Dark Spies

by Matthew Dunn

  One of the men in the crowd of civilians turned and walked fast away from the Union Station crime scene toward the escalator that would take him to the parking zone. Aside from his good looks and athletic build, he looked like an average guy who had every right to be in the building. His clothes were functional and cheap—jeans, boots, a bomber jacket—and his movement was indicative of someone who’d decided he’d wasted enough time rubbernecking a police incident and needed to get to work. He could have been a construction worker, a courier, or maybe an off-duty cop or security guard.

  He wasn’t.

  As an SAS operative, Oates had hunted down and assassinated terrorists in the backstreets of war-torn Baghdad, been a key participant in the near suicidal yet wholly successful mission to rescue five British army soldiers who’d been held hostage in Sierra Leone, fought toe to toe with tough jihadists in the Tora Bora cave complex, singlehandedly killed twelve rebels in a confrontation on the Pakistani border, and walked into a mosque in Afghanistan and shot its imam in the head for no other reason than that the soldier thought the cleric had been spouting a load of poisonous crap. When unproven suspicion had fallen on him for the murder, he was sacked from the Regiment. At the end of their military careers, Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen had also stepped into the wrong side of the morally ambiguous gray zone that separated right and wrong in covert combat. Shortly thereafter, all four men became guns for hire. Recognizing their skills and inability to enter the more traditional private-military-contractor career path open to former special operatives, Antaeus had snapped them up and given them additional training in his dark art of espionage.

  Oates moved into the vast parking zone and within minutes was sitting next to Scott in their vehicle.

  Scott turned on the ignition as he watched Marsha Gage walk quickly to her car. “How did it go?”

  Oates pulled out his handgun and fixed it in between his seat and the underside of his thigh. “Lots of cops standing around drinking coffee.”

  “Doughnuts?”

  “Nah.”

  “What a shame.”

  “Yeah. Come all this way to America, and you deserve to see cops stuffing doughnuts in their gobs.”

  “What do you reckon happened in there?”

  Oates shrugged. “Gunfight. Cochrane took down four cops.”

  His fellow former SAS colleague asked, “Killed them?”

  Oates shook his head. “Nope. Put them on their asses.”

  “Shots to vests?”

  “Precisely.”

  “How very generous of him.” Scott put the car in gear and slowly moved it out of the lot as Marsha’s car began to move. “Could you hear what Gage was saying?”

  “No, but I didn’t need to. She wanted to examine the scene to find out what Cochrane was capable of. There was a big guy with her. Wasn’t wearing uniform, but absolutely no doubt he’s Hormone Replacement Therapy.”

  Scott laughed.

  “She used him to see how quick the job could be done.”

  “Did HRT man pass?”

  “Not quite, but he’s very fast. We’ve got to be careful.”

  “Would you have passed?”

  “Of course.”

  “You saying that just because I’m team leader?”

  “Wish you’d fuck off with this team leader shit.” Oates shook his head. “Next time, I’m going to tell the boss that I should be team leader.”

  “I’d love to be a fly on the wall when that happens. Antaeus doesn’t really get on well with people who try to tell him what to do.” Scott drove the car onto Massachusetts Avenue and ensured that three vehicles were between him and Marsha Gage. “What do you reckon Gage is doing now?”

  “She had a powwow with the HRT guy and some other cop bird. I think the test scared the shit out of Gage and she’s going to escalate matters.”

  “The media will latch on to what happened at the station.”

  “Meaning she’ll want to speak to them before they speculate.”

  “Good. When Amundsen and Shackleton take over Gage-stalking duty, let’s you and me put our feet up with a nice brew and watch a bit of telly. Sounds like this morning there might be something interesting to watch.”

  The fact that over six hundred thousand people lived in Washington, and at least three times that many worked here during daytime hours, was little consolation to Will Cochrane as he walked north along Seventh Street NW. He felt totally exposed, as if every passerby were looking at him and he were seconds away from hearing, “Police! Get your hands on your head.”

  Icy rain was penetrating the gap between his jacket’s collar and his back, causing his skin to tingle and rise in goose bumps. His muscles ached from fatigue, his earlier exertions, and stress; his mind was awash with self-doubt and anxiety that Ellie Hallowes wouldn’t deliver on her side of the bargain they’d reached in Norway.

  Norway.

  It seemed that he’d been there in another age.

  So much had happened between Scandinavia and here.

  And maybe all of it was pointless.

  He entered D.C.’s Chinatown as the dark clouds above him clapped and thundered, as if they were summoning sentinels to lash the air beneath them with bolts of electricity.

  Will continued walking through a sea of umbrellas held by tourists gawping at the delicious food on display in the restaurant windows. How enticing the rotisserie chickens and other exotic cuisine looked, and he felt engulfed by the urge to step into one of the warm eateries, sit at a table, and order enough food to feed an army. That’s where he would be shot, like a mobster taking a reflective and indulgent moment away from death and extortion, eating a meal in the comfort of civilized refinement, unaware that it was his last.

  He kept moving, wondering if this place had looked similar when Ellie Hallowes came here.

  If she’d come here.

  He felt his left eye twitching, an involuntary movement prompted by nerves and tiredness and a body that was crying out for him to finally stop. The feeling made him recall how Chief Inspector Dreyfus’s eye would start to twitch as Inspector Clouseau’s unwavering incompetence would escalate in the Pink Panther movies. The image temporarily made him smile, though also made him question where his mind was.

  He tried to settle his thoughts by recalling memories that meant something to him—whether they were good or bad.

  At home in London, cooking pheasant breasts and smoked bacon in a dry cider casserole while listening to Andrés Segovia’s classical guitar recitals; in a scuba suit while drifting peacefully in the deep, sun-penetrated azure waters of the Red Sea alongside wrasse, tuna, turtles, and a British Vanguard–class Trident nuclear submarine; watching an American girl called Kelly smile and relieve the butterflies in his stomach when she said yes after he asked her out for a first date in high school; standing on top of a snow-covered mountain in the Scottish Highlands and feeling like he was in heaven, even though he was barefoot and in red overalls and being pursued by an MI6 training staff hunter-killer force; being kicked in the head by high school jocks in his class who said he was a faggot for playing viola; and being a sandy-haired and freckled seven-year-old, sitting on a beach and scraping out whelks from their shells, and bursting into tears as he saw his mother cry because she was so sad that two years earlier Dad had been captured in Iran and was presumed dead.

  These and many other thoughts ran through his mind as he continued moving through Chinatown.

  He broke left into a dark, narrow alleyway full of trash bins, with fire escapes on the adjacent building walls. He was relieved to see that no one was in here, and moved three-quarters of the way toward the far end. Crouching down, he stared at a part of the wall where a year ago he’d loosened a brick in case of need. He’d done similarly in every city he’d been to in the world. They were his dead-letter boxes, his means to communicate with others like him.

  So many times during his odyssey to reach this place he’d mentally pictured this moment. And most times his desp
airing mind had imagined him pulling out the brick and seeing an empty void.

  Part of him didn’t want to find out whether his journey and the risks he’d taken had been a complete waste of time, because if there was nothing behind the brick he’d have no choice other than to walk out of the alley and surrender to the nearest cop.

  He breathed in, ignoring the rain that was pouring over his body, removed his knife, and eased the loose brick out of its cavity. His hand was shaking as he placed it in the hole.

  Something was in there.

  Hard.

  His fingers gripped it.

  A small box.

  His heart was pounding, but there was no feeling of elation because he knew that inside could be a note saying, “I’m sorry, Will, but I can’t go through with this.”

  He withdrew the container and held it in the palm of his hand. It was a cheap black jewelry box with a metal clasp to keep its lid in place. After standing, he looked left and right along the alley in case he was being watched, but saw no one.

  Both of his hands were now shaking.

  Everything that had happened to him had been about this moment.

  He opened the box.

  Inside was a small slip of paper.

  Keeping his head and upper body over the box so that rain didn’t saturate the paper and make illegible the one thing in the world that he wanted right now, he unfolded the paper.

  On it was a cell phone number.

  One that nobody else had.

  Except Ellie Hallowes.

  Will snapped the box shut, closed his eyes, and exclaimed, “Thank God!” as he tossed his head back so that rain could wash over his face. “Thank you, God!”

  Now he could contact Ellie.

  And learn the truth about Ferryman.

  Dickie Mountjoy and David sat in a rear room within Phoebe’s small art gallery, in London’s Pimlico district. Phoebe was with them, strutting back and forth; to Dickie’s mind, she was all tits and ass with barely anything to cover them.

  The room was head-to-toe white and contained nothing save the chairs they were sitting on, an easel supporting a canvas covered by a white cloth, and a young gay man called Marcel, who was standing next to the painting. Dickie hadn’t liked Marcel on sight; thirty seconds after hearing him speak, the retired major wanted to shoot him.

  Marcel was wearing Turkish trousers that made him look like he’d had an involuntary bowel movement, sandals without socks, and a collarless purple shirt that was so vivid it made Dickie gag just by looking at the damn thing.

  Dickie jabbed his walking stick against the floor. “Stop poncing around and get on with it.”

  “Dickie!” Phoebe looked sternly at the major. “You can’t rush art.”

  “Yes you bleedin’ can. You just work harder, like people do with proper jobs.”

  Marcel rolled his eyes at Phoebe, and when he spoke it was in the over-the-top tone favored by certain English actors from a bygone era. “Oh, darling. You didn’t tell me you’d be bringing Neanderthal Man to our precious gallery.”

  “Neanderthal Man?!” Dickie pointed his stick at Marcel. “Least I am a man.”

  “Whatever, Grandpa.”

  Dickie glanced at David, who was making his rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights expression and looked like he wanted to bolt. “You comfortable with your missus hangin’ around with these queer types? They might turn her, you know.”

  The mortician blurted, “Phoebes isn’t my missus . . . not quite yet, anyway.”

  “Best you stop wasting her time then, Sunny Jim. Phoebe doesn’t do subtle. You need to sweep the girl off her feet and get her legs around you toot sweet.” Dickie smiled before turning his glare back onto Marcel. “And talking of wasting my time . . .”

  Marcel looked at Phoebe. “Kitten, you’ve no idea how much I’ve struggled with this. I do abstract paintings, and you know that. This isn’t my kind of thing.”

  Dickie muttered, “You’re a walking, talking abstract.”

  Phoebe ignored the major’s comment and said to her artist, “We’re not expecting great. Anything’s better than what Will’s got right now. It’s torn to shreds.”

  Marcel lit a cigarette. That didn’t bother Dickie. But when the painter placed the cigarette in a long antique holder, it took all of the major’s self-control to stop him from knocking the blasted thing out of Marcel’s hand.

  Marcel gripped the top of the sheet with two fingers, and hesitated. “If you don’t like it, I won’t be offended.”

  Phoebe kissed Marcel on both cheeks . . .

  An action that prompted Dickie to nudge David in the ribs and exclaim, “You lettin’ her get away with that?”

  . . . and she said, “You’re such a sweetie, Marcel. If it’s awful, we won’t hold it against you.” She gave Dickie her dominatrix expression. “Will we?”

  Dickie huffed.

  “Very well then.” Marcel sighed and whipped off the cloth.

  Underneath was Marcel’s oil reproduction of the English artist J. M. W. Turner’s classic 1839 painting The Fighting Temeraire, depicting the ninety-eight-gun HMS Temeraire. The warship had played a distinguished role in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, but since then the old warrior had been deemed technologically obsolete. The painting showed a paddle-wheel steam tug towing the ship toward its final berth in London, where it was to be broken up for scrap.

  Dickie awkwardly got to his feet, put his reading glasses on, and walked right up to the painting. Nobody in the room spoke as the major bent forward to closely examine the work.

  Phoebe and David braced themselves for another of his inappropriate rants.

  But Dickie stood upright and tried to stop his eyes from watering as he looked directly at Marcel. “It’s . . . it’s . . . Mr. Cochrane will be over the moon with this.” He glanced at the magnificently vibrant and brushstroke-perfect reproduction before returning his gaze to Marcel. “Well done, sir.” He tried to stop the emotion coming out in his voice, but failed. “Well done indeed. You’ve done us proud.”

  “You wanted to see me.” Helen Coombs stood nervously in the entrance to Director Ed Parker’s spacious office in Langley. The CIA analyst wished she’d known she’d be summoned this morning to see the director; she’d have made more of an effort with her clothes and hair. She felt frumpy and fat.

  Ed smiled and stood up from behind his desk. “Yes I did, Helen. And don’t be concerned—there’s nothing to worry about.” He gestured to a seat on the opposite side of his desk and sat back down. “By the way, love what you’ve done with your hair.”

  She waddled to the chair and sat. “Have I done something wrong?”

  Keeping his grin fixed on his face, Ed shook his head. “Ms. Coombs, you’re one of my best analysts. Just wish some of your colleagues could learn a thing or two from your work.”

  The comment reassured Helen, and she felt her body relax, though she knew she had to remain on her guard. Mr. Parker could be all charm, but he was still senior management, and one didn’t get to that rank without being canny and fork-tongued.

  “Would you like something to drink? Coffee, tea, water?”

  “No, I’m fine, sir.”

  “Okay.” Parker interlaced his fingers. “All I have for you is a quick question. First thing in the morning three days ago, you pulled the Ferryman files from archives. You’re perfectly entitled to do that, since you have clearance, but I just wanted to check why you did so.”

  Helen frowned. “Three days ago.”

  “Just after nine A.M.”

  Helen tried to get her mind to think clearly, not an easy task when someone as lowly as her was in the presence of such a senior clandestine officer. “I . . .”

  “Take your time. Jeez, sometimes I struggle to remember what I’ve done yesterday.”

  The frown remained on Helen’s face. “No, it’s okay. Just . . . just kinda embarrassing.”

  “Embarrassing?”

  “Yeah, I . . .” Helen’s palms felt sweaty.
“Embarrassing because four nights ago I got drunk.”

  Parker laughed. “What you get up to in your own time is your business, providing it doesn’t become a problem and interfere with your day job.”

  “That’s the embarrassing thing.” Helen felt like she wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. “Having to admit this to management. I got drunk in a bar, lost my Agency security pass, got home, and carried on partying. Truth is, sir, I was too ill to make it in to work the next day. You certain it was three days ago?”

  Parker felt his skin crawl and his stomach tighten into knots. “Positive.”

  “Anyway, I haven’t looked at the Ferryman files for at least a couple of weeks. No way did I pull them days ago. Couldn’t have. Impossible.”

  All trace of Parker’s geniality had vanished. “When did you report your missing pass to our security department?”

  “I . . . I didn’t wake up until after lunchtime. I guess it was about midafternoon when I realized the pass was missing. I called the bar I’d been to the night before. They told me someone had found and handed in my wallet. Guess I’d lost it at the same time as I dropped my pass. But unfortunately the pass wasn’t found. I made the call to security after that. Told them the loss wasn’t suspicious. They said they’d cancel the missing pass and reissue me with a new one.”

  Parker felt a sharp pain behind his eyes. “Were you accompanied by anyone when you were in the bar and when you went home to continue drinking?”

  Helen bowed her head silently, her mind racing.

  “Anyone?” The director’s tone was stern. “Right now, I don’t care if it was a married Agency guy or a Russian spy. But I need a name.”

  “I’m sorry, I . . .”

  “Did you walk home?”

  “No, no.”

  “Drive your own car?”

  “No.”

  “Someone else drive it for you?”

  Helen shook her head.

  “In that case, you must have taken a cab home. How did you pay for it when you’d lost your wallet? I’m thinking someone else paid. And I need that person’s name.”