by Matthew Dunn
After five seconds another man ran out and took position by the front passenger door. He looked around the street and held one hand close to his body, then nodded toward the entrance of the house, whereupon two other men emerged from its door. One of them walked around the back of the car to the other passenger door. Once the other man had entered the car, it moved forward quickly.
Will shifted into drive option and followed them without headlights and at an even distance of 150 meters. As their car turned right onto Marsala Tita and out of sight, Will switched on his headlights. He paused at the Marsala Tita junction and allowed another random vehicle to cross in front of him, then turned onto the road and followed his target from behind the secondary vehicle. Within moments the secondary vehicle turned left onto Pere Devcc a and disappeared to wherever it was going. Will looked ahead, frowning. His target vehicle’s taillights were rapidly moving away from him. The car sped onward to the Sava River and its parallel-running road, Aleja Bologne.
“Fuck.” Will pressed his foot hard on the accelerator. He knew that his target was aware that something was wrong. They could have spotted him, but Will thought it was unlikely, as a pair of headlights behind a car in Zagreb suggested nothing. More likely, he decided, the occupants of the car had concluded that they were in severe potential threat from anything around them. He took the turn onto Aleja Bologne at high speed and knew that he would now be seen as a visible threat to the car ahead of him. He cursed again.
His quarry was dashing along the Aleja Bologne toward the epicenter of Croatia and one of the most heavily armed police districts in Central Europe. His target was drawing him toward a place where an attack would be futile. But Will knew that he was still eight kilometers away from that place, and therefore he had time to make a decision to abort his quest or to continue and commit to the attack before it was too late. He made his decision.
Judging by the speed of his own vehicle, Will believed that his target was now traveling at nearly 190 kilometers an hour. He dearly hoped that the vehicle he was driving was faster than the car ahead of him. He pressed the BMW’s accelerator down to the floor and watched the road-straddling lamps beside him blur into one continuous line of light. He changed lanes so that he was driving on the left-hand side of the road, heading straight toward oncoming traffic. He careered up to his target and yanked his steering wheel down to the right, causing his car to collide with the Iranians’ vehicle. Both cars immediately veered away from the road toward buildings. Will swung his wheel left and accelerated again before braking hard. He looked in his rearview mirror and saw his target perform what must have been a handbrake turn in order to face the opposite direction. Will swore. Whoever the men were, they were clearly well trained and most likely Qods Force.
He stopped his car, grabbed his rifle, and got out. A loud screech accompanied the spinning tires of the target car as it sped away. He raised the C8 and shot twice at both rear wheels. The car slumped and spun slightly left and right before stopping. It was about a hundred meters away from him. Will lifted his carbine’s sight toward the rear window of the vehicle. A door immediately opened, and one of the men shot in his direction six times. Will ignored the bullets and stepped forward to send three rapid rounds toward the shooter. They hit the man in the chest and face and dropped him to the ground. The other men jumped out of the vehicle and moved back to shelter behind their car. Will sent further controlled bursts of fire toward them. He heard them shouting, but in a measured and disciplined manner. Then they became silent. Will stopped in the road, moving his gun’s sight to the left and right of the vehicle ahead of him. Another car drove toward the stationary target car and slowed suddenly. It was clearly not hostile, but Will couldn’t afford his targets to have any more shields to use as cover when firing back at him. He sent a long burst of bullets into the second car’s engine block, which immediately stopped the vehicle a sufficient distance from his opponents. The men remained static behind their vehicle.
Will took another step forward and fired again at nothing to the left and right of the vehicle, then quickly replaced the gun’s magazine clip. The action must have been anticipated or heard by his opponents, since one of the men momentarily showed himself just as Will jammed tight his new clip of bullets. Will instantly fired his fresh rounds at the man, causing him to fall away from the vehicle. The man was not dead, and he lifted his own handgun toward his assailant. Will hesitated for the tiniest of moments, then shot him in the head.
One of the remaining two men aimed his handgun in Will’s direction without exposing any of his body. He fired once. The bullet was easily wide of its mark, but Will fired back. Cars were braking to a standstill behind him, and he hoped they were innocent bystanders rather than armed police-response vehicles. He could not dare to look, though, as the men before him would use even a split second to kill him. He decided he had a maximum of one minute left to resolve the standoff. He heard sirens in the distance and from different locations. He decided he now had seconds.
He took measured side steps to the left while holding the rear of the vehicle in his sight. The new angle exposed one of the men, who was looking straight at Will with his handgun leveled directly at Will’s body. Will moved slightly as he and the man simultaneously fired at each other. Will felt a bullet brush over his shoulder and saw the man who had fired it slump down dead. He sprinted forward and reached the target vehicle just as the last man rolled out before him, ready to engage in combat. It was an extremely brave act, since the man would have known that he could be exposing himself to a hail of automatic gunfire. But Will was now right by him and instead swung the butt of his rifle upward into the man’s face. He immediately jabbed the rifle’s muzzle into the man’s ribs. The man was incapacitated but conscious. Will looked at him and raised his gun. For the briefest of moments, he wanted to leave the brave man alive, just turn and walk away. But he knew he could not allow the man to live.
He shot him.
Twenty-Eight
Will stood on the hillside looking down at Zagreb. It was nearly midday, and a bright blue sky shone over the snow-clad city.
Roger walked up to him and stood by his side. “I got in this morning.”
Will nodded but did not look at the man. “You’ve received an update from Laith?”
“I have. He told me what you did to the remaining members of the hit squad.”
Will rubbed a hand over facial stubble. “Has Laith disposed of the vehicle and weapon?”
“Don’t worry about that. None of us can be linked to what happened. But we’ve got to tread very carefully now. The Croatian police will be on high alert, and in all probability they’ll soon link what happened here with what happened in Austria.”
Will exhaled slowly. “Megiddo should have Lana’s letter now. It should give him a new perspective on her. It should stop him from making extreme attempts against me.” He studied Roger. The man looked exhausted. “But that does not mean we can slow down. I need one of your men to go to Sarajevo and watch the Human Benevolence Foundation building and the movements of its occupants.”
“Sure. I’ll send Julian Garces. The man can be a ghost when it comes to surveillance.”
“Good. Julian’s got twenty-four hours to understand everything about the exterior of that building, because tomorrow night he’s going to watch my back while I burgle the HBF place.”
At 1:00 A.M. Will was on rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie in Paris. He turned into the side street containing Lana’s house and pulled out an envelope while standing at her front door. He knew that he could have mailed the envelope or sent it by courier, but he’d wanted to deliver it in person. He took out a pen and addressed the envelope to Lana’s mother, then pushed the package containing thirty thousand CIA dollars and nothing else through the mail slot.
He stepped back and looked at the house door. All around him was silent.
He thought about Lana’s mother. He wondered if she was sleeping. Or maybe she was lying awake, hoping for
her daughter’s return.
He closed his eyes and allowed his worst recollection to come searing into his mind.
The teenage Will Cochrane threw his school bag onto the kitchen table, smiled nervously, and called to his mother. No response. He heard nothing.
He kept going as he wondered if his mother would hug him when she read his school report and saw that his exam grades would take him to England and Cambridge University. He wondered if she would cook him his favorite meal of roast chicken. He wondered if she would even allow him a small glass of wine as she sometimes did these days.
He entered the living room.
The four men looked at Will but did not move much when they saw him. Instead they remained standing and glanced at his bound and gagged mother before looking back at him. One of them smiled and spoke.
“Where is the money?”
Will felt sick, giddy, and overwhelmingly confused. He looked at his mother. Tape had been wrapped around her head and body. She was sitting on a chair, her eyes rolling in their sockets. He had never seen a human being look so ill and so odd.
“Where is the money, boy?”
He looked at his sister. She was curled into a ball on the floor, sobbing. One of the men had a large-booted foot planted on her head.
Will looked at the man who spoke and answered him with a voice that did not seem his own.
“What money?”
The men laughed loudly and then went silent. Their spokesman pointed a finger at Will.
“Big houses like this mean big money.”
Will shook his head and felt as if he’d done something wrong. He tried to make his voice strong and measured, but instead he just blurted the truth.
“We have no money. This house belongs to the government. My daddy used to work for them before he died. All the rich people around here know that we have nothing.”
Two of the men laughed again, but two of them did not. The spokesman was one of those who remained impassive and suddenly looked very scary. He took a step toward Will.
“Find us money, or we’ll kill your mother and your sister.”
Will looked at his mother. Her eyes were now closed, and her head had slumped down. He called to her.
“Mother?”
The scary man’s eyes widened.
“She can’t breathe. The clock is ticking, boy.”
Will felt a burning sensation in his brain and eyes and knew that it was the sensation that preceded tears. He looked at all the men. Even though Will was easily as tall as they were, they looked so big and strong and like nothing else he had seen.
He slowed his breathing. He saw his mother starting to twitch. He wanted to run to her. Words came from him without any evident thought behind them.
“I’ve told you the truth. But we have some cash in a drawer. If I get it for you, will you help my mother?”
The men glanced at one another. Three of them shrugged and nodded at their spokesman. That man then stepped closer to Will. His breath smelled bad.
“Get it. But if you run, we’ll kill her. Then we’ll do worse to your sister.”
Will’s mother was now no longer twitching or even moving at all. Will imagined that she was pretending to sleep. But he knew she was not. He turned and walked out of the living room. He walked into the kitchen and looked around. He walked to a drawer. He opened it and instantly thought about lemonade, as this was the drawer that contained the bottle opener to the glass-bottled brand of lemonade his mother bought for him. He brushed his fingers over the bottle opener and then moved them toward the carving knife that his mother used when slicing his favorite roast chicken.
He had always been scared of this knife, but now that he held it for the first time it felt so light and innocent in his hand. He convinced himself that it would not be scary enough for the big men in the other room. He decided it wasn’t the knife that mattered but the hand carrying it.
He walked back into the room. He felt energized but no longer himself. He felt as if everywhere around him was on fire but only he could feel no heat or pain. He felt a blackness descend upon his mind.
He looked at the men and smiled.
And then he destroyed them.
Will looked up at the star-filled sky and exhaled. He shook his head and closed his eyes. He gripped his fist tight and felt his heart pounding strong and fast. He breathed rapidly before holding his breath and then exhaling again. He felt his heartbeat slow. He felt his body and mind calm. He opened his eyes, glanced at the stars again, and looked down at Lana’s mother’s door. He nodded toward it and whispered, “I’ll bring your daughter home soon. I swear.”
He turned back toward Central Europe and the perils it held.
Twenty-Nine
Twenty-one hours later Julian Garces handed Will a backpack and said, “Everything you need is inside the bag.”
Will took it and nodded at the former air force special operative. “You’re satisfied you’ve obtained an accurate layout of the place?”
The big Hispanic man angled his head in assent. “I’m satisfied. And I’m also satisfied that this is going to be tough.”
The man turned and jogged off into the darkness. Will attached a radio earpiece to himself, and within a few minutes he heard Julian’s quiet voice. “One man is exiting the building. He enters parking lot. He halts at vehicle. He enters vehicle. He drives.” Julian said nothing for a moment before recommencing the commentary. “Vehicle moves on to Nedima Filipovicai. It drives onward. It’s now out of my sight. That should be the last of them, but continue to hold position.”
Will looked around the snow-covered business area of western Sarajevo. There were three rectangular office buildings here that shared two parking lots. Based on Julian’s reconnaissance of the place, Will knew that the Human Benevolence Foundation rented five rooms within the central building of the three. He also knew that a further twenty-two companies used the same building. But right now there was no evidence of business activity around the place. The lots were empty, and now that the last of their occupants had left work, the buildings were in darkness save for the glow from their sporadic external security lights. Nevertheless, Will remained alone in the shadows and awaited Julian’s instruction to proceed.
“Okay. My three-sixty sweep of the building is complete. Go.”
Will lifted the small knapsack and walked quickly around the perimeter of the three-building area. As he reached the westernmost point, he slowed his pace while focusing on his earpiece. Then he heard what he was waiting for.
“Stop. You’re at the camera’s blind spot.”
Will turned and looked at the building nearest him. Julian had told him that he needed to tread a very careful path across the fifty meters between where he now stood and the first building. He fixed his eyes on one specific part of the building and walked forward.
“You’re straying. Take one pace to the left and then continue.”
Will did as he was told and then moved forth. Within thirty seconds he was flush against the wall of the building. He stayed still for almost a full minute until Julian spoke again.
“Right. This is the tricky part. Do exactly what I say.”
Will knew that he would have to follow Julian’s instructions with split-second precision in order to avoid alerting the guard.
“Move to the southwest corner in three, two, one, go.”
Will sprinted twenty meters alongside the wall and then stopped.
“Hold. Hold.” Julian’s voice was calm. In twelve seconds he said, “Move.”
When Will had reached the next corner, he could see that the central building was approximately seventy meters away from him. He tightened the straps of his knapsack and waited.
“Okay. Turn to face the northwest corner of the target building. Take thirty of your paces. Ready in three, two, one, go.”
Will moved into position within this parking lot. He felt quite exposed in the open ground, although he knew that Julian’s instructions would give him p
erfect protection from the cameras.
“Adjust position to face the center of the building.”
Will did so.
“Good. This next part needs to be very fast. Nine meters per second. On my command. Three, two, one, go.”
Will sprinted as fast as he was able over the forty-meter distance and did not slow as he reached the building. He crashed into its wall and ignored the pain in his hands and shoulder wound from doing so.
“Now walk slowly toward the northwest corner until I tell you otherwise.”
Will moved while allowing the wall to graze his jacket.
“Stop.”
Will stopped. It was thirty seconds before he heard Julian’s voice again.
“Ready your equipment. When I say go, you’ve got twenty seconds to get inside.”
Will removed the knapsack from his back and took out one of the implements from within the bag. The object weighed exactly twenty pounds and had been made by Julian. Though crude-looking, the two-handed ram would be extremely effective against all but the most sophisticated door locks. Will put his pack back on and held his ram in one hand.
“Make it quick. Three, two, one, go.”
Will ran fast, turned the corner of the building while keeping its wall directly by his side, and kept running as he approached the side door. He barely slowed his pace as he reached the door and swung the ram with both hands against the lock. He then stepped back and forth as he struck the ram against the upper and lower hidden hinges on the other side of the entrance. He swung the ram into the middle of the door and pulled at its handle. The door fell to one side, and Will stepped into the building. He put the ram back in his bag and pulled out a flashlight.
“Good. The alarm will now be sounding in the security office. I’ll let you know when trouble comes, but I’d say you’ve got a maximum of ninety seconds.”
Will followed the route he’d been given earlier by Julian. He ran through a corridor and up two flights of stairs before heading along the top-floor corridor. He counted eight doors on his right before turning left and coming to a halt opposite the door he needed. He crouched down and pulled out a five-piece lock-pick set. Despite being crude, the tools were more than a match for the door’s basic Yale lock, and within five seconds he opened the door and entered the suite of offices rented by the Human Benevolence Foundation.