A Soldier's Revenge: A Will Cochrane Novel (15 page)

What the hell was happening? Had they been kidnapped? Murdered and their bodies removed? That would make no sense. The only blood in the room was that surrounding Celia’s dead body. The poor woman had come in here for a reason. And it was to protect. One of the twins had been in here; the other was most likely out with Faye. Unless Faye and the other twin were dead somewhere on the property.

I had to get my thinking straight and search for anything in the room that might help me understand what had happened. So many times I’d searched rooms—partly in the way that police forensics teams do, but also looking for things that only spies know may be relevant. Though time wasn’t on my side to conduct a thorough search. My thinking accelerated in the way it always did when I was under extreme pressure.

Only Tom was in here. Celia comes in. Locks the door. Knows it won’t hold. Courageously puts herself between the killer and the boy. She tells the boy to hide. Where would he go?

I rolled under Tom’s bed. The teddy bear that I’d bought him was there. Why would he discard the favorite toy, when in a situation of abject terror he would have clung on to it for dear life? If it had been grabbed off him, it would be lying on the floor away from the bed. I picked it up, got out from under the bed, and pulled back the drawstring to activate its voice recorder. What I heard chewed me up.

An eastern European man’s voice. Most likely Russian.

Lisping.

His words: “I know you’re under the bed. It’s going to hurt if I have to drag you out.”

Tom had recorded the man’s voice, knowing it was his only chance to be rescued.

I had no idea who the man was.

I tensed as I heard a car approaching.

Pulling back the window curtain slightly, I could see a car’s headlights. It was drawing closer. But I had no way of identifying who it was in this darkness.

I muttered, “Shit,” ran downstairs, and shoved Tom’s teddy in my backpack. After grabbing the detective’s SIG Sauer P229 pistol and four spare magazines, I put my backpack on. I left the house and picked up the other murdered detective’s pistol.

Just as a car reached the rise of the valley, fifty yards away.

One of the house’s external security lights came on as it detected the movement of the approaching vehicle. I could clearly see that the driver was Faye and that in the back was Billy. She screeched to a halt when she saw me standing stock-still in her headlights, a gun in my hand and a dead body close to my feet.

I shouted, “Faye, Faye!”

Faye’s mouth was wide open in shock and terror. She put her car into reverse and drove fast away from me.

I sprinted toward her, desperate that she should know what I’d found and that things were not as they appeared.

Faye stopped the car at the head of the lane, tried to put it into first gear, and fumbled the action.

Billy was shouting something.

I was twenty yards away, still calling to Faye.

Faye finally engaged gears and put her foot to the floor.

I lunged at the driver’s door, but missed the handle by inches as Faye sped down the lane.

She was always a dreadful driver. Not now, though. She was too fast for me to pursue her on foot and try to persuade her to stop and listen.

I dropped to my knees, my head to the sky.

I heard sirens in the distance. Many of them. But I stayed still, tears rolling down my cheeks, wanting the world to swallow me up. Just let them take you, I told myself. The cops can end the pain. Or shoot at them and allow them to gun you down. Anything is better than this.

Tom had been kidnapped.

I’d be blamed for it, but that outcome didn’t even feature in my thinking. I imagined the poor boy in the back of one of the cars I’d spotted on the main road at the bottom of the valley.

I had to get him back.

No. I just couldn’t let this end here.

I had a boy to save.

And a bastard to catch.

I got off my knees and vanished.

Z
hukov looked at the boy by his side.

Next to him was the female member of his team, the doctor. She rolled up Tom’s pajama sleeve, momentarily rammed his head down as cop cars raced by in the opposite direction, and injected him with drugs. Tom yelped. Within ten seconds he was comatose.

Zhukov called Edward Carley. “Sir—it’s done. We have the package and are heading to the location.”

That location was outside Washington, D.C.

Carley replied, “Good. Supervise proceedings at the location. Then I want you to head back to Roanoke and await my further instructions.”

Carley hung up. Everything had gone according to plan.

Things were bad enough for Will Cochrane. Now they were about to become infinitely worse.

CHAPTER 17

T
he Scottish police car wound its way along the country lane outside Edinburgh, rugged hills on either side. Sheep that had been sheltering from the blustery weather bleated and scattered.

The lane was a dead end, only one house at its end.

The police car stopped outside the house. One male and one female exited the vehicle and knocked on the door.

Inside, James was rubbing flea powder into the fur of his beagle, Tess. She seemed to love the attention. James, however, was going through the motions. He was in a daze, thinking only about Sarah.

He kept telling himself not to panic. Sarah wasn’t dead. She was in some kind of trouble, probably. Or she was being unfaithful. Funny how the thought that she might be screwing another guy was one he hoped turned out to be true. No, not funny. Nothing was funny.

If she was dead, his world would collapse.

He knew the knock on the door was the police. Few people came here. Those that did were usually Amazon deliverymen. But that only happened when Sarah was around and in full online shopping flow. And he’d been waiting day and night for the police to show up.

He went to the door, his hands clammy and still holding the flea powder. “It’s to do with my wife,” he told the female uniformed police officer who was standing in front of him.

She nodded.

I
t was 6:20
A.M
. when detectives Painter and Kopa
ń
ski arrived at the base of the drive leading up to the Granges’ home.

Just off the main road, the squad car belonging to the murdered cops was still in situ. Tape cordoned off the area and forensics experts were poring over the scene. A cluster of uniformed and plainclothes officers were standing outside the cordon, just watching.

The NYPD detectives walked over to a man they knew—Detective Andrew Haine, Richmond PD.

“Quite a mess, Andrew.” Painter looked at the car and the bloody area of scrubland twenty yards away. The cops’ bodies were no longer there. All the murder victims had been taken away hours before. “I’ve got the headlines, but tell us in more detail what happened?”

Haine barely glanced at Painter. “We’re still collating results.”

“Yeah, but what happened?”

The Richmond detective resented the presence of the NYPD on his patch. They had no jurisdiction here. “We have three scenes. This one; the one outside the house; and the one in the house. What happened here is that Cochrane approached the vehicle, probably got talking to them, they got out of their car, he shot them. Then he dumped their bodies where you can now see their blood. Last night you wouldn’t have been able to see them unless you were looking with a flashlight.”

Kopa
ń
ski said, “You know it’s Cochrane because of bootprints?”

“Among other things, correct. The prints match the ones you supplied us from his room in the Waldorf Astoria. They’re everywhere—around the car, around the bodies.”

Painter said, “Remember, Cochrane is still only a
suspect
. There’s a possibility he’s innocent.”

Detective Haine laughed. “Would you bet your house on that?”

Painter didn’t reply.

Her acid-scarred colleague stated, “Motive was to get the cops out of the way before he approached the house. You think he did that on foot?”

Haine nodded. “We’ve got his tracks going up the side of the lane to the kill zone. There’s also evidence of the squad driving up there last night, but that would have been a routine check on the Granges and their guards before the officers came back down here and got murdered.” Haine pulled out a stick of gum, tore it in half, and popped it into his mouth. “Got murdered,” he repeated. “I’ve drafted in everyone I can from state and county. We’ve put a net over the area. Still, it’s a vast zone to cover.”

“The boy will slow him down.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

“But then again, Cochrane’s evaded capture so far,” Painter said. “Where are Faye and Billy?”

“We’ve put them in a safe house in Roanoke. Billy’s going to be homeschooled for the time being. Faye’s got an emergency leave of absence from her work. And they’ll have twenty-four-seven protection until Cochrane’s caught.”

“We need to go up to the Granges’ house,” Kopa
ń
ski said.

Haine looked him in the eye. “This is my investigation.”

Kopa
ń
ski shrugged. “No, it’s not.”

“What did you say?”

“I said it’s not. In fact, all things to do with Cochrane are our business.” He showed Haine the attorney general’s letter authorizing Painter and Kopa
ń
ski to have primacy on the case and ordering all other officers to assist them in every way possible.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Painter stepped in and played diplomat. “Joe and I don’t want the glory. We just want to catch the son of a bitch. Whether we arrest him or kill him, everyone involved will get the credit, you included.” She added something that was true. “In fact, Joe and I would prefer not to get any publicity. That kind of stuff doesn’t flick our switches.” She knew Haine was the opposite. “
Please
. Take us to the house.”

Haine hesitated before saying, “Okay, then. But I’m coming with you.” He drove them up the lane to the house, stopping his car at the rise. “This is as far as we can go by car. The rest is on foot. Here.” He handed them plastic shoe covers. “And don’t touch anything.”

They walked to another cordon that surrounded the spot outside the house where the first Roanoke detective had been gunned down.

“Any new updates?” Haine asked one of the three forensics officers working the scene.

The expert replied that nothing had changed. The police squad car had come up here at some point in the evening. After it was gone, Cochrane had arrived—his bootprints were everywhere. The murdered detective was either already out doing a perfunctory check of the perimeter, or more likely he’d heard something and came to check. Probably Cochrane had deliberately lured him out, based on the fact the detective wasn’t wrapped up warm. He’d come out here quickly, thought there was nothing to see, turned to go back in, and that’s when Cochrane attacked him.

“Attacked?” asked Painter of the forensics officer.

“Walked up to him and shot him twice in the back of the head.”

“Come with me,” said Haine to the NYPD detectives.

They followed him into the Granges’ home.

The place was abuzz with Virginia state and county officers and forensics experts. Police tape was everywhere, cameras were flashing, videos being recorded, and everyone was going about their business while barely uttering a word. Haine, Painter, and Kopa
ń
ski walked along a white paper path that had been laid down by the forensics team and designated the only place that other officers were allowed to walk. The tape around the path had various signs at stages in the house, including
STOP, ONLY FORENSICS PAST THIS POINT, AREA NOT ANALYZED
, and
DEAD VICTIM
.

DEAD VICTIM
was the sign that greeted them at the entrance to the only downstairs bedroom. Inside were two forensics officers, head to toe in white coveralls, masks on their faces, and rubber-gloved hands taking swabs from the bedsheets belonging to the second murdered detective.

“Anything deviate from what you last told me?” Haine asked one of them.

The forensics officer shook her head.

The Richmond detective led them up the stairs. “This is why Cochrane came here.” He pointed at the pool of blood belonging to Robert Grange at the end of the hall. “Mr. Grange came out of the bathroom, intending to enter the master bedroom. He stopped when he saw Cochrane standing close to where we are. Cochrane immediately shot him.” He walked along the strip of white paper laid over the cream carpet. “This is the master bedroom. Celia Grange was in bed here, door was open, she saw her husband gunned down. Her immediate instinct was to protect the boy.” He led them into the twins’ room. “She rushed in here, got shot in the process but not badly enough to stop her locking the door. Tom Koenig was in here. She stood in front of the door—a human shield—knowing that someone as strong as Cochrane would easily be able to kick it in. It was incredibly brave. She got knocked onto her back. Was then shot. The boy was grabbed.”