Authors: Matthew Dunn
I
T’S AN ODD
tradition to give a condemned man a hearty last meal before a rope is put around his neck or he stands in front of a firing squad. I’d have thought his nerves would benefit far more from a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of Scotch. It’s not as if he would need food to fuel his body, and I can’t imagine a man would be hungry before death.
I wasn’t hungry right now as I stared at my meal of steak, fries, and salad. No doubt the food in the diner was good. It
looked
good. But I just couldn’t eat any of it. Instead, I sipped my black coffee while trying to come up with an excuse for the rather scary-looking waitress as to why I’d not touched anything on my plate. I toyed with the idea of telling her that I was unwell, or alternatively telling her the truth—that my name was Will Cochrane and tomorrow she would hear about my death.
I decided to take the cowardly route; I waited for her to turn her back on me, left cash on the table, and walked fast out of the diner. I told myself I’d done this because I needed to retain every ounce of courage I had in case I needed to fight to save my life later on. It was horseshit. The truth was that nothing terrifies me more than scary women. That had been ingrained in me by, among others, a child-hating female instructor who’d taught me to swim by pushing my face in the water and pulling me out by my hair, Mrs. Eat Less, and an Irish woman from Killarney who’d loved making homemade bread and bombs.
It was raining hard and I was glad, because I didn’t want sunshine right now. Good weather makes people happy, and I didn’t like the notion that D.C. residents could be walking around with smiles on their faces on the day that I might die.
I got in my car, turned on the ignition, put my seat belt on, and muttered, “Fuck off” as the belt’s warning system started doing its thing.
It was nearly 9:00 p.m.
Trapper was due to call me in one hour.
I drove into downtown D.C., left my car in a parking lot, pulled my jacket hood over my head, and got on foot for no reason other than the fact that I needed some air and time to think. I walked along a broad avenue and passed a block-long neoclassical government building with an endless row of columns illuminated for dramatic effect. But the beauty around me didn’t register.
I wondered whether going after Trapper alone was the right thing to do when I could have easily availed myself of support from CIA paramilitary officers. But I was no different from most spies; we had to do things alone because it’s how we’d been trained. You put a bunch of guys together, and you inevitably have a weak link. You let loose a spy, and he or she achieves tremendous success or dies. There’s no in between, no weak link, nothing but uncompromising absolutes. And if you agree to accept a challenge and go out alone, there’s no turning back; you have to keep going to survive. You march or die, as my seasoned Legionnaires would yell at me every day during the brutality of my basic training. March or die; spy or die. I’d traded one for the other and in doing so had jettisoned camaraderie in favor of solitude. I’d sought this, and I was seeking it right now, because I felt very angry and needed to get up close to Trapper, with no witnesses, in order to kill him.
I
’D JUST RETURNED
to my car when my phone rang.
“Mr. Cochrane?”
“Yes.”
“You recall we had an appointment to speak now?”
I placed my hand over my handgun. “I do.”
“Good.” As ever, Trapper’s English was well spoken, no hint of an Indian accent. Zakaria was right: Trapper came from a privileged background and had no doubt received his education at a school that believed that good intellect was impotent if combined with anything other than pitch-perfect diction. “Are you alone?”
“Always.”
“Always? Oh, dear.” Trapper sounded earnest when he said, “I know how that feels.”
I wanted Trapper to get back to taunting me, rather than finding mutual ground about our sad backgrounds. “I’m glad you do. Why do you want to kill me?”
“Because you killed a senior Taliban leader who . . .”
“Bullshit. You’re not Taliban or affiliated to them. This is cock and bull.”
“Cock . . . ?”
“And fucking bull.”
“My goodness, Mr. Cochrane, your language . . . Are you alone?”
“I’m alone.”
“I do hope so, because if you’re lying to me, things will go bad for you.”
“I’m alone!”
“You’re in D.C.?”
“You know I am.”
“You have a vehicle?”
“I’m in one right now.”
“A road atlas or GPS?”
“I’ve got both.”
“Excellent. I want you to drive northwest, away from the city, and into the state of Maryland. Go to Germantown. Depending on your exact location in D.C., the journey should be no longer than one to two hours. When you reach Germantown, I want you to drive for another five or ten miles—I don’t care about the exact distance, just so long as you find somewhere deserted and then stop and wait for me to call you with further instructions.”
He hung up.
I drove out of the diner parking lot and headed out of the city on Route 270, while hoping I wasn’t making an awful mistake.
S
EVENTY-TWO MINUTES LATER,
I reached Germantown and drove for another six minutes before stopping on the side of a deserted highway, amid featureless open countryside and farmland. Rain continued to pound my vehicle. All I could see was the few yards of road ahead, illuminated by my headlights. Everything else was pitch black.
I knew this wasn’t the place where I’d die. Trapper had not been too specific about my route through Maryland and where I should stop. And I was certain I hadn’t been followed here. No—this wasn’t a kill zone; that place was somewhere else in Maryland. Soon I’d find out where it was.
I felt different from when I’d pursued Abram through the sewers. Then, I’d been totally unprepared for the possibility he wanted to kill me. But this was a premeditated moment. And though Trapper had the upper hand, we were both prepared for the probability that soon one of us would die. I’d been in situations like this before, and each time I had felt physically numb, mentally focused, and dislocated from everything that wasn’t going to help me survive. Tonight was no different.
I waited, my engine idling, my seat-belt warning system pinging.
Nearly one hour later, Trapper called. “Are you where you’re supposed to be?”
“Yes.”
He gave me precise details for my next stop. “I will meet you there.”
A
FTER COVERING AN
additional forty-two miles, I drove off the highway onto a rutted dirt track. More flat, open fields were on either side of me. There were no signs of any buildings, though it was so dark that it was impossible to know what lay ahead.
I passed a For Sale sign, and another one that told me I was on land belonging to Macquarie Farm. I drove for another hundred yards and stopped when the female voice belonging to my GPS announced that I’d arrived at my destination.
I thought,
No, I haven’t; I’
m in the middle of nowhere.
But Trapper had given me an eight-digit grid reference to find him, meaning either my GPS was faulty, or I was exactly where I should be.
I was about to reenter the grid reference to see if it prompted the navigation system to guide me to another place, when my phone rang.
“I can see you, Mr. Cochrane. Don’t worry: you’re exactly where I want you.”
I gripped my handgun. “Where am I?”
“I don’t blame you for asking. Visibility here is poor to nonexistent at night. You’re on a farm that for the last one hundred and seven years has been worked by three generations of the Macquarie family. For the majority of that time, the farm has produced very sizeable yields of corn. But the last owners were childless, and they recently died of old age. It’s been empty and for sale for the last three years.”
I got out of the car, my gun in one hand, the other holding my cell against my ear.
“Did I tell you to get out of the car?”
“No.” I looked around, desperately trying to get my eyes to adjust to the dark. It was nearly a full moon, so I was confident I would be able to discern some features within minutes. Providing I wasn’t shot before that happened. I spotted what looked like a pinhead of light in the distance.
“Have you seen it yet?”
I didn’t respond.
“If you have,” Trapper laughed, “then you’ve seen the light.” His tone turned cold as he said, “Walk toward it, but stop when I tell you to.”
I jammed my cell between ear and shoulder, and held my gun in two hands as I moved slowly ahead. I was in a field, one that previously would have produced hundreds of bales of corn per season. But now it seemed barren. I moved my eyes in a figure eight around the pinhead of light, trying to get night vision. If Trapper had me in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle, I’d be dead by now. Either he didn’t have such a gun and needed me to get within range of whatever weapon he was carrying, or he wanted me to get closer so that he could attack me with something that would ensure my death would be slow and painful. I kept walking.
After approximately two hundred yards, the circle of light was a fraction bigger. As my eyes adjusted, I could see there was something in the distance beyond the light. It was on the horizon; maybe it was a solitary tree, or a building—I couldn’t tell.
“Keep walking.”
I did as I was told. The rain had abated, to be replaced by a fine drizzle; the air smelled of rotting grass. I asked Trapper again, “Why do you want me dead?”
Trapper hesitated before saying, “I suppose you deserve to know the truth. You killed my father.”
“Your father? He was a Taliban leader?”
“No, he wasn’t! He was an Indian man of impeccable standing in a community of fellow Muslims, but also Hindus and Christians. They loved him because he was a businessman who created jobs, a philanthropist, and a kind soul. You shot him in the head.”
“I . . .”
“Shut up and keep moving.”
Trapper’s slow breathing was audible as I walked for another five minutes.
“Stop.”
I did, and realized that my vision had fully adjusted to the night. Ahead of me, about fifty yards away, an oil lamp sat in the center of the field. Next to it was a trunk the size of a coffin. At the far end of the field was an old cylindrical wooden water tower, on top of a single thick stilt that was given further support by two diagonal ladders. A fenced walkway ran around the entire perimeter of the base of the tank. It was approximately three hundred yards beyond the lamp and trunk, and was an excellent place for Trapper to hide in while watching me through high-powered binoculars or something far worse.
The oil lamp was casting a golden glow over part of the trunk.
Trapper asked, “What do you think is inside the box?”
I pointed my gun at the tower. “Maybe nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Yes. Perhaps you want to put me in there. Suffocate me.”
“Clever, Mr. Cochrane. I know what it’s like to suffocate. It’s the worst death. You deserve that. But let’s presuppose that there might be something else in the box that’s relevant to our . . .
situation
. What could that be?”
The lack of light made it impossible for me to see anyone on the tower. “Explosives,” a thought occurred to me, “or bait.”
“Bait. Excellent. What kind?”
“The human kind.”
“Well done, sir. A radio mic is attached to the bait; I have the receiver. If I hold my cell close to the receiver, we can all communicate with the bait. Would you like that?”
“You bastard!”
“Because of you, I’m parentless. But I’m not a bastard. ”
“You are a . . .”
“Shush, shush. No time for that. Let’s get bait on the line. Hello, bait.”
I could hear a woman whimpering.
Trapper said, “Tell him your name.”
“Isa . . . Isabella.”
Trapper muttered, “Izzy Bella. You must be scared.”
Her voice sounded muffled when she responded, “Please . . . please, let . . .”
“You go?” Trapper laughed again. “Not likely under current conditions. Mr. Cochrane: if you drop your gun, she might live. If not, she’ll die because of your cowardice.”
The numbness I felt earlier was gone, and my heart was pounding. “Who is she?”
“A twenty-year-old Argentinian girl with ropes around her body.” Trapper sounded matter-of-fact when he added, “I can’t really think of anything more interesting to say about her.”
I took a step forward, my gun still pointed at the water tower. “Her voice could be a prerecording.” Just like the woman’s voice in the GPS that had brought me to this kill zone.
“Ask her anything you like, something I couldn’t predict and prerecord.”
My cell felt clammy against my ear. “She’s still listening?”
“Yes.”
My mind raced as I tried to think of a question that might resonate with a person who wasn’t my gender or nationality, and was fifteen years younger than me. I decided to ask her to do something that was out of Trapper’s control. “Isabella. Listen to me carefully. I want you to repeat back to me what I’m about to say.”
Her voice sounded strained as she replied, “Okay.”
“The phrase is: Trapper is seriously fucked up. I repeat: Trapper is seriously fucked up.”
“I beg you . . .”
I shouted, “Just say it. It’s proof of life and may just save your neck.”
Isabella responded in a near whisper. “Trapper is seriously fucked up.”
“Good.” I asked, “Are you hurt?”
“Enough!” Trapper was back on the line and sounded angry.
I smiled. “Bet you didn’t like that.”
“I might as well kill you now.”
“With a gunshot?” I took five steps forward. “Then you’ll have failed to put me in the box.”
Trapper was silent for a moment before asking, “Would you like to meet Izzy Bella? The trunk can be opened from the outside.”
I stood stock still.
“Go on. If you’re brave enough.”
I walked quickly toward the trunk, knowing that if I fired my handgun, I’d struggle at this distance to hit the tower, let alone a man on its walkway.