyond saying he didn’t know what cooling off meant, Dickie had said little else, eaten his meal, and was now trying to rest. But the infernal pinging kept him awake and irritable, with at least four hours left until touchdown.
“Are you okay? You’re sweating.” Barbara was looking at the old man with concern.
A talkative passenger by his side was the last thing he needed. “I’m all right, missy. Just don’t like being shoehorned into a box that’s flying at thirty thousand feet.”
“Scared of flying?”
“No. Just bored.”
“That doesn’t explain the sweat on your face. Here.” She reached above him and directed the ceiling fan so that it blew cool air on his face. “Any better?”
“Now you’ve just made it windy in this awful place.”
“Where are you headed to in the States?”
Dickie wished she’d shut up. “New York. Same place as you. Don’t intend to stay long.”
“Have you been before?”
“Never been to America in my life.”
Barbara smiled. “New York City’s cool.”
“Cool? What do you mean?”
“Hip. Happening. A great place to hang out.”
“Oh, for the love of God.”
“You might find you like it there.”
Dickie withdrew from his jacket pocket a cut-out segment from his copy of the Telegraph newspaper. “It’s full of murderers! Look.” He thrust the article describing the Waldorf killing under her nose. “People get shot in hotel rooms. Nowhere is safe.”
Barbara glanced at the article. “Yes, I know about that. Everyone does. They’re still hunting him. He’s English as well. And there I was thinking all you Englishmen were civilized.” She held her hand to her mouth as she saw that Dickie was wincing in pain, his teeth gritted and his face pouring more sweat. She asked, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Dickie didn’t reply, just looked like he was in agony.
Turbulence struck the plane and the seat belt lights immediately came on just as she undid hers and unsteadily
tried to move along the aisle to seek help. A voice announced that everyone had to stay in their seats. Barbara ignored the instruction as she tried to find a flight attendant. But they were at the far end of the plane, also buckled up in their seats. Panic hit her. Uncertain what to do, she returned to Dickie and was relieved to see the man was breathing deeply, his expression now calm, though his face was still wet. “Are you okay?”
Dickie tried to look reassuring. “Better do as they say and sit back down. Nothing to worry about, my love. Feel completely better now. Bet it was just cabin pressure playing havoc with my insides.”
Michael Stein entered the Arrivals area of Washington’s Dulles airport and recalled the last time he’d done so, as a Mossad assassin tracking down a Hamas terrorist.
He had looked no different back then from how he looked now—the persona of a carefree traveler, a satchel slung over one shoulder, his expression inquiring and happy, as if everything around him was a first-time experience and full of wonderment. The difference was that now he was traveling under his real name and could tell the truth that his vocation was factory worker. What he lied about to the immigration officer was that he was in D.C. to visit the nearby Alexandria Archaeology Museum, among other historic points of interest. The truth was wholly different.
He was here to meet an extremely dangerous man.
The two male detectives from Roanoke Police Department had been selected for the job because of their proficiency with close protection and firearms. In the Granges’ isolated home, they spoke to the retirees and Faye for an hour, warning them that if Cochrane called them they were to alert the detectives immediately.
