The Spy House: A Spycatcher Novel

by Matthew Dunn

  “Unemployed and bored.” She turned off the music. “Want a drink?”

  “No, thanks.” I was worried about Phoebe. Her apartment was immaculate—that was a good sign—but she clearly wasn’t looking after herself. “I can’t stay long. Just wanted to check in to see you were okay.”

  Phoebe sat in an armchair and took a sip of her champagne. “How was Angola?”

  “Hot and humid, but it paid me well. Are you coping financially?”

  Phoebe frowned. “David’s helping me out. Don’t know how he can afford to do so.”

  I didn’t sit. “He must have savings. That’s very kind of him.”

  She looked directly at me. “Savings?”

  Astute Phoebe may well have suspected there was more to David’s generosity than met the eye. I said, “David cares about you. Maybe he got his money from inheritance, careful financial planning, investments. Who cares? All that matters is that he’s doing a good thing by you.”

  “Or maybe he got his money from a benefactor. Someone who goes places that pay well.” Phoebe gulped the rest of her drink and poured herself another.

  I sounded older and more draconian than my years when I said, “You can’t go to job interviews smelling of alcohol.”

  She looked bitter when she replied, “In my industry it’s de rigueur to be nonconformist.”

  “Your industry sacked you!” I pointed at her glass. “You need to be better than everyone else. You are better than everyone else.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe, but that’s no use, because I have no interviews to go to.”

  “Yes, you do. I made a few calls. Pretended to be a hotshot art buyer from the States. Bigged you up. Said you were the best dealer I’d done business with. Tomorrow you’ve got a full day. National Gallery, Saatchi, Barbican, Tate Modern, Royal Academy of Arts, and the London Art Gallery—they all want to meet with you tomorrow.”

  “Meet you. Not meet with you. You’re becoming more American by the day.” She smiled, and a healthy color returned to her face. “You sure you went to Angola? Not someplace further west?”

  “When I landed, the airport had a sign welcoming me to Angola.”

  Phoebe giggled, then turned serious. “They really want to interview me?”

  “Really. And it’s set up on merit. David sent me your résumé . . .”

  “Curriculum vitae.”

  “I forwarded it to the galleries you’re seeing tomorrow. They loved what they saw on paper. Now they want to see you in the flesh. Prestigious institutions, Phoebe. You’ve got to look your best and . . .”

  “Not smell of stale bubbles.” She pushed her drink to one side and stood. “Come here, Will.” She held out her arms.

  While she sobbed, I hugged her and whispered, “I’ve got to go away again. When I’m back, I’ll cook for you and David and the major. We can get drunk. Make it a Saturday evening, so it doesn’t interfere with your new job. David, Dickie, and I love you very much.”

  “You have that much certainty that I’ll get a job?”

  “I do.”

  Phoebe looked at me, her face now radiant, tears running down her cheeks. “I’d like you to try Internet dating. Nothing else has worked for you.”

  I smoothed my hand over the bridge of her nose. “That’s the Phoebe I know. You’re back in business.”

  She held me for a while, silent as she stared at me with her gorgeous eyes. “There’ll be some idiot out there who’ll fall for you.”

  I smiled. “Ever the romantic. You have that much certainty?”

  She nodded.

  I decided to walk to North London’s Highgate Cemetery, even though it was over three miles away from Southwark and the heavens were now throwing every bit of rain they could. Despite my overcoat, I was saturated, and that was a good thing because I wanted all of my senses to remember this moment. Cold, wet, uncomfortable, eyes adjusting to the light as car headlights were turned on to compensate for the dark clouds, the sounds of drills pounding roads and vehicles’ horns, throngs of unsmiling people dashing from one place to another, and the scent of a musky city that was receiving an overdue but unwanted shower—everything around me crystallized this moment.

  Michael Stein and Colonel Rowe followed Cochrane, both men staying close to him, though at the same time occasionally crossing the street to ensure their pursuit wasn’t obvious. Stein was armed with a hunting knife. Rowe knew he could assemble his rifle in seconds.

  Last admission to the cemetery was 4:30 P.M.; I made it with only a few minutes to spare. That was intentional, because I wanted as few people around me as possible during my visit to the Victorian graveyard. I’d been here many times—first when I returned to England after serving in the Legion, and more recently to bury the wife of a dear old friend. The place was so familiar to me that I didn’t need to concentrate as I walked along narrow twisting paths, my surroundings a Gothic mix of gnarled trees, moss-covered tunnels, and gravestones wrapped in vines. Elsewhere in the large cemetery were the Egyptian Avenue, the Circle of Lebanon, and the grave of Karl Marx. But I was heading to a less salubrious section—a place where soldiers, obscure writers, impoverished academics, and my mom were buried.

  I reached her headstone and felt myself welling up. Not because I was in the presence of Mom—those tears had long ago faded with time. Instead, it was the fresh headstone next to hers that made me choke and feel faint. Its inscription was simple.

  JAMES COCHRANE.

  A HERO, A HUSBAND, A FATHER.

  FINALLY YOU ARE HOME.

  My dad. A man who’d performed exemplary service in the CIA. The officer who’d surrendered to Iranian revolutionaries in ’79 in order that his colleagues Alistair and Patrick could escape their ambush. A person who was taken away from me when I was five years old, and years later butchered in Tehran’s Evin Prison. A human being who deserved far better than to be dumped in an unmarked grave.

  I’d spent years trying to find that grave. I’d failed.

  Roger Koenig hadn’t. Unknown to me, he too had spent years trying to track down my father’s whereabouts. Two months ago, he and some of his Iranian assets had received a lead and secretly excavated a small area of wasteland outside Shiraz. Roger hadn’t wanted to get my hopes up, so didn’t tell me what he was doing in Iran. After he got the coffin to Dubai, it was flown to the States, where its contents underwent DNA analysis. Even when the results conclusively proved the skeleton was my father, Roger still didn’t say anything to me. He had one last thing to do, and he knew it was the right thing because I’d often told him what I would do if I ever found my father. I’d place him in a grave next to my mother.

  Roger had chosen the headstone and the words on it. Only when my father was properly laid to rest did he tell me what he’d done. I’d broken down, not knowing whether I was feeling overwhelming grief, sorrow, or joy, or all of those things.

  I felt that way now as I knelt and touched the stone. “Hello, Dad. I haven’t got freckles and a permanent grin anymore.” I don’t know why those words came out, but they made tears run down my face as I remembered sitting on our home’s lawn and him ruffling my hair before heading off to work. “You’re back where you belong. We’re all close to you.”

  Michael was one hundred yards away from Cochrane, hiding within a cluster of trees. He had no idea why he was in the cemetery, but he could tell that the man was emotional. Part of him wondered whether it was wrong to attack the spy here. Clearly, Cochrane had a deep attachment to the grave in front of him. He was paying his respects, perhaps grieving, and his presence in Highgate was a personal matter rather than professional business. It seemed inappropriate to intrude on that. Michael had recently buried his brother. He too had stood over a grave and wept. At times like that, one has no thoughts about service to one’s country, duty to one’s employer, or anything other than utter sorrow. When Michael had walked away from his brother’s grave, all he could think about was their playing together as kids. At that moment, Michael had wanted
to turn the clock back, be a kid again, and subsequently make different life choices. He wondered if Cochrane had similar thoughts right now.

  As conflicted as he was, Michael had a job to do. He wasn’t going to kill Cochrane. Rather, he was going to hurt him so badly that Cochrane would be lying in a hospital bed for weeks—long enough for him to be taken out of the equation, for no damage to be done to the Stein family name, and for Israel to make its own decisions without meddling interference from the West.

  Michael pulled out a knife. He’d make sure its blade would miss vital organs when he plunged it into Cochrane’s gut.

  I stood motionless for five minutes as I recalled the mere handful of memories I had of my father, together with imagining him in the tales that Alistair and Patrick had recounted. They’d told me he was a very good man, a devoted husband and father, utterly dedicated, brave, professional, sometimes mischievous, and that he had an acute intelligence masked by a laid-back demeanor. According to them, I was like him in some ways and wholly unlike him in others.

  Part of me had wanted to delay coming here until I’d finished investigating Gray Site, so that I could spend time grieving or channeling whatever other emotions might come up after I’d visited my father’s grave. But I just couldn’t delay seeing him. There was another reason I’d come here today. I had to understand how it felt standing above my father, knowing it wouldn’t have been possible to do so without Roger Koenig. In turn, I had to let that feeling determine once and for all my thoughts on what Roger did in Gray Site. I was sure Roger didn’t go crazy in the Beirut station. Nor did he kill his colleagues for nefarious reasons. A man who risks his life to bring another man’s father home is not that type of guy. Roger shot his fellow workers because he had urgent, legitimate, and honorable reasons for doing so. And my conclusion added significant weight to the theory that Roger targeted the Mossad officer in Gray Site because the Israeli was trying to disrupt coverage of the Hamas meeting.

  Colonel Rowe was calm as he unzipped his bag, removed his rifle’s components, and assembled it. Before attaching the scope to the weapon, he looked through it. Stein was under trees, about a hundred yards from his target—a good spot, yet his proximity to Cochrane indicated that he intended to assault Cochrane with a close-quarter weapon such as a pistol or knife. Cochrane was by a gravestone, not moving, seemingly deep in thought. When the silencer was attached to the rifle’s barrel, Rowe’s weapon was ready. He was three hundred yards away from Cochrane, on one knee between two headstones. This would be the easiest kill he’d ever made.

  I didn’t want to leave, but knew the cemetery would soon be closing. The last thing I wanted was to be ushered away from my father by a Highgate official. My departure had to be on my terms. I said, “Bye, Dad. I’ll see you soon. Mum’s by your side. She’ll take care of you.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a rush of movement. A man. Blond. Racing toward me. He was nearly on me as I quickly stepped back. A knife was in his hand, and he slashed it through the air toward my abdomen. I leapt to one side, the knife narrowly missing me, and as I did so I heard a dull thud followed by something striking stone. Small flecks of debris hit my face and the face of my assailant. We both glanced at my father’s headstone. A projectile had hit it and chipped its corner. No doubt a bullet. The blond man seemed equally surprised and he followed my gaze in the direction the shot had likely come from.

  “Down!” shouted the blond man, in an accented voice, as he launched himself at me and we collapsed to the ground behind my dad’s headstone. Another shot was fired, causing more bits of stone to spray past us.

  I wondered what the hell was going on, considering that the blond man had just tried to attack me and then got me out of the way of the shooter. He was pinning me down; our only cover from the sniper was Roger’s recently erected dedication to my father. The blond man was exceptionally strong. And it seemed he hadn’t finished his business, because he raised his knife in an attempt to strike my gut. I pulled one arm free and punched him hard in the throat, causing him to fall away, gasping for air. I got to my feet, staying low behind the stone. Another shot struck it; the sniper had clearly pinned us down. The blond man lashed out with his leg, trying to strike my ankle and topple me. I stamped on his leg before it made contact and said, “Stop! We’re both dead if we keep this up.”

  Still on his back, the knife-wielding man kicked hard with his free leg, hitting me in my stomach and causing me to wince in agony. None of this made any sense. I had to get out of here. I ran, staying low and taking a route that kept my dad’s headstone directly between me and the sniper.

  The blond assailant pursued me as I raced between trees, zigzagging because more bullets were striking the ground and timber very close to me. I reached a clearing, convinced the sniper could no longer see me for a few moments until he repositioned, and spun around. As I did so, the blond man’s fist punched me so hard on the chest that I was lifted off my feet and toppled onto my back. He came for me again, this time with his knife ready, a look of utter focus on his face. There was no hint of fear in his expression. No doubt, I was facing a professional. I rolled to one side as he tried to step on my face, grabbed his foot as he kicked, twisted and yanked his leg to throw him off balance, and kicked into his crotch.

  This time, he was incapacitated.

  After getting to my feet, I sprinted away as fast as I could. No way could I stay and fight these men. Were it only the blond man I was up against, I might stand a chance, though his strength and focus were formidable. But that man combined with an invisible sniper would surely leave me dead if I tried to take them both on. I was sure the blond man wanted to hurt me very badly but drew a line at seeing me killed; the sniper had other intentions. They weren’t working together, that was clear, and that didn’t matter because together or alone they could prevent me from investigating Gray Site. And that investigation was infinitely more important than making a stand against my assailants.

  THIRTY-TWO

  God damn you, Cochrane!” Patrick slammed his phone handset back onto its cradle. He was in his office in the CIA headquarters in Langley. It was the thirteenth time today he’d tried to reach Will, but every time he’d called it went straight to voice mail. He’d left messages and sent him SMS’s. No response to any of them. He understood that Cochrane was busy; maybe he was on a long flight. But Patrick had been calling all night over a twelve-hour time frame. And the protocol was that if Cochrane anticipated being uncontactable for such a length of time, he was to notify Patrick in advance.

  Patrick had been in his office all night, because he couldn’t bring himself to leave after hearing about Katy Koenig’s brutal murder. He rubbed his weary face, called Admiral Mason, and told him that he couldn’t get hold of Cochrane.

  Then he called Will’s former MI6 controller, Alistair, who was in London. “We’ve got a problem.” He told him about his failed calls. “And it’s not the only one. You need to get over here ASAP. Arrive no later than this evening. And I need you to bring something rather special.”

  Phoebe got out of a taxi and walked briskly to the front door of the apartment building. The cab ride home had been an indulgent treat, but this evening all thoughts of being miserable and penniless were out of the window. She could see Dickie sitting in his living room, watching TV. She’d check up on him later, but first she had to see David. She caught glimpses of her boyfriend in his second-floor apartment, moving back and forth in his kitchen. She entered the building, a huge smile on her face, and walked up the two flights as fast as her high platforms would let her. She knocked on David’s door, struck a sexy pose, and held up a bottle of champagne.

  When David opened the door, Phoebe said in a sultry tone, “Darling, tonight you and I have some big-time celebrating to do.”

  David’s face beamed. “You got a job offer?”

  “Not just one, but three!” Phoebe’s full day of job interviews at numerous London art galleries and museums had far exceeded her exp
ectations.

  David gave her a big hug, spinning her around so she was in his apartment. “We’d better get the bubbly on ice. And we might need to order some more in, by the sound of things. Come through to the kitchen.” He was speaking fast, he was so excited to hear Phoebe’s news. “I’m cooking Szechuan chicken and noodles, one of your faves. Sound good?”

  “Sounds divine.” She watched David tossing meat and vegetables in a wok and adding chilies, crushed garlic, soy sauce, and a spoonful of honey. He seemed so happy, always was when in his beloved kitchen and cooking, but more than usual: right now he seemed in heaven. She knew he cared for her deeply and that it had pained him to see her so down in the dumps after she’d lost her job. He hadn’t really known how to console her, because her world was so alien to him. But he had cooked for her, held her when she needed to be cared for, and was always willing to devote as much time to her as his other commitments would allow. They’d never spoken about love before; their relationship was still relatively young, plus David always got a bit flustered and embarrassed when confronted with big emotions. As she watched him now, she wondered if something inside her was changing. Specifically, she wondered if she was falling in love with David.

  She’d been surprised David had been prepared to give her such generous financial support. She hadn’t asked for it, didn’t anticipate it, and wondered how he could afford to cover her rent. She suspected the money came from Will Cochrane. That didn’t change anything, apart from reinforcing to her that she was surrounded by a family of sorts, a small group of people who cared for each other and stepped in when one of them was in trouble. David would have hated taking Will’s money because he would have wanted to use his own money to help her. But far more important than his pride, no way would he have been able to live with himself if Phoebe was forced to vacate her home due to lack of money. The fact that he was able to swallow his pride for the sake of Phoebe’s well-being made him all the more endearing.