by Matthew Dunn
The Russian and his colleague did.
He heard footsteps.
Now the footsteps were faster, the noise of them growing louder.
The sniper was coming for them.
The Russian raised three fingers to his colleague, then two, then one.
They broke cover from behind the mounds, their pistols raised toward the encroaching sniper.
But he wasn’t there.
The Russian stopped and held his handgun before him, twitching it left and right to search for the sniper. Where had he gone? Movement from near the cabins to his left. He changed stance, pointing his gun in that direction, and for half a second saw his colleague being dragged backward while still upright, his feet desperately trying to keep up with the rest of his body because a big hand was on his throat, and another had two fingers in his colleague’s nostrils. The rest of the sniper was obscured. His colleague was being used as a shield. The Russian had no clear shot before they disappeared into the largest cabin.
That’s where the sniper had run to, and where he’d emerged from to attack their flank when they broke cover.
The Russian operative dashed to the buildings, entered the cabin, and saw his colleague on the ground, his neck at an odd angle and clearly broken.
He felt an almighty punch to his chest.
Another punch struck him on the jaw.
A hand slapped him in the throat.
A knee smashed into his ribs. His hand was grabbed, twisted so that his arm muscles were in a lock and were weak, and he was forced to the floor and held there in a viselike grip. He knew what was coming next.
Will Cochrane’s boot slammed with brutal force into his throat and held him there as his legs thrashed and his life was crushed out of his body.
Before he died, the Russian’s last thought was that he’d totally underestimated his assailant.
THREE
STANDING IN THE same spot where Will Cochrane had momentarily crouched beside her, Ellie Hallowes watched the tall officer emerge from the cabin holding one of the Russians’ pistols.
He stopped and stared at the five men who’d died outside of the buildings. Ellie thought he looked haunted by what he’d done. That surprised her, because she’d met enough paramilitary men to know that they were totally focused while doing a job and acted like overexcited kids when the job was done. This man was clearly different.
He tucked the pistol under his belt, knelt beside Herald, rummaged through the dead spy’s pockets, and removed his wallet and ID documentation, which he secreted in his jacket. She frowned as she watched him take off her asset’s overcoat. It was the same one that Herald always wore when he met Ellie during the winter months—knee-length, expensive, Royal Navy blue, hand-tailored in Savile Row by an émigré called Štìpán. Will held it by the shoulder pads, moved to her side, and put the coat on her.
He lowered his head.
“What happened in there?” she asked.
Will looked up, but didn’t answer. His greenish blue eyes were bloodshot but nevertheless shinning and alert. He was, she decided, a handsome man.
She lit a cigarette and stuck it in the corner of her mouth. “I’ll recommend that you get a commendation.” Her cell phone rang. The number was withheld, though she knew it was the Agency calling because only it had this number. As she raised it to her ear, she thought she saw the tiniest smile on Will’s face.
A man spoke to her with a deep, strident, voice. He didn’t introduce himself, although Ellie knew exactly who he was: Charles Sheridan, a senior CIA officer who’d proven throughout his career in espionage that he was in equal measure very capable, ruthless, and, in Ellie’s opinion, a complete dick. He told her that it annoyed the fuck out of him that the duty officer had needed to call him in on his day off because it sounded like a Category 1 protocol was about to be breached by one of their own. He asked what had happened. She told him while looking at Will. Sheridan went silent for five seconds before muttering in a more deliberate tone that Cochrane had been in breach of the protocol and had disobeyed orders to withdraw, that she was to tell him that his Agency exfiltration route out of Norway was now going to be shut down and that the most important men on both sides of the pond were in complete agreement that Cochrane was to surrender himself to either the British or American embassy in Oslo. Sheridan said he’d send a team to the area to try to clean up the mess, though he couldn’t guarantee they’d reach the location before Norwegian cops arrived on the scene, so either way Ellie was to get out of there and return to Langley.
She closed her cell and looked at Will. “Charles Sheridan says you disobeyed orders. Why did you do it?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time not to let them put a bullet in your brain. I’m prone to being impetuous.”
He was English. She wasn’t expecting that. “I thought you were SOG. Who do you work for?”
Will shrugged. “As of right now, sounds like no one.” His expression became serious. “What do they want you to do with me?”
She told him what Sheridan had said.
“The embassies?” He laughed. “Nice and discreet. Tie me up, put me in a box, fly me back to the good old U.S. of A., rendered as a traitor who’ll face the gallows.”
“You did nothing wrong.”
“You just worry about yourself now.”
“You’ll go to Oslo?”
“Nah, never liked the city. Beer’s too expensive.”
Ellie blew out smoke and tapped ash onto the ground. “Then I’ll have to bring you in myself.”
Will didn’t respond.
“Disarm you. Put a gun to your head. Walk you out of here.” Ellie’s expression was focused as she kept her eyes on him. “Trouble is, that’s not an easy option.”
Will held her gaze. “I’m not in the business of hurting female colleagues.”
With sarcasm in her voice, Ellie said, “How very chivalrous of you.” She dropped her cigarette onto the ground and extinguished it with her foot. “No. The option’s not easy because . . .” She left her sentence incomplete as she nodded toward the bodies of the men Will had killed to save her life.
Will momentarily followed her gaze. “I just did my job.”
“Yeah. Your job. Not an Agency job. At least, not after it told you to back down.”
“Perhaps I should have backed down.”
A large part of Ellie wanted to disagree and tell him that nobody had ever put their neck on the line to save her in the way that Will had done today. But she was still attempting to get the measure of Will, and responded, “Perhaps you should have.” She folded her arms and repeated, “Who do you work for?”
“I’m a joint MI6-CIA officer.”
“Joint?” Ellie frowned. “Paramilitary? Freelance?”
“No. Full-time intelligence officer.”
Ellie’s mind raced. Though the Agency and MI6 frequently ran joint missions and shared freelance assets, she’d never heard of an individual being used as a full-time employee of both organizations. The man before her had to be highly unusual. “I think you’re in a classified task force.”
Will was silent.
“Not one run by Sheridan. But maybe one that he’d dearly like to shut down because he wasn’t given the glory of running the force.”
Will said nothing.
“And today you gifted him that opportunity by disobeying orders. But it goes beyond that, doesn’t it? Because those orders have to relate to some serious shit. What’s this about?”
Will nodded toward the cabin where Ellie had met Herald. “I could ask you the same thing. What happened in there?”
Ever the consummate actor, Ellie shrugged and lied in a totally convincing way, “It’s as we suspected: Herald was under suspicion by the Russians. They came here to permanently shut his mouth.”
“I don’t beli
eve you’re telling me everything.”
Though she didn’t show it, Will’s perception caught Ellie by surprise. “Why not?”
“Because you’re standing here talking to me, when instead you should be getting as far away from here as possible before cops show up.”
“Maybe I just want to spend a few moments with the man who saved my life.”
“Touching, but impractical. I doubt a deep-cover officer like you wants to get anywhere near a Norwegian police cell.”
“Jail doesn’t scare me.”
“No. But having your cover blown does.” Will admired the great strength of character Ellie had shown by winking at him when she was faced with the likelihood of her own death. Moreover, for the first time in his life he believed he was standing before someone who, like him, truly understood what it was like to operate in the very darkest recesses of the secret world. Plus, he liked her on sight. But, he knew that he had to be mentally one step ahead of her.
Ellie felt the same way about Will.
Will continued, “You’re standing here because you want to know why the Agency was prepared to let you die.”
“Obviously.”
“Less obvious is the possibility that you’re in possession of information that’s unsettled you. Information that maybe you want to share with me, if you decide to trust me. Herald information.”
Ellie held her fingertips together against her mouth and studied Will. Should she tell him what Herald had said before the Russian team stormed the cabin? Say nothing and walk away without knowing why the Agency had been willing to sacrifice her? Leave Will to the dogs? Help him? It all came down to a matter of trust.
Trouble was, trust was a dangerous concept in her line of work.
Will knew what she was thinking. “It’s a judgment call.”
“It is indeed. And what’s your judgment of me?”
“My judgment’s incomplete and therefore flawed. But we’re running out of time. Maybe you have something for me and I have something for you. And maybe they’re linked. We have to make a decision.”
Every instinct told Ellie to keep her mouth shut and walk away. She’d survived her entire deep-cover career by making it a rule to never put her faith in others in the field. Today should be no exception.
But it was.
The CIA had been willing to have her killed. Herald had told her that there was a Russian mole at the top of the Agency. And she was standing before a man who’d not only risked his life to save hers, but was also paying a huge price for doing so.
She was silent for one minute before making a decision. “Herald told me the Agency is compromised. A Russian mole’s sitting in Agency senior management.”
Will’s eyes narrowed. “Identity? Other details?”
“Nothing else, aside from Herald telling me to trust no one. We were then snatched before he could tell me more.”
Will shook his head and muttered to himself, “Shit, shit.”
“Does it mean anything to you?”
“On face value, nothing. But I’m trying to put the pieces together of what happened here today, and maybe that will help me understand more about the mole. Have you heard of Project Ferryman?”
Ellie shook her head.
“It’s what nearly got you killed and why Langley wants to cut off my balls. It’s a CIA operation, by all accounts highly classified. I reckon even the duty officer who told me to back off wasn’t cleared to know about its relevance to what happened here. But I’m also betting your man Sheridan is Ferryman cleared, considering he was called in.” He pointed toward one of the mountains. “Earlier, a senior Russian spy sat there, watching over everything. The men who attacked you were doing so under his orders. His code name’s Antaeus. I had him in my sights and should have been allowed to kill the bastard. Ferryman protocols blocked me from doing so.” He shook his head. “Antaeus will be long gone by now.”
“Do you know what Project Ferryman is?”
“No. But here’s the thing . . .”
Ellie interjected, “Top Russian spy turns up in person here to oversee the execution of Herald; Herald knows there’s a high-ranking Russian mole in the Agency; you’re told to back down because of an Agency operation called Project Ferryman. Ergo . . .”
“Ergo there’s a link between them all, and as a result I’m fucked, the Agency’s fucked, and”—Will smiled—“you came very close to a fate worse than being fucked.”
Ellie laughed. “Quite.” Her expression changed. “I could take this to the FBI.”
“You could.”
“But Sheridan told me our countries’ leaders personally authorized your incarceration for breaching protocols. That means . . .”
“They’ve bought into the significance of Ferryman and you could be in danger of compromising Western security if you go to the feds and try to blow this open.”
Ellie walked to Herald, crouched beside his dead body, placed his hand in hers, and whispered, “Thanks for the coat.” She looked at Will. “Herald could be a pain in the ass, always waffling on about crap, loving the sound of his voice. But I liked him. He gave me invaluable insight into Russian secrets. And he put his life on the line for me.”
“As you did for him.”
“Yeah, as we all do. And on and on it goes until we all fall down.” She gently rested Herald’s hand on his chest, stood, and asked, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure I should tell you.”
Ellie shrugged. “Why not? We’ve done the foreplay, moved to second base, might as well go the whole distance.”
Will faced west toward the mountains. “I’m going to try to get to the States and find out what Ferryman is.”
Ellie moved to his side. “You think you can make it that far? European agencies will be put on your trail.”
“I’ve got to try.”
“Even if you make it to the States, they’ll shoot you before you get anywhere near Langley and the answers.”
“What other choice do I have?”
“Two choices. Either give yourself up and I’ll support your actions. Or disappear, get a new identity, and forget all about Ferryman.”
“Is that what you’d do if you were in my situation? Surrender or vanish?”
Ellie followed his gaze toward the mountains. “Surrender? No. But vanishing’s something I excel at.”
“And you’d do it now if you were in my shoes?”
“I . . .” She turned to face him. “Look, I don’t know what I’d do.” She smiled. “But I do know that there’s no more 007 days for you, Mr. Bond. You’ve just had your license to kill revoked. No chance of you getting access to Project Ferryman.”
“I could track Sheridan down and make him talk.”
“Tough-guy stuff? You could end up being put in jail for laying a hand on such a high-ranking U.S. official.”
“True. It’s also unworkable. For the same reason you can’t go the feds, I can’t confront Sheridan until I know the details of Project Ferryman. It seems Ferryman’s of vital importance to our countries. I can’t just blunder into the States to get answers. I could compromise something that’s beyond our comprehension.”
“Beyond my life, judging by what happened today.”
“Exactly,” Will said. “Sorry, that was insensitive. I—”
“Stop.” Ellie fixed another cigarette in her mouth, lit it, and winked at him in the same way she’d done before. “You want to be insensitive, then start patronizing me.”
“Fair point.”
Ellie nodded. “There. Fourth base achieved—first lovers’ tiff.” She exhaled smoke and said in a measured and cold tone, “There is another potential option open to you.”
“I know.”
“You’d considered it already?”
“I’d considered it, and r
ejected it.”
“Why?”
“Because, like you, I don’t put my faith in other people.”
Given that Ellie had been internally wrestling with her lack of faith in others only moments before, it made her uneasy that Will had the very same thoughts. With her back to him, she walked a few paces closer to the mountains and thrust her hands into Herald’s coat pockets.
Will watched her as she stood motionless, just staring at the stunning vista. Large snowflakes began to slowly descend in the windless air.
“I’ve spent ten years as a deep-cover operative.” Ellie’s voice sounded distant. “You know what that means?”
“Yes.” Will knew that it meant she’d spent five years longer than the maximum time an intelligence officer could expect to operate undercover before the constant state of paranoia and fear would finally take its toll on even the strongest mind. “Why have you stayed in the field so long?”
“Because I was never interested in a desk job in Langley.”
“Is that your only reason?”
Ellie hesitated before answering, “Thought I was doing some good.”
“For the States?”
“For the people who live there, yeah.”
“The Agency should have pulled you out of the field. You’re on borrowed time. I’m surprised you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere with a bullet in the back of your head.”
“Thanks for the mental image.”
“It’s one you’ve thought of every day during the last ten years.”
“It is.” She turned to face him. “And you know what I’ve concluded about that image?”
“You’ve accepted it, and that’s how you survived so long in the field.”
She nodded. “But the thing is—”