by Matthew Dunn
He returned to his desk and stared at the birdcage. After brushing soil off his fingers, he looked at his laptop and saw he had a new e-mail. Nobody sent him mail apart from spammers.
But this one was different. And shocking. It was from CIA officer Unwin Fox, the man who, alongside Will, had been one of those involved in the Berlin operation. Aside from Colonel Haden, Will didn’t know who the other people on the small team were.
His heart was beating fast as he read the mail. Its tone was desperate. There was no way Fox could know that Will was alive. Something was terribly wrong. Fox wanted to meet. Tomorrow. In Washington, D.C.
In all probability it was a trap. Lure Will out, then bam! Swooped on by cops. But then again, Will knew what happened in Berlin. The law didn’t. This would have been far too implausible a tactic to entrap him.
What to do?
He looked at the lovebirds’ empty cage. The door was open.
He glanced at the entrance to his store.
What to fucking do?
He opened the drawer in his desk, pulled out his handgun, grabbed his bag containing all he needed if he ever had to run, and left.
He knew he’d never return.
Chapter 3
Will Cochrane drove the car he’d stolen from an American assassin who’d tried to kill him a year ago. Its owner was now at the bottom of a lake in Virginia, decayed, his chest cavity sliced open and filled with rocks to weigh it down. Will had done that.
The vehicle contained Will’s only bag of clothes and other items, plus all the remaining cash in his life.
Edward Pope no longer existed, though his fake ID might prove useful. His shop would be repossessed by the landlord and Chicago city council after a period of absence and closure, his precious books parceled up and sold or burned. Will was once again on the road, free from his cage, a man who would be gunned down by anyone and everyone if they knew who he was.
He parked outside D.C. and took the Metro to Rock Creek Park, setting off on foot and constantly aware of the ordinary folk around him on the beautiful trails that navigated their way around hardwood tress, brooks, and the occasional rocky outcrops. Picnic areas were strewn with families enjoying a balmy late-autumn Saturday afternoon. There was laughter, kids running barefoot over grass, guys drinking beer while their wives laid out tablecloths on the ground and unpacked food, and a general ambience of joie de vivre. Families that had no care in the world. This was their weekend. Will walked among them.
Hidden under his belt and T-shirt were his handgun and spare magazines. His scant other belongings were not required. No one needed much cash and any spare clothes on such a day. He walked along a trail, a relaxed smile on his face, probably appearing to be a veteran who’d made peace with the horrors he’d seen. Families barely glanced at him and none of them was scared. He matched the bigger guys in the park and was too far away from other humans for them to notice his eyes. Up close, the eyes were the one thing he couldn’t disguise.
He made it to one of the thirty picnic areas in the park and leaned against a tree, watching, knowing this might be the time the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team or SWAT swooped the area and dropped him to his knees. If that happened, he’d put many of them on their asses. But they’d be wearing Kevlar. Inevitably Will’s face would smack the ground dead.
The picnic area was brimming with locals and tourists. A gunfight here would be disastrous, because the collateral would involve carnage. None of Will’s bullets would strike a civilian, but he couldn’t trust the police takedown squads. They’d be armed with Heckler & Koch submachine guns and would be so pumped up with adrenaline that their kill lust would consume their more measured drills. Will couldn’t allow that to happen. He’d wallop the ones who looked most likely to make a mistake.
There was no sign of any of that happening. All that could be heard was laughter, men bantering, with the occasional bark of mothers scolding their kids. The air was rich with the scent of sausages, burgers, and steaks.
Will had walked through similar scenes so many times before all over the world. He’d never felt part of them. He had no one to love, no days off, no nothing. He was a fallen angel; a man dislocated from the world, sent here to save people who never rewarded his bravery with kindness; a person alone. He thought of Ebb, his broken wing emasculating his prowess and causing him to give up on life. Will understood that feeling. If something similar happened to him, he hoped a kind soul would snap his neck.
Long shadows struck him. Children raced close to him, cooked pork in their hands and mouths, giggling and gleeful. He was like that once, a freckled and blond five-year-old, his grin accompanied by a belly laugh and dimples that made adults stop and go, “Ah, shucks. He’s such a cutey.”
That year his smile vanished when his father, a CIA agent, was kidnapped and later slaughtered in Iran. Tears followed immediately, together with a burning sensation in his stomach that abated only when he fell asleep and dreamed of being a grown-up and hurting the bad men who’d sliced up his beloved father.
Back then it was a cathartic and juvenile fantasy designed by an immature brain to get him to sleep in the same way a child dreams of beating up the playground bully. But Will grew up. He butchered every man involved in the butchering of his father. And he didn’t stop there.
He watched everyone in the picnic area closely, also scouring gaps in the distant trees and listening acutely. Elite police units move fast and silently when approaching a target. But up close they have to shout, because their primary purpose is to uphold the rule of law and arrest perpetrators, and they must call out warnings to nearby innocent civilians. Special forces guys like Will just kill and walk away, for the most part without anyone knowing apart from a distraught wife shrieking over the mashed and bloody face of her husband as he lies dead in his favorite armchair.
In the picnic area he was watching for undercover spotters; in the tree line, men in fire-resistant black or green coveralls running in the flat-footed way that minimized the sound of their footfalls and maintained their ability to fire accurately if needed.
No one came for him. Will moved on.
Unwin Fox had told him to head directly to the northern area of the picnic spot. Will didn’t do that. Instead he went east, then north, and then south, so that he was looking at the same meeting point from the other direction. Would he shoot cops in the back? Of course. Any man or woman who’s been in lethal situations will tell you the same—you kill or be killed. But this was different. Will didn’t kill cops and knew their body armor would save them; no, he hoped it would give him enough time to vanish again. But cops were the least of his problems.
There was one thing for sure. He had to help Fox. The CIA officer was one of the few people Will trusted at the Agency. When Will was an operative for the CIA, Fox had stuck his neck out to support Will countless times. Because of that, Will had risked his neck several times to rescue Fox from dire situations in hostile countries.
He watched again before climbing a tree and squatting on a branch. Men rarely look up when going for a kill. They look straight ahead. He waited, patient, calculating hundreds of possibilities. If he got out of here, he’d sleep in his car somewhere rural, wet wipes his savior against BO, soap his remedy for dirty clothes. He didn’t like that way of life. But he did what was needed.
A man walked along a trail, two hundred yards away. Will pulled out binos to observe him. The man was suited, his hair matted, his face downward. Another man was behind him—shorts and T-shirt, baseball cap covering his upper face, a father no doubt—but quickly catching up, holding something that looked like a BBQ skewer, a grin on his face as he headed to a family.
Will immediately jumped down and ran to the first man he’d spotted.
Unwin Fox.
The CIA officer saw him running toward him on the trail and smiled. Cochrane was alive. Thank God.
Fox had always thought it was highly unlikely that Cochrane would have taken his own life. But facts were facts.
There was no doubt Cochrane jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. The event was captured on camera by the media. And that fall would have crushed most men. What had nagged Fox during the last year was that Cochrane would have made that jump for a reason—not suicide, but rather to fake his death. But, my goodness, Cochrane had taken an almighty risk.
The sight of him now warmed Fox’s heart. Cochrane had fooled everyone and survived. And now he was racing toward the man he’d saved countless times. Cochrane scared most people. Not Fox. The CIA officer recalled when he’d crashed his car in pursuit of a double agent in Mozambique. Cochrane had been following. Battered and bloody, Fox had crawled out of the wreckage, gasping for life. Cochrane helped him get to his feet.
“Now is not the time for pain,” Cochrane had said as he withdrew his handgun. “This is a setup by the Russians. They’re coming for you now. You’re a dead man if you stay here. Get to the U.S. embassy. I’ll hold them off.”
As Fox ran through the alley, he looked back. There was a cacophony of gunfire. Cochrane was on one knee firing at encroaching hostiles. He didn’t flinch as he held off the assault while Fox escaped.
As far as Fox was concerned, no man on the planet was more magnificent than Cochrane.
In the park, the man behind Fox drew nearer. He raised the metal stick in his hand.
Ten yards.
Five.
Then he was right behind Fox.
On the stick was a needle on its tip, a canister, and a trigger at the back.
Fox was oblivious to the man’s presence.
The man jabbed the needle into Fox’s calf and pulled the trigger.
Fox grabbed his calf. It was a tiny sting. A fly or wasp did this, he suspected. He carried on walking.
The man behind him grinned and walked away.
When Will got close to Fox, the CIA officer called out, “Back from the dead.”
Will didn’t smile and didn’t stop running until he was very near to the Agency operative.
A few yards away from Will, Fox staggered and collapsed. Will grabbed him before he hit the ground. He held him close as he whispered, “What happened?”
Fox asked, “Just now?”
“What happened in Berlin?”
Fox’s face was ashen coupled with red blotchy spots. “Berlin. It was a setup. Haden wanted you to kill Raeder so Haden could steal Raeder’s cash.” He was breathing fast and shallow. “What happened just now?”
Will spun around, watching everything. People were staring. Women had hands to their mouths. “You were poisoned.”
Fox convulsed, his hands squeezing Will’s oak-like arms. “Yes . . . yes. Shit! It was Haden.”
Will scoured the area for the man with the BBQ tool. “He’s gone! You’d have a puncture mark on your leg or back.”
“I . . . I felt something. A sting. Didn’t . . . didn’t think anything of it.” Fox vomited on the ground, his face now gray. Families nearby were exclaiming disgust about a drunk in their midst.
Will held his head. “Whatever’s in you is too strong. I’m sorry, Fox. This is not looking good.”
“Antidote . . . ?”
“Whoever did this knew that the very best D.C. hospitals wouldn’t be able to reverse it.” Will gently cupped Fox’s head as the CIA officer started frothing at the mouth. At the same time, Will’s eyes were frantically looking around. “Looks like you’ll be dead in minutes, maybe less. I can’t save you this time, my friend.”
Fox spat blood over his chin, and his eyes almost rolled back completely. “Shit, shit!”
“I’ll find Haden and make him pay.”
“No! Too . . . too dangerous!”
Will lowered Fox’s head to the ground. “We’re both dead men. What’s there to be scared of?” He smiled even though he felt tremendous sadness. “We’ve both been through so much. I’m going to help you one last time.”
Fox grabbed Will’s arm. “Besides you, Haden, and me, there were two others involved in Berlin. Get to them, and you’ll get closer to Haden.” He was wheezing. “They want him as much as . . . as much as I do.”
Urgently, Will asked, “Names?”
Fox tried to speak but couldn’t, more blood ejecting from his mouth and striking his chest, and then he was gasping for air, his whole body shaking. Will knew he was going to die in agony and could no longer speak or think. Alongside drowning, being poisoned is the worst way to die. Will had the choice of letting it happen until the end, or doing something to stop the terrible downward spiral.
“You want me to end this?”
Fox nodded frantically.
Will thought of Ebb and momentarily bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”
He put his knee on Fox’s throat and pressed down with all his might.
Fox’s back arched.
Will laid the CIA operative’s head fully on the trail. Fox was dead.
It was time to leave. But four big men were advancing on him. They were part of a nearby extended family, had shirts and shorts on, and had discarded their drinks. Behind them was a woman with her cell phone camera pointing at him.
The guys were telling him to stay on his knees until the cops arrived. The men were shouting and angry.
“What did you do to him?” one of them exclaimed.
Will stood up and said nothing as he looked at the encroaching group.
“Get on your knees or we’ll make you do it!”
Will had to get the camera off the woman. If he didn’t, the world would know he was alive. Then all hell would break loose.
“Don’t come closer,” Will said, standing stock-still.
The biggest of the men sneered. “You armed? Going to shoot us?”
“I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Then you’re screwed, buddy. Me and my pals are ex-marines. We know shit.”
Will nodded. “Thank you for your service.”
He rushed them. They were fast and organized. But the highly trained former special forces operatives were not comparable to Cochrane. The assassin jabbed a knee in the nearest man’s ribs, tossed him aside like a rag doll as he took two steps forward and poleaxed the second man in the throat, slapped a palm into the face of the third man, crushing his nose, and punched the biggest with sufficient force to lift him off the ground and jam him back down with enough energy to dislocate his spine.
Blood was everywhere. Children were crying.
Will moved closer to the woman with the video camera that had recorded the explosive encounter. He stopped when she picked up her baby.
“Please don’t, mister.”
Will was still.
“Please don’t!” she implored.
He looked at the baby. The men were on the ground behind him, writhing.
“My husband and brothers were just trying to do what was right. Please”—she rocked the baby—“I don’t mean you any harm.”
Will kept his eyes on the child. It would be easy to get the phone off the woman. Too easy. The child was looking at him, quizzical and afraid. It had cute dimples and freckles.
“I want your cell phone.”
The woman was crying. “Please! It’s got videos and pictures of my baby shortly after he was born. I haven’t uploaded them yet. They’re all I have.”
Will glanced over his shoulder at the four men who’d come for him. They’d live.
He looked at the woman. “What will you do with the video of me?”
“I’ll give it to the police.” Her bottom lip was trembling.
“I thought you’d say that.” He nodded at the baby. “The videos of him are more important.”
He turned and ran.
Chapter 4
Will took the subway to traverse D.C. and get back to the place he’d parked his car, rapid thoughts cascading through his mind, his handgun ready to take down cops who might board the train and search for him. Every nerve ending in his body was alert to the possibility of threats, every neuron in his mind and torso communicating to each other that their ca
rrier was now a coiled spring ready for combat. The nerves and neurons were well practiced in this maneuver. It was second nature.
Still, he couldn’t have been tenser. There was no doubt that his real identity would soon become known. When that happened, he’d have to go to war.
He moved through the subway car, avoiding eye contact but seeing everything. People watched him, but he had an idea what they were thinking—big guy, ready smile, eyes glistening with intelligence, no hint of being a lonely monster.
The people around him were normal Americans—mothers, sons, commuters—solid people. These were the type of compatriots he’d protected all his life.
He passed the folk without them having the slightest inkling of what was happening.
Howard Kane watched his four men chop Charlie Sapper into manageable chunks and feed her body parts to boars. Jason Flail tossed Sapper’s hand into the boar compound and watched the swine squeal with delight as they charged at the flesh. The Virginia farm was Flail’s, bought with his savings and Green Beret pension. The three men helping him with his task had served with him in hellholes around the world. They weren’t on the full-time payroll of Kane, but now and again they assisted him with stuff. They were his blunt instruments. And Kane had no problem with their methods.
“What about DNA?” Kane was wearing a crisp white shirt and slacks. “This won’t get rid of DNA.”
Flail, forty-six, was blond haired, six feet, and wearing a frogman’s outfit. The three men with him, now standing close to the boar pen, were wearing the same. Flail smiled. “Depends if someone comes here to check. Why would they?”
“They might.” The sight of Sapper being eaten didn’t bother Kane in the slightest. Clearing all traces of the Berlin mess was what counted.
The former Green Beret shrugged. “You asked us to do this.”
“As long as you know what you’re doing.”
Flail threw the last bit of Sapper into the pen. “The pigs eat. They shit what they don’t need. We burn the shit. We burn the ground underneath the shit. We rotavate the soil underneath the burned crust. No DNA.”