Authors: Matthew Dunn
E
llie Hallowes pulled up the collar of her overcoat, thrust her hands into her pockets so that they were dry and one of them could grip the metal box, and hunched her shoulders, because rain was pouring out of the sky and it was cold and dark. Hunching her shoulders did nothing to stop the wet and chill, but it made Ellie feel at least a bit like the many people around her who’d been caught in the sudden downpour in Washington, D.C.’s small Chinatown.
All of them were tourists who should have been tucked up in bed in their hotel rooms. Adults and kids jostled for space to move onward while gawping at the primary-colored glow from the twenty restaurants and their window displays of Peking ducks on rotisseries and neon signs in Cantonese, and inhaling the rich aromas of soy and oyster and hoisin sauces, aniseed, Szechuan pepper, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, and cloves.
Ellie liked Chinese cuisine. But tonight, the pungent smells from the restaurants seemed out of place, because they reminded her of her safe places—the havens where she could shut her door at night, not fear the moment when she might inadvertently say something that compromised her undercover work, kick off her shoes and watch TV, and eat stir-fry noodles out of a cardboard carton.
Right now, she wasn’t in one of her safe places.
She wondered if she was doing the right thing by finally laying the tiny metal box to rest. Twenty-two years ago, her father had placed it gently in her hand while they were watching ballet at the Kennedy Center. She was thirteen, and was wearing a ball gown that her father had bought from a second-hand store and had arranged to be altered by a seamstress who refused payment for the job because her daughter was at the same school as Ellie and she knew Ellie’s father had it tough. He was wearing a bow tie and old tuxedo, one that would have looked good on him when he was younger but now was shiny with wear. She remembered smiling at him and noticing a few flecks of dandruff on the black shoulders of his jacket. Poor Dad; he’d made such an effort to look smart for her, but had forgotten to brush down his suit. Her mother would never have let him go out like that. But she had died the year before and they were here to commemorate the anniversary of her death by attending her favorite ballet,
Giselle
.
Inside the box was a plain nine-carat necklace with a heart pendant. As she’d held it with her fingers, he’d leaned toward her and said, “Your Mum told me that I had to be smarter than usual when you got to the teen years, that I wasn’t to get all awkward just ’cause you were becoming a woman, and that I needed to buy you pretty things.”
He’d sat back in his chair, pretending to watch the performance, but Ellie could see that he was tense. No doubt he’d rehearsed what he’d said to her, and was now wondering whether he’d used the right words. Ellie had placed the necklace around her throat and kissed her dad on his cheek. His rigidity vanished, replaced with a big grin and look of utter relief.
He’d died when she was in college, and it was sometime then that she’d lost the necklace. The guilt over losing it made her hang on to the necklace’s box, as if doing so made everything okay. Over the years it had sat on mantelpieces or in the corners of drawers. But all the time, she’d known that the box had meant nothing to her father. He’d wanted her to feel pretty; boxes don’t do that.
So tonight, while rummaging through her hotel room in D.C., looking for a suitable container for the job, her eyes had settled on the box and she’d made a decision. It was time for the box to go.
Odd, though, that she wasn’t just throwing it away; instead, she was giving it to another man. Did that mean she wasn’t really letting go?
She walked out of Chinatown, south along Seventh Street NW, staying close to buildings to avoid the spray from passing vehicles. Less than a mile to her right was the White House. Twelve years ago, she’d stood in front of the building with a letter of employment from the Central Intelligence Agency inside her jacket, marveling at the center of power and feeling pride that she was being brought into its inner circle of trust. Like all college graduates about to embark on life in the real world, she’d been naive back then. Doubly naive in her case, because upon completion of her Agency training, Ellie was told that she had to resign and set up her own Agency-funded consultancy so that she could be a deniable undercover operative. One without the name Ellie Hallowes, because the real her would be kept at arm’s length from the inner circle.
High-ranking Agency officers had told her that she’d been selected for the task because she’d displayed an exceptional ability to operate alone and make independent decisions. She’d believed them, and in fairness they were being truthful. But a year into being undercover, she’d realized that another reason she’d been selected was because she had no one in her life. There’d be no big Thanksgiving family dinners for Ellie, ones during which she might look around and think, I can’t live this lie anymore.
She moved into a dark side alley, wondered if someone was waiting in there, and briefly recalled what she’d been taught by an ex-Delta unarmed-combat instructor at the Farm.
Fancy ninja moves don’t work. Go crazy. Hit eyes, throats, and balls. Do it fast, then run.
But the narrow alley seemed empty and quiet.
She stopped in the exact same spot she’d reconnoitered yesterday during daylight. After withdrawing a tiny flashlight, she cupped her hand over the beam to minimize the possibility of it being seen by passersby and searched the building’s wall. It took her only a few seconds to find the loose brick, at which point she switched off the light and continued her task in complete darkness. Her fingers felt along the tiny gaps between the top and bottom of the brick. Fingernails would have been useful right now, ones that weren’t chipped and ragged. Instead she had to use the tips of her fingers to grip the few millimeters of brick that she could reach, press hard until her fingertips were in pain, and pull the brick out.
She let it fall to the ground, quickly secreted the jewelry box in the hole, and picked up the brick to put it back in place and hide the box. Inside the box was a slip of paper containing the number of her new pay-as-you-go cell phone. It was her lifeline to Will Cochrane.
But it was only of use if Will could covertly enter the States and if she could somehow illegally access the Project Ferryman files.
Even for professionals of Ellie and Will’s caliber, right now both tasks seemed near impossible.
A
t ten thirty the following morning, Marsha Gage entered a large rectangular hall in the FBI HQ. The room was typically used by temporary task forces and contained many desks and chairs, whiteboards, phones and computers, sophisticated imagery of parts of the United States pinned to walls, and spot ceiling bulbs that sent pillars of blue light to the floor and made the hall look like it was filled with electrified prison bars. No one else was in here because no other FBI officer had yet been assigned to Marsha. Right now, she alone was the task force. But Bo Haupman had given her the room in case that changed.
She unrolled a large map of the world and stuck it on a wall. Directly beneath the map was a large desk. Marsha decided it would be hers and started unpacking items from her bag—stationery, five cell phones, a directory containing the names and contact numbers of her key contacts in every European intelligence and security agency, and a holstered handgun; all symmetrically laid out in front of a computer terminal and landline telephone.
“Is the room okay?”
Marsha barely glanced at Haupman as he walked up to her carrying two mugs of coffee. “It’ll do just fine.”
The director placed one of the mugs on Marsha’s desk and stared at her new map. “Like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“It is if you think that way.”
Haupman laughed. “Right now, I can’t see an alternative to thinking that way.”
Marsha took a sip of her coffee, her expression focused as she looked at Europe on the map. “My starting point is to cut the haystack into manageable segments. Norway, Sweden, and their surrounding countries are the first segment. I’ve already spoken to my contacts in the Politiets Sikkerhetstjeneste and Säkerhetspolisen”—Norway’s Police Security Service and Sweden’s Security Police—“and they’re hitting the ground running. Not just covering their own turfs, but also getting the word out fast to their counterparts in other European agencies, plus law enforcement, hotel security, transportation security, you name it. All of them know Cochrane’s traveling under a passport in the name of Robert Tombs, but they also know it’s highly unlikely he’ll use that ID.”
“Sounds like they’re being cooperative.”
Marsha shrugged. “Ever since we all got pulled off the Cobalt case, they’re as desperate to get back into a full-blown manhunt as I am.”
“They realize the risks involved?”
Marsha nodded. “Everyone in Europe I’ve spoken to so far has asked the same question: What do we do if we close in on Cochrane but he won’t go down without a fight?”
“What did you say?”
“Kill him.”
Haupman’s smile vanished. As ever, this was the Marsha he knew. A great colleague, and as honest as they come, but also a woman who’d not hesitate to put a bullet in your brain if you’d done some serious messing with the law. That’s why he’d appointed her as lead agent of the team that was trying to locate Cobalt. He’d reckoned she was getting close to the terrorist financier when Haupman had received the call from his boss and was told that the president himself wanted the mission to immediately abort.
“You’ve alerted our European-based Bureau stations?”
Marsha sighed with impatience. “Of course.”
“Your husband and kids going to be okay while you’re on this assignment?”
She turned to face the director and gave him a withering look. “One of the upsides of Paul being made redundant is that he’s got plenty of time on his hands to look after Kimberly and Jack. You don’t need to worry about my private life.”
“Fair point.”
“All I need from you are resources when they’re required, and to be left alone to do my job.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve spread the word that you answer to me and me alone, and that no one in the Bureau is to interfere with or obstruct your assignment.”
Marsha raised an eyebrow. “Answer to you?”
Haupman was momentarily unsettled. “I mean . . . well, that you
technically
answer to me.”
“
Technically
is a good word.” Marsha’s expression softened. “You need to go up two sizes on your shirt collar. You look like you’re being strangled.”
The observation made Haupman’s good humor return. “Yeah, I know. Just can’t build up the courage to tell Mrs. Haupman that she’s deluding herself that I’m still the shape of her high school prom date.”
Marsha smiled. It had always touched her that Bo had been devoted to Lizzy Haupman all of his adult life. Her expression changed. “Whether we capture or kill Cochrane, I’ll be in Europe when it happens.”
“Damn right. Just make sure you do it without that bastard Sheridan being around.”
“Yes, no Sheridan . . .” Marsha’s voice trailed as her mind raced. She stepped right up to the map and placed a finger on Norway. “South or east. There’s where Sheridan assumes Cochrane will go.”
“Correct.”
“I like facts, love possibilities, but hate assumptions.”
“I know.”
Her finger moved west away from Norway, over Iceland, before stopping on Greenland. “Maybe Cochrane is attempting something that Sheridan hasn’t anticipated.” Marsha nodded as her heart raced fast. “Thanks for the coffee. But with all due respect,
boss,
I need you to get out of my office. I’ve got some fresh calls to make.”
W
ill Cochrane was standing on the deck of the trawler. In the distance he could see the snow-covered, mountainous coastline of Greenland. The boat wasn’t drawing nearer to land; instead it was sailing parallel to the coast as it headed south toward the tiny port of Tasiilaq. Though the sky was now clear and had stopped yielding snow at least thirty minutes ago, large flakes were all around him, held in the air by sudden gusts of wind that were preventing them from reaching the sea.
Will gulped down tea that was stewed, nothing like the loose-leaf Assam blend that he liked to delicately prepare with no milk or other accompaniments. But out here it tasted as good as anything else he’d drunk, and in any case he knew the captain’s wife would give him a stern telling off if he didn’t drink and eat everything she prepared for him. The hardy crew consumed anything they could to survive out here; it was as simple as that. Will was not permitted to be an exception.
The three adult sons were also on deck, preparing the vessel as it neared port. Though a few years older than them, Will blended in with their appearance—warm clothes and boots, and faces that were covered with a few days’ growth of beard. They ignored him, as no doubt the captain had told them to do, and got on with their chores of lashing ropes, removing seaweed from nets, hosing and scrubbing the deck, and squaring away anything that wasn’t tied down.
The boat changed direction. Will glanced at the cabin and could see the captain inside, holding the wheel with one hand and a radio mic in the other while speaking inaudibly. Will knew the captain was radioing ahead to the Tasiilaq’s harbormaster, telling him they were approaching the port, would need a berth, and had all necessary papers ready for inspection. The captain knew from previous experience that the harbormaster usually took his time before coming to the berthed vessel to check all documentation was in order, because the captain had always proven to be meticulous with his papers and cooperative. Most international smugglers are.
His vessel had only been boarded once by the customs officer who worked alongside the harbormaster, and that was only because his boss in the Nuuk HQ had decided he needed the practice. He hadn’t found any contraband on the boat and he never would, because the captain had good hiding places in the vessel. But on this occasion, the only illegal thing he was carrying was Will Cochrane.
The captain had told Will how it would happen. He would be first off the vessel and would do his normal routine of walking down the jetty carrying a crate of bourbon, which would be his gift to the harbormaster and those who worked alongside him in the port. The captain’s wife and sons would stand beside the boat. At that point, the captain would have completed his job of covertly getting Will to Greenland. How Will got himself off the boat was of no interest to the captain.
Will rubbed his nails through his stubble, wondered if he should shave before they reached land, and decided that anything that made him look less like himself should stay. He checked his watch. They were only three-quarters of a mile away from the port and would arrive in less than thirty minutes. He placed a hand over the handgun secreted under his belt and watched the Danish province of Greenland draw nearer.
Danish police officer Daniel Møller placed the remains of his thick raw beef and egg sandwich on his plate and put a fist on his chest while holding his breath to try to suppress a burp. The only other Rigspolitiet law enforcement officer in or anywhere near Tasiilaq was Johanne Lund, and she was sitting exactly 2.5 yards away from him at her desk in the small office that overlooked the port. Since they’d been working together for the last eleven months, Møller had burped sixteen times in front of her and always at lunchtime. Not deliberately; just that he’d been manning the office on his own for a year before his superiors in Nuuk decided to second a newly qualified officer to his post, so that she could experience what the force described as “community policing.” Before then, Møller’s work habits had no consequences. After the female officer arrived, the thirty-two-year-old Møller had made a conscious effort to share the shoebox office with Johanne in a way that was respectful to his new cohabitant. But sometimes he just plain forgot. After the sixteenth time, Johanne had plucked up the courage to tell her boss that perhaps he should purchase some medicine to ease his digestion.
He looked at her and she was head down typing a report. The trapped wind abated; this was good, no embarrassment to be caused in front of the woman who he was beginning to take a shine to. His phone rang, and he picked up the receiver, opened his mouth, and involuntarily let out a loud burp. Damn. “Officer Møller.”
A woman introduced herself. American. FBI. She asked, “You speak English?”
“Better than Kalaallisut.” Danish through and through, Møller had been struggling to learn the native language of Greenland at night school for the last two years since he was transferred to the country. Thankfully for him, Danish was also widely spoken. “How can I help, Ms. Gage?”
“Mrs.” Marsha Gage spoke to him for ten minutes. “Strikes me your port is the only one on the east side of Greenland where a boat might head to from Norway or Iceland.”
“It is.” Møller looked at his sandwich, considered taking a bite, but thought better of it. “It’s rare for my office to get calls from the FBI.”
“Rare?”
“Unprecedented.”
“I’m sure.” The woman sounded tense. “You got weapons there?”
“Of course.” Shit, when was the last time he’d cleaned his sidearm?
“A team?”
Møller looked at Johanne. “A team, yes.”
“Who runs the port?”
“Papik Zeeb, harbormaster.”
“Can he be useful to you?”
Møller smiled. “He’s seventy-two years old, and before you ask, he’s never held a weapon, let alone got one.”
“Anyone else?”
“Salik Knudsen, our customs guy. He’s capable enough, and we go hunting together in the summer months. I’ll give him a handgun.” Møller saw that Johanne had stopped writing and was staring at him. “How likely is it that the man’s heading our way?”
“Can’t answer that. But I can say that some of the world’s most sophisticated security services haven’t spotted him in Scandinavia or Europe.”
“And who is he?”
Marsha hesitated, then told him.
Møller’s face paled, and sweat began to drip down his forehead. “This most certainly is . . .
unprecedented
.” He replaced the handset and called the harbormaster. “Any boats due in from Scandinavia or Iceland?”
Zeeb answered, “We’ve had nothing for weeks and only one due in during the next month.”
“When will it arrive?”
“About twenty minutes’ time.”
“Twenty minutes?!” Urgently, Møller said, “We’re on our way. Get Knudsen to meet us at the harbor.” He ended the call, stood, and looked at his colleague. “We need three sidearms from the gun cabinet, plus spare ammo. I’ll get the car.” He paused, felt breathless, and quickly said, “I was going to ask you to join me for a drink after work. Sorry. Stupid, I guess, but thought you ought to know. Just in case . . . in case.”
Salik Knudsen stared through binoculars while standing next to the harbormaster at the base of the long jetty. The blond-haired, blue-eyed customs officer could easily see the trawler slowly heading toward the berthing station at the head of the narrow pier. “Møller didn’t say anything else?”
Papik Zeeb shook his head. “Just that there’s a slim chance the boat might be carrying illegal cargo.” The old man looked uncertain. “What should I do?”
“Go back to your office. Put a call into my HQ telling them that I’m about to conduct an on-board search alongside police officers Møller and Lund.” He glanced at Zeeb. “Stay there until one of us calls you once the search is complete.”
The harbormaster smiled. “Bit of action at last, eh, Salik?”
“Oh, at best it’ll be contraband cigarettes and booze. But I’ll take what I can get.”
The trawler captain expertly steered the vessel toward the tip of the jetty and slowed the boat to five knots. At the far end of the pier, standing on the harbor wall, was a solitary figure. Though he was too far away to be distinguishable, almost certainly it was the harbormaster, eagerly awaiting his usual gift of liquor.
The captain imagined walking down the pier, holding his gift in two arms, greeting Papik Zeeb with a big smile, strolling alongside the old man to his car, and helping him put the crate into his trunk while Will Cochrane ran down the jetty and vanished before the captain and Zeeb returned to go through the formalities of checking paperwork.
That’s how he’d told Will Cochrane how it would happen. Easy for a man of his talents. But the MI6 officer had said nothing in response, just looked at him while checking the workings of his handgun with an expression that made even the captain feel considerably ill at ease.
Møller stopped his car and said to Johanne, “With me. Fast.”
The two police officers ran to part of the harbor wall that hid them from the sea. Salik Knudsen was only ten yards away from them, still rooted at the base of the jetty.
Møller called out, “Salik! Over here,” beckoned him when the customs officer looked over, and crouched down even though there was no need to do so. Johanne handed Møller a pistol and spare cartridges, which Møller in turn thrust into Knudsen’s hand. “You may need these.”
Knudsen asked what was going on.
Møller told him.
“What’s a black operative?”
Møller answered, “Apparently, someone who can kill everyone in Tasiilaq.”
The captain turned off the boat’s motor, shoved a cigar into the corner of his mouth, and smiled. The trip had earned him two thousand dollars. Cochrane had objected to paying the sum, but the captain had rightly pointed out that their deal was to get Cochrane out of Norway and dump him in adjacent Sweden, Finland, or Russia, but for some reason Cochrane had wanted to head west and enter Greenland. That was above and beyond the captain’s duty. It meant a financial deal needed to be struck.
Two thousand dollars didn’t sound like much, but it was to a fisherman who only occasionally could top up his income with more lucrative and illegal activities. And right now, the fishing catches were poor and the supply and demand for smuggled goods was going through a dry patch. Two thousand dollars would go a long way to keep him and his family alive until the warmer months produced full nets of herring and cod, and the hull of his vessel could once again contain gold, counterfeit fifty-dollar notes, and maybe some white powder.
He exited the cabin, picked up the wooden box of bourbon, stepped onto the jetty, and frowned as he saw three people in the distance walking slowly toward him.
Møller gripped his handgun tight as he cautiously stepped along the pier. He glanced at Johanne, then Knudsen. “You know him?”
The customs officer nodded. “He’s the captain. I boarded his vessel a year ago. Probably he’s got his wife and sons with him.”
The captain stopped. He was approximately one hundred yards away.
Møller whispered, “He might be about to bolt.”
Knudsen looked at the calm sea either side of the jetty. The nearest land and other vessels in the port were at least seventy yards away from the jetty, and the water around it would quickly kill anyone who dived into it without wearing a scuba dry suit. “Where to?”
“Drive his boat out of here; head home.”
Knudsen shook his head as he continued onward with his two colleagues. “He’d easily be picked up at sea. He’s trapped.”
Møller imagined Cochrane waiting inside the boat with a weapon, cornered, with no intention of giving himself up. His voice shook as he said, “Trapped? Oh good.”
They moved closer.
The captain remained motionless.
Forty yards away.
Møller shouted, “Get your crew out here.”
The captain placed his box on the jetty. “What’s this about?”
Knudsen answered, “Just routine. We’re checking all boats coming into Tasiilaq. We can get this done in minutes and be on our way.”
They moved closer to the captain, stopped when they were a few feet away from him, and kept their pistols pointing at the decking so as not to antagonize the burly sailor.
The captain glanced over his shoulder, placed two fingers in his mouth, and emitted a high-pitched whistle. His three sons and wife stepped off the trawler and looked puzzled and anxious as they moved to the captain’s side.
Knudsen smiled, and tried to keep his voice calm and jovial. “You got anything on board we should know about?”
The captain did not smile. Instead the broad man momentarily looked like he was going to step forward and rip Knudsen’s head off. “Like what?”
“Like a man who wants to get into Greenland unnoticed.”
The captain spat on the jetty, his saliva brown from cigar residue. “We’re not a fucking ferry service. We fish.”
“I know.” Knudsen shrugged, hoping the gesture made it look like they were all in this together and that this was a procedural load of nonsense. “Nuuk’s up its own ass. Told us we had to check every vessel. No exceptions.” He laughed. “My bosses have spent too long away from the sea.” His smile receded. “But I got no choice. Need to know if”—he nodded toward the trawler—“there’s a man in there.”
The captain was silent, his eyes darting between the three people in front of him.
Møller felt his sweat slime between his hand and the pistol’s grip. “You looking to cause us trouble?”
“Trouble?” The captain’s voice boomed. He kicked the box, inside which bottles clanged against each other. “I was looking to give you boys a good time, not trouble. You’re the ones with guns.”
Møller glanced at Knudsen. “You keep them here. We’ll go on board.”
As Møller and Johanne walked past the trawler crew, the captain lit the stub of his cigar and shouted out, “Good luck with that.”
It was the last thing Møller wanted to hear. He glanced at his rookie colleague, nodded, gripped his pistol, and moved toward the vessel feeling sick with fear.
Will Cochrane slid the workings of his handgun back and forth, placed the pistol in his lap, flexed his muscular fingers, and arched his back. He could hear seagulls and waves gently lapping against the boat, but he had no care for the tranquillity of his surroundings. He could sense that danger was drawing closer to him.