by Matthew Dunn
“I’m liable to say the wrong thing to you.”
“Because you don’t have a certificate saying you successfully completed an NYPD hostage negotiating course? Tut-tut, Detective. You do yourself a disservice.”
“Will—there’s no way out of this. It’s the end of the line for you.”
“I don’t expect a way out of Manhattan. You know why I came back here?”
“I thought you’d stay away from major cities. No, I don’t know why you came back.”
“Think, Detective.”
Painter was silent for a few seconds. “It’s where your sister died. For some reason you were drawn to be close to where that happened.”
“Correct.” I was lying. I had no idea where Sarah’s body had been taken. Being here would have given me no closure—whether I was a grieving brother or her murderer. But I had to disguise the real reason I’d returned. “I had to take a risk. And now look what’s gone and happened.”
“Are you going to let the hostages go?”
“As long as the police don’t do anything rash, yes. All of them. Unharmed.”
She said nothing.
“SWAT will be trying to get a look inside here. I might have fucked them on pinhole cameras, but they’ll be using thermal imagery. It’ll show them that I’m keeping the hostages constantly on the move.”
“I guess you know all about storming buildings.”
“Of course.” I added, “If SWAT’s told to end this, they’ll breach both doors, toss stun grenades, and teams will enter front and back. They’ll be armed with Heckler & Koch submachine guns, and will have handguns as secondary weapons in case there’s a malfunction. Probably they’ll kill the lights a split second before entering. Their guns will have flashlights attached. Half of them will cover the left side of the room, the rest the right. When they see me, they’ll shoot to kill. But I’d say the chances of them hitting a hostage are above fifty percent. Do you know what they’d prefer to happen?”
“No.”
“They want me to try to escape. That way a sniper can take me out. Or I just walk into a volley of NYPD fire.”
Painter sounded genuinely concerned when she said, “You can’t escape. Don’t try that. You’ve killed cops. The guys out here will be justified in shooting you if you try to get away. But while you’re in there and not killing anyone, we have a chance to cool things down.”
“It’s a bit late for that. But I need to decide what to do. I hadn’t planned for this to happen. Call me back in sixty minutes.”
The chef placed brown paper grocery bags and several balls of twine on the kitchen workbench. I moved behind the bench, facing the restaurant. Placing my handgun down, I grabbed a knife from the kitchen, cut the string into equal lengths, and started braiding it into rope.
Painter said to the SWAT commander, “He wants sixty minutes to decide what to do. Providing he does nothing before then, I say we give him that time.”
“That’s fine by me.”
A thought occurred to Painter, prompted by something Dickie Mountjoy had said to her in the Manhattan interview room. She called Detective Inspector Toby Rice from the United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police. After explaining what was happening, she told him what she had in mind. “Can it be done? Urgently? We’ve got less than sixty minutes.”
She walked to Kopański. “Why the hell doesn’t he give himself up?”
Kopański was leaning against a police car, his gun trained on the restaurant. “I don’t think he wants that. He just hasn’t decided yet how he wants to die.”
Thirty minutes later, the restaurant phone rang.
“I said leave me alone for an hour.”
But the woman on the phone wasn’t Painter.
“Will—it’s Phoebe.”
“Phoebe?”
Her voice was hesitant. No doubt she had police with her in her London home, or she’d been picked up and taken to a station. “They told me what’s happening. They want you to give yourself up. They’ve said that if you do that and don’t hurt any hostages, they won’t shoot you.”
I hadn’t expected this to happen. Despite being in an unbelievably shitty situation, hearing Phoebe’s voice was like getting a call from an angel. “Phoebe,” was all I could say.
“You must give yourself up, Will. There are no alternatives.”
I felt myself getting emotional. “There are. I could just walk outside and get my head blown off. Better that than spending the rest of my life in prison, or going on death row.”
Phoebe was sobbing. “I didn’t have to call. They couldn’t force me to. But I wanted you to hear from me that there are people out there who still love you. No matter what they say you’ve done.”
“There are only three people left alive who love me—you, David, and the major. And you might as well be on Mars for all the difference that makes to me right now.”
Phoebe was silent.
I breathed deeply. “But I do appreciate the call. However this ends, it’s so good to hear your voice. How are you all?”
“Will, it’s . . .”
“What?”
“It’s Dickie. He flew to the States to put in a good word for your character. It was the last good deed he wanted to do.”
I had a sinking feeling. “The last?”
She was now openly crying. “His heart gave out. They flew his body back. We buried him today.”
“Oh, dear Lord.” I gripped the reception table.
I had a mental image of Dickie. We were trying to fix a leak under his kitchen sink. The job complete, he’d said, “Let me fix us a nice cup of tea and bore you about why people of your generation are soft compared to my lot.”
I’d made my excuses and left.
Now, I wished I hadn’t.
That was the last time I’d seen him.
“Dickie,” I whispered.
Phoebe said, “He knew you’re a good man. We all do. Whatever you decide, can you keep that in mind? Maybe do something that would make Dickie proud.”
“I will. Good-bye, Phoebe. Look after David. Take it easy on the champagne. And whatever happens, always remember that I’m an innocent man.”
I hung up, full of grief.
But that emotion had to be put to one side. I had work to do. Phoebe was right. I owed it to Dickie to go out in a way that would make him proud.
Twenty minutes later, Painter called the restaurant. “Have you decided how you want this to end?”
Cochrane answered, “I have.”
“Please tell me it’s the right choice.”
“That depends on your point of view. It’ll happen in five minutes, in the front of the restaurant. And remember that I’m holding a gun and it’s pointed at someone’s back.”
Urgently, Painter said, “The sniper will go for a head shot.”
“That’s his call. Just make sure it’s the right one.”
It was time to move.
I said to the thirteen assembled men, “Hands in pockets at all times. If anyone breaks the rules, you not only risk your life, you’ll be risking everyone’s life. There are a lot of twitchy fingers out there. If you do this exactly right, I guarantee you’ll soon be free and unharmed. Okay. Let’s move!”
Kopański and Painter were at the front of the restaurant, standing behind the fleet of squad cars. The helo was still overhead, its searchlight positioned on the door. Over fifty uniformed cops and SWAT officers were on Worth Street. A sniper was on the top of a building opposite the restaurant. If Cochrane did anything wrong, he’d be gunned down in a second.
Other helos belonging to media were in the air. On the ground, news crews were catching the action from behind cordoned-off areas farther down the street. Everyone was expecting something big to happen. And this was making prime-time television.
The restaurant door opened.
All officers braced themselves, their firearms trained on the door.
One by one the occupants of the restaurant came out.
&nb
sp; All of them were tethered together by rope around their waists.
Their hands were bunched inside their jacket pockets.
And on their heads they had brown grocery bags that only had tiny holes for their eyes to see through.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” shouted Kopański into his radio mic.
Painter checked her notes of what Cochrane had last been seen wearing. Three of the men in the line matched his height. But the clothes had been mixed up. The police sniper had an easy head shot. But he risked killing a hostage if he got it wrong. And somewhere in the group was a man holding a gun.
There was only eight inches of rope between each man. None of the hostages could make a run for it. And with their hands in their pockets, it was impossible to know who was holding a gun.
Slowly, the fourteen men walked away from the restaurant. All the cops could do was watch.
The cops, and millions of TV viewers.
SWAT officers rushed the restaurant. It was empty. Cochrane was in that line of men.
The line walked east down Worth Street, the police helo matching their pace and keeping its spotlight on them. Police on foot followed on either side of them, guns trained on each man.
They were headed to a cordon one hundred yards away, behind which were other cops, members of the public, and media.
Kopański raced ahead of the hostages, shouting, “Move that cordon! Now!”
For the first time in her career, Painter was able to keep pace with a fleeing perp. They were walking so slowly. Behind the group, squad cars were following with lights flashing.
“Detective Painter.” The voice was Cochrane’s, though it was impossible to know who in the line had called out. “Clear a path!”
Painter didn’t care that Cochrane could hear her as she spoke to the SWAT commander on her radio. “Stay ahead of the group at all times. He’s going to have to go solo sometime. That’s when you take him down.”
Ahead, Kopański and other police were urgently moving the cordon back, barking orders at civilians to move their asses.
Cochrane and the hostages drew closer.
Then turned right down Centre Street.
Where are they headed? thought Painter. Cochrane must have known that he wasn’t going to be let out of Manhattan. His plan was dumb. The group could only go as far as the weakest man in the group could go. Eventually, one of them would fall to his knees. And police would be around them at all times.
Patty Schmidt from NBC was in the air. Beside her in the helo were her trusted cameraman and audio technician. They’d flown from D.C. as soon as they’d heard about the siege. The last time she’d covered Cochrane in Lynchburg, he’d shot two cops in cold blood. Now, she wanted to capture his death on camera.
Hair coifed, attire immaculate, the seasoned broadcaster made an address to the camera.
“What you’re seeing are fourteen men. They’re tied together. Bags are on their faces to hide their identities. One of them is Will Cochrane. He’s got a gun pointed at the others. The police can’t open fire because they don’t know which man is Cochrane. This is a real-life bogeyman, hiding under a mask. But here’s the thing. He wasn’t always like this. Once, he was a secret national hero. He didn’t get any thanks or recognition for that. He worked the shadows. Our best always do. We should be asking ourselves how it’s come to this. What broke him? And what did we do to let him down? Or maybe a better question is, what did our government do to drive him to this?”
This was a nightmare tactical scenario for the SWAT commander. In fact, there were no tactics suited to this situation. Cochrane and his hostages couldn’t be let off the island. But if they tried to leave, that left some hard choices. Almost certainly hostages would die in the process.
His men were around him as he ran down Centre Street, ahead of the line of men.
Kopański was by his side, screaming at a police barricade. “Get that fucking thing taken down! They’re coming this way!”
NYPD officers complied, lifting portable barriers and moving them to the side of the street.
Within five minutes, the line of fourteen men walked past them, every inch of their movement tracked by the cops.
Painter and dozens of uniform officers flanked them. She called out, “Let them go! You are not getting off Manhattan.”
Cochrane didn’t reply.
The noise was incredible—helicopters, sirens, cops shouting, civilians shrieking as they were pushed away from the moving kill zone.
Where is Cochrane taking the hostages? thought Painter. And what in God’s name is he hoping to achieve?
Cochrane and the men turned.
Onto the Brooklyn Bridge.
“Mr. Cochrane,” she shouted, “I’m not letting you reach the end of the bridge.”
He didn’t reply.
She was on her radio mic. “Shut the bridge down. No traffic on the bridge. And I want a heavily armed barricade at the eastern end. No matter what, they do not pass.” She glanced at the line. “You getting all this, Cochrane?”
The SWAT commander and his men were sprinting along the bridge. Cars were exiting fast, nothing behind them because the far end had now been blocked off by a barricade, squad cars, and over one hundred cops.
This was where it was going to end.
The commander was under orders to apprehend or kill Cochrane. No matter what.
The route ahead was now empty. Four hundred yards away was a sea of blue lights and armed officers. There was no way through.
He reached the barricade, spun around, and aimed his submachine gun. His men did the same. In the distance the fourteen men were in sight. Which of them was Cochrane? Beside the slow-moving group were Painter, Kopański, and an entire precinct’s worth of cops. Police and media helicopters were overhead, their searchlights on the group. Squad cars were behind them, lights still flashing.
Forward or back, there was no way off the bridge.
We were halfway across the bridge. I hadn’t planned for the hostage situation, but maybe this was for the best. Inside the grocery bag over my head, my breathing was fast, the paper sucking in and out with each inhalation and exhalation. The men tied to me were shit scared. I wished it had worked out differently. I’m a killer. The men attached to me had just gone out this evening to grab some noodles with loved ones. They didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve me entering their lives.
Nobody deserved me.
The world thought I’d betrayed it; everything I’d done before now was meaningless.
I was scum.
This was how it had to end.
“Detective Painter.” My voice was loud. “This is as far as we go. Move your officers back.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
We were still, the blackness of the distant East River beneath us. I thought about my American father. He was such a good man. A U.S. Marine; a CIA officer. Was he like me? I think so. He raised kids; I’d wanted to do that too. And he’d sacrificed himself for the States. Just like me.
I cut my ropes and said to the hostages, “Get out of here,” as I clambered over the railing. I was on a precipice.
Facing the river, police, and media helos.
Standing on the side of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Death a fucking awful fall below me.
It was time to end this. I took off my bag and revealed my face to the world.
I knew cameras were on my exhausted face. I looked to the sky. Few people could survive this fourteen-story jump. People were shouting. Most of their words didn’t register.
But I heard Painter say, “Please don’t.”
And Kopański say, “Stay where you are!”
The black river was below me, its tide a torrent.
Snapshots of my life raced through my mind. All of the hardship and pain seemed wanton. The sacrifices to no avail. The friendships sullied. The people who loved me disappointed.
SWAT was running toward me.
Was I a good or
bad man?
I didn’t know.
Others would decide.
I jumped.
Chapter 32
A week later the president and his chief of staff were in the subterranean White House Situation Room. Opposite them were four people.
The attorney general.
Marty Fleet.
Thyme Painter.
And Józef Kopański.
Kopański said, “Suppose Cochrane was innocent of the crimes.”
The chief of staff said, “I doubt that, but suppose he was. Philip Knox engaged his asset Simon Tap to kill Cochrane. We know that now. Capitol Hill is in no doubt that Cochrane killed them instead. Do you agree?”
The attorney general nodded.
To Kopański, the chief of staff said, “He attacked you and another officer. Agree?”
Reluctantly, Kopański answered, “Yes.”
The chief of staff was on a roll. “NYPD officers severely assaulted. Thirteen men taken hostage at gunpoint. That alone would have gotten Cochrane the death penalty.”
“But he didn’t kill any of them,” said Fleet. “They were just in his way.”
“Lots of people seem to get in Cochrane’s way.” The chief of staff waved his hand. “Do we pronounce Cochrane dead?”
The attorney general answered, “Yes. Coast Guard says it was a fierce riptide that night. Even if he survived the jump off Brooklyn Bridge—and we think that unlikely—he would have been dragged out to sea. He’s dead.”
The chief of staff locked his eyes on the detectives. “You ran him to ground.”
Kopański answered, “No. We followed him to a place of his choosing. He was in charge that night.”
Painter added, “It was his swan song.”
Marty Fleet was about to add his thoughts.
But the attorney general gripped his arm, fearing the young man would jeopardize his position.
Marty Fleet shook him free and spoke to the president. “Sir—you should have done more to help him.”
“Marty!” said the AG.
Fleet stared at the president. “Once I thought I wanted to be like you. Then my sister fell out of the sky in a climbing accident. That changed everything. She tries to speak to me. She can’t. She’s just like Cochrane. Fucking dead. But here’s the thing. I care for her.”
