by Matthew Dunn
“Could be any number of reasons.”
“Maybe. But seems to me this Russian spy’s very important to you, because you wanted him kept alive. Supposing Herald had wanted to meet me because he knew something about the spy, something that could have threatened the spy’s interests, perhaps something that could have threatened your interests.”
“Doesn’t matter now, because your asset’s dead.”
Ellie nodded. “That’s fine, as long as he’s taken his secret to his grave.”
“Herald didn’t say anything to you before you were attacked?”
Something like, All the Agency’s biggest secrets are being leaked to Russia by a high-ranking mole.
Ellie lied. “Nothing important. We were just catching up, pleasantries, small talk, warming up to the reason he wanted to meet me. I always let him do that; he hated being rushed into business. Then the Russian operatives kicked down the door.”
Jellicoe and Parker were silent as they momentarily glanced at each other.
Ellie asked Parker, “Whatever interests you have in the senior Russian spy, is it important stuff? Stuff that I’d buy into?”
“Ellie, I can’t—”
“And you don’t have to. I just need to know if it’s something good.”
Parker looked at Jellicoe, who hesitated before giving the slightest of nods. “It’s very important. The president takes a personal interest.”
“Then that’s all I need to know. What plans do you have for me?”
Parker seemed relieved with the question. “I was thinking a few more weeks’ leave, followed by putting you back in deep cover. Another name, change of dress and hair, lose or gain a bit of weight, different continent, usual drill.”
Back to a life that wasn’t her life.
Ellie nodded. “I’m not very good at twiddling my thumbs, doing nothing. Why don’t you make use of me during the next few weeks? Keep me in Langley before I go back out into the field.”
“Doing what?”
“I know my asset inside out. I can read through his files. See if there’s anything there that could suggest he might have put a fail-safe in place that could mean his secret information about the Russian spy wasn’t taken to the grave. Maybe something similar he’s done in the past. If I find something, I just present it to you and leave you to decide what to do. Job done.”
Ellie expected to find absolutely zero of interest in her asset’s files, but that wasn’t relevant. Having a pass to camp in Langley was.
Jellicoe asked Parker, “She security cleared to read those files?”
Parker snapped, “She was his case officer, for God’s sake.” He composed himself. “Sorry, Mr. Jellicoe. Yes, of course she is.”
Jellicoe eyed Ellie. “You find something, you bring it to us and shut the door on your way out. But I warn you: start looking in places you shouldn’t and it’ll trigger an automatic red flag. Our security boys will be all over you. It won’t be pleasant.”
“I understand.”
“Good.”
Parker went to his desk and made an internal call. “Get Miss Hallowes a room on the third floor and extend her pass to three weeks. I’ll give you a list of her security clearances”—he looked at Ellie—“together with a list of what she’s not allowed to read. She’s ready to go.”
A few minutes later, Ellie was escorted out of the room by the man who’d met her in the lobby.
After the door had shut behind her, Jellicoe stuffed his handkerchief into his expensive suit and asked, “You trust her?”
“No reason to think otherwise.”
Jellicoe shook his head and said with contempt, “You’d never have made director if it weren’t for Ferryman. You’re too damn naive.”
EIGHTEEN
As soon as Will spotted the road, he removed and secreted his goggles and balaclava, grimaced as icy rain struck his face like needles, shoved his hands into his jacket, and adopted the posture of a man who was severely pissed that his car had broken down north of here and had to walk to the nearest civilization to get help.
He stepped onto the road and headed south, his only hope being that a passerby would stop, take pity on him, and drive him to someplace warm. No one would fail to spot him—the road was deserted and quite flat, either side of it was open snow-covered countryside. Plus, though the route was remote, there was no doubt that vehicles had recently driven along it, since the road had recently been plowed. Didn’t mean anyone would stop, though; they might just err on the side of caution and keep driving in case he was a serial killer.
Did Nova Scotia have serial killers who’d be stupid enough to chance their luck in these conditions and with very few victims around? Will had no idea; nor did he have much experience of attempting to hitch a ride. He decided that if he heard a vehicle, he wouldn’t stick out his thumb. Instead, he’d just keep walking while looking as pathetic as possible. Hopefully that would make him look less likely to be a killer who was desperate to get inside someone’s vehicle. Perhaps the passerby would think through options as he continued onward, decide that the walker wasn’t a threat, then stop and back up.
Not that Will wasn’t a threat. As well as the Russian pistol he was carrying, the cache had given him another handgun and spare ammunition, army food rations that would feed him for a few days, two thousand Canadian dollars, a lockpick set, and a military knife, all hidden in his jacket. There had been other stuff in the cache that would have been extremely useful for a man going to war, but too conspicuous for someone who just wanted to blend in. So he’d left the assault rifles and most of the other military supplies behind. Even though there was every possibility that he was a man going to war.
Most likely a futile war.
One that would see him being mowed down the moment he stuck his head out of the trenches.
His stomach was cramping, partly because he was tired and hungry, and partly because he was tense. Not knowing what lay ahead was making things worse, and it was an unusual sensation because secret agents are trained to be in control of everything around them, even when things go wrong. But this was different because he was no longer an agent, and had no support and safety net.
All of this was new to him. Not even the Spartan training program could have prepared him for what it was like to be a homeless criminal on the run in a world full of people who wanted him dead.
Part of his brain was telling him to move into the countryside, remove his outer clothing, sit down, and wait for the elements to take away the pain by killing him. But he kept going, each step taking him closer to his destination.
It would have been reasonable for anyone watching the four people walking briskly across the concourse of the Arrivals section of Washington Dulles Airport to assume that they were businessmen in their early thirties who broke up their high-pressure days with intensive cardiovascular workouts. Further, the observer might have noticed their casual, confident smiles, which, together with the expensive-looking overcoats, suits, and suitcases, suggested they were wealthy playboys who exuded the joie de vivre that is often prevalent in the successful and rich. No doubt they’d inherited good genes—high cheekbones, lean and athletic builds, above-average height, straight hair—but money had made them look even better. Only expensive dental work could have gotten their teeth that white and straight; professional stylists had spent a lot of time getting their short hair into cuts that made them dashing, charming, and full of sex appeal; and their lightly tanned Caucasian faces were marble smooth. These, the observer might have concluded, were Forbes 400 men who would look right at home on the front cover of Esquire or GQ.
The observer would have been wrong.
Because the men were assassins.
Code names Scott, Shackleton, Oates, Amundsen.
Antaeus’s best.
Scott and Oates were English, both ex–Special Air Service; Shackleton was Irish, formerly of the counterterrorism Army Ranger Wing; and Amundsen was a Norwegian whose career included ten years in Norway
’s premier maritime special forces unit, Marinejegerkommandoen. None of them had spent one minute of their adult life sitting behind a desk studying profit-and-loss spreadsheets, investment portfolios, or share-price fluctuations. But that’s not to say that they couldn’t talk the talk of businessmen. If taken to one side by airport security and questioned, all of them could speak effortlessly about the nuances of their faux businesses. It was their usual cover for getting in and out of countries, though they were equally adept at covertly crossing borders from sea, air, or land.
But today, they were merely asked a few perfunctory questions at passport control, then allowed to proceed to X-ray machines where their luggage was scanned and deemed to contain absolutely nothing of concern.
The men would never risk bringing anything compromising through airport security, and today was no exception. Plus, there was no need. A local asset would be supplying them the weapons to kill their target.
NINETEEN
Lindsay Sheridan entered her living room, carrying a tray containing three glasses of brandy, a bowl of ice, a jug of water, and Cuban cigars. She placed the tray on a table between three leather armchairs occupied by Senator Colby Jellicoe, her husband Charles, and Ed Parker. The fire was burning well and there were plenty of extra logs beside it in case it needed replenishing. That was good; it meant she wouldn’t be called to fetch more wood.
Charles and Jellicoe didn’t acknowledge her presence and were talking directly to each other in hushed tones. Parker, on the other hand, beamed at her and asked, “That your usual perfume?”
Lindsay patted her throat, darted a look at her husband, who was still taking zero notice of her, and smiled. “No. Chanel. Thought I’d try something different.”
“Suits you. By the way, Catherine says pop over sometime.” Parker winked at her. “Think my wife wants a drinking partner. Someone to grumble to about being married to the Agency.”
“Well, that would be great.”
“Looks like you’ve lost a few pounds since I last saw you. You been on that five-two diet thing?”
Lindsay smiled. “Always flirting with me, Mr. Parker.”
“Someone’s got to.” Parker reached for a brandy, and said in a quieter tone, “Don’t worry, I’ll look after them. Just make sure you get on the phone to Catherine and get that all-men-are-bastards drinking session in the diary. It’ll do you a world of good.”
Her smile still on her face, Lindsay nodded, momentarily forgetting that her husband actually was a bastard.
When she had exited the room, Colby Jellicoe asked, “Marsha Gage?”
Sheridan took a sip of brandy. “I treat her like crap, but she’s good.”
“So why treat her like crap?” Parker stared at his drink, wishing he was going to partake of it at home with Catherine.
Sheridan smiled. “To keep her on her toes and focused. She thinks I’m a shit just for the sake of it. Truth is, I need her to think that way so she doubles her efforts to get to Cochrane before I do.”
“How can that be a good thing?”
It was Jellicoe who answered. “Because the president’s given me written authorization for Cochrane to be handed over to us the moment he’s in FBI custody.”
“Okay, that is a good thing. Where’s Gage looking for him?”
Sheridan shrugged. “Far as I can tell, mostly Europe.”
The senator nodded slowly. “If you capture him alive, he’s to be immediately executed. Do it somewhere private.”
Parker frowned. “President’s comfortable with a shoot-to-kill policy while Cochrane’s on the run. But I don’t recall him saying anything about a cold-blooded execution.”
“Neither do I. But that’s what’s got to happen. You okay with that?”
Parker didn’t know how to respond, then settled on the truth. “No, I’m damn well not okay with that.”
“You happy for national security to be breached?”
“What?”
“Got no problem with Cobalt’s drug money being used to blow up civilians and soldiers?”
“You know—”
“What I know,” Jellicoe said, raising his voice, “is that Cochrane caught and kept alive means a trial. Secret, of course, but a trial nevertheless. Someone’s going to leak what was said in the courtroom. Always happens. Public will get to hear why Cochrane’s been a bad boy. Ferryman will come to light. Then everything will be fucked, including national security.”
“You need to get authorization from the president.”
“You think he’d want me to pose the question to him? Force him to give me an answer?” Jellicoe drummed the tips of his fingers together in front of his bloated body. “I got to read between the lines, second-guess what the president ain’t saying but is thinking.”
“That doesn’t mean he wants an execution.”
“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want one, either.”
“Oh, come on!”
“You got better ideas, Parker, then I’m all ears.”
“I . . .” Parker’s voice trailed off, because he had no other ideas.
Sheridan leaned forward and jabbed Parker’s knee. “You don’t need to get your hands dirty. I’ll take care of things. Just keep your mouth shut.”
Jellicoe ran a finger around the rim of his glass. “I gave the president the latest Ferryman intel.”
Intel that was from the United Kingdom. It stated that an MI6 officer had been tasked with flying around Afghanistan to hand out bags of cash to opium growers in return for them destroying their crops and turning their backs on the drug trade. A tribal elder who ran one of the largest plantations told the officer that his money was no good, because someone else had made contact with him and had offered to buy his crops for three times the price. Everyone in MI6 and Langley was in no doubt that that someone was terrorism financier Cobalt.
“What did the president say?”
“What I expected: keeping Ferryman intact remains an absolute priority. Cobalt must be killed. Ferryman will do that for us.”
Four thousand eight hundred miles away from Washington, D.C., Antaeus was sitting in his study in the rural outskirts of Moscow. On his desk was a leather-bound notebook, bought for him by his wife five years ago, his gold-embossed initials on its cover. The book was open to a page that contained his elegant handwriting in blue fountain pen ink. At the top of the page was the heading DOMINOS. His pen hovered over the page as he read his notes.
2010. FSB double agent tells Germans that Russian security services are hunting major terrorist financier, code name COBALT. Financier strikes terms on terrorist-controlled opium and cocaine plantations; manufactures and ships drugs using sophisticated network; sells drugs; gives terrorist plantation owners cut of profits. Germans share this intel with Western allies.
2011. FSB freezes account in Bank of Moscow, moments after $80 million was transferred to account in Algeria. British GCHQ intercept encrypted burst from SVR’s London Station, saying, “Cobalt’s moved his money. We’re too late.”
2012. FBI meets FSB and asks if Russia has heard of a major terrorism financier, code name COBALT. FSB says it believes Cobalt is financing more terror operations around the world than all other sources of funding put together. But FSB is wary of cooperating with FBI.
2013. Security services from States, Europe, and Russia conduct independent and joint operations to try to locate and capture Cobalt. But Russian-American cooperation still tense. Americans suspect Russians are withholding information.
2014. Pakistani ISI tells America that it has captured and interrogated a Taliban fighter, and he’s confessed that he’d been contacted by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who said that a financier called Cobalt was making arrangements to travel to the Afghan-Pakistan border to meet the Taliban leadership, and that he was to be given safe passage.
Antaeus moved his pen underneath the last paragraph and wrote two sentences.
MI6 officer tries to buy off major opium plantation in Afghanistan as part of
ongoing operation to rid country of drugs. Plantation owner refuses, says Cobalt has made far better offer and will be taking possession of crop soon.
Antaeus capped his pen, rolled an ink blotter over his latest entry, and closed the notebook. In approximately two weeks’ time, Project Ferryman would know the exact location and time that Cobalt was going to be in Afghanistan to secretly meet senior Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. Ferryman had already told the CIA about this meeting, that it was going to be heavily guarded by upward of three hundred combat-experienced jihadists, and that Russian intelligence had decided it was too risky to infiltrate the country and attack the meeting. The Americans, on the other hand, had decided that the scale of the defenses precluded a SEAL or Delta assault to kill Cobalt, but that didn’t matter because they’d use an unmanned predator drone to drop a bunker-destroying bomb on the location. And a minute after they’d done so, they’d go public to the world’s media with the success story.
The Ferryman intel had prompted the premiers of Western countries hunting Cobalt to agree that all existing efforts to find him should cease, for fear that if they continued they could drive him further underground and prompt him not to travel to Afghanistan. All they needed to do now was wait for Ferryman to obtain the final piece of the jigsaw that would pin down Cobalt. Then America would blow Cobalt to pieces.
Ferryman had to remain untouched for that to happen.
Antaeus looked at his chalkboard containing the names of the major parties who were wittingly or unwittingly involved in the Ferryman project. His eyes settled on the name Will Cochrane. The MI6 officer was the biggest threat to Ferryman and could not be allowed to get closer to the truth.
Antaeus smiled.
Because the truth was that the Americans didn’t know that dropping their bomb would cause a catastrophe.
TWENTY
Will didn’t turn around when he heard the vehicle behind him draw nearer. Instead, he continued walking along the slush-filled edge of the road, his hands in his jacket pockets and his collar pulled up to give him some protection from the driving rain. The vehicle sounded like a car or an SUV, but he couldn’t be sure because the wind was loud and hitting his ears from different directions, and he was dog tired and not thinking straight. He hoped the vehicle didn’t contain a woman or child—no driver of either would stop for a stranger—and that wherever it was headed, it would be driving through a place where he could be dropped off and rent a room for the night.