by Matthew Dunn
Will nodded again and smiled. “Pain and death don’t scare me.” He now made no attempt to hide the strength in his voice. “But they might scare you. Your time is now up.”
The man frowned.
“I gave myself twenty minutes to find out if you were Megiddo. Just twenty minutes”—Will smiled wider—“before I lost interest in this situation.”
He heard a silenced pistol shot and felt the strangler’s arms instantly release their grip on him. The man before Will looked quickly to his left and stepped back. Movement was rapid, and in an instant Will saw Roger run before him and shoot one of the guards in the head, saw Laith and Ben crouch by the room’s entrance and shoot another man, saw the middle-aged Iranian step forward and thrust his hunting knife toward Will’s body, saw a bullet exit the man’s forehead and watched the man fall to one side before his knife could touch Will. And last of all he saw Lana standing at the rear of the room with tears streaming down her face, holding one of the dead Iranians’ pistols.
Laith moved up to Will and cut him free from his cords. Will pushed himself up and had to steady himself as his vision momentarily blurred again. He drew a deep breath and reached up to touch his ravaged throat.
Roger crouched down beside the middle-aged Iranian. “He’s Gulistan Nozari. The deputy.”
Will walked across the room to Lana. She dropped the gun and fell into his arms. He held her for a moment and smoothed a hand over her face.
She looked up at him. “Did I do the right thing?” She began to shake and cry.
Will pulled her closer and spoke softly. “You probably saved my life.”
She shook her head. “You nearly died in here because I was forced into their vehicle in Boston. I did not know what to do.”
Will held her tighter. “You succeeded in everything I asked you to do, but I placed you in an intolerable situation by losing you in Boston. I made a mistake, and I failed.”
Lana shook her head vigorously. “You did not fail, Nicholas. I met him.” She rubbed her eyes. “I met Megiddo before I was brought here by his deputy. You might not be able to catch Megiddo, but you can still stop his men from carrying out his mission. Because I know what he plans to do.”
Forty-Three
“The Camp David meeting?” Patrick folded his arms and exhaled.
“We were stupid.” Will looked at the seven police vehicles and three ambulances that stood stationary around them. Their flashing lights caught the heavy nighttime snowfall. Some uniformed men and women were moving in and out of the Hotel Monaco, while others were clearly tasked with preventing the small crowd of onlookers from trespassing on the scene. Will looked toward one of the ambulances and saw Lana standing at its rear. She had a blanket wrapped around her and was drinking something out of a plastic cup. He looked back at Patrick. “We assumed that Megiddo was going after high numbers. Not a small number of VIPs.”
Patrick nodded slowly. “The president of the United States, the British prime minister, the president of Egypt, the president of the United Arab Emirates, a senior Saudi royal, and the president of Syria. All premiers who stand in the way of Iran’s ambitions within the Middle East.” He raised his palms in a gesture of incomprehension. “Exactly why the Camp David meeting had to be made public in advance is beyond me.”
Will watched his own breath turn to steam in the icy air and said, “A public relations exercise.”
Patrick made a noise that sounded like a grunt. “Well, that exercise gave Megiddo his target.” He turned to look Will full in the face. “It’s a shame Lana could not find out how his men intended to penetrate the security surrounding the summit.”
Will shook his head. “One of the bombers assumed she was part of Megiddo’s team. The man let slip details of the target to her. But Megiddo walked in on the conversation and told the man to shut up. During the two days she spent with Megiddo, she never saw that man again.” Will smiled. “I guess Megiddo punished him for his indiscretion.”
“Where was she taken?”
“They rented a house on the outskirts of New York. But it’s empty now. Megiddo and his men left before his deputy took her here.”
Patrick nodded. “The summit was to take place in three days’ time, but it will now be canceled. That fact won’t be made public. And if Megiddo’s men are stupid enough to carry out their strike against Camp David, then they’ll meet a resistance they did not expect.” Even though Patrick’s expression was partially disguised by shadows and flashing lights, Will could see that he wore a look of deep regret. Patrick sighed and said, “You may think otherwise, but you have succeeded. You’ve identified the location of the attack.”
Will dug his hands into his coat pockets, looked at Patrick, and shook his head. “Preventing Megiddo’s mission from succeeding only ever had meaning to me if I had the man himself.” He smiled but felt hollow and angry. “He’s beaten me.”
He walked to Lana. Looking exhausted, she nodded at him and pulled her blanket tighter around her body. “I killed a man. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get over that,” she told Will.
He sighed. “I of all people can’t tell you how to feel about taking another life. But I can tell you that the man you shot was a bad man who was very much involved in this terror plot.”
Lana nodded slowly, and Will could see that her cheeks were glistening with tears. He looked around. Patrick was talking to a uniformed police captain. Roger and his men had long since disappeared into the shadows. All emergency services personnel were busy at their tasks. Nobody seemed to be looking at them.
Will placed his arms around Lana’s waist. He pulled her close to him and held her still. He kissed her tears and her mouth. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “I’m sorry that I never got Megiddo. I’m sorry that I couldn’t finally relieve you of your burden.”
Lana nuzzled her head against his shoulder. Her silky hair swept over Will’s chest and face. She held him tight. “What will happen now?”
“You must go home, Lana. Go home to Paris and take care of your mother.” He smiled, and the action caused him to feel the strangulation wounds on his throat. “You’ll be safe there. I’ll arrange for some men to watch over your house.”
A siren from one of the adjacent police vehicles briefly sounded. Will looked up and saw ambulance and police personnel emerge from the Hotel Monaco carrying bodies on stretchers. Snow fell upon the dead, upon Will and Lana and everything. He turned her away a little so that she could not see the cadavers.
“What about you?” Lana asked.
“I need to stay on here for a few days to tie up matters.”
She moved away from him. “I see.”
Will pulled her back close. “Then I’ll travel to Paris.”
Lana smiled and embraced him fully. “My mother’s in the hospital right now, undergoing further tests. She’s apparently making excellent progress, and the money you gave her has enabled her to afford accelerated treatment. I’m not needed at home for at least five days. Why don’t I book myself into a nice hotel somewhere in Washington and wait for you?” She squeezed him. “I would make sure the room is comfortable for two people.”
Will thought for a long moment. He thought about his life, the time when he’d had hope and innocence and joy, the moment when all that changed, the years he’d spent developing armor to shield himself from mental and physical injury and the knowledge that behind that shield there was still a man who wanted peace. He thought about his only true fear: his fear of doing anything that could lower his shield, to take steps toward happiness and love. He gazed at Lana. He saw that she still had hatred, but he also saw her love and her desire for happiness. He saw what he now understood to be bravery.
He pulled her close to him again and decided that this was finally the time, that this was the moment for him to make his own brave decision, a decision that would be his bravest of all.
<
br /> He looked around. Snow was still falling, but now it looked gentle and serene.
He looked at Lana, nodded, smiled, and said, “I will see you there.”
Will called Roger. “There’s no role for us in repelling the assault on Camp David. Laith is discreetly keeping an eye on Lana and will make sure she’s safe in this city. Ben and Julian are stood down. But there’s one last thing I need to do, and you’re welcome to join me if you care to.”
Forty-Four
“You have the lock-pick set?” Will slowed his vehicle and brought it to a stop on Messenger Lane, in the Sands Point suburb east of New York City.
“Of course.” Roger took out his handgun, checked its workings again, and placed it back in his jacket pocket.
“Okay.” Will looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was nearly 5:00 A.M. and still dark. He wanted to reach the place and complete his task before sunrise. “Then let’s go.”
The two men silently exited their vehicle and walked briskly along the residential street before splitting up. Will began jogging until he reached the end of the block. He stopped, checked his watch, and waited, looking around. All the houses near him were in darkness. He checked his watch again and when satisfied that he’d been there for one minute, he walked past six houses before turning off the street and sprinting down an alley. Roger was waiting for him at the end of the route.
“I’ve opened the back door. It’s quiet.” Roger nodded toward the house to their right.
“There’s no movement around the front of the house,” Will responded. “Now’s as good a time as any.”
Both men took out their handguns and small flashlights and walked into the house’s rear garden.
Will carefully turned the handle of the back door, partially opening it, and waited, listening. He could hear nothing. He crouched low and pushed the door fully open. When he entered the house, Roger followed him.
He immediately knew that everything was wrong. The kitchen around them looked lived in, had children’s drawings stuck to walls, had a small cage for a pet on the floor, had a breakfast table set for four people. He walked through to a small lounge and saw cartoon DVDs scattered in one corner of the room, a newspaper folded open to its crossword page, two empty coffee mugs, and two cans of Coke. He moved upstairs. A bathroom with door open was at the top of the stairs, and to both sides of it were two rooms with closed doors. The whole house was just too small and contained things that should not have been here.
Will nodded at Roger and silently turned the handle of the first door. He eased the door open and stepped into the room. A double bed was positioned in the center, a man and woman asleep within it. Will walked up to the bed, pointing his gun at the adults. He stood over them, observing them for a moment, before turning and exiting the room. He opened the door to the other room and walked in. It was a children’s room and had bunk beds on one side of the room. Everywhere else was messy with toys, comics, and other child paraphernalia. He walked to the lower bed. A boy lay sleeping there, his blond hair covering his pillow. He looked at the upper bed and used the muzzle of his gun to slightly lift the head of the duvet. Another boy lay sleeping underneath. He moved the duvet so that it was no longer resting over the child’s head and so that the child could breathe more easily.
Will looked at Roger, shaking his head. He walked quickly out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house. He walked until he and Roger were standing by their vehicle.
He looked back down the street toward the house. “I came here knowing that the place Megiddo used to house his men and imprison Lana for a few days would almost certainly have been cleaned and polished to remove all traces of them. I came here anyway with the tiniest of hopes that Megiddo might have slipped up and left us a clue to track him down.” He looked at Roger. “But I did not come here expecting to find a small family house that has clearly never been rented out to a large group of extremely dangerous men. And I most certainly”—he felt the anger and emotional confusion within him—“did not come here with the expectation that Lana had lied to me about this address.”
Roger drew his lips into a thin line. “What does it mean?”
Will shook his head. He wondered whether Lana had also lied to him about her mother’s treatment in Paris. He even briefly wondered whether she’d lied to him about her desire for him to come join her at her hotel. He exhaled slowly. He knew that she had not lied to him about those things. She had too much respect and love for her mother to leave her in a potentially vulnerable situation, and she had only ever told him the truth about her emotions and feelings toward him. And she had also always been honest with him that her hatred for Megiddo would continue while the man remained unpunished. He surveyed their surroundings before returning his attention to Roger. “It means Lana has done something utterly stupid. It means that she deliberately withheld the details of the real address she was taken to. There’s only one reason she would do that. She wants to go after him alone. She wants to take her own revenge against him.”
He looked up at the empty sky. “But if she tries to do so, Megiddo will kill her.”
Forty-Five
Ten minutes later Roger was speeding across Long Island with Will seated next to him.
Will pulled out his cell phone. He called Laith and listened to what the CIA man had to say.
“I was just about to call you. She left her Washington hotel three hours ago. I’ve followed her in a car to New York. I thought she was going into midtown, but ten minutes ago she turned north and is heading away from New York City. I’ve no idea where she’s going. Do you want me to stop her?”
Will thought for a moment. He cursed Lana’s desire for revenge. But he also knew that as reckless and foolhardy as her actions were, she was now offering them some hope. He said, “No. I think she’s heading for our man. Do nothing yet, but it’s imperative that you stay close to her and keep her safe.”
He called Ben, and it was obvious that he had woken the man. “You and Julian need to get on the road right now. Head north. Bring whatever weapons and equipment you can lay your hands on. We’ll need enough for a major assault. Laith is mobile and following Lana in a northerly direction out of New York. I’ll link communications among us all so that we can coordinate our routes.”
Then he called Patrick. “Stay by your phone and reject all calls unless they’re from me or one of my team.” He gave a quick update, then said, “This is our last opportunity to catch him. And I’m taking that opportunity.”
He reached down into the vehicle’s cup holder, grabbed Roger’s cell phone and hands-free device, and punched in the numbers to set the handset on conference call with all members of the CIA team. He fitted an earpiece over Roger’s ear. The man nodded and drove faster.
Fifteen minutes later Roger muttered to Will, “Ben and Julian are in a vehicle. Laith’s giving them directions, but they’re going to have to drive like a bat out of hell given that they’re still in Washington.”
“Get their license-plate number.”
Roger did so and relayed the information to Will.
Will called Patrick and gave him the details of Ben and Julian’s vehicle as well as details of his own vehicle. “I’ve no idea how you are going to do so, but make sure every cop in this part of your country knows that their career or life will be over if they try to stop our cars for traffic violations.”
Within forty minutes they were traveling on the New York State Thruway. Will watched their surroundings change from city to suburbia to wooded land. He tried to relax, but his mind and body were tense and alive again. The failure he’d felt during the last twelve hours had been replaced with a reinvigorated sense of purpose, focus, and strength. But the anger he’d felt at Lana’s stupidity remained within him—as did his overwhelming concern for her safety.
He gave up trying to relax and instead tried to think clearly, to muster all his mental stre
ngth in order to piece together the preceding events and make sense of them. He thought about what had happened in Boston, what had happened in the hotel room in Washington, D.C., the failure he’d felt despite establishing that Camp David was Megiddo’s target, and he thought about what was happening now. More than anything, he thought about what was happening now. Thoughts, questions, and suppositions raced chaotically through his mind, and he discarded most of them. Some he did not. He wondered why one of Megiddo’s men would have been so careless to mention the Camp David assault to Lana. He wondered why Megiddo and his men were still in New York State, given that Megiddo must know that his assault on Camp David would now be easily repelled. He frowned as more thoughts seemed to come together, thoughts that stood out from the others, thoughts that then rammed his body to attention and forced him to grab his cell phone, punch numbers rapidly into it, and wait impatiently while he listened to it ring on the other end.
Patrick answered.
Will spoke quickly and urgently. “Camp David’s not the target. I repeat, not the target.”
“What!”
“Not the target. It doesn’t make sense. Megiddo’s probably spent years planning this operation. He would have thought through every angle. He never would have allowed one of his men to leak details about his target to Lana.”
“Then why the hell did Lana tell us he was striking Camp David?”
Will breathed rapidly. “She told us the truth. She told us exactly what Megiddo wanted us to hear in case she and I were rescued from the Hotel Monaco torture room.”
“Oh, damn!” Patrick’s own breathing sounded swift and heavy. “He got one of his men to deliberately feed her a lie so she’d pass it on to us.”
“Exactly.” Will could feel his heart pounding in his own ears. “What could be worse than an attack on the premiers at Camp David?”