Free A Soldier's Revenge: A Will Cochrane Novel by Matthew Dunn Page A

a new tangent, all in open countryside, over fields, forests, rivers, under a cloudy, moonless night sky.
    Several times I’d crashed into trees and other foliage, tripped on uneven ground, stopped with my hands on my knees to catch my steaming breath, before moving onward at a pace that alternated between a fast walk and a run. It was only when I was convinced I wasn’t being pursued, had put enough ground between me and the Amtrak train, and simply didn’t have the energy to put another foot forward, that I allowed myself the luxury of rest.
    Shivering as my body heat began to evaporate and sweat made my skin cold, I’d sat alone, my hands and head smarting from grazes and cuts from branches and twigs. Now I had to get into Baltimore, because out here I was too visible. But I worried about my physical appearance and my hunger.
    I reached a river that flowed through woods and crouched for ten minutes, motionless, as I observed my surroundings. No other creatures were moving, the air and trees also still above water that was shallow yet running fast over boulders. There was significant risk in doing so, but I had to do something about my disheveled and grimy appearance.
    Stripping naked, I stood in the river using water and clumps of grass to clean mud off my outer garments and boots, and thoroughly rinsing my underwear. I washed, grime and blood flowing down my body and into the river. The developing beard on my face was a good thing, but I needed to clear it and my hair of grease. Nothing in the wild could do that, only a man-made surfactant; which is why I’d stolen a small bottle of Ferragamo soap from the Waldorf.
    After I was clean, I wrung out my underwear and put it back on. I dressed in the partially wet outer garments, donned my boots, jacket, and backpack, and walked to Baltimore.

CHAPTER 10
    I n a boardroom in the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, Philip Knox presided over a meeting with the heads of the Agency and the NSA, and their deputies.
    The room, functional and businesslike, contained TV monitors that could be linked to any other senior intelligence chief in the United States and its allies, as well as Capitol Hill. Knox was acutely aware that he was not the most senior person in the room, though right now he held most sway on all matters Will Cochrane.
    He began his address as if he were a judge summoning up his findings after being presented with the case for the prosecution and defense. “Mr. Cochrane is no longer one of us.” He paused to see if there was any dissension on that point, while observing his colleagues over the top of his half-rim spectacles. The room was silent, watching him. “Perhaps we should conclude that he was never truly one of us .”
    “Now, hang on . . .” the head of NSA interjected.
    But Knox held his hand up and continued. “We would do well to think that way in order to distance ourselves from his circumstances.”
    “Circumstances?” Knox’s boss in the CIA ordinarily wouldn’t have broken ranks with one of his own, but this was a place where opinions were allowed to be expressed openly and loyalties were momentarily shelved.
    “Yes.” Knox picked up a pen and jabbed it in the air toward each member. “At what point must we worry about this?”
    His senior responded, “People like you created the monster.”
    Knox said, “Yes and no. But this is now about national security.”
    “No, it’s not. It’s about a man on the run.”
    Knox didn’t reply.
    “Our best operative is scrabbling about the East Coast, hunted.”
    “And rightly so.” Knox wondered if the others in the room had the balls to enact what he was thinking. He decided no one but him did. “He butchered a woman.”
    “Maybe he didn’t.”
    “Do you honestly believe that?”
    No one answered.
    Knox stared at them. “Cochrane’s got brutal capabilities. A woman was murdered in his hotel room. Clinically dispatched. That leaves us all in no doubt that he’s the