by Matthew Dunn
Frequently, he flagrantly disobeyed orders and rules of engagement, though his successes were so significant that nobody questioned his methods. Except on one occasion.
He and a four-man JSOC team had entered a dwelling in Baghdad to capture or kill an Iraqi who’d blown up three marine vehicles. But the terrorist wasn’t in the building. Instead his wife and two children were there eating supper. The colonel hadn’t hesitated. He went up to the mother and smashed the butt of his rifle into her face, rendering her unconscious. Then he turned on the young adolescent kids. They were crying and in shock. Haden was screaming at them, trying to ascertain the whereabouts of their father. They were shaking their heads, blurting out in Arabic that they didn’t know. Haden pulled out a length of rope and made it into a hangman’s knot. After stringing it to the ceiling, he forced one of the boys to stand on a chair with the noose around his throat.
To the other boy, Haden said in Arabic, “You choose. You tell me where your father is, or I kick the chair and let your brother dangle.”
Haden’s men had tried to interject, but Haden ignored them.
“Tell me where the asshole is or your brother dies!”
This carried on for ten minutes, both brothers petrified and having no knowledge of where their father was. Exasperated, Haden kicked the chair. The boy’s legs flailed frantically in the air while the other boy screamed. But two of the JSOC men rushed to the rope and cut him down while the other two trained their guns on Haden.
“Not on our watch, sir,” said a seasoned SEAL Team Six operative.
“And I’ll shoot you, pal, if you lay another hand on them,” added a veteran SAS soldier.
The hanged boy had bruising around his throat but would live. It would all have been different for him within seconds had the two U.S. operatives not cut him free.
Haden was furious and pulled out his sidearm, pointing it at each of his men respectively. “You think I give a shit about your consciences?! I could have you court-martialed!”
One of the men replied, “We’re witnesses. We could have you court-martialed.”
Haden went up to the man and shoved the muzzle of his pistol against his head. “I answer to the president and God. And I’m on friendly speaking terms with both. You want to try your luck in a military court?”
The man said nothing.
“Give it a try! Let’s see who comes out on top!”
The incident was never mentioned by the four men, though they stayed on for two more years in JSOC for one reason only: to keep an eye on Haden.
Years on, Haden was no longer their problem. But he was a massive problem for Kane and Cochrane.
Chapter 14
Ash wondered what the hell she was doing as she finished getting dressed and reentered her living room.
Will was still in her armchair, no visible weapon, his eyes following her as she took a seat opposite him.
She asked, “What do you want?”
“I want you to break rules.”
“You’ve misjudged me.”
“Have I?” Will leaned forward. “Deep-cover officers serve no one. They survive by their wits. And when it all goes tits up, they get scant support from their employer. You don’t have loyalty to the Agency. You’re simply on its payroll.”
“Tits up? Seems you’ve dropped your American predisposition.”
“English was always my first language.” Will smiled. “You once served undercover in London, spying on our economic strategies with the European Union. You know our terminology.”
“How did you know I served there?”
Will waved his hand. “Irrelevant. What’s pertinent is the here and now.”
“Which is what?”
Will gestured to the walls. “Framed quality posters of Rembrandt, Renoir, Caravaggio, and Degas.” He swept his hand. “Sculptures from Tibet, Peru, and Java. A mounted Arabic dirk. A library of jazz vinyl and Iranian poetry. That’s a lot of effort for a woman who’s rarely here. You see and embrace the world but you don’t like the prism that gives you that knowledge. Yet you collect beauty when you can. You’re an adventurer, not a spy.”
This was true. But Ash said, “You know nothing about me!”
Will shook his head. “Is that true?”
Ash kept her mouth shut.
He looked like he was mentally undressing her. “Three years ago you were deep cover in Berlin. You secured evidence about Otto Raeder. You passed that evidence to Unwin Fox. As a result, I was brought in. My mission was clear: exterminate the financier. The morality pertaining to that mission was unquestionable. Raeder was couriering five million dollars to jihadists in Munich. They were going to use that money to set Europe ablaze. I got in the way.”
Ash frowned. “I didn’t know what happened after I handed my intel over. It wasn’t my job to know.”
“But now you know.”
“And I don’t see a problem with what you did.”
“Nor do I, on paper. But here’s the issue: the mission wasn’t officially sanctioned. Fox took your intel to a guy in the Pentagon called Colonel Haden. Have you heard of him?”
“Of course. The Delta Force commander. A big name. A bit crazy, I heard. But supremely effective.”
“A bit crazy?” Will smiled. “That’s an understatement. More important, why would Fox go to him rather than his superiors in the Agency?”
Ash thought fast. “This is fishy.”
“Yes, it is.”
“And you didn’t know at the time?”
Will was forthright. “No. Like you, I was brought in to do a job and then vanish. But think. Why did it happen this way?”
“You sound like my boss!”
“Who is . . . ?”
“Hessian Bell.”
“Ah, Mr. Bell. I pulled bullets out of him once. He started breathing again. Send him my regards. He’ll remember me.” Will turned serious. “Bell is a very decent man. Treat him right. He’s smart, and his heart is exactly where it should be.”
“As smart as you?”
“You be the judge of that.”
“And your heart?”
“It’s where it’s always been.” Will thought Ash was a beautiful woman, but she clearly put up defenses—probably the reason she was alone.
“The question still is: Why did Berlin happen this way?”
“Sanctions from Capitol Hill to do a hit on German soil were impossible. The mission would have to be handed over to the Germans. Somebody in the States decided to keep this off the books.”
Ash asked, “Haden?”
“I believe it was my friend Unwin Fox’s idea. But I also believe he lost control of that idea when he brought Haden and others into his confidence.”
Ash frowned. “Where is Haden?”
“He vanished on the day I killed Raeder.”
“In Berlin?”
“Yes. He was tailing the target in his car. His job was to call my shot.”
“How far was he behind Raeder?”
Cochrane answered, “Haden was in front. Distance varied, but never farther than a few hundred yards.”
“Close enough to get to Raeder’s dead body and take his cash before the cleanup team moved in to dispose of the body.”
“Clever, Miss Ash.”
“And that was the last we heard of Haden. I can see where your thinking is going. But there’s no proof of any of this.”
Will stood. “Unwin Fox is dead.”
“How?!”
Will sighed. “He was dying and in agony. There was no way back for him. He asked me to put him out of his misery.” He stared at the wall as he whispered, “He was my friend.”
Blood drained from Ash’s face. “So, you’re still the same man you always were.”
Will’s voice steeled as he returned his gaze to Ash. “He was poisoned, but not by me. But he managed to tell me that what happened in Berlin was a lie and Haden was behind it all. Alongside Fox and Haden, there were two others involved in the Berlin operation. In
order to get to Haden, I need their names. They may know where Haden is.”
“If I do that I might be committing treason.”
“But you might not be.” Will pointed at her. “None of what happened in Berlin was your fault. But like it or not, you set the ball rolling.”
“I have no reason to work for you!”
“You do if in any way you want to understand the events that happened after you handed your Raeder intel to Fox.” A thought occurred to him. “Tell Hessian Bell about this meeting and our conversation. He might put the cops on me, but I’m willing to take that risk. See what he says before making a decision.” Will picked up his coat and walked to the door. “I’ve left my cell phone number on your bedside table. I’d like you to call me when you find anything out. First, I need you to establish the address of Haden’s wife.”
The comment surprised Ash. “And if I agree to this, what are you going to do?”
Will didn’t say that he was certain his captured image in the D.C. park had been escalated up the law enforcement food chain to the Feds; that zero press releases and media coverage meant he was being hunted off the radar; that he suspected he knew whom he was being hunted by and that the female FBI agent had not a hope in hell of tracking him unless he gave her a trail. Nor did he say that the trail had to help him clear his name while also confuse the Feds. Instead, he said, “I suspect misdirection is at play. But I can play that game as well.”
Ash stared at the handsome man and saw something she hadn’t seen before: sorrow. “I don’t think you killed the people they say you did in Virginia.”
Will smiled, though his expression was resigned. “Does it matter whether I killed anyone there? I’ve killed so many others. Bad guys and girls for sure. But maybe if I let them live they would have changed.”
“Or maybe not.”
Will looked at Ash’s art. “You have a nice apartment. But it doesn’t feel like your home.”
Ash stood. “You wish me no harm?”
“Why would I?”
“Because you kill. We made you into this.”
“Killing is not my favorite job.” Will’s eyes seemed distant. “They could never get to all of me.”
“They?”
“My masters. And now I have no masters.” He took a step forward again.
Ash recoiled.
But this time Will didn’t step back. “I didn’t kill the people they say I did in Virginia. Others, yes, but they were the kidnappers of a ten-year-old boy. I slaughtered eight men and women who did that. Does that worry you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re not me.” Will stood right in front of her. “It’s my burden.”
“We all carry burdens.”
Will wondered if he could trust Ash with what he was about to say. “When I was in British intelligence, I was put in a top-secret training and selection course. It was twelve months long. Only one person at a time was allowed in the MI6 Spartan Program. They all died on it or were invalided out. Somehow, I got through.”
Ash was stationary in front of the big man. “It broke your mind but not your body.”
Will answered, “No. It’s more complicated than that. They tried to snap everything in me and carve me into what they wanted. But I clung on. If a person loses all vestiges of himself, he becomes inhuman.”
“Robotic?”
“A slave.” Will touched her hand. “I answer to no man or woman. Will you help me?”
“I may try to help you. But what are you going to do?”
Will pulled out his handgun and tapped it against Ash. “I’m going after Haden. And then I will get the truth.”
Marsha Gage, Thyme Painter, Joe Kopański, and Pete Duggan assembled in a house on Gloucester Drive in Lynchburg, Virginia.
The place was a detached residential building, four bedrooms, and in an area of the city that was suburban and quiet, though there were other residences spread along the street. It looked like a normal home belonging to a family who parked their two black SUVs in the driveway and kept to themselves.
Inside was tastefully decorated yet functional, and way too immaculate for a family who used the place on a day-to-day basis. It was a Bureau safe house, maintained by a housekeeper on the Feds’ books who’d vacated the building to make space for the tiny team hunting Will Cochrane.
“Why do we have to be here?” growled Kopański as he watched Duggan stripping and cleaning a submachine gun.
Gage replied, “To minimize leakage. We don’t want tongues wagging in the Hoover Building. This is a safe house for a reason.” She withdrew her sidearm and handed it to Duggan.
Kopański walked up to Duggan and looked at the array of weapons next to him on the sideboard. “What are you doing, son?”
The weapons were four apiece: Springfield Custom Professional 1911-A1 .45ACP pistols, MP5/10 submachine guns, and Remington 870 twelve-gauge shotguns. Alongside them was a single Remington 700 sniper rifle, covert communications equipment, hundreds of laundered hundred-dollar bills, zoom lens cameras, police radio intercepts, body armor, flash-bang grenades, photos of Cochrane, and a letter from the attorney general—countersigned by the director of the FBI and the president—saying that Gage had full authority to do whatever the hell she liked to bring Cochrane to justice.
Duggan picked up the sniper rifle. “This is mine. The rest are upgrades for the team. I need your and Painter’s sidearms. In return, you get the ACPs. They’re elephant killers.”
Kopański pulled out his Webley .455. “I once used this to knock a three-hundred-pound man off his feet. His mashed skull disintegrated on a sidewalk in Charlestown. If you don’t mind, boy, I’ll keep it.”
Duggan held out his hand. “Can I look?”
Kopański hesitated, then handed his beloved weapon to the former SEAL Team Six operative.
Duggan weighed the heavy pistol in his hand. “It’s a superb hostile-stopper. But my God, it requires strength to fire. You sure about this?”
Kopański nodded. “It’s killed things.”
Duggan checked the workings. “You keep it excellently prepped.”
“I’m older than you, Duggan. Men my age get achy after a while. Keeping a gun clean and well oiled is all we have.”
Duggan saw no evidence of weakness in Kopański. On the contrary, the tall man looked like he could snap the HRT leader’s neck if his mood took him that way. “Where did you get this? It’s British World War II issue.”
Kopański was granite still. “You know your weaponry.”
“You haven’t answered my question. And I thought your weapons were requisitioned by the NYPD, pending investigation.”
Painter walked up to the sideboard. “Joe always has contingency plans.” She placed her backup weapon on the table. “Me too. I’ll take your ACP. Leave Joe to shoot his own gun. It never fails him.”
Duggan smiled. “Agent Painter, I just need to know we’re properly equipped.”
Painter took the ACP and spare magazines. “We know. It’s just . . . Joe and I have worked so long together without backup. This is new to us.”
Duggan returned his attention to Kopański. “Where did you get the Webley?”
It was Painter who answered. “Joe’s father was Polish and worked for the British Special Operations Executive. He was parachuted into France and the Netherlands in the early forties and rallied resistance. He blew up German trains and bases, and hunted down Nazis.” She touched Joe’s gun. “This never left his side. You have your elephant killers. Joe has his Nazi killer.”
Duggan nodded slowly. “The Webley has a hell of a recoil. I’ve only fired it on one occasion on a range. Couldn’t hit the damn target at first. But when I did it made one god-awful mess of the target.” He handed the weapon back to Joe. “It’s a six-shooter revolver, but you’ll only need one bullet. Even a leg shot will kill an enemy. The Webley is yours. It will do the job. Just don’t miss.”
“He never does,” said Painter.
Gage had
been watching the exchange, silent. Now was time to exert her authority. She summoned them over. “On two occasions we tried to flush Cochrane out with massive media exposure. Both times we failed because he outplayed us. So this time it’s just the four of us doing the hunting. How do we capture him?”
Duggan replied, “He was last spotted in D.C. so this is the reason for the safe house in Virginia. We’re nearby. You think he might still be local.”
Kopański added, “But he might be a thousand miles from here. This could be a wild goose chase.”
Painter touched Kopański’s hand. “Two things keep Cochrane rooted here. The first is his alleged crimes. The second is Unwin Fox. Cochrane’s not a psychopath. He wants answers. And he won’t stray until he gets them.”
“Answers to what?” asked Duggan.
“Answers to why he had to put Fox out of his misery.” Painter addressed Kopański. “Josef, what makes Cochrane tick?”
The Polish American glanced at Gage by his side, then looked back at Painter. “Some people burn from the inside. Good and bad people. It defines them one way or the other. I think Cochrane’s a good man, but I won’t gamble my new badge on that. Cochrane is an angel.”
Painter frowned. “Meaning what?”
“He’s fallen to earth, but he’s not one of us. He’s here to make sense of it all. Shepherd us; protect us; punish us.” Kopański pulled out his Webley and spun the chamber. “The Brits have a problem. Out of a population of sixty million, or whatever it is, they choose just seven hundred who are the top of the tree. They turn them into MI6 operatives—angels. But those seven hundred don’t really like each other because angels aren’t designed to rub shoulders. They tolerate each other. They’re not pack animals. They’re loners. And they look at the rest of us like we’re victims or trash. They save or kill. That’s Cochrane.”
Gage shook her head. “I’ve looked Cochrane in the eye. He doesn’t view anyone as trash.”
Kopański disagreed. “He kills trash.”
“Yet it saddens him.”