A Soldier's Revenge: A Will Cochrane Novel (9 page)

“Most murderers say stuff like that.”

“What if he’s telling the truth?”

“Well, if he’s innocent, he’s digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole.”

She pointed at the dreadful weather. “If we don’t get him, it’ll only be a matter of time before he dies from exposure to the weather.”

CHAPTER 9

A
fter Marty Fleet ended his call to Detective Kopa
ń
ski, he spooned pureed food into his wheelchair-bound sister’s mouth. The thirty-eight-year-old had glossy straight auburn hair that Marty had washed, blow-dried, and combed an hour earlier. They lived in Chevy Chase, outside Washington, D.C., in a big apartment building that had great views of the city and had been selected with care by the lawyer because it had excellent wheelchair access and elevators to the twenty-second floor where they lived.

Her brain damage meant that while she would forget what had happened an hour ago, she still retained enough clarity to occasionally look at Marty with a heartbreaking expression that said she knew exactly what he was saying to her. He spoke to her constantly when in her presence. He believed it might keep her brain alive.

“I’ve got to head off to work in thirty minutes. Before then, I made this specially for you, Penny. A new experiment: bacon, eggs, waffles. Let me know if it tastes like puke.”

Penny smiled. It was one thing she could do very well, and it made Marty’s toil to look after her worth every effort. He did have help, in the guise of a home health aide who attended to Penny when he was at work, but when he returned, he always sent the aide home and took over her duties.

“NYPD and Virginia State police are very close to catching Will Cochrane, but we had a serious incident on a train last night. He disarmed a detective and uniformed cop, put them on their asses, jumped the train, and escaped. My best detectives think it’s a warning, that he’s likely to turn cop killer very soon if we push him into a corner. Trouble is, we have to corner him. My officers want me to get the AG to issue a warrant to bug a house where Cochrane has family connections.”

Penny emitted a sound.

“That’s what I think. Still, we have no choice. It’s a shitty part of the job.” Marty continued feeding his sister her breakfast. “This is the first time I’ve been in a legal case involving a man with Cochrane’s background. See, he was a covert operative, worked for us as well as the Brits. The CIA pushed him too hard. I’m dealing with a dick there called Philip Knox. He doesn’t seem to care about what’s happened to Cochrane’s mind, though I can tell he and everyone in the Agency highly regard Cochrane. But they keep hanging guys like him out to dry. They squeeze them for everything they’ve got, then abandon them. I believe there’s something wrong with that.”

Penny responded in her way.

“Yeah. None of it makes any difference. Most likely Cochrane’s going to get the death penalty.”

I
clambered out of a hedgerow three miles beyond the outskirts of Baltimore.

I’d stopped for an hour—the rest being not sleep, but rather a change of consciousness; eyes open, mind for the most part powered down but aware of sounds, images, and smells around me. During the preceding hours, I’d covered thirty-three miles on foot, my route erratic, zigzag, sometimes doubling back before moving off on a new tangent, all in open countryside, over fields, forests, rivers, under a cloudy, moonless night sky.

Several times I’d crashed into trees and other foliage, tripped on uneven ground, stopped with my hands on my knees to catch my steaming breath, before moving onward at a pace that alternated between a fast walk and a run. It was only when I was convinced I wasn’t being pursued, had put enough ground between me and the Amtrak train, and simply didn’t have the energy to put another foot forward, that I allowed myself the luxury of rest.

Shivering as my body heat began to evaporate and sweat made my skin cold, I’d sat alone, my hands and head smarting from grazes and cuts from branches and twigs. Now I had to get into Baltimore, because out here I was too visible. But I worried about my physical appearance and my hunger.

I reached a river that flowed through woods and crouched for ten minutes, motionless, as I observed my surroundings. No other creatures were moving, the air and trees also still above water that was shallow yet running fast over boulders. There was significant risk in doing so, but I had to do something about my disheveled and grimy appearance.

Stripping naked, I stood in the river using water and clumps of grass to clean mud off my outer garments and boots, and thoroughly rinsing my underwear. I washed, grime and blood flowing down my body and into the river. The developing beard on my face was a good thing, but I needed to clear it and my hair of grease. Nothing in the wild could do that, only a man-made surfactant; which is why I’d stolen a small bottle of Ferragamo soap from the Waldorf.

After I was clean, I wrung out my underwear and put it back on. I dressed in the partially wet outer garments, donned my boots, jacket, and backpack, and walked to Baltimore.

CHAPTER 10

I
n a boardroom in the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, Philip Knox presided over a meeting with the heads of the Agency and the NSA, and their deputies.

The room, functional and businesslike, contained TV monitors that could be linked to any other senior intelligence chief in the United States and its allies, as well as Capitol Hill. Knox was acutely aware that he was not the most senior person in the room, though right now he held most sway on all matters Will Cochrane.

He began his address as if he were a judge summoning up his findings after being presented with the case for the prosecution and defense. “Mr. Cochrane is no longer one of us.” He paused to see if there was any dissension on that point, while observing his colleagues over the top of his half-rim spectacles. The room was silent, watching him. “Perhaps we should conclude that he was never truly
one of us
.”

“Now, hang on . . .” the head of NSA interjected.

But Knox held his hand up and continued. “We would do well to think that way in order to distance ourselves from his circumstances.”

“Circumstances?” Knox’s boss in the CIA ordinarily wouldn’t have broken ranks with one of his own, but this was a place where opinions were allowed to be expressed openly and loyalties were momentarily shelved.

“Yes.” Knox picked up a pen and jabbed it in the air toward each member. “At what point must we worry about this?”

His senior responded, “People like you created the monster.”

Knox said, “Yes and no. But this is now about national security.”

“No, it’s not. It’s about a man on the run.”

Knox didn’t reply.

“Our best operative is scrabbling about the East Coast, hunted.”

“And rightly so.” Knox wondered if the others in the room had the balls to enact what he was thinking. He decided no one but him did. “He butchered a woman.”

“Maybe he didn’t.”

“Do you honestly believe that?”

No one answered.

Knox stared at them. “Cochrane’s got brutal capabilities. A woman was murdered in his hotel room. Clinically dispatched. That leaves
us all
in no doubt that he’s the killer. Why? Open to discussion. Circumstance? Who gives a fuck after the fact?”

Knox’s boss was more tentative when he asked, “Do you have any ideas about what should be done?”

Knox weighed up his response carefully. This was the reason for today’s meeting. But he was taking a professional risk with what he was about to say. “I told Marty Fleet of the attorney general’s office that I thought it was a good idea that the two NYPD detectives maintain the lead in capturing Cochrane, even if he commits crimes in other states. Why give it to the feds, I asked him, when they won’t do a better job? That was true. These detectives are the best for the job. But there’s another reason I want them right at the front of the game. I need to have at least one cop constantly involved in the investigation.” He looked at the head of the NSA. “I believe it’s in all of your interests not to ask me why I’m requesting this. But it would be extremely helpful if you could supply me with a cell phone that intercepts every call and SMS sent from and received on the phone belonging to Detective Thyme Painter.”

T
his early in the morning, I briefly felt anonymous and secure. I was on the outskirts of the city, navigating on foot solely by the sight of skyscrapers in the center of the metropolis. There was no need to get too close to the center, but drawing nearer to the tall buildings would bring me into areas containing shops and other much-needed amenities.

I had to see the twins. It was vital the boys heard from me that I didn’t murder the woman in the hotel. I felt truly awful for letting them down. I wanted to tell them to stay strong until I could pick matters up where they left off and start our new life together. But I couldn’t investigate the murder victim and what had happened in the Waldorf. Only the cops could do that—though, armed with new information, I hoped I could read between the lines and establish a line of inquiry that would be invisible to detectives.

And then, that would be the end of the road.

I’d hand myself in. If I hadn’t already died from exposure.

As I walked fast, head low and hands in pockets, residential suburbs became industrial zones, before transforming into the cheaper end of the commercial district. People were around me, most of them looking dog-tired and irritable as they shuffled off to work. They didn’t care about me. But if they’d bothered to look, I was betting they’d think I was just some guy who’d finished a night shift on a construction site.

I spent two hours in the area, buying a bus ticket, food, today’s edition of the
Washington Post
from a convenience store, and a new set of clothes from a men’s store.

In forty-five minutes, I’d be making the five-hour bus journey to Roanoke.

On a park bench, away from the busier areas around me, I checked the newspaper’s classifieds section, cross-referencing it to the encyclopedia given to me by the Waldorf’s concierge. As promised, there was another entry in coded numbers. The message read:

HOW ARE YOU TODAY? A BIT TIRED AND FORLORN? FORGIVE ME IF I SEE THE FUNNY SIDE OF THAT. YOU ARE A MURDERER NOW. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE WHO GO CRAZY. BUT I SUPPOSE YOU THINK YOU CAN SURVIVE A BIT LONGER. ALL A MAN LIKE YOU NEEDS IS TO AVOID IMPETUOSITY AND RETAIN A BIT OF CASH IN YOUR POCKET. SORRY ABOUT THAT. MORE TOMORROW.

I frowned.

Sorry about that?

That sentence gave me a sinking feeling.

I walked to an ATM across the street. I wanted to withdraw my permitted maximum of five hundred dollars. I reckoned my dwindling savings could keep me on the streets for another week or two. After that, prison could take care of me.

The latest message had been a taunt, but cleverly written so the author didn’t implicate himself. This was his dish served cold. But revenge for what? This was eating away at me. After fourteen years of working in MI6, I’d made infinitely more enemies than friends.

There was a legion of people who wanted me dead.

I entered my cash card and keyed in my details. Insufficient funds. I tried again. Same response. I checked my balance. Zero.

Shit.

For the first time since waking in the Waldorf, genuine panic struck me with such force that I had to grip the side of the ATM to avoid crumpling to my knees.

Had the cops done this to my account? Taken everything away from me so that I couldn’t move? I doubted that. The police thought I was a desperate killer. Doing this to me would make me even more desperate. In the law’s eyes, I would become an even bigger danger to American citizens.

No, this was the work of the man or people who’d orchestrated this nightmare.

That was the other thing that kept me moving.

I wanted to come face-to-face with him.

When that happened, I’d show him what I was capable of.

CHAPTER 11

T
echnically, Billy and Tom were playing outside of their great-uncle and -aunt’s home. But once out of eyeshot of Robert and Celia, they gave up any pretense of looking happy. Instead, the ten-year-old twins sat together and spoke in the way that young children do when they’re confused by events around them and unsettled.

Below them was the beautiful valley that so often had been the place of their adventures, where they could let their imaginations roam as they pretended to be Native Americans hunting for fish or other wild creatures, soldiers in a jungle, Hobbits looking for Treebeard, anything that engaged their fertile minds.

Now the valley with its river and woodlands didn’t register. The boys were lost in thought, their eyes burning, feeling that everything was being churned up.

“Uncle Robert and Aunt Celia are acting a bit strange,” Tom declared.

Billy nodded while circling his finger in the ground. “I think they must be mad at Uncle Will for being late. Aunt Faye is mad, too.”