Authors: Matthew Dunn
F
BI director Bo Haupman had long ago decided that the CIA was a rootless entity because it wasn’t law enforcement, military, or civilian. Its officers reflected that amorphous state; they were soulless creatures who, when asked to explain what results they’d achieved and how those results mattered one bit to the man on the street, would look coy and use the excuse of secrecy to avoid the question, when in reality they just plain and simple didn’t have a concrete answer. For sure, post-9/11 the Agency had taken the lead on counterterrorism work, turning many of its young bucks into John Wayne wannabes who relished the prospect of swapping their suits and attaché cases and diplomatic life for a dishdasha, an AK-47, and a tent on an Afghan mountainside. Right now, they had a bit of tangible purpose—we shot this bad guy, did a predator drone strike against this bunch of crazies, put this leader into a cell with only a blanket and a bucket of water and three burly men for company. But you could see in their eyes that they knew the party wouldn’t last forever, that pretty soon they’d be going back to the world of paper reports, cocktails, agonizingly boring analysis, and the only highlight of their lives being the opportunity to listen in on a telephone intercept and learn that a terrorist’s wife wants her husband to pick up some potatoes, chicken, and cabbage for dinner.
That’s not to say he disliked all Agency officers. Put them in a room with a drink in their hands and they could be great company, because they’d go out of their way to talk about anything other than their work. Put a bunch of feds in a room and within five minutes all of them would be talking about how the perps are getting away with murder because the Bureau’s snowed under with paperwork. Yes, Agency people could be light relief.
Charles Sheridan wasn’t.
On more than one occasion, Bo had gotten himself to sleep by fantasizing about clubbing the high-ranking CIA officer to death and dumping his body in the middle of a lake.
Not that Bo could actually do that. Despite having shot a few scum in his career, and being the size of a bear that was a few years past its prime, Bo was a gentle man, and it had come as a relief when promotion had enabled him to swap his sidearm for a desk.
Still, the fantasy remained, and he imagined doing it to Sheridan right now as the CIA officer placed his leather bag on the floor, removed a raincoat that matched the style Agency and Secret Service characters wore in the movies, slumped into a chair, and gave Bo his sternest Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff look. A look that was undeserved, given that Sheridan had retired from the infantry with the rank of major before joining the Agency.
They were in a small room in the Bureau’s headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover building. Bo had chosen the room as it had no table in it, and was informal and unimpressive. That would grate on Sheridan, because he would have expected the red-carpet treatment for someone of his seniority and power.
Bo gestured toward the woman next to him and asked Sheridan, “You don’t mind if my secretary takes notes, do you?”
“I’d rather she didn’t.”
“I only asked out of courtesy.”
“Do what you want, then.”
“And what do
you
want?”
Sheridan glanced at the secretary. “You sure she should be in the room?”
Bo smiled, hoping he looked condescending. “The last time you and I spoke without notes being taken, you reported the content of our conversation to the head of the Agency. I didn’t mind, though I was concerned when I heard that your interpretation of what was said was . . . less than truthful.” Bo placed his ankle on his other leg. “In any case, she’s security cleared.”
“Not by us.”
Bo waved a hand dismissively. “But she is by me, so she stays. What do you want?”
Sheridan stared at the secretary for a few seconds before locking his gaze back on Bo. “I want a bloodhound.”
“A Bureau bloodhound?”
“No, a frickin’ NYPD bloodhound,” he huffed, causing small flecks of spit to stick to his lips. “Of course a Bureau bloodhound. Otherwise I wouldn’t be wasting my time in this shitty place.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“No.”
“Tea?”
“No.”
“Water?”
“No.”
“Anything else that might put you at ease?”
“I am at . . .” Sheridan looked irritated as he scratched fingers against his hair and examined his nails. “Look, let’s just get this over with. I need your best officer.”
“To do a manhunt.”
“That’s what I said on the phone.”
“On U.S. soil?”
“I doubt it.”
“Then why don’t you guys take up the challenge?”
“Because this is a matter that’s being overseen by the Senate committee, and the SSCI doesn’t like it when the Agency plays cops.”
“Of course, plus there’s the small matter that you’re not very good at it.” Bo continued to imagine swinging his baseball bat at Sheridan’s head. “Who is he?”
Sheridan pointed at the secretary. “Tell her to stop writing!”
“I will do no such . . .”
Sheridan leaned toward the secretary. “You can listen to your boss, lady, or you can listen to me. Keep taking notes, and I’ll ensure you’re put in prison for threatening national security.”
The secretary darted a look at Bo, raising her eyebrows.
Bo held up his hand. “It’s okay, Marsha. Let’s leave the notes until Mr. Sheridan is feeling a bit more . . .” He looked directly at the CIA officer. “. . . calm.”
Sheridan leaned back. “His name’s Will Cochrane. British Intelligence, but he’s joint with us. Last seen in Norway two days ago.”
“What’s he done?”
“Compromised an Agency operation. That’s all you need to know and”—Sheridan raised his voice before Bo could interject—“that’s all you will
ever
know.”
“Have the Brits given you authority to apprehend him?”
Sheridan nodded. “You’ll get the green-light paperwork and the signatories to the task. But I’m here because before I draw up those papers, I need to know if you’ve got an officer who’s up for the job.”
“A bloodhound.”
“A man who hasn’t failed before.”
Bo was deep in thought. “Would Cochrane kill my officer to evade capture?”
Sheridan seemed to consider the question. “I think he’d prefer another way out.” He shrugged. “But if he’s backed into a corner, then who knows.”
“His capabilities?”
Sheridan glanced again at the secretary to ensure that she was continuing to obey his instructions. “Three years ago, he covertly entered an African war zone, shot dead the deposed dictator while he was on the run, made it look as though rebels had killed the man, and exited the country without anyone but a handful of MI6 officers knowing he was there. It was the easiest job he’d done in eight years of service.”
Bo frowned. “That dictator had to be . . .”
Sheridan pointed at him. “Exactly who you’re thinking of, but you keep your mouth shut about that or you’ll be in a cell next door to pretty missy here.”
Bo ignored the threat. “What resources does Cochrane have in Europe?”
“He’s got ten thousand dollars of cash on him. Plus an alias passport and credit card, but he’ll be flagged the moment he uses either.”
“Then he’ll stand no chance of evading capture.”
Sheridan laughed. “You got much experience of hunting black-ops guys?”
Bo rolled his eyes. “You’re not going to get all melodramatic on me now, are you, Charles?”
Sheridan looked unsettled; clearly he had been warming up to a bit of melodrama. “Well, either way, you don’t know shit, so I’ll tell it to you straight. Typically, deniable operators have three preplanned options to escape a country. The first is pretty standard: they enter a country with a false passport, they leave the same way. Providing the wheel’s not fallen off, it’s as straightforward as that. But if something goes wrong and we think the officer’s blown, the Agency will always have in place a covert exfiltration route—cross-border, sea, air, assets in situ to help him.”
“Presumably that’s no longer an option for Cochrane.”
“No.” Sheridan grinned. “We fucked him on that one.”
“So that leaves . . . ?”
Sheridan’s grin vanished. “That leaves the it-annoys-the-hell-out-of-me option. See, black-ops guys and girls are a bunch of paranoids. Everyone’s out to get them. Trouble is, sometimes they’re not wrong.”
“They put in place backup contingencies?”
“Yeah.”
“Without telling the Agency?”
Sheridan nodded.
“Because it might be the Agency that’s trying to . . . fuck them?”
Sheridan was motionless. “Cochrane will have at least one or two assets in Norway that we don’t know about. They’ll try to help him get out of the country.”
“Where will he go?”
“East or south, but most certainly not west.”
“Yes, I can see that west wouldn’t be a particularly desirable option. You know that if you’d approached me two weeks ago, I’d have told you straight that we didn’t have the resources to do another manhunt. Know why?”
“Sure. Every fed under your control was already tasked on a manhunt. Trying to find Mr. Cobalt.”
Bo frowned. “Last intel we had on him was that he was moving major capital between Turkmenistan and Algeria. I still don’t get why we, and every agency we know outside the States, were told to shut down that operation.” His frown vanished. “You know anything about that?”
Sheridan grinned. “Not much I don’t know.”
“So why . . .”
“We’ll get Cobalt, rest assured, but not the way we’ve been going about it so far. That’s all I’m saying.” Sheridan checked his watch. “You going to capture Cochrane, or not?”
Part of Bo wanted to tell Sheridan to give the job to another agency, because any enemy of Sheridan’s couldn’t be all that bad. No. That’s exactly what Sheridan wanted to hear so that he could go back to the SSCI, tell them a bunch of crap, and try to persuade them that the Agency should be given the task. “Okay, we’ll do it.”
Sheridan looked momentarily annoyed before composing himself and giving his most insincere grin. “Great to hear, but you should know that I’ve been given authority to sit in your bloodhound’s team and watch progress. Officially, the term is ‘adviser.’ But better for you to think of it as ‘pain in the ass.’ ”
Bo had expected this. “It’s an FBI operation, meaning we have primacy up to the point when we capture him. After that, you can do what you want with Cochrane. Do you know what primacy means?”
Sheridan didn’t answer.
“It means that you’re not an adviser or a pain in the ass. It means that for the duration of the manhunt, you’re my bloodhound’s
employee
.”
Sheridan didn’t like that description one bit. “Well, you better get your man in here, so I can meet my new
boss
.”
In Bo Haupman’s fantasy, he stopped beating Sheridan around the head. This was turning out to be much more fun. “When you called me to say that you needed to speak to me in person about a potential manhunt request, I thought I’d alert my best officer that you were coming.”
“Good, get him in here!”
Calmly, Bo replied, “Oh, there’s no need.” He pointed at Marsha Gage. “My best bloodhound’s been in the room with us the whole time.”
C
an you hear me?”
His eyes were shut but he could feel his body moving up and down. He could smell coffee, tobacco, and the sea.
“You need to wake up.”
He moved his fingers; they touched cloth. He moved his feet; they were in boots.
“It’s time.”
Will opened his eyes. His vision blurred at first but then he saw a man, the older person he’d seen light tobacco before walking onto the jetty. He was in his fifties, was thick-set and looked very strong, had a beard and sandy-colored hair with streaks of gray, wore a turtleneck sweater and oilskin waders, and had a cigar fixed in one corner of his mouth. His muscular hand was outstretched toward Will. Will grabbed it, pulling his body up until he was seated. Looking around, he saw he was on a bed in a tiny cabin containing four other beds. Two windows were on one side of the cabin, beyond which sea pounded their glass. He was on the trawler, and to judge by its rolling movement they were far out at sea.
The Norwegian captain spoke in a deep, thick accent. “You’ve been asleep for twelve hours. That’s more than enough rest for any man, even though you were in danger of getting hypothermia. My wife’s been looking after you.”
Will released the Norwegian’s hand, looked down and saw that he had been dressed in a sweater, jeans, and boots. He frowned. “Twelve hours?”
The captain shrugged. “Seems you needed the rest. Plus, my sons and I didn’t need your help to get this far. But we’re about to exit Norwegian waters, and I need you awake in case we spot a coastal patrol heading toward us and”—he smiled—“we need you to jump overboard before they search the boat.”
Will stood gingerly, worried that his legs might buckle. But they were strong and steady. He had needed the sleep. He also knew the real reason why the captain needed him to be awake before they entered international waters.
The captain needed every person on the boat to be on hand to throw stuff into the sea if they saw a naval or customs vessel approaching them.
The captain was a smuggler—mostly precious metals, counterfeit money, stolen goods, though Will wasn’t blind to the fact that the man sometimes smuggled nastier stuff like drugs and weapons. Four years ago, he’d learned about his activities by reading files belonging to the MI6 division that targeted international organized crime. He’d had no interest in the ongoing efforts to monitor and one day thwart the activities of criminals, because that task was in the safe hands of other officers, but he was most certainly interested in the people in the files: criminals he could approach without MI6 knowing and whom he could help if one day they’d do the same for him. The trade was simple—I tip you off if I think the net’s closing in on you; you get me out of your country if I need you to do so. Over the years, he’d handpicked and recruited dozens of men like the Norwegian captain, spread out across the globe; people who could get him stuff, who traveled off the radar, who had overriding reasons not to tell a soul about their secret pact with Cochrane.
No doubt it was a morally ambiguous thing for Will to do, but Will had long ago given up attempting to grapple with the ambiguities of his line of work.
Right now, all that mattered was going west, and the captain’s smuggling route was going to do that for him. “Thank you.”
The captain waved a hand while puffing smoke from his cigar. “I don’t need gratitude.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Come on, make yourself useful on deck. Providing the weather holds, two days until we reach Greenland.”