A Soldier's Revenge: A Will Cochrane Novel (26 page)

I would have loved to have done this makeover in the privacy and comfort of a hotel room. But even one paid for in cash would be high risk. If I were the detectives chasing me, I’d have told D.C. PD to contact every hotel and motel in the city and alert them to any man remotely matching my age and stature who paid for his room in cash.

I took bread, ham, and water from the bag and consumed it all, before taking out the last item I’d purchased.

On the front page of the
Washington Post
was the headline
WANTED MURDERER WILL COCHRANE WAS A SPY—INTERVIEW WITH FORMER COLLEAGUE
. There was a second headline about the latest police briefing on the case. I turned to the inner section containing a two-page spread of the interview. The paper declared that its meeting with a former Israeli Mossad officer had been initiated at his behest. The name used in the article was false, and the photo had his face in shadow. But within two minutes of reading the beginning of the article, I knew who the interviewee was.

Michael Stein.

A superb operative who’d once tried to kill me. Later, he’d allied with me to stop a major threat to the West.

I finished the article, confused. Stein had spoken glowingly about me, but his details of our work together were a complete fabrication. Maybe the reason why Stein had requested the interview was to say I was a good guy, the espionage activities being irrelevant. But Stein would have known that by now nobody would care if I’d been a saint in a previous existence. Too much death had taken place. I was now a mass murderer. I read the article again and stopped at the final section. The article read:

I asked the former Mossad officer if he had anything further he wanted to say about his work with Cochrane. What he said next was something he insisted I share with readers of our newspaper. He said, “I will never forget what happened to Cochrane and me in Vienna. I had to give him something. But we both suspected we were being watched by hostiles. The thing I had on me had to get close to Washington, D.C., and Will Cochrane was the only person I could trust to take it there. I called him and said, ‘Let’s meet by the trains today at eleven.’ We had the briefest of contacts. That day, Vienna was dangerous and we were too down the line.”

T
his was another experience that had never happened. But there was something here that was vital.

I reread the last seven sentences. Words jumped out at me.

Vienna.

Give him something.

Watched by hostiles.

Close to Washington, D.C.

Meet by the trains.

Today at eleven.

We had the briefest of contacts.

Urgently, I pulled up the Web browser on Simon Tap’s smartphone and searched for a map of the D.C. Metro system. I expanded the map and moved it in different directions, desperately looking at the names of each station in the city and its surroundings. I stopped moving the screen when I saw the name of one station on the Orange Line.

Vienna. In Fairfax County, Virginia.

It would be 11
A.M
. in ninety-three minutes. And I had to navigate traffic and cover twenty miles to get there. I turned the key in the ignition and drove as fast as I could out of the parking garage.

I
nside the headquarters of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department at 300 Indiana Avenue NW, the large auditorium was full, with commanders and high-ranking detectives from all of the force’s seven district divisions.

On the way over here, Kopa
ń
ski and Painter had bickered about who should give the briefing, neither wanting to take the stand.

Kopa
ń
ski had argued, “You know I’m not allowed to speak in public. I say the wrong thing, it goes in the press. Plus, half of my face scares people.”

Painter had countered, “No press officers are going to be at the briefing. And half of your face is very handsome. Just turn sideways so they can only see that side.”

Kopa
ń
ski didn’t buy that argument. “You went to Stanford University. Your vocabulary is better than mine. You’re articulate, eloquent, cogent, and even loquacious when the need arises.”

“Your description of my vocabulary is proving that you’re just as adept.”

“I don’t like being on a stage. It makes me grumpy.”

“And I get stage fright, remember?”

“No, you don’t. Being in front of that many people just reminds you how normal most folks are and what an oddball you are.”

They’d continued bickering as they’d parked their vehicle, and barely paused for breath while they walked through the police headquarters. In the end, Kopa
ń
ski suggested flipping a coin. He lost the toss and warily took to the stage, notes in hand, a look on his face that suggested he’d pull out his gun and shoot anyone in the audience who ridiculed his performance. Painter took a seat in the wings, unfolding the
Washington Post
she’d picked up on the way over but had not yet read. Anger and intrigue seared through her as she saw the headline about Cochrane being a former spy. She read the interview.

Without any greetings or other pleasantries, Kopa
ń
ski growled into the microphone, “The only lead we have is that there’s a possibility Cochrane’s on his way here or is already in the city. He claims he’s innocent of the kidnapping and has reason to believe Tom Koenig is being held captive in D.C. Even if there is only a one percent likelihood he’s telling the truth, we have to follow that up.”

“Detective Kopa
ń
ski,” called out the commander of the third district, “he’s thrown you a red herring to focus your energies here.
My
energies, for that matter.”

“Probably, yes.”

“I can’t look you in the eye and tell you I’m going to dedicate four hundred of my officers to look for Cochrane and the boy. Cochrane will be holding the boy in a place as far away from here as possible.”

Kopa
ń
ski knew he needed to tread carefully with such a senior officer. “Three possibilities: First, maybe Cochrane was just bullshitting his hostage in Lynchburg. Second, Cochrane’s innocent of the kidnapping and genuinely does have good reason to believe the boy’s been brought here. The third option is”—he paused and scanned the audience—“he kidnapped the boy, locked him up outside Lynchburg, brought him here after he escaped the city, and told us the boy was in your city because Cochrane wants this to end. He wants to be caught.”

“Then why not get caught with the boy in Lynchburg?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t say it made sense. Very little of what Cochrane’s doing makes sense.”

“Well, is there anything that you
do
know, Detective?”

The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Kopa
ń
ski. “I’m not standing on this fucking stage to be condescended to by you.”

Only halfway through the article, Painter looked up, shaking her head and whispering, “Joe, Joe.” She knew that when her colleague got like this, he’d rather walk through walls than suffer fools.

But Kopa
ń
ski couldn’t hear her. “I’m going to ask you this: What if there is a possibility the boy is here? And third district sits on its fucking ass while the boy gets closer to death?”

The commander had never been spoken to this way.

Kopa
ń
ski breathed deeply. “Cochrane was in Lynchburg. We know that for a fact. Virginia police were absolutely correct to throw every resource at Cochrane. I’m not asking you to do the same based on a long shot. All I’m asking for is your cooperation.”

He spoke to the assembled officers for a further thirty minutes before walking offstage.

“That could have gone better,” said Painter.

“It could have gone worse. Head of third district’s lucky I didn’t strangle him.”

As officers started filtering out of the auditorium, Painter opened the Michael Stein interview fully and placed it on the chair she’d been sitting on. “The cat’s out of the bag about Cochrane’s background. Can’t say I’m happy about that. Then again, maybe it doesn’t matter now. There’s something odd in the article. Look at the last few sentences.”

Kopa
ń
ski scrutinized the final Stein quote.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“A coded message.”

Painter limped onto the stage toward the lectern and microphone.

The New Yorker spoke to the now half-empty auditorium. “Guys—before you go, does the name ‘Vienna’ mean anything in the context of Washington, D.C.?”

One of the nearby officers replied, “Not the city, but just outside there’s a town called Vienna. It’s in Fairfax County, about fifteen miles from here.”

Painter glanced at Kopa
ń
ski before speaking to the D.C. cop again. “Does it have a train station?”

“It’s the last stop on the Orange Line Metro.”

“Who’s the most senior person left in this room?”

The approximately one hundred officers left in the room looked around.

One of them raised his hand. “That’ll be me. Commander of fourth district.”

“At eleven o’clock, Cochrane’s going to be at the Vienna Metro station. We can’t scare him off. Can you mobilize an undercover task force right now? It needs to put surveillance on the place without being seen, ready to do a takedown when he’s sighted.”

The commander raced out of the room.

Painter walked fast to Kopa
ń
ski. “We’ve got thirty minutes max.”

I
drove off I-66 and onto a ramp that led me to the parking lot on the station’s south side. I exited the vehicle, one of the detectives’ stolen handguns in my jacket, and used an elevated walkway to access the station. Only three people were on my side of the barriers. Beyond the barriers, I could see five people standing on the platform. Nobody looked like an undercover cop. I had no idea whether I should wait where I was standing, or enter the platform. It didn’t matter—the place was small enough for me to easily be seen.

My shades on, I purchased a return ticket to Ballston, with no intention of using the ticket, and passed through the barrier to the platform.

It was ten forty-five.

K
opa
ń
ski was loudly cursing the traffic. He had attached the flashing light to the roof of his unmarked car, and he raced through every opening on the highway.

Painter was on her cell to the chief of the Fairfax County Police Department. “If we’ve read this correctly, Cochrane’s going to be at the Vienna Metro at eleven o’clock this morning. D.C. has deployed forty undercover firearms and surveillance specialists. They’re ahead of us and should be there any minute.”

The chief said, “I should have been consulted. They need authorization before they can operate in Fairfax.”

Painter didn’t have time for this. “I’m consulting you now. And if you have a problem with it, ring the attorney general and get his take on the chain of command in this situation.”

The chief said nothing.

Painter continued, “But I need your help. Can you put squad cars in a perimeter five hundred yards away from the station? They’ve got to be out of sight. Their role is twofold: First, if Cochrane gets away on foot or driving, he runs into your guys. You’ve got to make that perimeter watertight. Second, if there’s a gunfight in the station, they move in to assist.”

The fact that his officers were going to be so crucial to the takedown fully placated the chief. “You got it. But what happens if he takes a train out of Vienna?”

“He can’t. The last train into the station will arrive at eleven. We’ve arranged for it to terminate there, and trains for the next hour have been canceled.” Painter hung up. “Can’t you move any quicker?”

Grinding to a halt while beeping his horn to get two cars to move out of his way, Kopa
ń
ski replied, “I could if I had a missile launcher to clear a path.”

To his relief, the traffic became much lighter. He put his foot to the floor and sped along route 66.

It was five minutes to eleven.

I
watched a train pull in. Nobody got off; everyone on the platform except me got on the train. I walked along the platform, hands in my pockets, one of them gripping my pistol. The possibility that this was a trap hadn’t escaped me, but I thought it was unlikely. Even if he thought I was guilty of the alleged crimes, no way would Michael Stein agree to set me up.

After our brief allegiance in the secret world, we’d shared a coffee together and spoke about our personal aspirations for the future. There’d been something about Stein that made me open up more than I ordinarily would. Most likely it was because Stein had said that the best spies are never loyal to the organizations they work for. Instead they’re loyal to those who help them. He said that he would help me if ever I were in trouble. And he asked if there was anyone else I could trust. That’s when I told him about Antaeus.