by Matthew Dunn
“No. I took this weapon from a dead detective.”
“For a man who thinks he’s been framed for murder, you seem to be in the wrong place a lot.”
“I agree.”
“You seem too calm to be innocent.”
“I didn’t say I was innocent. My conscience plagues me every day. I said I was innocent of this particular crime.”
“You’re going to be dead very soon. You should be terrified.”
I nodded. “Not terrified for me.” That was true. I’d been expecting a sudden death for years. “Terrified for someone better than me. A boy in danger.” I paused, then continued.
“Listen. Whether I’m arrested, dead, or somehow get out of here, I want you to do something for me. Tell the cops that I said I didn’t kidnap the boy. Tell them I’m scared about his safety. I don’t know who took him, but know it’s linked to a vendetta against me. I think the boy is in Washington, D.C.”
Ninety minutes later, Patty Schmidt felt that she’d exhausted all descriptions to her viewers of what she could see and all conjecture about what was taking place. The police were being patient and methodical. Their perimeter around Rivermont and its surrounding streets was fully in place. Newly arrived SWAT reinforcements were joining in with the house-to-house searches. The police helicopter was moving over the area, its searchlight on because light was fading fast. And dog handlers were now in situ.
She’d filled in time by cutting to interviews with a former SWAT commander, a hostage negotiator, and the governor of Virginia. But the airtime waffle was in danger of losing viewers who were hoping for a gun battle or spectacular arrest. As day turned to night, the image of illuminated Lynchburg made for a more engaging shot—the sense that in the darkness lurked a highly dangerous man. But Patty knew that soon NBC viewers would be switching channels or attending to other business. She prayed that something would happen soon.
Officers Carter and Chen were by the southern barricade on Rivermont, drinking coffee and trying not to think about the way they had been walloped to the ground.
There was a paramedic nearby, plus two other uniformed cops. It was wholly unlike the northern barricade a mile away, the place designated as the on-the-ground command post. Carter and Chen had been relegated to the most insignificant post in the Lynchburg perimeter. Everyone knew Cochrane was trying to escape the city by heading north. This post was a token one, designed more for show.
Still, they were grateful to be on the ground. And the sweet coffee was good. When Cochrane was killed or captured, the officers were looking forward to getting home to their families and taking a long soak in their baths to relieve the bruising they’d suffered.
The cops around them had been initially supportive, saying they’d been extremely brave for pursuing Cochrane alone, and it wasn’t their fault he’d gotten the drop on them. It was nice of them to say that, though Chen and Carter saw it as no compensation for the fact that they’d lost their man. Now the two other cops and the medic were ignoring them. They’d probably run out of things to say and were embarrassed.
Joe Kopański reached the northern barricade on foot, showed his ID, and approached Captain Richards of the Lynchburg PD.
Richards was in charge of the manhunt in his city, and Kopański wasn’t going to interfere with that. Richards knew his patch and was trained to manage serious critical incidents like this; Kopański’s skill set was wholly different. Their paths had crossed before when a bank robber from New York had holed himself up in a Lynchburg gas station, was surrounded by cops, and blew his head off with a shotgun.
“House-to-house?” Kopański watched the hive of activity on Rivermont, police everywhere and SWAT systematically checking houses.
Richards nodded. “Going to take time. I’ve locked down the area.”
“You need me for anything?”
Richards knew the tough New York detective would love nothing more than pulling out his gun and searching for Cochrane alone. “Can’t say there is, Joe. But when we get him, we’ll hand him over to you.”
On Patty Schmidt’s instruction, the NBC helicopter pilot cruised around the perimeter. Patty was desperate to spot anything she could report on—new police arrivals, different streets being searched, anything.
They arrived over the southern barricade, one of the cameras in the craft picking up what could be seen on the street. Five people were there—a paramedic and four cops. Two of the cops had their hats off and were drinking out of paper mugs. To all intents and purposes they looked off duty.
“Hey, Eddie—are they the two cops who got attacked earlier?” asked Patty.
The cameraman zoomed in on their faces. “Can’t be sure. Possibly.” He spent several minutes backtracking through earlier captured video footage before looking at the officers again through his camera. “Yeah. Their tunic ID numbers match.”
This was good. Patty could waste a few minutes doing a feature. She addressed the second camera. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re over Rivermont, at the southern barricade. It’s clear police don’t think Cochrane’s heading this way, as it would take him into the heart of the city. The two officers we’re showing you are the same officers who courageously pursued Cochrane and got attacked. I guess they’ve been told to stay out of the action now. They deserve that after everything they went through. And thanks to NBC, the community of Lynchburg and everyone else watching our network saw their bravery in action. I’m sure they’re going to get a warm welcome when they get home tonight.”
Viktor Zhukov observed the police southern barricade on Rivermont. He’d walked around most of the police perimeter and decided that this was the best place to watch. There were no news teams here—most of them were gathered at the northern barricade—and no civilians. Everyone anticipated that the action would take place somewhere around a mile north. Here it was quiet, and he’d spotted no cops farther south. He waited in the darkness of a closed shop doorway. He just needed a few more minutes until the city was completely black.
I asked Nicola to glance out the curtains again.
“The place is crawling with police.”
“Is it dark now?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then it’s time for me to think about leaving you.”
Nicola hesitated before saying, “I don’t believe you.”
“That I’m innocent?”
“That you’d have shot me.” She sat opposite me. “I’ve treated criminals in hospitals, some of them violent. You can always tell what they’re capable of. I suppose it’s a look. I don’t doubt you’ve killed people. You have that look. But there’s something about you that tells me you couldn’t shoot an unarmed woman.” She gestured to the curtains. “You’ll be gunned down in minutes if you go out there.”
“I’ll be gunned down if I stay in here. But with the city in darkness, I stand a better chance on the street.”
“Why take the risk? You could hide out here. There’s attic space.”
“Why would you suggest that?”
She didn’t answer.
I placed my gun in my backpack. “They’ll be searching houses top to bottom in case I’ve coerced someone into hiding me. If I stay here, they’ll find me. Plus, you might get caught in the crossfire.”
My comment seemed to surprise Nicola. “You’d go out there, knowing you’ll be shot instantly, rather than risk me getting hurt?”
“Yes.” I meant every word. “Also, I want you to relay to the police what I said about the kidnapped boy being in D.C. You can’t do that if you’ve got police bullets in you.”
Nicola blurted, “I hope they don’t shoot you.”
I stood, ready to leave. “Truly, I’m sorry if I scared you. I’d never have hurt you.” I paused. “I’d like to ask you a favor. You must call the police after I’m gone. But could you wait for, say, ten minutes before doing so?”
Uncertainty was obvious in Nicola’s expression.
“Please. A boy’s life’s in severe danger. I don’t know
why he’s been kidnapped, but it’s most certainly somehow linked to me. I need to find the boy.”
“Are you a good man?”
It was a smart question. “It depends on your perspective. But I don’t kidnap children and I didn’t kill the people they say I did. I used to be in government service. I killed people then, but always as part of my job. The man in the newspapers is not the man in this room.”
She seemed to be weighing her response. Finally, she answered, “I’ll give you fifteen minutes before I call the cops.”
Zhukov could see the NBC helicopter hovering four hundred feet above his position. If its cameras were trained on the southern barricade, that would be a bonus, though not essential. In any case, no one could see him. He was fifty yards away, in shadow, with ample time to vanish after what he was about to do.
It was time to enact Edward Carley’s instructions and give Cochrane a chance to escape the city and stay on the run. And in doing so, further make Cochrane Public Enemy Number One and his life hell.
He raised the pistol that he’d used in the Waldorf Astoria and at the Granges’ homestead. He fired the silenced weapon twice, his bullets striking the backs of the heads of police officers Chen and Carter.
He dropped the gun, turned, and disappeared.
“Oh my God!” Patty Schmidt had her hand to her mouth, one camera on her, the other zooming in on the southern barricade. “Two police officers in southern Rivermont have just been shot. From outside the perimeter. Dear Lord. This is awful. Awful!” Though she’d wanted some action for her viewers, this wasn’t what she wanted, no matter how much NBC’s viewership would soar. “Somehow Cochrane’s gotten outside of the perimeter. He’s heading south. Oh, those poor men.”
The helicopter rose higher so it could capture a larger image of the Lynchburg police zone. All seemed chaotic—emergency lights flashing, squad cars and ambulances racing south, SWAT officers sprinting on foot toward the southern barricade, the police chopper swooping low with its searchlight scouring the ground around the murdered officers, and the entire perimeter being dismantled as law enforcement officials diverted all efforts toward the new crime scene.
None of them had any intention of arresting Cochrane. He’d just killed their brothers.
And he’d made a big mistake in heading toward the center of the city.
He’d be more exposed there.
And that’s where they’d get their payback.
Simon Tap cursed as he watched all officers at the northern barricade abandon their post and speed away.
Cochrane must have been sighted elsewhere. But everything was now fluid. Tap had no way of knowing at short notice where Cochrane was likely to be escorted after arrest. And in all likelihood Tap wouldn’t be able to drive his car to a location that would afford him a shot at Cochrane’s head.
That was okay. By intercepting Painter’s phone, he’d find out where Cochrane was taken after arrest. And maybe he wouldn’t be arrested; instead he’d be killed by the police. That too was a perfectly adequate result.
All that mattered was that Cochrane ended up dead.
He waited, as he heard Kopański tell his colleague that he’d just heard Cochrane had killed two Lynchburg officers and that all officers were heading to the scene with a direct shoot-to-kill policy in place.
Tap smiled, deciding that he would stay where he was until the matter was resolved.
Kopański rushed to the southern perimeter, his gun in his hand. Officers were all around him, shouting and dashing south to find Cochrane. He barely glanced at Chen and Carter; his priority was to locate their killer. All law enforcement were moving to the zone and beyond, mounting a frenzied assault to strike while Cochrane was nearby.
Kopański looked back up Rivermont and called Captain Richards. “Something doesn’t feel right about this. Why’s Cochrane heading to the center of the city?”
“Because he can’t go north, for Christ’s sake.” Richards sounded like he was running.
“You should keep at least twenty of your officers in the north, in case Cochrane’s doubled back.”
“Doubled back to what? Two hundred uniforms running toward him? I need everybody to be on his heels.” He hung up.
Kopański looked south, in the direction everyone thought Cochrane had fled. It was the logical thing to follow them. He looked north along the street that was soon to be empty of cops.
That’s where he went.
Outside the back of the house, I saw the last police officer leave the area. They must have had a false lead about my location elsewhere, though it made no sense that everyone had abandoned their posts purely based on a sighting. But I had no time to dwell on the unusual police redeployment. This was my one window to get out of here by heading north.
Making use of the large swathes of shadow between streetlights, I ran up the empty road. Many lights were on inside the houses, though I suspected the city was now in lockdown and people had been told to stay inside. Or they were too petrified to leave their homes.
I had no plan of what to do other than get out of the city and somehow get to Washington. But I had no money. Everyone knew what I looked like. I was labeled a child kidnapper and murderer of three citizens and four cops. And the distance between Lynchburg and D.C. was approximately 180 miles.
How far would I go to do what was necessary? Rob a liquor store or bank to get cash? Break into another person’s home and steal essential items and a car? Kill a civilian if he got in my way? A few days ago these questions wouldn’t have occurred to me. And even when I’d been in desperate situations while in the service, I’d always retained a strong sense of right and wrong. Because I operated in a morally ambiguous zone, that wasn’t always easy. Nevertheless, there was a line I wouldn’t cross. Now, I wasn’t so sure. I was in survival mode, and Tom Koenig was in severe danger.
I entered the northern tip of Rivermont Avenue. The police sirens were now distant. Why on earth they’d moved position still confused me, but I kept moving.
In the back of his vehicle, Simon Tap trained his camera lens on a solitary figure who was wearing a jacket, jeans, boots, and a backpack.
The man was tall and was running along Rivermont toward him, his hood up. He couldn’t yet see his face, because the man was avoiding streetlamps. But what he was doing was all wrong—if he were a journalist, he’d be running toward the action, not away from it; his attire was not that of a jogger; and Tap couldn’t imagine there was anything remotely urgent to rush to in this sleepy northern part of the city. He kept his camera trained on the man.
For one second, his face came into view when he couldn’t avoid a small area bathed in artificial light.
It was Cochrane.
Urgently, Tap grabbed his sniper rifle.
Kopański ran up Rivermont. The place was now deserted, all cops having repositioned to the zone one mile behind him. He moved into side streets, his handgun in both hands, not knowing where to look, but every sense telling him that Cochrane had tricked the police into thinking he’d fled south.
Just get out of Lynchburg, I kept telling myself. Focus on that and don’t even think now about what needs to happen next, because in all probability there’ll be no next.
I stopped running and bent over to catch my breath, and as I did so a high-velocity silenced round tore a chunk out of a tree right behind me.
I dived to the ground just before a second round raced through the air where my head had been a split second earlier. Rolling to one side, I leopard-crawled to the cover of a low stone wall.
What was happening? The police rarely used suppressed weapons and would have no need for them to take me down in Lynchburg. They were brazenly using a sledgehammer approach and wanted to be visible to flush me out.
The marksman was ahead of me somewhere, but I couldn’t risk looking. The shooter was an expert shot, and it was only by chance that I wasn’t dead. And he’d been going for head shots—no attempts to wound and incapacitate me. Everything suggested
the gunman wasn’t a cop.
I crawled alongside the wall for one hundred yards until I was off Rivermont and in a deserted side street.
Certain that I was out of the sniper’s line of fire, I got to my feet and bolted.
Tap leapt into the driver’s seat, started the engine, turned the car around, and sped toward the place where he’d last seen Cochrane. By his side, he had a handgun, ready to point through the windshield and take out the Englishman. After that, he’d get out of the car, put two more shots into his head, and drive off.
He drove to the end of the side street where Cochrane had run, urgently looking left and right. Reaching a T-junction, he glanced in one direction, saw nothing, and looked in the other direction.
Cochrane was there, standing next to a small copse, looking right at him before running between the trees.
Tap put his foot to the floor, his tires screeching as they tried to get traction, his car hurtling to the spot where Cochrane had vanished. He squealed to a stop, threw open the door, and raced into the woods, his handgun held high, ignoring Knox’s advice not to get close to Cochrane, because he was ex-Delta and this was precisely the thing men like him were trained to do.
The blow to the back of Tap’s head made him double over but not fall. He spun around, staying low and ready to shoot. The punches and knees to his face, throat, groin, and ribs were delivered so fast that Tap could do nothing but simply crumple to the ground. Cochrane’s heel smashed onto his breastbone so hard that Tap thought his heart was going to explode. All he could do was lie there, desperately trying to breathe, his handgun discarded during the assault.
I dropped to the ground and wrapped both arms around his throat, positioning my body so that he couldn’t move his arms.
“Who are you?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Are you part of this? Part of the setup to frame me?” I squeezed tight.
