by Matthew Dunn
“And that could’ve been a lie.”
“So, round and round the mulberry bush we go.” She stared at him, her expression now cold. “But I don’t think I have time for any of that.”
She turned her attention to the colleague next to Will.
And clicked her fingers.
FOURTEEN
Antaeus raised his old rifle to eye level, focused on the moonlit area of woodland, and pulled the trigger. The shot echoed over the surrounding countryside, causing night wildlife to shriek as it made for cover. He ignited his oil lamp and limped toward the place where his bullet had struck flesh.
His breath steamed in the cold air as he stopped on an area of heathland beneath a tall birch tree and held the lamp low, scouring the ground around him. It took him only a few seconds to find the dead body. He moved to it, felt pain in his bad leg as he crouched, and smiled while smoothing a hand over the warm carcass. His shot had been precise—straight through the breastplate, no mess, instant death.
His rifle’s aim had been as true as it had been in the hands of a Boer, over a century ago during the siege of Mafikeng. After slinging it onto his back and putting the lamp’s handle on his forearm, he placed two hands under the body, lifted it to his chest, and walked to the large building that was positioned on stilts over a glistening and tranquil lake. The house was the only sign of human life for miles around in the countryside, and that’s why he liked living here. Plus, it was only fifty miles beyond the outskirts of Moscow and so gave him easy access to the SVR headquarters.
He entered the house, kicked the door shut behind him, and went to the kitchen. On the table was a copy of the Washington Post that was open on a center-page spread about Senator Jellicoe’s appearance at the Senate hearing. An SVR courier had delivered the paper to him one hour ago. As soon as the courier had left, Antaeus had read the article in silence, his vast intellect attempting to process hundreds of thoughts, before deciding that hunting his supper was the best way to focus his mind.
He placed the dead rabbit on top of the newspaper. Blood from the bullet’s entry and exit wounds dripped over the article’s photo of Will Cochrane’s face, quickly making the image saturated and crimson. Antaeus smiled and went to his study.
The room was small and cluttered with wall-mounted shelves, a set of drawers, leather chair and oak desk, books, a scorched wooden ashtray, pre-WWII metal coffee tin containing cheroots, gloves and scarves hanging from the ceiling, print photographs of Captain Scott and his ship Discovery during the Antarctic expedition in 1902, stationary and papers containing his ongoing research into a Stone Age settlement that was once located in his property’s expansive wild grounds, a reptile tank, and a blackboard that was fixed on the wall above his desk.
The spymaster sat at his desk, picked up a piece of chalk, and stared at the board.
Many times he’d used the board to make notes.
This evening was different, because the stakes were the very highest.
He reached with the chalk to the left side of the board, wrote four names, and studied them while deep in thought.
Senator Colby Jellicoe. Totally dedicated to Project Ferryman, but he’d blurt the truth if pain was inflicted on him.
Charles Sheridan. He hated his wife, Lindsay, after their last overseas posting. How much did she know? A weak link? Or could Sheridan keep her mouth firmly shut?
Gregori Shonin, Antaeus’s best SVR agent, who years earlier had spotted the Americans at the embassy function in Prague, and as a result had enabled the spymaster to commence Project Ferryman.
And Ed Parker. Loyal to his wife, the Agency, and Ferryman.
He drew a line from the names to the center of the board, where he wrote PROJECT FERRYMAN.
Above it he wrote COBALT. The code name of the financier who spent more money funding terrorism across the globe than all other terrorism-financing schemes put together. A ghost. A repulsive man driven solely by profits. An enemy of the motherland, America, and all others who loathed anarchism and dogma. A man who was the complete antithesis of professional operators like Antaeus or his opponents in the West. And yet one who was inextricably linked to Ferryman.
From there, he drew another line to the other side of the board, his chalk screeching as he did so. He wrote one name.
WILL COCHRANE.
Antaeus looked at the reptile tank. Inside was a chameleon. Its markings had adapted to mimic the color of its surroundings. He imagined the chameleon was Ellie Hallowes. The creature was alive because Antaeus chose to let it live; Ellie Hallowes was alive because Will Cochrane had disobeyed orders by choosing to protect her.
Her Russian SVR agent had met her in Norway with knowledge that the CIA had been totally penetrated by Russia. Did he communicate that to her? Or was he gunned down by Antaeus’s men before he could do so? Time would tell. Plus, Ferryman was still in place.
He stared at Cochrane’s name. Thanks to Ferryman and what the man had said at the senatorial hearing, Antaeus now knew that Cochrane had had Antaeus in his sights in Norway. How galling it must have been for the MI6 operative when he was ordered not to shoot Antaeus.
But Cochrane wasn’t a man to back down from danger. He wouldn’t flee.
Antaeus nodded.
Will Cochrane would head to North America to ascertain why he’d been made to go on the run. And that meant there was a threat—just a potential that he could destroy Ferryman.
He picked up a photo of his wife and six-year-old daughter, and felt a moment of utter sadness. They were his beloved darlings, and to his unexpected delight had helped him discover and reveal a genuine kindness inside him. That had all ended on the evening when his daughter twisted her ankle while shopping with her mother. They were supposed to have caught the train home, but it was raining hard and his daughter’s injury made it impossible for them to reach the station. So his wife had called him on his cell when he was leaving work. Every day since then, he’d wished he’d ignored the call. But he hadn’t, and had made a quick detour to pick his family up. It was the only time they’d ever shared a car journey with him while he headed home after work. He remembered his daughter’s excitement overshadowing the pain in her leg. That had made him momentarily happy, an emotion that had been instantly replaced with dread when Ferryman called in a state of panic. Antaeus had stopped the car, rushed out, and moved to the rear passenger doors while screaming at his family. His hand was on the door handle when the bomb went off and threw him halfway across the Moscow street. Despite the severe burns and lacerations to his leg and half his face, he’d tried to crawl back to the vehicle, even though it was a mangled wreck of burning steel and corpses. But the flames were too fierce, and in any case there was nothing he could do. His wife and child had been blown to pieces.
Antaeus touched the photo, two tears running out of his eyes, one of which coursed erratically down the disfigured side of his face.
He’d never allowed anyone to travel in his car to or from work in case something like this happened. But on that day, his wife had implored him and in the background he’d heard his daughter crying. He just couldn’t bring himself to leave them stranded. So he’d taken a risk.
To this day Cochrane didn’t know they’d been in the car, because their presence and their deaths had been carefully covered up by the SVR. Had he known about Antaeus’s unplanned detour that evening, Cochrane would undoubtedly have done everything he could to get the spymaster’s family out of the car before the MI6 timer triggered the bomb.
But that made no difference to the fact that they were still goddamned killed by the bastard.
Antaeus wiped the tears away and now felt nothing but burning anger. He took out his cell, spoke to a man for eleven minutes, ended the call, and drew an arrow pointing at Will Cochrane’s name.
The anger receded and was replaced by fast thinking and a cold resolve. He held the chalk at the base of the arrow, wondering what he should write. Not their real names, of course; instead appropriate code na
mes that only he knew. Looking around the room, his gaze settled on the framed print photographs of the Antarctic expedition.
He made a decision and wrote on the board.
SCOTT. SHACKLETON. OATES. AMUNDSEN.
Four early-twentieth-century Polar explorers.
The very toughest of men, who were able to withstand unimaginable hardships and could only be stopped by death.
Just like his four top assassins. And like the explorers, two of them were British, one of them Irish, and one Norwegian.
He’d just told the assassin code-named Scott that the team was to immediately deploy to the United States.
His instruction was as precise as his shot that hit the rabbit.
Kill Cochrane.
FIFTEEN
Wind and ice rushed into the house as Ulana opened the door, and she had to use all of her body weight to resecure the entrance once she was inside the kitchen. She removed her ski goggles, balaclava, and gloves, jumped up and down to shake the snow off her clothes, placed her bare hands around the kettle, and shuddered as the warmth aided her fingers’ circulation.
From the other side of the kitchen, Will said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not putting a bullet in my brain, cutting my body into pieces, and scattering my remains in Greenland.”
Ulana smiled. “It took a lot of my willpower not to do that.”
“What changed your mind?”
Ulana folded her arms and looked at him. “You knew what we were doing here and in Canada, and yet you never told anyone.”
“It suited me not to.”
“Even so, you could have sold us out at any time.”
“Yes.”
She drummed fingers against the wall, thinking. “I’m going to take you to Canada.”
Though he was hugely relieved, this was the last thing he’d expected Ulana to say. “Of course, I’m delighted you said that. But why would you do it?”
Ulana answered quietly, “Every month I fly my guys into Canada. Fat generals in Moscow tell us it’s important work, but we’re not stupid. It’s all a load of crap. And providing we don’t freeze to death first, doing crap work doesn’t change the fact that if we get caught, it’s life imprisonment in a high-security Canadian prison after the Mounties have interrogated us.” She hesitated, then said, “Of course, we’d try to escape before that happened, though things rarely go as planned.” Her voice trailed. “I don’t envy you.”
Will kept his mouth shut.
“I spent most of last night trying to decide why I wanted to help you. In the end it came down to one thing—people like you and I have worked for so long in the field, it no longer seems relevant that we’re Russian, American, or British; GRU, CIA, or MI6. Because we’re not really any of those things, are we?”
“No.”
“Instead, we’re just weird people doing weird things in weird places, and all the while we rarely have a clue if what we’re doing is of any use to anyone. And when we go home we . . .”
“Aren’t like the people around us.”
Ulana nodded. “I’m helping you because you know what it’s like to be me. And maybe one day you can return the favor and help me.”
“I’d like that.” He was about to elaborate.
But Ulana held up her hand. “Kicking up out there. It’ll be a very bumpy crossing.”
“You tell me if it’s safe to fly.”
“It’s never safe to fly. Not in these little birds. I think all that first-class 747 spy travel has made you a bit naive.”
Will recalled that the last time he’d been in a small airplane it had been torn apart during an emergency crash landing, moments before a sniper shot him and all of his men.
Ulana tossed him a small document.
An American passport.
He turned to the page containing the photo. “You’re certain this won’t be missed?”
Ulana shrugged. “Out here stuff gets lost, or ruined by the weather. I’ll just request another one. Moscow won’t think twice about it. Just make sure you keep the beard.”
The alias passport belonged to one of her men, also bearded. While the photo and Will looked reasonably similar, he doubted there was a sufficient match in their looks to pass the scrutiny of a border crossing. But Will wasn’t intending to thrust it into the hands of a professional immigration officer; instead, if needed, it was solely for use in-country. “You didn’t need to pull out all the stops for me.”
“Dumping you midwinter in Canada with nothing but a passport to back you up is hardly pulling out the stops.” Ulana started preparing herself a hot drink. “You got yourself a woman yet?”
“No.”
“Occupational hazard, I guess.”
“You seemed to have cracked it with Filip,” he said.
“Not anymore. He couldn’t stand the wait.”
“I thought he knew the deal. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Obviously not.” She poured sugar into her tea. “Not much sense about today, is there?”
“None.”
Ulana burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
Her eyes twinkled. “I’ve just realized that we’re finally putting this shit task to some use. Not quite what my superiors intended though.”
“You sure about the cache?”
“I’m sure. We have to replenish them with new supplies into Greenland, and often as not we have to chuck out the old stuff because it’s become damaged over time. Warn you though: not much in this cache.”
“I’ll take what I can get.”
Ulana studied him while frowning. “You sure you should be doing this? America? Things are about to get considerably worse for you.”
“It’s a better option than hiding out in a bar in central Africa, drinking shooters just to numb the boredom.”
Ulana sipped her tea. “You could come and live in Russia.”
“No thanks.”
“Why not?”
Will chuckled. “Where do I begin to answer that?”
“At the end.”
“My end wouldn’t be living in a pretty dacha. It would be a Russian president one day realizing that he could hand me over to the West in return for big favors.”
“True. By the way, you were lucky to reach us when you did. We’re being pulled out in a few weeks—back to Moscow; team change over.”
“What are you going to do?”
Ulana beamed. “I’m adopting a little Russian boy. All the paperwork’s been approved.”
“Wow! That’s wonderful news.” Instinctively, Will wanted to step forward and embrace her, but stopped himself doing so because Ulana wasn’t the cuddly type. Still, he felt genuinely pleased for her, his smile matching her own. “Are you staying in GRU?”
“Have to. Our economy’s still fucked and who else would want someone who can fly planes under the radar, sit in ice holes for days on end while looking through binos, and shoot a man in the head from a distance of over one thousand yards?”
“Oh, I can think of quite a few employers who’d jump at the chance of having someone like you on board.”
Criminal bosses, among others.
“Seen too many of my pals going down that path. Most of them are in prison or dead. No, I’ll apply for a cushy training job in GRU. It’ll keep me in Moscow; let me be a mom.” She checked her watch. “Hope you don’t get airsick, because I’m going to have to fly low. Weather aside, this is a risky flight—I’m taking you to Nova Scotia. It’s the farthest south we operate and there’s a far greater risk of compromise. But dropping you in Newfoundland, Labrador, or anywhere farther north would be a death sentence.”
Will was relieved. From the Maritime province of Nova Scotia, he could travel northwest to New Brunswick and then cross the border into Maine.
“You got assets in country who’re going to help you travel south?”
“None that I can use.”
“You got a plan though,
yeah?”
“Actually, no.”
“Jesus.”
Will shrugged. “Having a plan is too risky on U.S. soil. I’ve got to be unpredictable.”
“Or stupid. Either way, we leave in sixty minutes. I suggest you use that time”—she nodded toward her laptop—“to research Nova Scotia and its surroundings.”
“Who’s coming with us?”
“No one else. I can’t afford to have them killed.”
The sound of the Islander plane’s engine and propellers was nearly drowned out by the wind as Will forced his way through its icy blast toward the stationary craft. Ulana was in the cockpit, making a final check of her instrument panel. Behind her were two passenger seats, both empty. He entered the plane, slammed the door shut, and was grateful for the warmth inside the tiny compartment.
Though she was only three feet in front of him, Will had to shout to be heard. “When does the cabin crew bring champagne and canapés?”
While continuing her checks, Ulana replied, “Because you’re first class, seat 1A, that’s already been taken care of. Look next to you.”
Will glanced down and saw wrapped sandwiches and a thermos flask that no doubt contained sickly sweet tea. “Splendid. In-flight entertainment?”
“That’ll be me. Buckle up.” The Islander began taxiing along the track. “If we go down anywhere over the strait, better to shoot yourself before we hit water. End of safety announcement.”
Retired major Dickie Mountjoy looked at the Daily Telegraph’s photograph of Will Cochrane. The seventy-one-year-old desperately wanted to believe that the man in the image merely bore an uncanny resemblance to his Southwark neighbor, who lived in the West Square apartment block’s third floor, above him. Trouble was, Will Cochrane was mentioned by name eight times in the article.
His intercom rang, meaning someone was at the communal front door of the two-hundred-year-old converted residence. Briefly, he wondered if Phoebe or David would answer, though he knew from experience that his two neighbors rarely did. Right now, Phoebe was probably lying on her couch, nursing a hangover after an evening out watching a middleweight boxing match while hoping to get lucky with some disreputable ruffian; and recently divorced David was quite possibly continuing to cook his way through a famous French chef’s collected recipes while listening to Dixieland jazz on full volume.