by Matthew Dunn
“Because he wishes there was no trash.”
“Yes.” Gage checked her ACP. “Tonight we’re going to kick a door down. Pete will be taking point. Make no mistake—this is going to be very tricky.”
It was nine p.m. and dark as Kay Ash entered the CIA HQ in Langley. Wearing the same jeans and sweater she’d changed into when confronting Will, she walked through the largely deserted building and entered Hessian Bell’s office.
The CIA controller was in a black tuxedo suit and bow tie. “This had better be good” was all he said when he saw her.
Ash hesitated. “I’m sorry I disturbed your evening.”
Bell didn’t like that comment. “I was on a first date. Middle-aged woman. Same interests as me. We met on a dating site and she told me she liked La Traviata. So I thought I’d take her to the Kennedy Center tonight for the opera. We were at intermission when I got your call. I had to leave her there. Guess I’ll never see her again.” Bell looked wistful. “It was my first date since Maureen died.”
Under other circumstances and with other men, Ash would have been tempted to apologize. But Bell wouldn’t have taken kindly to that. “If you give me her number, I’ll call her and explain. It might sound better coming from a woman.”
Bell eyed her. “I might hold you to that. Right—get on with it.”
“You set me up.”
Bell was silent.
“Something or nothing always happens, you said. And you thought that in the case of Unwin Fox’s murder it would be something. You positioned me as bait.”
“And clearly something has happened. This evening.”
Ash folded her arms. “Perhaps it happened quicker than you anticipated.”
Bell leaned against his desk. “I don’t have enough facts to make time-sensitive predictions. I made a guess that Fox’s death had to do with the German intel you supplied. Was I correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you know this because someone involved in the operation approached you this evening.”
Ash nodded.
“Then we have a tangled knot to untie. Give me details.”
Ash took a seat on an antique chaise longue. “How much do you know about what happened after I supplied the intel about Otto Raeder?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
Bell stood. “Yes, I’m damn sure!”
Ash could see that he was telling the truth. “Then we have a big problem.”
Bell waited expectantly.
“The man who murdered Unwin Fox visited me this evening. He told me to speak to you.”
Bell frowned.
“He said that in doing so he fully realized you might turn him in to the police. But he also said he once dug bullets out of you. I presume he saved your life.”
Bell rubbed his face. “A tall man? Half-English? Half-American? Built like a prizefighter? But extremely smart?”
“Yes.”
Bell sounded distant as he said, “It was in Hong Kong. Kowloon, to be precise. Eight years ago. I was deep cover, trying to get alongside Asia’s biggest arms dealer. My cover was blown by an asset who was working both sides. The dealer’s men punished me and dumped my body in the estuary. It was too complicated for local CIA assets to get to me. So Cochrane stepped in and did the job alone. He pulled me out of the estuary and performed emergency medical care. And he shot a few people to get to me.” Bell pointed at the framed photo of him receiving the Intelligence Star from the U.S. president. “I’m not the only living spy to have the Star. For his actions that night, Cochrane was awarded the Star.”
“But he’s a Brit and back then wasn’t joint with the Agency. He was purely MI6.”
“It didn’t matter.” Bell picked up the photo off a shelf. “Given what I’ve just told you, Cochrane would have deserved our highest award. But here’s the thing: after he got me to the embassy, he turned around and went back to the arms dealer’s men. I don’t know how many men he killed, but it was a lot. He should have gotten a second Star for that.” Bell placed the photo back down. “Cochrane is alive. He killed Unwin Fox. He visited you tonight.” The controller stared at Ash.
“Correct.”
“Motive for killing Fox?”
“He said it was a mercy killing, that Fox had been poisoned by someone else.”
“How is Cochrane alive?”
“He faked his death.”
“Accurate.” Bell started pacing. “He was involved in the German operation. I suggest he was brought in to kill Otto Raeder.”
“And yet no one in the Agency knows what happened.”
Bell stopped moving. “What did Cochrane say to you?”
Ash felt like she was in the presence of an unstoppable intellectual force. “He said that my intel was taken by Unwin Fox to Colonel Haden in the Pentagon.”
Bell’s expression was neutral. “Cochrane wonders why that breach of protocol occurred. He also suspects one or two others were privy to your intel. He wants their names.”
“He also wants me to give him the address of Mrs. Haden.”
“Give it to him.”
“What?!”
“Give it to him.” Bell sat again on his desk. “Cochrane used you to get to me, and I’m using you to get back to him. Don’t get prissy about that fact. You know, I know, and Cochrane knows what we’re doing. In fact, Cochrane has orchestrated this. I told you there are two CIAs: the one outside my door and the one inside this room. Tell no one about what’s happened. Trust no one apart from me and Cochrane.”
“Trust Cochrane?!”
“Yes. He needs our help. You’re my insider. This is what you do best. You got that?”
Ash pondered this assessment. Being deep cover was her lifeblood. She smiled. “Damn right.”
“Good.” Bell glanced at his watch and sighed. “You may have to call my date. She’s a lovely person.” His expression steeled. “Find out everything you can about what happened after you handed your intel over to Unwin Fox. Give that data to me and Cochrane. From here on in, carry a sidearm at all times.”
Chapter 15
It was close to two a.m. when Gage, Painter, Kopański, and Duggan pulled up in their SUV on a residential street in Queens, New York City. The sound of traffic was in the distance, but the road they were on was quiet and deserted. Streetlamps were on, so too some house lights, though the majority of the street was bathed in darkness. Gage told Duggan to stop the vehicle and extinguish the headlights.
She peered over her shoulder at Kopański and Painter. “Now that we’re here, I can tell you why. But first I have to make a call.” She hit a number on her cell. “This is Agent Gage. Cut surveillance with immediate effect and get out of the zone. We’re taking over.” She ended the call and addressed the former NYPD detectives. “In the house behind the sixth streetlamp away from us is an extremely dangerous man. We’ve been watching him for a year. So far he’s done nothing wrong. Probably that means he knows he’s being watched. Why he’s here interests us. And we have a theory why he’s here.”
Painter asked, “You think he’s relevant to getting to Cochrane?”
“He’s as relevant as can be.” Gage pulled out her ACP handgun and addressed Duggan. “Don’t take any chances.”
Duggan nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am.” Gage returned her attention to Kopański and Painter. “He’s on his own, though he’s got a dog called Mr. Peres. The dog’s no threat. He’s a mongrel and as docile as they come. Plus he has arthritis in his back legs. His owner is thirty-five but looks ten years younger. He’s six foot and has long blond hair. He’s built like a sprinter—not obviously muscular but certainly as athletic as they come.” She looked at Painter. “You and I would probably not be able to take our eyes off him if we saw him walking into a bar. Don’t let that get into the way of things. He’s killed as many people as Cochrane.”
Painter asked, “Who is he?”
“He’s a former Israeli Moss
ad assassin. We think he’s here to find out what really happened to Cochrane. He and Cochrane worked together, though at first they tried to kill each other. The fact he’s in the States led us to believe that he suspected Cochrane wasn’t dead. I’ve had him under Bureau surveillance ever since. But he’s extremely canny. My agents have got nothing on him. Every morning and evening he walks his dog in a nearby park. In between, the man disappears. We try to find him but our best experts can’t get close.” She said to Kopański, “I need you to back Pete up at every step of the way. This isn’t an NYC perp we’re confronting. We’re dealing with an incredibly dangerous and highly trained killer.”
Michael Stein emptied the remains of his beef casserole into a bowl, stirred handmade roughage into the broth, and placed a second bowl of fresh water next to the meal. Both were on the floor of his tiny studio apartment.
“There we go, Mr. Peres,” he said to his aging dog. “Dinnertime. It’s a bit of a treat tonight. Real meat. Not the normal crap.”
The mongrel limped to the kitchen and started devouring the food, while Stein stroked his neck.
“We’ll be back on the kibbutz soon. We just have to get you through quarantine first.” He thought about his passport. “Me too for that matter. The Americans don’t like me. We might have to take a different route out.” He crouched down and gave his dog a hug, knowing that there was no way the dog would make the return journey to Dalia, the kibbutz in Israel where Stein worked in a soap factory, having eschewed his life as a Sayeret Matkal special forces operative and Mossad Kidon assassin. “It’s okay, boy. We’ll get through this together. I won’t leave your side. Ever.”
Mr. Peres wolfed down his meal, his arthritic back legs shaking as he did so.
Stein had owned the dog since he rescued him as a stray on the streets of Tel Aviv. Back then Peres was one year old. Now he was thirteen, his once golden fleece now white and gray. Probably he was a Labrador cross, though it was difficult to tell. But he was medium-size and had the appetite of a champion.
“I’m going to have to take you out for a pee after you’ve finished eating. Cold, dark, and wet out there. Not good for your legs, I know. But rules are rules and your bladder isn’t what it used to be.”
The meal complete, Stein attached a lead to Peres and carried him down four flights of stairs. Outside, he gently lowered him onto the sidewalk and walked him to the park.
“This time of year it’s warmer in Israel. Better for your legs. Do you remember, Mr. Peres? I’m sorry I had to bring you here. I had to find the truth about something. And I just couldn’t leave you on your own.”
They walked for twenty minutes in the park, until Peres started whining.
“Time for home is it?” Stein about-faced and walked his dog toward his apartment.
But before he exited the park, three men approached him out of the darkness. All were in hoodies and winter coats; two of the men black, one white.
The tallest of them, a black guy, said, “Cash. Give it to us or we’ll snap your dog’s legs.”
The men pulled out knives.
Stein was motionless.
“Cash,” the lead mugger repeated.
“I have no cash on me.”
The men laughed.
Stein told Peres to sit and said to the men, “I’m walking my dog in a park. What would require me to consider carrying sufficient funds to placate a robber? Do you think I’m that dumb?”
The white mugger strode up to him and put a knife against Stein’s throat. “Don’t mess with us!”
Stein remained still. “I’m walking my dog” was all he said.
The man moved to the dog and put his knife against Mr. Peres’s back right leg. “You want me to saw this off?”
“No.”
“Then give us what you have.”
“Okay. So long as you back away from my dog.”
The mugger looked at his leader, who nodded. “All right. But make this fast.” He walked back to Stein. “All you need to do is reach into your pocket and give us what you have.”
Stein put a hand into his jeans, withdrew a clenched fist, and opened it in front of the man’s face while saying, “Poof. Magic. Nothing in the hand.”
“You goddamn—”
Stein grabbed the man’s head with two hands and tossed him to one side, causing the man’s skull to smack on the concrete path and render him unconscious. Stein advanced on the other two. “You chose the wrong man tonight. You threatened my dog.”
Both men lunged at him with their knives.
Stein slammed his palm into the nose of the first, splintering cartilage. A nanosecond later he swept his leg and upended the second, before stamping repeatedly on his face. Both men were writhing on the ground in agony from the blisteringly quick assault.
Stein calmly picked up Mr. Peres’s lead and led him back to the apartment. “Not our normal routine,” he said as he towel-dried Peres from the rain. “What did you see out there?”
The dog was shivering as Stein got him dry.
“Shall I tell you?”
Peres nuzzled his nose against his beloved master.
Stein walked to the only window in the living room. “I’ll tell you what I saw out there. Absolutely nothing. And that’s a problem.”
Gage said to Duggan, “For the benefit of Agents Painter and Kopański, run through the drill.”
Duggan swiveled around. “It’s a fast snatch. The target’s name is Michael Stein. We grab him and question him. Here.” He tossed Kopański a pair of plastic cuffs.
Painter asked, “Will he be armed?”
“We have no evidence one way or the other.”
“Unarmed combat capabilities?”
“The best.”
Painter addressed Gage. “You may have noticed that due to my leg I don’t do anything fast these days.”
Gage was indifferent. “We’ll get the guys to do the heroics. You and I will use our brains when we’ve got Stein somewhere private.” She checked her ACP handgun. “Time to get this done.”
Mr. Peres was curled up in his bed, snoring and with his front paws twitching fast as if he was dreaming about chasing a rabbit. Stein smiled at the thought of his dog running free in a field, younger, with the energy that he probably never had due to malnourishment as a puppy. He brewed a pot of coffee and looked at the window. The curtains were closed. He dared not open them even an inch. Thermal imagery would catch him if he just got close to the pane.
“The Feds have gone,” he whispered to his sleeping dog. “Either they’re bored of me, or something’s about to go down.” He picked up his tiny hemp satchel containing his passport, wallet, and other essential items, slung it over his shoulder, and said in a loud voice, “I sweep this room for bugs daily. But I know you guys have long-range audio equipment these days. I stand no chance against that. So if you’re listening and about to do something idiotic, know that I’m unarmed.”
He picked up two small metal objects and attached them to the door with twine. There was nothing more that could be done. He placed plugs into his ears and Ray-Ban sunglasses over his eyes, sat next to Peres on the floor, and waited.
Duggan and Kopański moved quickly down the street, avoiding lamps and other sources of light, their handguns secreted under their jackets. Many of the residential dwellings around them were dark, their residents long asleep. But there was nothing to disturb the two men as they raced to the front door of the apartment building.
Duggan pulled out a key, but said nothing.
Kopański knew the Feds had somehow gotten a copy to the communal entrance.
Duggan nodded at his colleague and opened the lock. He held four fingers up.
Four flights of stairs.
The men ascended.
Stein stroked his dog. “Catch that rabbit, my friend. Maybe we could have it for supper.” He stared at the door. “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, nothing happens. But now and again it all goes wrong. I always hate the quiet. It means something
’s not right.”
He watched the metal objects on the entrance.
Duggan and Kopański reached the fourth floor. Duggan pointed at a door, his expression totally focused. “No key,” he whispered. “You choose who does this.”
Kopański didn’t hesitate. He strode up to the door, gun in hand, and kicked the door open and immediately swung left so that Duggan could enter and he could follow.
One second later the stun grenades Stein had attached to the door went off, causing brief deafening noise and light. Duggan and Kopański reeled as if they were blind drunk as Stein picked up Peres and sprinted past them, leaping down the stairs and out into the darkness of the street below.
It took the Feds ten seconds to recover from the devastating onslaught on their senses.
Kopański yelled, “The dog’s not here. It’s fled or Stein’s taken it with him.”
Duggan screamed, “Move!”
They leaped down the stairs, Duggan on his cell to Gage. “He just sucker punched us! We think he may have his dog with him. No idea on direction.”
Gage told Painter to unholster her weapon and stand in the center of the street before Gage sprinted to the other end, her ACP in hand. “We can’t see him!”
Duggan and Kopański exited the apartment block.
“Where the hell is he?” muttered Duggan. “The street’s covered. He’s got nowhere to go.”
Kopański looked up and down the street. Gage was motionless at one end, facing the men, her pistol held in two hands. Painter mirrored her at the other end. He spun 360 degrees. “The alley. That’s where he’s gone.”
The men ran into the alley adjacent to the block. At the end was a seven-foot wall. They scrambled over it, landing in trash bins on the other side before continuing their pursuit.
In his fierce Israeli special forces training with Sayeret Matkal, a unit comparable to Britain’s SAS and America’s Delta and SEAL Team Six, Stein was the top of his class. He excelled at fitness, even though there were more muscular men in his batch. But carrying a load in front of your chest is hell. No man can go fast over long distances in that condition. But he wasn’t going to let go of Mr. Peres. He breathed fast as he carried his dog while running as quickly as his legs and lungs would allow.
