A Soldier's Revenge Read online

  “None whatsoever. Possibly freelance work.”

  “The identity of the victim?”

  “No idea.” Knox cleaned his glasses. “Don’t underestimate what you’re up against. No matter who’s the smartest woman or man in the room, he’s smarter. He doesn’t relate to people like us. He’s a dog. We were his master. We don’t love him anymore, and we kicked him out of our backyard to fend for himself. Now he can be who he really is.”

  “A scavenging mutt?” Kopański’s dislike of Knox was increasing by the second.

  Knox laughed. “In time, exactly. Here’s my number.” He handed across a card. “Call me anytime. And keep me posted on progress. I’d like your cell numbers.”

  After the detectives handed over their business cards, Painter said to Fleet, “There is every chance this will escalate, possibly spilling over into other states. If Cochrane commits crimes outside of our jurisdiction, this could get messy.”

  Fleet was nonchalant as he answered, “If that happens, we wheel in the feds.”

  “No way.”

  The lawyer sternly responded, “That’s how it works.”

  “Not if you make an exception,” interjected Kopański. “Whatever happens, it started on our patch and we’re the investigating officers. We need primacy throughout, regardless of jurisdiction.”

  “Joe, you know I can’t—”

  “Of course you can. You have that authority.”

  Fleet was about to kick back.

  But, to his surprise, Philip Knox gestured for him to cool it. “I don’t see why that would be a problem. In any case, these are the best NYPD detectives. Why make their life harder?”

  Fleet was deep in thought. “Okay, but don’t piss off other state PDs.”

  Painter smiled. “And we’d like the primacy authority in writing from the attorney general.”

  Fleet sighed. “Okay, okay. I’ll fax it over to you later today.” He was actually glad that Painter and Kopański had made a stand on this point. They were the best NYPD detectives.

  Kopański leaned forward, looking directly at Knox. “Cochrane’s presumably armed, carrying the pistol that he used to kill the woman. Maybe he’s got other weapons. Tell me something: If we trap him, will he shoot back at us?”

  The CIA officer checked his watch, glanced at Fleet, and replied, “I’m not sure. But I can say with conviction that if Cochrane shoots at you and your colleagues, you’ll all be dead.”

  Chapter 4

  In their remote rural house twenty miles outside of Roanoke, Virginia, retired academics Robert and Celia Grange were enjoying their last day with twins Tom and Billy Koenig.

  The boys’ father had been killed a year before while on active service with the CIA. A few weeks later, their mother was murdered for reasons that were connected to her husband’s death. Initially the boys had lived with their aunt Faye. But Faye couldn’t cope, struck down by grief over the death of her sister. With no other surviving family members to care for the boys, their great-uncle and -aunt had stepped in. The boys had lived with them ever since.

  But both were in their seventies. It would have been an almighty struggle to raise the boys through adolescence. To their relief, three months ago Will Cochrane—a man who’d served with the twins’ father—came to them and said he wanted to adopt the ten-year-old boys. He’d bought a home near their school, had secured a teaching post there, and was resolute that he could give them everything they needed.

  After signing the legal documents prepared by a New York law firm, today he was collecting the boys.

  Though the Granges would still see them frequently, it meant today was tinged with sadness.

  Robert was standing outside his home, looking at the valley below. So often the boys had played down there, fishing in the river, running through the woods pretending to be explorers. Part of him wished that could continue. But he was in no doubt that their future with Will Cochrane would be better. He was a fine man and would make an excellent father.

  On the outskirts of Edinburgh, James Goldsmith left the rural farmhouse that he and his wife, Sarah, owned and got in his car. As the solicitor drove to the nearest village to buy groceries, he wondered if his bank account had enough funds to make the purchase. The couple’s financial situation during the last three months had been dire. It had started with him receiving a letter from the tax authorities stating they were investigating the possibility he owed eighty-seven thousand pounds in unpaid taxes. Then Sarah’s bank account was hacked and five thousand pounds were filtered out. And at a time when they were on their knees, Sarah read James’s bank statement and erupted with rage when she saw that he’d apparently spent thousands on a night out in strip clubs. He hadn’t.

  The only glimmer of hope was when she received a call from a headhunter offering her the chance to secure a senior management position in a global law firm. She was away now, being interviewed for the job. If she got it, their financial worries would be over. Trouble was, it would mean they’d have to move. James knew that was the only option, but he loved it here. This was their new life, away from the stresses of the one they’d had in London.

  Even if Sarah got the job, he didn’t know what the future held. Sarah was still fuming at him. The only updates he was getting from her were via text messages, and even those were terse. She’d told him not to bother her while she was doing everything she could to solve their money problems.

  As he drove along a narrow country lane, he mused that at least nothing else could go wrong.

  He turned a corner, too late spotted a pony standing immobile in the middle of the lane, swerved, and crashed into a stone wall. He was dazed by the violent impact, and sat for a moment before he could summon the energy to climb out of his battered car.

  Shaken, he bent to examine the front of their only vehicle. It had to be a write-off. He had no idea if the insurance company would pay out on the damage.

  He laid his head against the car and whispered softly, “No, no, no.”

  Major Dickie Mountjoy, a punctilious retiree who’d left the Coldstream Guards four decades ago though had never allowed the army to leave him, was sitting in his ground-floor apartment scrolling back and forth between BBC1 and 2 for news about the queen’s inspection this morning of the Coldstream Guards parade.

  In South London’s tiny yet beautiful West Square, the major shared the converted Edwardian terraced town house with three other occupants. In the flat above him was Phoebe, a thirty-something seller of art, who loved champagne and nights out at middleweight boxing matches. She wrapped the old man around her finger, and occasionally could get him to smile at the absurdity of his comments. More important, she kept an eye on him to see that he was okay. Mrs. Mountjoy had died three years ago. He was alone.

  On the third floor was Phoebe’s boyfriend, David, a middle-aged mortician, divorced, with shoulder-length hair, flabby and unkempt, with a passion for Dixieland jazz and cooking.

  Neither had anything whatsoever in common with the old man, who always wore immaculately pressed garments, as he had when he had been an off-duty major partaking of a glass of port in the officers’ mess. With silver hair trimmed to military precision, a pencil-thin mustache, a slight build but back always ramrod straight despite his aching limbs, the major spoke to his neighbors as if they were the personification of ill-discipline and slothfulness.

  They were never offended, because they knew his comments—delivered in the bitten-off style favored by British army officers—were merely his attempt to bring order to the world. They also knew he had a heart of gold.

  The other occupant of the building lived in the top-floor apartment, within which was a décor not to the tastes of a guardsman who kept his home as pristine and functional as his previous quarters in Wellington Barracks. Nevertheless, it captivated Dickie every time he went in there. Though a modest two bedrooms in size, it was cleverly designed to invoke the sense that one was in the presence of a part-oriental, part-Renaissance fairy-tale cavern.r />
  The occupants of the West Square property were a ragtag group of disparate friends, glued together by a shared sense that every now and again they needed each other.

  But aside from Dickie, no one else was in the building right now.

  He was about to turn the television off, but stopped as credits rolled on the cookery program and an announcer stated that next up was the news. “About bloody time,” Dickie muttered to himself. To his consternation, the news show didn’t open with shots of the queen standing on a platform as massed ranks on foot and horseback moved with collective precision in front of her. Instead, the opener was about a murder in New York City.

  Disgusted with the show’s scheduling decision, the retiree painfully stood up and entered his kitchen to make a cup of tea. He could hear the TV in the background as he prepared his drink, and he was only half listening—something about one of New York’s most iconic hotels, a woman shot in a bathtub, a manhunt.

  The news reporter said the suspect was English.

  Dickie stepped into the kitchen doorway to look at the TV. A photograph of the murder suspect was shown full screen, with the announcement that the wanted man was Will Cochrane.

  Dickie dropped his cup and saucer, felt giddy, staggered, and reached out to grip a side table so that he didn’t collapse. “Not now,” he muttered. “Those poor boys—please, God, not now.”

  The man on the screen was the occupant of the top-floor apartment above him. A killer on the run and one of his closest friends.

  Chapter 5

  Thyme Painter walked as fast as her artificial limb would let her along a corridor in the police station. Her cell phone in hand, she entered the office she shared with Józef Kopański. Joe had two phones against his ears and another on speaker on his desk. He was talking fast to various law enforcement officials up and down the East Coast. Painter moved her hand back and forth across her throat as if she were slicing it open. Kopański ended the calls and looked at her.

  “Sightings in Philly.” Painter gestured to her cell. “Captain from Philly PD just called.”

  “Credible sightings?”

  Painter nodded. “Yes. A couple had a news picture of Cochrane on their iPad. Cochrane was sitting right next to them in a café.”

  “We need to move.”

  Painter summoned two of the precinct’s best uniformed drivers and gave them precise instructions. She and Kopański grabbed their bags containing clothes and other essential items for last-minute excursions, and three minutes later they were in Kopański’s unmarked vehicle. One squad car was ahead of them, its lights flashing and siren screaming at all other drivers to get out of their way as they raced out of Manhattan toward Philadelphia. The other squad car was behind them, also using its emergency features and driving no more than five feet behind the rear of the detectives’ vehicle. The journey to Philly was ninety-three miles and ordinarily would take nearly two hours by car. Painter was adamant they needed to be there in one hour.

  As Kopański expertly gunned through gears, Painter was on her radio mic telling the officers in the cavalcade that she would rather they all died in a 120-mile-per-hour crash than fail to get to Philly on time.

  “Where the hell is he?” exclaimed Robert Grange as he paced back and forth in their Virginia home. The twins Billy and Tom Koenig were sitting on a nearby sofa, in coats, suitcases at their feet, their expressions expectant and confused.

  Celia placed a hand on Robert’s forearm. “There’ll be an explanation. Will’s probably just running late.”

  “Late?” Robert was fuming. “The boys need the opposite of late. This is hardly the best start for Mr. Cochrane. I’m beginning to wonder if we made the wrong decision.”

  “Calm down, my dear.”

  “No, I won’t calm down!” Robert stopped, seeing that the boys’ eyes were watery as they watched his indignation. He composed himself and smiled. “Don’t listen to your granduncle, my boys. William will be with us soon. He’s not very familiar with the roads around here, so I bet he’s gotten lost. He’ll call.”

  There was a knock at the door, prompting Celia to exclaim in relief, “Here he is.”

  But the person at the door was Faye Glass, the twins’ aunt. A rotund woman with marble-white skin, except where it was dark under her eyes, she was wearing a skirt that had been unstitched and restitched many times to accommodate weight loss and gain, and a pink cardigan that she loathed the look of but that felt nice. Today her beautiful straight hair was coiled like a resting snake atop her head. She wore an expression of anger and urgency.

  “You’ve seen the news, Aunt Celia?”

  They hadn’t switched on a TV all day, having been too busy packing the boys’ belongings.

  “You haven’t,” said Faye, seeing the boys were all ready to leave. “I’d better come in.”

  Billy and Tom were sent upstairs, confused. They played with identical teddy bears Will had bought them. Inside were recording devices. Pulling the string on the bears’ backs activated the device. Pull it again, and the bear would play back the message.

  Tom recorded a message. “Is something bad happening?”

  Moments later, Billy’s bear said, “Has our new daddy had an accident?”

  “Why did he do this?” asked Celia in a hushed tone to Faye and Robert. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “We don’t know him well enough to know what makes sense.” Robert’s sharp mind was working fast. “Suspect, not murderer?”

  Faye nodded. “That’s how the networks are describing him.”

  “At the behest of the police.” Robert wanted to calm down. “He’s on the run?”

  “Yes.”

  “Suggests culpability.”

  “Or fear.” Faye was as sharp as her uncle. “He’s running because he has no choice.”

  “He told us he was once connected to the military. Do you think the murder is something to do with his past?”

  Faye replied, “I don’t know. So far no one does.”

  Celia sensed confrontation. “We know what has happened. We don’t know why it’s happened. But we do know we have to pick up the pieces.”

  Robert waved his hand dismissively. “Why hasn’t he called us?”

  “Why would he?” Celia was the smartest of the family.

  Robert snapped, “To tell us he can’t be a father to the twins because he’s gone crazy and killed a woman! We need to keep this from the boys for as long as possible.” Robert placed his arms on Faye. “Faye, my love, can you come and stay with us for a while?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it may well be you’re the only one young enough to look after the boys. But I know you can’t do that alone. We have to pull together now, until we find out what we’re dealing with.”

  I’d been watching Amtrak’s neoclassical Philly station for fifteen minutes, looking for signs that law enforcement were all over the place. There was nothing unusual, but I could tell from the number of people entering and exiting the place that the station was jammed with commuters. And I had to go in there to find out the time of the next train south and to buy a ticket. Doing that was immensely risky.

  But I had no choice.

  I entered the vast hall. It was a modern interpretation of how stations looked in the nineteenth century. Big lights resembling lanterns were hanging from the ceiling. The walls on either side of the wide marble concourse must have been at least thirty feet high and were covered with massive windows that were letting in feeble gray light from the rainy sky. Symmetrical benches were on either side of the hall. Men, women, and kids lounged on the seats. And in the center of the concourse people were moving.

  I estimated there were at least 320 people in here.

  On the plus side, some of them would be preoccupied with their travel arrangements.

  On the minus side, others would be bored while waiting. Many of them would be people watching.

  With my head low, I walked alongside a wall. All the training in the wor
ld doesn’t give you the ability to turn invisible, so this was all I could do. Stay away from the center of the hall, avoid eye contact with anyone, and take a chance.

  I purchased my ticket. The next train south was due in thirty-three minutes.

  I walked casually to the platform to wait.

  Half an hour to wait? Jeez.

  I felt like everyone was looking at me.

  And there was nothing I could do about that.

  Painter and Kopański arrived in Philly, together with their two uniformed NYPD escorts. Their vehicles screeched to a halt in the parking lot of the Philadelphia Police Department headquarters on Race Street. They’d made the journey in sixty-seven minutes.

  Captain O’Shea met them in the lot and ignored the pleasantries. “I’ve put extra uniforms on the streets. But I can’t afford a shootout. The governor’s in town to commend my men on their anticrime work. It’s being televised. A gun battle is the last thing I need.”

  Kopański said, “We want to capture Cochrane quietly.”

  “What’s his plan?”

  “We’ve no idea. In all probability he hasn’t got one.”

  “Coming here was random?”

  “Looks that way.” Kopański wondered how the senior district commander was going to react to what he was about to say. “Detective Painter and I have been given authority to operate in other states on this case. But we’re not here to throw our weight around.”

  O’Shea eyed Kopański. “Just as well. But you want to get him quiet?”

  “Yes.”

  The captain’s cell rang. He listened to the caller, hung up, and said to the detectives, “He’s just been sighted on a platform in Thirtieth Street Station. Next train in’s headed to Baltimore. I can flood the place with uniforms.”

  Both detectives recalled what Knox had said about everyone dying if Cochrane opened fire.

  Painter said, “You don’t want a serious situation today. Plus, the station has too many exits. Cochrane will probably escape if he sees uniforms. Let me and Kopański deal with this. But if we can borrow three of your officers, that would be useful. When’s the train due to arrive?”