by Matthew Dunn
“Aye.” Rory crossed his legs and smiled at the blue sky. “That’ll be because you lot raped and pillaged us in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, before buggering off back home with our womenfolk.”
“Us lot?” I recast my line.
“The English. Actually, not you lot because you’re not English; you’re Scottish.”
“No, I’m not. My surname is.”
“You’re a Scot.” Rory chuckled. “It’s in your blood.”
My fly line tightened quickly; the reel screamed as line shot out. Salmon on. Big one.
Rory leaped to his feet. “Ten pounder! At least. Let him do his thing. Only bring him in when he gets tired.”
I let the line run off the reel. The fish leapt. My heart leapt with it, and I could hear my estranged sister’s voice when I was a lad.
What is it about boys and fishing? Why don’t you find it boring?
This was why. I started winding in the reel, desperate to land my catch. The magnificent sport fish leapt again and snapped my line because I hadn’t followed my ghillie’s instructions. Too impatient. Shit!
Rory looked genuinely bothered as he paced up and down the bank. “He was a beauty! You lost him, son.”
My expression must have said it all.
Rory smiled sympathetically. “Come for a brew, Mr. Cochrane.” He held his arm out and grabbed my hand. “Easy, now. Steady with your footing. And don’t break my rod!”
He hauled me out of the river. I placed his rod against a steep incline. “I’m sorry,” I said, because I was. I’d lost a fish that mattered to him. Ghillies are God’s shepherds. They love their creatures, braving hypothermia to feed red deer in winter when they come down from the foodless mountains, placing eggs in rivers so salmon can spawn, and culling their beloved when it’s time.
Many don’t understand this way of life.
I did. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Aye.” Rory sat down on the bank and handed me a coffee. “He’ll be okay,” he whispered while looking at his river.
It was early evening. We finished our coffee and I walked with Rory back to my cottage. His jeep was parked there, crammed with everything a ghillie needed to do his job. We entered the kitchen and I lit the log-burning stove. “Beer?”
“No. My wife’s expecting me. What you cooking tonight?”
“Venison stew.”
Rory beamed. “That’s lovely to hear. Good effort.”
The comment touched me. “I genuinely like the local food.”
“You fancy another day on the beat tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll be here seven o’clock.” Rory’s cell phone rang. He frowned and asked the caller, “Did you tell them?” After ending the call, he looked at me. “Two men. In Tomatin.”
Tomatin was the nearest village, five miles away.
“They’re asking about you. Trying to find the location of your cottage.” He pointed at his cell phone. “That was the village store. The owner told them nothing.”
“What do they look like?”
“Younger than me, and older than you. The man who spoke to the store owner was English. They’re wearing suits. Nobody around here wears suits aside from weddings, funerals, and court hearings.”
I pushed the beer I was about to pour myself to one side. “Have you told anyone I’m here?”
“No. Only me and the estate owner know. And we wouldn’t say a word . . .”
“Of course. Why did the store owner call you?”
Rory answered, “Because long ago I put the word out in the village. The estate owner and I don’t like people inquiring after our guests. Especially guests like you.”
“They’ll find the cottage, whether someone talks or not.”
“What are you going to do?”
I shrugged. “Cook while I wait for them.”
Sometime when I was a boy—maybe when I was fourteen or fifteen years old, can’t be sure—my mother bought me an old French cookbook. I don’t remember its title or author but I do recall its scratched leather cover and the fact that when opened and laid on a surface, the pages would remain flat. I think every recipe in the thick book had been made over and over again, and the binding had become loose. All cookbooks should have their bindings loosened before sale, I remember thinking at the time. It makes them so much easier to use.
I studied cooking at school and enjoyed it. I was the only boy in the class, and while the other boys in my year group thought metal and woodwork were the ways to young ladies’ hearts, I knew different. My friends taunted me. But I didn’t mind because at the end of the day they took home useless bits of wood; by contrast, I gave my mother and sister something to eat.
The book elevated me to a whole new level of capability, to the extent that my cooking teacher suggested I enter the profession by training to be a chef. I seriously considered it for a while, until good grades in other subjects, a full scholarship to do an undergraduate degree at Cambridge University, and killing my mother’s murderers put aside such aspirations.
Today I didn’t need the book as I pan-fried cubes of venison and added cracked pepper, red wine, chopped tomatoes, a dollop of French mustard, and herbs. Over the years, cooking had become almost instinctual for me—I lived alone; it had to be.
The meal was simmering nicely when I heard the unmistakable sound of a vehicle driving over the cattle grid on the track leading to the cottage. I placed my hands behind my back and walked outside.
A Mercedes was stationary on the small fenced garden. Sheep that were not supposed to be in the garden ran to the enclosure’s wire fence, calling to their flock on the other side. Two men, in their fifties and looking like they’d be more at home in the City of London, got out of the vehicle and cursed as their expensive shoes encountered fresh animal droppings. Their car was a rental—the transparent No Smoking sticker in the window gave that away, plus the fact that it had local plates; most likely a pickup from Inverness Airport.
One was blond, the other had silver hair. Otherwise they looked similar—tall, slender. They’d brought with them the whiff of the metropolis and I resented that, though was aware that I was unshaven, in jeans and wet socks and a stained vest, and smelled of the river. They picked their way to me with care, avoiding more dung, and stood before me. I let them.
“This week, you are a fisherman,” said the blond Englishman.
“I am,” I replied.
“And next week, who are you?” he added.
“Don’t do that.”
The other man asked with a Texan drawl, “Why is your phone off?”
I responded with honesty. “I hate the things. They’re attention seeking. I’ve divorced my cell phone.”
“It would’ve saved us a journey if you hadn’t.”
I looked at the horizon high above me. Something moved. Maybe an eagle. “Your journey and convenience is irrelevant to me.”
“Can we come in?” the American asked.
I relaxed my arms by my sides, my hand gripping a large kitchen knife. I whistled three times and watched Rory saunter down from the mountain, slinging his hunting rifle over his shoulder.
He reached us. “Mr. Cochrane?”
“It’s okay, Rory. I know these men. I don’t need to kill them. Nor do you.”
I smiled at Alistair, the Englishman who’d been my MI6 controller, and Patrick, the CIA officer who’d run Task Force S alongside Alistair and had deployed me for fourteen years. “Both of you have been too long out of the field. My friend had you in his sights. He’s an excellent shot.”
Rory looked at me with concern as he placed his hunting rifle in his jeep. “I guess I’ll have a lie-in tomorrow?”
I nodded.
“Shame, eh?”
“Yes, it is a shame. I wanted to catch that fish.” I also wanted another day of being who I truly was. As Rory drove off, I said to Alistair and Patrick, “All right. Come in the house.” I poured them both a glass of whiskey that had
been made in the local distillery in Tomatin, and ignored them bickering about who should drive back to the airport. They sat at the circular kitchen table, two of the West’s most powerful intelligence officers looking immaculate and out of place in my holiday home. Leaning against a bench with my arms folded, I asked, “A job? Or have you uncovered one of my secrets and are here to say farewell before I go to prison?”
Alistair replied, “A job.”
“On the terms and conditions we discussed?”
One-third payment up front, the balance upon successful completion of the job. Cash that came from a slush fund under Alistair’s control. Alistair and Patrick had previously made it clear that if they tasked me under this new freelance arrangement, they would stand in a court of law and deny any involvement with me if things went wrong.
“As we discussed,” Patrick replied.
To prepare for a moment like this, I’d spent weeks setting up my network and secreting equipment around the world. The fictional Sherlock Holmes had declared in the nineteenth century that he was the first consulting detective. It worked for him, on paper. I drew inspiration from that to position myself as a real-life consulting spy. This was my new job, details of which I’d withheld from Major Dickie Mountjoy because beneath the old man’s gruff exterior he genuinely worried about me.
As well as financials, and my deniable role, the third aspect of the deal was that only Alistair and Patrick could be my clients. All work had to go through them. This suited me because I trusted them wholeheartedly; that trust had been gained not only during my operational career, but more importantly because my father sacrificed himself to save them in Iran in ’79, and they repaid the debt by secretly financially supporting my mother, my sister, and me. They were no doubt tough minded and on occasion told me I was an obstinate liability, but their moral compass was always pointing in the right direction.
I poured my beer. “I’m listening.”
Patrick spoke for thirty minutes. The assassination in Paris; Israel’s response; Admiral Mason’s initiative to establish Gray Site; the CIA’s officer’s telegram about the Hamas meeting; the reference in the telegram that an individual code-named Thales had warned one of the senior Hamas officials that they needed to be careful because America might be watching them; what happened in Gray Site after the telegram was sent; and Mason’s further initiative to investigate why the CIA officer in the complex could do such a thing.
“And that’s where you come in.” Patrick took a sip of his whiskey. “Damn, this is good.”
My mind working overtime, I muttered, “It’s blended. Most Scots are right to prefer blends to single malt. More nuanced.” I looked directly at the men. “Why me? Why not a cadre officer from your agencies?”
Patrick replied, “Because Israel can’t know anything about this. For that matter, most people in Europe and the States need to be kept in the dark. If an Agency or Six operative gets involved and someone finds out, chances are Israel will put two and two together and realize he’s one of ours. If you get spotted, you—”
“—could be a private investigator acting on behalf of a grieving widow of one of the men who died in Gray Site.”
“Yes.”
I smiled. “Plus, I’m very good at what I do.”
“Actually, we came to you because you’re unemployed and available.”
Alistair tapped a finger against the table. “Admiral Mason, Patrick, and I know this is a long shot.”
“Long shot?” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “The men who can give us answers are dead. The crime scene is in a hostile location and has been sanitized. The people who might have some idea what happened in there are the Israelis, but I can’t go knocking on their door. And I’ve got less than two weeks to not only establish why the CIA officer turned on his colleagues, but also extrapolate from that concrete evidence that can link or not link Hamas to the murder of the Israeli ambassador.”
Patrick’s expression turned to what I termed his rattlesnake look. Poised, ready to strike. “You don’t want the job?”
I needed the money—no doubt about that—and the nonrefundable third up front was thirty thousand pounds. That bought me fifteen months of rent for my home; or thirteen months and one week here in Scotland. I could take the job, knowing I’d fail, and still be financially buoyant for the near future. But it wasn’t just about money. I took pride in my work and didn’t want to let Alistair and Patrick down. And who else could do this task if I didn’t? I didn’t know. Spies hate mixing with other spies. It puts us on duty and forces us to be people who sometimes we just don’t want to be. That’s why I was in Scotland—to get away from myself.
Alistair stared at me, his brilliant intellect weakened by the fact that he wore it on his sleeve. “You’ve always achieved.”
“Over seventy operations.” I thought about another sip of my beer, but the desire wasn’t there. “You’ve told me they were all successful.”
“But you think not?”
“Yes.”
“Because of casualties along the way?”
I was silent.
“William, if the time has come for you”—Alistair gestured to the surroundings—“to be at peace, then Patrick and I will not stand in your way.”
I looked out the window at the mountains, my beloved mountains. More to myself, I said, “I cross the border, head north, arrive here. But there’s not much more north than this.”
“To escape to?”
I returned my attention to my former bosses. “I’m fully aware I’m shrinking my world. I’ve seen too much of the real deal. It hurts.”
“That’s life.”
“Not your life.” I locked my gaze on Patrick, silently daring him to strike. “Not recently, anyway.”
Patrick repeated, “You don’t want the job?”
Perhaps one day I’ll be like my former mentors: putting my faith in youth. Maybe not. Espionage ages individuals dramatically, first the mind, then the body. I know I’m wise beyond my years. Too wise. When I am older, I’m sure I’ll recognize the same trait in younger men who have to do what I did. I couldn’t be like my mentors and lie to them. “The job is impossible.”
“Even for you?” Patrick’s hand was still, his glass of whiskey motionless in midair as he stared at me with eyes that had many times looked at my father.
“Yes. For me, and for fucking everyone.” I lowered my head. “I’m not that man anymore. Perhaps, never was. Others had a wrong view of me.”
Alistair stood and pressed a finger against my chest. It wasn’t aggressive, rather it was his way of thinking he could transfer strength into me. “You can solve this Beirut problem.”
I moved away from him while washing my hands and saying, “I can’t. I’d need to understand the CIA officer’s mind at the time he killed the English, French, and Israeli men. I could get an interpretation of that via investigation, but it would be convenient and false. I don’t know him.”
“You do.”
I stared at them, my gut instinct telling me I was about to be sucker punched.
Patrick said, “You know him better than most. The dead CIA officer who killed his three foreign colleagues was Roger Koenig.”
“What?” I felt myself getting light-headed. Alistair gripped my arm as my feet grew unsteady. Patrick rushed to my side, knocking over his whiskey as he did so. I shouted, “Roger? That can’t—”
“It can. It was.” Patrick held my other arm. It must have taken both men all their strength to keep my big frame upright, as my legs began to buckle.
“My friend” was all I could mutter as I was guided to a chair.
My former bosses sat in silence for five minutes. They looked sad and didn’t know what to say.
“How could this happen?” My head was in my hands.
“We don’t know,” replied Alistair. “Do you want to know?”
I stared at them. “Yes,” I said. “I have to know.”
THIRTEEN
The to
ddler had just learned to walk and did so while tossing his head back and laughing with glee and pride. Uncle Laith sat on a swing chair on the porch of a suburban house in the town of Wolf Trap, close to Langley, Virginia. While sipping a beer, he was watching the boy playing on the front lawn. Laith Dia wasn’t the boy’s uncle or any relative whatsoever, but he was family of sorts to the child’s mother, Suzy Parks, because they’d both served together in Task Force S—the highly secretive joint CIA-MI6 unit used by the West to combat the most complex and toughest threats. The section was now closed down. Its co-heads, Alistair from MI6 and Patrick from the CIA, were redeployed; Laith’s paramilitary colleague Roger Koenig was dead; the unit’s prime field operative, Will Cochrane, was out of a job; Suzy had chosen to leave the Agency and devote time to her child and husband; and Laith had resigned from the Agency and signed up for the National Guard, where he got shouted at and treated like some dumb cannon fodder because no one in the Guard knew he was a former Airborne Ranger, Delta Force soldier, and incredibly capable CIA paramilitary operative. He’d wanted to become invisible. Retire into a pale shadow of his previous life. The National Guard gave him that.
Alistair, Patrick, Will, Suzy, Roger, and Laith were the only people who’d permanently comprised Task Force S. Aside from Cochrane, all had been handpicked due to their expertise and experience. Cochrane was different. He’d had to endure MI6’s twelve-month-long Spartan Program before he was permitted to be the section’s top agent. No one understood how he hadn’t died on the program, because it was designed to destroy body and mind, and had done so to numerous previous applicants to the course. Even though he’d graduated from Ranger and Delta training, Laith knew he’d never have been able to complete Spartan. Still, though he had the biggest heart, Laith was a very tough man. As boring and perfunctory as the National Guard was, it kept him moving. And he believed that overt and covert soldiering was all there was to him.
That wasn’t strictly correct. Will Cochrane had often described Laith as a man who was, in mind and body, like Othello: a noble man, deep voiced, his huge frame coated by a marble-smooth ebony skin. It was an apt comparison, because at school Laith had eschewed the numerous opportunities to be a football quarterback in favor of acting in the drama class—something that in later years came in very handy for his intelligence work.