Catherine bowed her head. “It was Antaeus’s master plan. Cripple America.”
“A country you love. I’ll ask you one last time: How could you do this?”
Catherine kissed Ed’s forehead and began rocking back and forth. “When I told Antaeus about my suspicions that something was wrong with Cobalt and that I wouldn’t tell the CIA that Cobalt was going to be in Afghanistan, Antaeus looked genuinely flummoxed. But he’s clever, very clever. He asked me how my husband was faring in the spotlight of Ferryman glory. I told him the truth.” She held her husband close. “That Ed hated being overpromoted and this exposed; that he was a good man.” She started crying uncontrollably.
“If I were Antaeus, I’d have seen that as an opportunity to tell you the truth and give you and Ed a way out.”
“Seems you and Antaeus are the same man.” Catherine was shaking. “He did tell me the truth. Said he’d manipulated me to feed crap about Cobalt, but had also used other means to build Cobalt’s profile. He called them his ‘dominos’: snippets of intelligence, conversations that he knew could be eavesdropped, information placed in certain places that could be picked up by others. All of it was crafted by him. He could stand his dominos up facing the West, and with no effort he could make them topple over toward you. You see, he’d spent years planning this. Of course, it was only recently that he learned about the joint Russian-U.N. trip to Afghanistan. But he’d always believed an opportunity like that would one day come along. When it did, he had to have Cobalt right where he wanted him.”
Will nodded, because this was the final missing piece of the jigsaw.
One that had been crafted by a brilliant Russian spymaster.
“Your sole motivation to work for Antaeus was to better your family. But over time you realized the one thing you hoped for your husband was the one thing that he hated. Promotion. So, Antaeus told you the truth to change your mind about not relaying the intel about Cobalt’s Afghan meeting. And the hook was that the fallout after the bomb was dropped would destroy Ed’s career, and give you your husband back. I suppose there was an SVR retirement fund in place too.”
“Ten million dollars.”
“Where do you think Cobalt is right now?”
Catherine placed her cheek against Ed’s. “I’ve no idea. Laying low I guess.”
Will shook his head. “Wrong guess.”
Catherine frowned.
Will crouched before her and placed his hand over hers and Ed’s. He didn’t know why, because Catherine had very nearly caused untold pain. Perhaps it was because he felt sorry for all pawns manipulated by the minds of the greatest intelligence officers.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Cochrane.” Catherine’s regret was tangible.
“So am I. You knew Gregori Shonin was a myth. Thing is though, he wasn’t the only one, and you’ve been completely played for a fool. Terrorist activities that had been attributed to Cobalt were in truth atrocities that had been conducted by thousands of other terrorists. There wasn’t one man who was financing the majority of them.”
Catherine stared at him, openmouthed, shock written across her face.
Will ran a finger against her tears, stood, and threw his handgun across the room. He’d learned the truth and felt nothing but disgust that the world of espionage reduced people to winners and losers and the dead. “Cobalt doesn’t exist.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
One week later, Will was wearing an orange jumpsuit, had shackles on his ankles and wrists, and was shuffling along a brightly illuminated corridor inside ADX Florence — a Federal Bureau of Prisons supermax penitentiary in Colorado. Four burly armed guards surrounded him as they led him through the part of the facility where he’d been kept for seven days in solitary confinement.
They forced him into a room that was bare of anything save a metal table and four chairs, all of which were molded to the floor to prevent them from being used as impromptu weapons. He was pushed down into one of the chairs so that he was facing the seats on the opposite side of the table. The guards took up positions in each corner of the room.
He waited for approximately twenty minutes, no one speaking, no explanation given as to why he’d been dragged out of his cell and brought here. He supposed it could be another meeting with the prison governor, who’d already told him that sometime soon he’d be moved to another high-security prison so that he didn’t have time to plan his escape, and that he’d keep being moved until a decision was made about his fate. Or it could be another tedious interview with a Bureau agent or CIA officer, wherein they’d barrage him with questions about what had happened during the last few weeks before walking out of the room and threatening to throw away the key to his cell because all he’d given them were lies, manipulation, and crap.
So he was surprised when the door opened and Marsha, Alistair, and Patrick walked in and sat opposite him.
Marsha was clutching a white envelope, and she looked considerably different than when he’d last seen her in the alley off Wisconsin Avenue. Her hair was immaculate, and she was wearing an elegant suit. It didn’t surprise him that Alistair was also nicely dressed. The MI6 controller rarely liked to be seen in public in anything less formal than a three-piece suit, topped off with a Royal Navy tie and hair that was always cut at the two-hundred-year-old Truefitt & Hill barbershop in London’s St. James’s Street. But the fact that Patrick was also wearing a suit worried Will, because the CIA officer was normally a roll-your-sleeves-up guy. He never dressed up unless something bad was about to happen and he needed to look the part.
Marsha said, “I know my colleagues have asked you the same questions countless times during the last few days, but now that I’m here in person, I’m going to ask the same things. How did you get to Canada?”
“I flew first class with British Airways.” Will smiled. “It was a lovely flight. Very peaceful.”
“You know anything about a Norwegian trawler vessel berthing and being boarded by Danish police in Denmark?”
“Why would I? Sea travel makes me queasy.”
“A downed aircraft off the coast of Nova Scotia containing a dead Russian female intelligence operative?”
Will remembered Ulana telling him that all paperwork had been approved for her to adopt a baby boy. “No.”
“If circumstances had been different, would you have killed any of the police officers you encountered in Nova Scotia, at the Canadian border crossing, or in Union Station?”
“I’m not a cop killer.”
“You shot one of them in the shoulder.”
“He was trying to stop me entering your beautiful country. I was rather displeased with that. I presume he’s recovered?”
“He’ll live.” Marsha tapped the envelope on the table. “Final question: You know anything about the deaths of Sheridan, Jellicoe, or twins called Augustus and Elijah?”
Will glanced at Alistair and Patrick before returning his gaze to Marsha. “Their deaths are a terrible tragedy.”
Alistair laughed.
Marsha did not. “All four were”—she frowned while trying to think of the right word—“executed in the space of a few hours, the same evening you later confronted Ed and Catherine Parker. Was that your Night of the Long Knives?”