The Spy House

by Matthew Dunn

  Rowe knew Thales wouldn’t tell him which arrival time and terminal. To do so would tell anyone potentially intercepting the call which country Cochrane was traveling from, plus it would narrow down who they were referring to as Mr. C.

  Thales said, “If I were you, I’d be there to greet him. It might mean an all-day wait, considering the uncertainty of timings.”

  “You don’t need to say any more.”

  Thales didn’t. Rowe would ensure he was in the correct arrivals hall for every British Airways flight that landed from America tomorrow. When Cochrane arrived, he’d follow him. And if for any reason Cochrane slipped through the net, it didn’t matter. The next time Cochrane used his Richard Oaks credit card, Rowe would be all over him. All that mattered was that Cochrane was coming to London.

  “Leave it to me.” The line went dead. Rowe threw his brandy into the fire, its flames momentarily roaring as a result, and left the room to make preparations.

  Years as a Mossad assassin had taught Michael Stein that less was more. His one-bedroom apartment in Tel Aviv was stripped of all but essential items, so that he could travel at a moment’s notice with no cares about any possessions he left behind. He had two sets of summer clothes and two for winter—both durable and easily washed in any hotel room sink, and a hemp satchel that was a mere fourteen inches in diameter and was all he carried when he traveled.

  The satchel had belonged to an English soldier in World War II who’d carried it through Dieppe, D-Day, the backstreets of French provincial towns, the Ardennes forest, the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and the final push to Berlin. After the war, the soldier had stayed on in the army and had put Jewish survivors of the Holocaust into detention camps while they awaited transportation to Palestine. The soldier was an honorable man and hated what he did after the war. That’s why he gave his food-stuffed satchel to Michael’s great-grandfather, who was one of the detainees and took the bag from the soldier’s hand through barbed-wire fencing. Michael believed the satchel was good luck.

  His minimalist existence was offset by one indulgence—a mongrel dog with shaggy hair and a perpetually wagging tail, who adored his master. Michael and his pet were in the apartment playing the dog’s favorite game. Michael was standing, holding out a large stone. The dog launched himself at the stone, only for Michael to snatch it away just before the canine’s jaws attempted to connect with the rock. It seemed like teasing, but it wasn’t. The dog took joy knowing that his master was faster than him. He could keep this up all day. And it did him good. During the dog’s last checkup, the vet had commented on the great health of the ten-year-old dog and said that he had a remarkably low pulse rate for his age.

  Michael’s cell phone rang, causing him to be momentarily distracted and for his dog’s mouth to connect not only with the rock but also his hand. The dog looked confused as he saw his tooth marks and Michael’s blood. Michael ruffled his fur, said, “This time you won, my boy,” and laughed when the dog wagged his tail. Michael held the phone to his ear, blood dripping onto the floor. “Yes?”

  It was the Mossad official who’d been assigned to track Will Cochrane’s use of his false passport and credit card.

  “London?” Michael moved to his kitchenette to fetch antiseptic for his wound. His dog licked his blood off the floor. “He must be in transit, en route to Lebanon.” He ended the call and called someone else. “Got to go. Can you look after Mr. Peres?”

  A man responded, “I always do.”

  Thirty minutes later, that man knocked on the door.

  Michael let him in.

  “What happened to your hand?” Michael’s father asked.

  “Mr. Peres got the better of me.” He patted his dog. “It might have done him some good to know that I’m not infallible.”

  “No. It’ll just make him worry more when you’re gone. Where to this time?”

  “Britain to start with. Maybe it will end there.”

  “What will end?”

  Michael hesitated before answering, “Clearing Ben’s name.”

  Ben, his brother, who was killed in Gray Site.

  His father stared at him. “What is there to clear? Your mother and I were told he was killed in the line of duty.”

  “The Americans are pursuing a line of inquiry which could suggest that they think Ben tried to cover something up.”

  “What?”

  “Dad, I can’t . . .”

  “What?!”

  “We’re on the verge of war.”

  “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work that out!” His father was pacing.

  “But maybe we shouldn’t be. Maybe Ben realized we’re going after the wrong guys. Perhaps he buried the chance for us to find out if we’re doing the right thing.”

  His father’s face was livid. “I told you and your brother. I said, go into academia. You were both gifted enough. Not all this army nonsense. This spying. Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  “Put it down to youthful rebellion against parental advice.” Michael couldn’t stop himself from adding, “You’d have done better to have told us to join Special Forces and Mossad. Perhaps that way we both would now be in academia.”

  His father came right up to him. “Instead of my boy being dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  They were still, facing each other, their anger in truth a symptom of their grief. Finally, Michael’s father took Michael’s hand in both of his. In a gentler voice, he said, “I don’t understand you or what you do. But I am proud of you. I was proud of you and Ben.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “Can you clear Ben’s name?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “Who’s going to try to stop you?”

  “A man.”

  “Is he capable?”

  “Since he’s been assigned the job, I must assume he’s very capable.”

  Michael’s father took a leash and attached it to Mr. Peres. Speaking to the dog, he said, “We’re going to break your dad’s rules and give you some doggy treats when we get home.” He looked at Michael. “Whoever you’re facing, just remember Ben idolized you. Let that thought stay with you.”

  Michael picked up his satchel. “It will. You have my word on that.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  In less than one week, Israel would be ready to go to war. If it did so, the outcome of its invasion of Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon was unpredictable because much depended upon how far Israel would go to finally obliterate Hamas. Personally, I believed Israel wouldn’t stop until it was convinced it had killed every terrorist who threatened the state, plus anyone who aided and abetted the terrorists. This wouldn’t be a surgical Israeli incursion; it would be the deployment of mechanized armor, artillery strikes, ground forces, and fighter planes. And that meant unbridled escalation, sucking in other states. Shiites would turn on Sunnis and vice versa. Secular states would choose allegiances. The Middle East would become a chaotic battleground, inevitably forcing military involvement from Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, other Middle Eastern states, and ultimately the West. And throughout the early days of war, Russia would be watching, trying to decide if it wanted to join the party and, if so, on whose side.

  I’d be going to the Middle East on the next available flight tomorrow morning. London was merely a transit point on my route, but it afforded me the opportunity to make two stops in the capital, one of which was related to the question that had been plaguing me throughout my flight from D.C.’s Dulles airport to Heathrow—how could a man like Roger turn on his colleagues?

  As I walked into the arrivals section of the airport, the thought remained at the forefront of my mind. It made no sense that Roger could have attacked his fellow Gray Site intelligence officers for no reason, and yet no one was disputing what happened. I didn’t buy that he’d gone stir crazy in the underground bunker, though I didn’t know what my state of mind would be like if I’d been holed up for six weeks under a city
where people would kill me given the chance. Roger was an extremely resilient operator, and had countless times proven to me his ability to go the extra mile, but even the best of us reach a wall. Often it comes with age; more frequently among special operators it happens when their nerves finally say enough is enough. Perhaps that’s what happened. Roger could no longer stand the strain of covert work, particularly work that required him to descend daily into an airless hole. And he lashed out at everything around him that represented the secret world he could no longer tolerate—everything including machinery and fellow spies.

  I didn’t want to remember him that way. The Roger I knew had helped me track down an Iranian general who was planning genocide, engaged in a fearsome gunfight in central Moscow and withstood torture after he was captured, crept up on an SVR officer who’d pointed his gun at me and got the man to lower his weapon by placing his pistol against the Russian’s head, and had a slight smile on his face as I told my bosses that I wasn’t paying any attention to their mission briefings.

  Roger could have rested on his laurels and retired from special operations when he left SEAL Team 6. He’d have had enough yarns from his navy days to captivate his children and others while sipping his beloved bourbon on his porch. But he wanted to push himself harder and into even more dangerous territories. So he’d joined the CIA, where typically he was deployed with only a sidearm at best, and more often with nothing to protect his life. No doubt, Katy Koenig wished he hadn’t signed up for a life of espionage. I didn’t blame her. She wanted her husband back.

  But Roger was always a stubborn bastard. He adored his family, yet couldn’t sit still. The prospect of retirement petrified him. I imagined he was near me now, doing what he’d done countless times: watching me arrive in the airport while sipping a strong black coffee in a nearby café, cash for the purchase on the table so he could move in an instant if the need arose; checking out everyone and deducing which persons could be potential assailants; covering my back.

  But he wasn’t here.

  He was dead.

  Michael Stein was in a spot that Roger Koenig would have approved of if he’d been observing Cochrane. Sipping his coffee at a table outside Costa Coffee, the Mossad assassin spotted a tall man amid hundreds of other travelers who were walking across the airport concourse. Michael had memorized Cochrane’s face from a website he’d seen—the same image that had been shown across the world’s media a year ago when Cochrane had been forced to go on the run because he’d disobeyed orders. There was no doubt in Michael’s mind that the man in the photo was the same man he was looking at now.

  Cochrane was wearing a stylish overcoat and suit, and was pulling a trolley bag. He looked athletic, moving at a fast, confident pace, yet Michael could tell Cochrane was subtly checking his surroundings.

  Casually, Michael turned to the next page in the London travel guide he’d earlier purchased from one of Heathrow’s bookstores. When Cochrane had his back to him, Michael followed him down an escalator toward the Heathrow Express train platform.

  Colonel Rowe had no idea what Michael Stein looked like, but he categorized the blond man a few yards ahead of him as one of nine men in the airport who could possibly be tailing Will Cochrane. The man was wearing a waterproof jacket and jeans, and had a satchel over his shoulder. What drew Rowe’s attention was that he was walking at the same pace as Cochrane, was traveling light and alone, and had the age and physique of a man who might kill people for a living.

  There was no way yet for Rowe to be certain if one of the men around him was Stein, or even if the Mossad officer was in London. But Cochrane would inevitably be using multiple methods to reach whatever destination he was headed to in London. If someone stayed close to him for at least three stages of his route, there was a strong possibility that man was Stein.

  Rowe was wearing a Harris tweed sports jacket, sweater, brown cords, and brogues, looking every bit like a gentleman embarking on a pheasant shoot on his country estate. The look was apt, because in the canvas bag he was carrying the stripped-down, silenced rifle he’d tested at his home the day before. He reached the bottom of the escalator, purchased a ticket to Paddington Station, and followed Cochrane onto the busy platform. The former MI6 officer moved to the end of the platform, the blond man took up position in the center, and Rowe stood at the other end. There was no need to get close to Cochrane so he could jump into the same car as him, for Paddington Station was the only stop on the route.

  They waited for seven minutes before the train pulled up. Cochrane entered the car in front of him, and everyone else apart from Rowe got on the train, including the blond man and a few other possible tails. Rowe waited a moment in case Cochrane jumped off just before the doors closed. He did not. Rowe got on the train at the last moment.

  Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at Paddington’s large and bustling overland and underground train hub. Now Rowe had to be very careful, because it would be easy to lose sight of Cochrane or, if he got too close to him, arouse the Englishman’s suspicion that he might be under surveillance. He kept a distance of twenty yards between himself and Cochrane; the blond man was walking in the same direction.

  Rowe dearly hoped Cochrane wasn’t heading toward the taxi rank, because then he would escape into the frantic traffic of London. If that happened, the colonel would have to wait for Cochrane to flag his location when he used his credit card again. Thankfully, it appeared he was opting for a cheaper and more expedient mode of transport: he was heading downstairs to the tube station.

  Cochrane clearly knew the station layout, because he walked fast to the platform for the southbound Circle and District lines. The blond man also wanted to take that route; so did Rowe.

  I gripped the handrail above my head, standing because there was no seat available in the packed tube. People of different skin colors were around me, some of them zoned out, meaning they were very familiar with this journey and were residents of London, others wide eyed and alert, staring at maps of the subway system, meaning they were visitors to the multicultural capital.

  Nobody engaged in eye contact. It is an unwritten rule that strangers don’t talk to each other in London. Quite why has eluded me to this day. Perhaps British people and visitors to the capital sense danger. London is on a knife edge, they think; if I talk to someone, they might turn out to be crazy and attack me. Something like that. Despite the greater dangers prevalent in New York City, Washington, Mumbai, Mexico City, and Brasília, people in those cities will talk to anyone. Not so London. It has a brooding atmosphere. Order is required. And if someone talks to just one person, the city will lapse into anarchic chaos.

  I got out of the tube at Charing Cross station and walked to the River Thames, then over the Lambeth Bridge toward my home in Southwark. It was raining heavily, and other pedestrians were walking fast to seek shelter, their faces screwed up as if in pain. The smell of wet tarmac was mixed with that of vehicle exhaust fumes. Below me, the sickly brown Thames was swollen and flowing fast; I couldn’t imagine any form of life could be sustained beneath its surface.

  Michael Stein weaved his way between tourists caught out by the downpour and savvy Londoners holding umbrellas over their heads. Though Britain’s domestic security service, MI5, doesn’t allow Mossad officers to operate on British soil because it doesn’t trust the Israeli service, Michael had been to London many times. Once he retired, he thought he’d like the city. But as an assassin he loathed the place—too many CCTV cameras covering every inch of the inner capital, everyone watchful as if nothing had changed since the days of London being struck by German bomber aircraft and being riddled with Fifth Columnist Nazi spies, second-to-none armed police response units ready to pounce on anyone who looked like they might be preparing to blow something up, and once majestic government buildings transformed into blastproof fortresses. London was an experienced survivor—wars, Irish terrorism, Islamic terrorism, lone wolf white supremacist lunatics: the British city had been hurt by them all, but was
never defeated and always got stronger as a result. Its occupants bickered among themselves—like any city dwellers—but they had unwavering loyalty to the heart of this great old country. They kept it going, no matter at what cost. Londoners were the enemy of Michael and others like him.

  He followed Cochrane, his jacket collar pulled up high and his head bowed low.

  Colonel Rowe was sure that the blond man in front of him was Michael Stein. Heathrow Airport, the express to Paddington, standing in the same subway car to central London, and now on foot behind Cochrane—even a reckless gambler would shy away from the possibility that this was mere coincidence. And though he had a passion for gambling, Rowe was anything but reckless. The expert Israeli assassin who Thales had cleverly activated was following a very dangerous man. Behind both of them was someone even more ruthless.

  I shut the communal front door to my apartment building and was glad of the immediate quiet. Noisy, unsociable London was outside—this was my oasis. It was 1 P.M.; David’s apartment was not reverberating with his beloved Dixieland blues, because no doubt he was at work; so, too, was Dickie’s apartment quiet of daytime TV or military marching tunes. Probably he was on one of his early afternoon strolls, during which he would stand to attention in front of one of the horse-mounted guardsmen in Whitehall and give the bemused and stoic man a dressing-down for not turning out in immaculate attire. But in Phoebe’s home I could hear the thud of electronic dance music. I went up one flight of stairs and knocked on her door.

  “Darling,” she said when she opened her front door. She was wearing a sexy black dress, her heavy makeup was streaked with tears, and she was holding a glass of champagne.

  I smiled. “Bit early to be celebrating, isn’t it?”

  “I’m drowning my sorrows. It’s never too early to do that. Come in.”

  I followed her down her hallway, its walls strewn with weird art from her gallery. “How are you?”