by Matthew Dunn
Helen’s eyes were watering. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Parker.”
“A name!”
She looked up. “Ellie Hallowes.”
TWENTY-NINE
As Patrick exited his car on Pennsylvania Avenue and handed the keys to a valet, the sight of the large SWAT truck farther up the road disgorging two snipers and two spotters made the CIA officer feel sick with worry for Will Cochrane. He’d often felt this sensation when Will was deployed on missions, but this was different.
Will wasn’t operating for a greater cause, and moreover was almost certainly going to die at the hands of the country he’d protected so many times.
He watched the sniper team disappear from view, wondering where they were going to hide and also wondering how many other snipers remained in the SWAT truck as it pulled away. Above him, he could see three police helicopters, and he knew they contained expert marksmen who could take a man’s head off from a distance while moving at speed. In every direction across the city, he could hear emergency vehicles’ sirens wailing.
He pulled up the collar of his overcoat to shield himself from the rain, and walked fast toward the entrance to the Café du Parc. Alistair was drinking a cup of tea within the venue’s Le Bar, and he offered no greeting or friendly expression as his colleague removed his coat and slumped into a chair opposite him.
The MI6 controller unnecessarily stirred his tea. “It’s a pleasure to be out of Bureau or Agency earshot.”
“Damn right it is.” Patrick loosened the knot in his tie.
“So, what’s happened?”
“I’ve read an interesting SMS.”
“On your telephone?”
“No.”
Alistair smiled. “Ah, on Mr. Sheridan’s phone.”
Patrick nodded.
Ever since the two senior spies had been assigned to Marsha Gage’s team and forced to share the Bureau ops room with Sheridan, Alistair and Patrick had challenged each other to see how often they could read Sheridan’s messages without getting caught.
“He was in the men’s room—just for thirty seconds, but that was long enough for me. Message was from Ed Parker, saying he needs to bring Hallowes into HQ.”
Alistair intertwined his fingers. “Ellie Hallowes.” He was deep in thought. “She’s of no use to anyone in the Agency right now, until she’s deployed again overseas. Strange that someone as senior as Parker is bothering someone as senior as Sheridan to waste time tracking down an agent who to all intents and purposes isn’t worthy of their time.”
“I agree. And that means her importance has just shot through the roof.”
“They need her to help them.”
“Unlikely.”
“So, more likely she’s done something that’s truly bothered them.”
“And they want to put the thumbscrews on her.”
Alistair nodded.
Both men had long suspected that Hallowes could be a vital asset to Cochrane, and in particular that she would attempt to access the Ferryman files and relay what she’d read to Cochrane if he made it to the States. One of the first things Patrick had done after the initial meeting with Jellicoe, Sheridan, and Parker—wherein the co-heads were told that their Task Force S was shut down with immediate effect—was to retrieve from the Agency personnel database Hallowes’s cell phone number and the name of the D.C. hotel she was staying in. Neither Alistair nor Patrick had contacted her, but they’d kept her details in case of need.
“Matters are drawing to a head.”
Patrick agreed. “Rapidly.”
“And all you and I can do is gently nudge events.”
“But do so in a way that helps our boy.”
Their boy, Will Cochrane.
The son of CIA officer James Cochrane, who’d surrendered to revolutionaries in Iran in order to save the lives of Alistair and Patrick; the young boy who’d never known that his widowed mother was secretly given financial support from the two men who would feel lifelong guilt that they were alive and James Cochrane wasn’t; the MI6 trainee who would be taken under their wing and subjected to a brutal instruction program that some might think was sadistic, but others in the know would realize was the one thing Cochrane needed at that time to prevent him from losing his soul; the spy who’d stepped up to the plate on their behalf and three times stopped genocide; the man who would forever remind them of their brave former colleague and friend.
At no point were Alistair and Patrick ever going to fully comply with the CIA or Marsha Gage.
It just wasn’t in their makeup.
“The SMS to Sheridan?”
Patrick answered, “Deleted by me.”
“No more than two hours before Parker sends him another message or tries calling him.”
“I’m working on the basis of one hour max.”
“And you read Parker’s message . . . ?”
Patrick looked at his watch. “Sixteen minutes ago.”
“Have you tried calling Hallowes?”
“Yes, from a pay phone. Her cell’s switched off.”
Alistair stirred his now cold tea and tapped his silver spoon hard on the cup’s rim. “That’s not good.”
Ellie was sitting in her room in the huge Washington Marriott Wardman Park hotel. Ordinarily, she’d love being in a hotel like this—not because it was luxurious, but because it had over a thousand rooms located on ten floors, meaning she could come and go using different entrances and elevators and ultimately could move around the place unnoticed. But now, the vastness of the hotel made her feel that she was an insignificant speck of dust.
She supposed she should show her face in Langley at some point this afternoon. Not that anyone cared whether she checked in to the Agency HQ. Most people in the CIA didn’t know her, and the few that did viewed her as a spook without a portfolio who needed to be returned to the shadows because she reminded them that real spying was wholly unreflective of the clean-cut ambience that pervaded Langley.
She switched on her TV and looked for updates about the hunt for Cochrane. She saw live images of D.C.—police helicopters hovering beneath the dark clouds over the city; cop cars racing along the streets; tactical teams carrying assault rifles; and snipers and their spotters on rooftops. The camera switched to an interview with the chief of the Metro Transit Police Department who was standing outside Union Station and saying that he hoped legal charges against Cochrane would lead with his attempted murder of four cops.
Ellie turned off the TV, feeling that all was now hopeless. Even a man like Cochrane wouldn’t keep going to get answers within an environment as hostile as this. He’d realize that his only option was to flee. Maybe he’d try to get back to Europe. No, it would be just as bad for him there. Much better would be for him to travel south and covertly cross the border into Mexico. Either way, there was no doubt in Ellie’s mind that there was nothing more he could do to get to the bottom of Project Ferryman.
She grabbed her coat and handbag with the intention of heading to Langley, then froze.
A noise was coming from inside her bag.
She knew what it was, but simply couldn’t believe she was hearing the sound.
Urgently, she thrust her hand into the bag and withdrew her cell phone.
Not the one the Agency knew about. She had switched that off because nobody called her.
Instead, the one whose number she had secreted in a box in Chinatown.
The screen showed a local landline number.
Someone dialing a wrong number?
She told herself to snap out of it and answer the damn thing.
As Charles Sheridan walked through the entrance to the Wardman Park hotel, his overriding thought was that it was going to be a pleasure putting his hands around the throat of the duplicitous bitch.
Parker had called him twenty minutes earlier, asking why he’d not responded to his SMS. Sheridan hadn’t received that message; strange, though he was still struggling to come to grips with this stupid childish cell phone technology. But
a good old-fashioned telephone call had cleared things up, and he’d wasted no time in getting over here so that he could haul Ellie Hallowes’s ass out of the hotel and take her somewhere quiet for a chat.
Ellie couldn’t believe she was hearing his voice. He sounded tired, and was speaking loudly because there was a lot of background noise. Probably he was calling from a street pay phone somewhere busy. But there was no doubting who he was.
Will Cochrane.
She tried to concentrate as he gave her precise instructions: at three this afternoon she needed to be sitting in Teaism, on Connecticut Avenue at Lafayette Park. Though she wouldn’t be able to see him, Will would be watching the café and would approach at a time of his choosing. If he hadn’t made the approach by four thirty, it meant he suspected she was under surveillance. If that happened, she needed to leave, and he would call her the same time tomorrow with new instructions.
Will ended the call.
Ellie stared at the phone.
Part of her felt overjoyed.
The rest of her knew Will was insane to remain in D.C.
Sheridan smiled as he rode the elevator to the sixth floor. He and Parker were in no doubt about what had happened a few days ago. Hallowes had deliberately targeted the analyst Helen Coombs because she had clearance to read the Ferryman files. Hallowes had gotten her so drunk that she couldn’t make it to work the next morning, had stolen her security pass and used it while Coombs was still sleeping off her hangover, and had pretended to be her so she could read the files.
Sheridan had to admit that Hallowes had displayed incredible bravery by infiltrating one of the Agency’s most sensitive archives while in disguise. But that admiration wasn’t going to get in the way of what needed to be done to the traitor.
The elevator stopped at the sixth floor. Sheridan exited and walked along the corridor toward Ellie Hallowes’s hotel room.
Even though she had two hours to kill before she needed to be in the vicinity of the café, Ellie was desperate to get on the road. But she knew she had to make preparations. She opened her laptop and browsed the Internet. Within seconds, she was staring at a map of the café and its surroundings. Her mind processed street names, points of interest, and routes. It was second nature to her, and within one minute she had a mental picture of the on-foot antisurveillance route she’d be taking to reach the venue. She wholly trusted Cochrane’s ability to spot anyone following her, but she also owed it to him not to bring any hostiles close to him.
She deleted her browsing history, exited the Net, snapped shut the laptop, and got ready to leave.
Then she heard the loud ringing of the doorbell to her room.
And someone knocking hard on the door.
Sheridan placed his hand on his gun, deciding that when Hallowes opened the door he’d shove the barrel in her mouth and keep it there when he pushed her onto her back. He imagined the terror in her eyes, her limbs thrashing wildly but to no avail as he pinned her down, and cocking the gun’s hammer in order to scare the shit out of her.
Then he’d tell her she had two choices: go calmly with him so that this delicate matter could be dealt with discreetly; or make a fuss, meaning he’d have to keep her in the room until an Agency team could arrive, inject her so that she was unconscious, and remove her body in a bag.
Ellie frowned as she walked toward the door. She had a Do Not Disturb sign hanging outside, and the maids had already cleaned the room while she’d been at breakfast. She hoped it wasn’t hotel management stopping by to tell her that her work credit card had been declined again. Damn Agency accounts department had forgotten to top it up with funds a couple of days ago and it had taken her hours of cutting through bureaucratic bullshit to get it sorted out.
She opened the door.
A man stood in front of her and started talking immediately. “Ellie Hallowes. You don’t know me but I know you. Name’s Patrick. I’m Agency. Cochrane works for me and I’m here to help you ’cause you’re in danger.”
“What?”
“Immediate danger!” Patrick grabbed her arm, pulled her out of the room, kicked shut the door, and dragged her along the corridor.
“What’s going on?!”
“We’ve got to run! Sheridan’s coming for you because you read the Ferryman files.” The CIA officer yanked her thin arm. “Trust me! He’s on this floor. We gotta get out of here right now!”
Ellie looked over her shoulder, desperately trying to decide what to do. Trust this stranger? Was this a trap? Maybe this guy was working for Sheridan and he was tricking her so that he could lead her right to him.
But his eyes were imploring, his expression urgent.
She had to go on her gut feel.
“Okay. This way.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and sprinted alongside the man, who looked like he was in his fifties but seemed to have no problem running at the speed of a man two decades younger. They were moving away from the main lobby elevator that Sheridan would most likely take to her floor and heading toward the fire stairs. As they turned the corner into another corridor, Ellie wondered what they would do if they crashed into Sheridan, but there was no one there aside from maids, who were looking at them with bemused faces. Her breathing was fast and shallow, but adrenaline kept her moving.
Into the stairwell.
Down flights of stairs.
On the third flight down, Ellie tripped and nearly fell headfirst, but Patrick grabbed her and shouted, “Keep moving!”
Thank God she was wearing pants and boots, because otherwise she’d have snapped her neck by now.
Two more flights, taken at speed, hands grabbing rails, spinning around corners, jumping, and moving legs and feet faster than a line dancer on amphetamines. This was the lobby floor. Was this the best way to get out of the hotel?
Patrick read her thoughts. “Let’s get down to basement parking!”
Fifteen seconds later they were running across the garage, this time Patrick leading the way holding his car keys. They got into his sedan and Patrick immediately engaged gears and revved so hard that the car’s tires screeched in the vast basement parking lot. He thrust his prepaid parking ticket at the attendant as they reached the exit, and sped onto Connecticut Avenue NW. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he muttered, “Can’t see anything unusual. You?”
Ellie fixed her eyes on the side-view mirror. After ten seconds, she said, “Nothing unusual.”
Patrick inhaled deeply. “I saw Sheridan arrive almost the same time I did. He was seconds behind me when I knocked on your door.”
Ellie nodded. “I’m meeting him at three this afternoon.”
“Him?”
“Will Cochrane.”
Patrick turned onto Calvert Street NW. “I don’t want to know the location of the meeting.”
“Understood.”
“I’m going to drop you at a metro station. After that, you’re on your own.” The CIA officer glanced at Ellie. “I’m sorry, miss, nothing else I can do to help.”
“I know. Thank you for this.”
“Do me a favor. When you see Cochrane, tell him from me that he’s a pain in the fucking ass.”
Ellie smiled. “Sure.”
“Also, tell him there are people rooting for him. Admittedly, not many, though.”
Ellie nodded. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked me what I know about Ferryman. I didn’t see anyone named Patrick on the file clearance list.”
Patrick turned onto Columbia Road NW. “It won’t help me to know, because there’d be absolutely nothing I could do with that information. But there is one thing I want to understand: Is Cochrane doing the right thing? For that matter, are you doing the right thing?”
“I believe so. I think there’s something wrong with Project Ferryman.”
“Then that’s all I need to know.” He stopped the car adjacent to the Columbia Heights metro station, leaned across Ellie, and opened her car. “Time for you to go.”
She got out of the vehicle, shut the
door, and started walking away.
“Ellie?”
She turned back and saw that Patrick had lowered the passenger window and was leaning toward her.
“Yes?”
“Unless Cochrane can deliver a miracle, you know your Agency days are over for you now, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Got a safe house? Someplace where you can vanish?”
“Of course.”
“Then good luck to you, girl.” Patrick gunned the car and sped off.
Momentarily, Ellie felt disconcerted. She had many sanctuaries, but all of them were places where she’d need to live alone. So far, she’d managed just fine with her solitary existence, but now was different because she was no longer a CIA operator working for a cause. She had no purpose beyond surviving. No, that wasn’t true; not yet, anyway. She still had one true goal: to meet Will Cochrane and tell him what she’d read in the Ferryman files.
THIRTY
Come on! Come on! Come on!” Marsha Gage was striding down a corridor toward the FBI operations room. “There’s got to be a trail.”
One of her senior agents was on the end of the line. “So far the trail’s gone cold two blocks from Union.”
“He can’t have just disappeared. Somebody must have seen him escape.”
“We’ve dried up.”
“Dried up?!” Marsha made no effort to hide her exasperation. “We don’t dry up. It’s not what we do.”
“Yes, Agent Gage.”
“Run door-to-door again.”
“We were thorough the first time, so—”
“Just do it!”
FBI officers were staring at her with looks of fear and bemusement as she entered the ops room. The place was buzzing, with officers talking fast on phones, hunched over maps of D.C., typing fast on computer keyboards, and jogging back and forth between desks, swapping data with their colleagues. But Alistair, Patrick, and Sheridan were nowhere to be seen.
Marsha placed her hands on her hips, and shouted to everyone, “Where are the spooks?”
One of the agents answered, “Haven’t seen them for a couple of hours.”
Jesus. She’d spent days cooped up with the three old spies, listening to them bicker like cantankerous retirees in a nursing home, and watching Alistair and Patrick do nothing more productive than flicking screwed-up bits of paper at Sheridan, who in turn would flip them the finger. Now that she actually needed them, they’d disappeared.