by Matthew Dunn
Four hours later, while pursuing Cochrane on the road in an increasingly rural landscape, Gage spoke to her Bureau technical team back at headquarters. Kopański and Painter were on her tail. The technical team didn’t know why they had been asked to triangulate Cochrane’s cell phone. Nor did they know whom Gage was pursuing. She frowned as she listened to the Bureau technician talking to her. She said, “You sure about this? My equipment says he’s stationary within twenty miles of where I am.”
“Your equipment is less sophisticated than ours,” replied the technician. “We can pinpoint him to within ten yards. You can pinpoint him to within twenty miles.” He told her what he knew.
Her quarry was at the bottom of a lane fifteen miles outside of the city of Roanoke.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Gage punched the dashboard.
“What is it?” asked Duggan, who was driving.
“Cochrane’s gone to the scene of the first murders he’s alleged to have committed.”
A scene at the base of a mile-long lane that led to a ramshackle house. One year ago, Cochrane allegedly shot two uniformed cops in cold blood there. They were protecting the twins Billy and Tom and their great-aunt and -uncle. The cops’ instructions were clear: shoot Cochrane on sight if he tried to make his way up the lane.
Perceived wisdom was that instead he shot them. Now it seemed he was just waiting at the scene, doing something.
Duggan said, “I don’t like this. Despite the rain, visibility’s okay. But Cochrane’s luring us in.”
“I agree.” Gage relayed this latest update to Kopański and Painter. “We don’t know what’s going on. Be very careful.”
The Bureau technician monitoring Cochrane’s whereabouts called Gage again. “His phone’s off. I’ve lost track of him.”
Gage and her team were one minute away from the road. “Phone me the moment his cell is back on. The next person you’ll speak to is Agent Painter. You have complete authority to tell her everything you know. Got it?”
The technician replied in the affirmative.
Gage tossed aside her own substandard tracking device. “Damn heap of shit.” She drummed fingers on the dashboard. “Something’s playing out. Why would Cochrane go to his crime scene?”
“Ghoulish? He wants titillation for what he did a year ago.” Duggan put hazard lights on and pulled the car over on the shoulder. The hazards were a signal to Kopański and Painter’s SUV. They pulled in behind him.
Gage kept drumming her fingers, both vehicles stationary and without engines on. “No. Cochrane is doing something completely different.” She turned to Duggan. “But that doesn’t mean we hesitate to gun him down.” She jumped out of the car and ran to Painter’s vehicle. Thrusting her cell phone in Painter’s hand, she said, “This is our lifeline. If it rings it will be a technician from the J. Edgar building. He can spot Cochrane better than my mobile device. You have complete authority to talk to him and relay anything he says”—she pointed at her earpiece—“to me and the rest of the team.”
Kopański was out of the vehicle, Duggan by his side. Gage said to the men, “Three hundred yards on foot. Hopefully then it’s showtime.”
All three agents moved along the main road on foot, Duggan holding a Heckler & Koch submachine gun, Gage and Kopański gripping their sidearms.
Taking point, Duggan muttered, “You sure we shouldn’t bring in HRT or SWAT?”
Behind him, Gage replied, “You scared, Pete?”
“Not a goddamn chance.”
“I thought not.”
In expert formation, they reached the bottom of the farm lane where Cochrane’s signal had last been detected. This was where Cochrane had approached a stationary police squad car and shot two cops a year ago. Trees ran the entire length on either side of the road up to the valley. The road at its base was quiet, a tributary. No cars passed Gage’s team.
Gage said, “He’s not here.”
Duggan swung his gun left and right. “Careful, though. He could be in the trees.”
“Waiting to take us out.” Kopański covered the arcs that Duggan couldn’t—Kopański’s Webley pistol capable of taking a man down from a hundred yards. At least in his hands.
Painter spoke in all their earpieces. “His phone is still disengaged.”
“Let’s go up the road.” Duggan pointed his weapon that way.
“Not yet!” Gage walked into the former crime scene, once cordoned off with police tape and containing two dead cops on the ground. She spent two minutes scouring the area. Then she spotted a sheet of paper, laminated to protect it from the rain. On it was written:
A Russian man called Viktor Zhukov shot the police officers here.
Gage grabbed the note and stuffed it in her jacket. “Up the lane. Fast!”
The trio ascended the steep mile-long road, guns at the ready. In their earpieces, they heard Painter say, “Cochrane’s activated his phone again. He’s at the house you’re heading to.”
Gage and her team started running. For Duggan the task was a breeze. Gage and Kopański struggled but maintained pace, their chests heaving as they sucked in air, their lungs feeling raw from the exertion. But their minds were focused and their gun hands steady. Getting to Cochrane was all that mattered.
They reached the top of the lane. The large house before them was now occupied by a family who’d bought it at a price way below what it would normally have cost. They knew it once belonged to Robert and Celia Grange, great-uncle and -aunt to Tom and Billy Koenig. They also knew that a year ago two detectives protecting the place were gunned down here, that Robert and Celia met the same fate, and that Tom Koenig was kidnapped from his bedroom. But times were hard for the couple now living here. The wife was heavily pregnant with triplets. The husband didn’t earn much. Yet they needed the space to raise a family. What happened here a year ago, they’d both agreed, was history. Their future as a family was all that mattered.
“Take it steady,” said Gage as they reached the front of the house.
The team was walking now, catching their breath.
“Kopański, what’s the setup here?” Gage approached the door.
Kopański told her about the man and woman who now lived here. “No vehicle parked out front. They only have one car. Husband’s at work is my guess.”
“Wife?”
“She doesn’t work. Maternity leave.”
Gage rang the doorbell.
In her earpiece, Painter said, “He’s turned off his cell.”
Gage heard bolts being unlocked. A woman partially opened the door, a security chain still in place. “Yes?”
“Ma’am, we’re FBI.” She showed the woman her badge. “We have reason to believe a man may have entered your property.”
Urgently, the woman opened the door fully. “It’s not possible. We keep every window and door bolted.”
“Is your husband home?”
“He’s at work, not due home until seven.”
Gage said, “We don’t have a warrant to enter. And I need to make it clear that the only way we could force entry without a warrant is if we believed you were culpable of a crime or in danger.” She looked at the heavily pregnant woman’s stomach and smiled. “We need to make sure you’re safe.”
“Come in. Be careful with your guns around me.”
“Go to the living room. Stay there.”
This time Kopański took lead. Shooting criminals in urban environments was what he excelled at. More important, Kopański was a cop; Duggan wasn’t. Duggan was brilliant at split-second executions. So was Kopański. But the Polish American also knew when not to shoot.
All three of them moved through the house, room by room. On the first floor they entered a bedroom. Kopański said, “The first detective was shot outside the house. The second detective was killed in here. Both were shots to the back of the head. It was cowardly.”
“That’s not Cochrane’s style.” Gage nodded her head toward the stairwell.
They ascended the st
airs.
From his office at CIA headquarters, Hessian Bell called Antaeus. “I’ve decided what our nudge should be—not a media exposé, rather an intelligence report.”
“Excellent idea. But it must be sourced. And that’s why you’re calling.”
“The profile of the source must be right.”
“Russian. Died in the last twelve months after the murders. Ex–special operations,” Antaeus said. “I can find such a person. Let me make a suggestion—this was someone who died in the last two weeks. It was a deathbed confession to you.”
“And I was running him as my agent. Perfect.”
“You’ll need an audit trail. Previous contact with the asset. Create a history.”
“Give me a name and I’ll craft that trail.” Bell hung up.
It felt odd that the former Russian spymaster was helping him. But then again, it wasn’t so strange. Antaeus, Bell, Ash, Cochrane, and Stein were a ragtag bunch. But they shared one thing in common: they were expert spies who wanted to help one another.
Crouching on one knee, Kopański pointed his handgun down the thirty-yard-long second-floor hallway. He was guarding the route in case Cochrane sprung out from one of the rooms at the end. They suspected his location was the bedroom at the end on the left. It was where Tom Koenig was kidnapped a year ago. But there were other rooms to clear first. To the left and right of Kopański, Gage and Duggan stormed other bedrooms, closets, a study, and a laundry room. All were empty. That just left the final bedroom and a bathroom at the far end of the hallway. Gage stood to one side of the bathroom, her handgun pointing vertically. Duggan was on the left-hand side of the hallway. Kopański was motionless, twenty yards behind him. Both men had their weapons trained on the bathroom door. Gage looked at them and raised three fingers, two, then one. She kicked the door open, her gun at eye level.
The room was empty.
That left just Tom and Billy’s former bedroom.
Duggan took point as Kopański ran to back him up. Duggan said to him, “You know how to do this?”
“Screw you.” Kopański was an expert at room entry. He placed one hand firmly on Duggan’s shoulder, standing directly behind him. The action was required because Kopański was his second pair of eyes. If Cochrane was in the room but Duggan was covering the wrong arc, Kopański would swivel Duggan to face the right direction. It was also vital for speed and momentum. The man behind pushes his colleague fast to ensure the job is done in seconds.
They readied.
Gage nodded.
The men entered.
The room was empty.
It was a nursery, decked out with three cribs, murals on the wall, and children’s artifacts everywhere. This was where the wife’s triplets would sleep after birth. Sleep alarms were in place, presumably linked to the master bedroom directly opposite. It looked so unlike the horror scene a year ago when Uncle Robert had been gunned down in his pajamas outside the interceding bathroom, and Aunt Celia had heroically tried to protect Tom Koenig before her death.
Gage entered.
She looked at a teddy bear pinned to the wall, adjacent to which was a note. She barked, “Kopański, Duggan: check every door and window in the house. Cochrane’s not here, but he was and somehow he got out before we arrived. When you’re done, bring the woman to this room.”
While the men went about their duties, she kept her eyes on the bear and the note next to it. But she didn’t touch either item.
Kopański and Duggan returned ten minutes later, Duggan escorting the owner of the house, Kopański with his gun in both hands.
Kopański whispered in Gage’s ear, “Dead bolts on every exit. All on the interior. No way he could have gotten in or out unless he was Harry Houdini.”
Gage said to the pregnant mom, “What’s this?” She pointed at the bear and note on the wall.
The mom looked terrified. “I’ve never seen either. They don’t belong here.”
“A teddy bear belongs here! This is a kids’ room!”
“No! No!” The woman started weeping. She patted her tummy. “My triplets are not allowed anything that can choke them. They have to be over two before they can have toys like that.” She went to remove the bear.
“Don’t!” said Gage.
The expectant mom said, “It’s the arms. They’re too thin. Newborns can gag on them. That’s what I’ve been advised.”
Gage believed her that the bear didn’t belong here. “A man got in here, left this, and exited before we arrived. There is no way in or out of this house. The only explanation is you let him in.”
“No, no!”
“A big guy. Cropped hair. You know him?”
The woman was distraught. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tears were running down her face. “My husband left for work at eight a.m. this morning. I haven’t seen anyone since, apart from you.”
Gage darted a look at Kopański. He nodded, agreeing with Gage that the woman was telling the truth.
He said, “Pete, do you mind taking this lady downstairs and making her a cup of her choice? Tea, coffee, whatever she wants. Ma’am, I’m sorry if we caused you any distress. We just had to be sure.” The woman and Duggan gone, Kopański stood next to Gage, looking at the bear. “You must feel like shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t envy you. But what you said was needed.” He pointed at the note. “Do we get forensics in?”
“No time for that.”
“I agree.” Kopański pulled down the note and held it in front of him and Gage.
I gave Tom and Billy Koenig identical toy bears. Inside were recording devices. On the back is a drawstring. Pull it once to record. Pull it twice to play back. This is Tom’s bear. Pull it twice to listen to the voice of the man who killed everyone, Viktor Zhukov. He kidnapped Tom in this room after murdering Celia. Make no mistake, I will admit to what I did and refute false allegations. I didn’t kill any cops. I didn’t kill any civilians. But I did kill Zhukov and his eight-person team. I did so to rescue Tom.
Gage gripped the bear. She pulled twice on the string. A lisping Russian man’s voice came out of the speaker: “I know you’re under the bed. It’s going to hurt if I have to drag you out.” She lifted the small toy bear to her nose and turned to Kopański. “You know Zhukov was killed alongside his colleagues. You and Painter examined the crime scene. And when Cochrane rescued Tom Koenig and handed him to you, he made no effort to deny what he’d done to Zhukov. He spoke the truth.”
Quietly, Kopański said, “Painter and I believe that to be the truth. The problem we had when we were investigating the crimes is that the evidence against Cochrane was so overwhelming. We had to do our job.”
Gage was deep in thought. “All we have is a recording of a man’s voice and Cochrane’s allegations of innocence. I’m willing to go out on a limb for Cochrane, but only if I have more than this.” She frowned. “This doesn’t make sense. He made a call to Faye Glass. He realized her phone was being monitored. Therefore he deliberately gave us his cell phone number. He only activates it when he wants to be tracked. He deliberately brought us here. Yet he knows that what he’s given us doesn’t change things.”
“It has changed one thing.”
“What?”
“It’s put doubt in your mind.”
“That was already there.” Gage spoke quietly. “I’ve spent the last year trying to establish if Cochrane was alive. I wanted to talk to him, reopen his case, and see if there was a way I could prove his innocence.” She shook her head. “We’re missing something. Why has he come here?”
Kopański looked out the window. Cochrane was long gone, he was in no doubt. “He knows we’re hunting him. He doesn’t want to be caught. At the same time he wants something from us.”
“What?”
Kopański turned to face Gage. “When he came out of the shadows to meet Unwin Fox, there must have been an overriding reason for him to do so. He’s onto something and needs to be at liberty to pursue
that something. He wants distance between us and him. This is a false trail. He wants us to be where he’s not. That’s my hunch.”
Gage nodded. “That sounds like Cochrane. But that means . . .”
“He was never here.”
“So who was?”
In tandem, they both said, “Michael Stein.”
Chapter 27
Five hours later, Stein stopped his car outside Ash’s coastal residence. He knocked on the front door. When Ash answered, he asked, “How is he?”
“He’s getting better. Job done?”
“Job done.”
They entered the living room. Will was there, only in boxer shorts, doing push-ups. He stopped when he saw Stein and got to his feet.
“Should you be doing that?” asked Stein.
Will patted the white pad that covered his wound. “The stitches Antaeus used are stronger than skin. There’s no bleeding. The pain’s still there. The danger is my body will try to compensate for that and the muscle area around the wound goes dormant. Other parts of my body will pick up the slack. But they’re not supposed to do what the muscles around my wound do. So I could get temporary back and leg problems. The trick to avoid that is to make the whole body hurt. Then there’s no compensation.” He wiped himself free of sweat with a towel.
Ash tried to avoid looking at his muscular, scarred torso but failed. To Stein, she said, “He’s been doing this continually for the last six hours. Push-ups, jogging, chin-ups on a beam in my barn, lots of other stuff. I told him not to.”
“But I didn’t listen.” Cochrane smiled. “How did it go?”
Stein told him everything went to plan. He’d activated Will’s cell phone, drawn Gage’s team to the place near Roanoke, planted the things Will had given him, and then vanished.
Will dressed. “Excellent. A rhetorical question—you know what Gage and her team will think?”
Stein answered, “Subterfuge. You want them to know you’re hundreds of miles away from Roanoke. It doesn’t matter if they realize that because they’re back to square one.”