by Matthew Dunn
Will gripped his handgun and said, “Pull over quickly and stop.”
The driver’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, and he did as Will instructed.
“Turn the engine off and give me the keys.” He looked at the man and smiled. “I’m going to get out of the car and wouldn’t want you driving off without me.”
The man turned off the ignition and handed the keys to Will. Will exited the SUV and walked to the rear. He faced the oncoming vehicle. He kept his gun hidden in one hand behind his back. He waited.
The vehicle was about two hundred meters away but was still hidden behind its headlights. Will watched it come closer, watched it dip its headlights, moved his gun a little, and now clearly saw that the vehicle had the markings of a police car.
Will stood still. The vehicle was now about five hundred feet away. He kept still and waited. It moved toward him until it was three hundred feet away. Will decided that now was the moment for him to act. He dropped into a crouch, swept his gun in front of him, shot the front near-side tire, saw it skid and swerve to the left, shot the front far-side tire, watched the vehicle slump forward a little and swerve back toward the center of the road, sent three shots into the car’s engine block, and watched it shudder to a halt. He turned, walked back to the SUV, entered the vehicle, handed the keys to the driver, and said, “Let’s go.”
The man started the engine, fully depressed the accelerator, and shook his head as the vehicle lunged forward along the road. “What the hell did you just do?”
Will responded calmly, “The occupants of the car behind us were police officers. Things would have been very bad if I’d allowed them to get too close to us. So I just saved their lives.” He glanced behind him and saw men exiting the police car, but he knew that they were too far away now for the men to shoot them. But he also knew they would radio for help. “Drive very fast now.”
Within ten minutes the lights of the city of Albany were before them. Will looked at the driver. “Are you familiar with this city?”
The driver nodded. “I come here about once a month.”
“Good. Use any route you can find to get me into the city, but get off this road as soon as you can.”
Within minutes the man took a right turn so that they were on a different road. Within another few minutes, the man had changed roads twice more. Buildings were now around them. The city was now around them.
“Now drive at normal city speed limits.” Will pulled the bullet clip out of his gun, checked its contents, and replaced the clip into the MK23. He looked at the man. “Your journey’s nearly at an end.”
The man glanced down at the gun before looking at Will. He had an expression of pure terror.
Will shook his head. “In a moment you are going to stop your car, watch me get out of it, and walk away. You will then drive home.”
The man’s fear seemed to recede. “The police told me that you disarmed but didn’t kill their colleagues in the village. And I just saw you stop a police vehicle but not harm its occupants. Are you sure I wouldn’t believe you if you told me who you are?”
Will slid his gun into his jacket pocket. He pointed ahead. “Stop over there.”
The man slowed the vehicle and stopped it on a deserted side street.
Will sighed and looked at the man. “I brought you here at gunpoint, but nevertheless I’m grateful for your help.” He drew a deep breath and smiled. “You would not believe me if I told you who I am. But you might believe one thing. In less than twenty-four hours’ time, I’m certain all the media channels will be filled with news of an event that will shock the world.” His smile faded. “If I fail in my task, that event will be terrible.” He steeled his expression. “But if I succeed, the media will tell how a terrible event was averted. Either way, you can watch that news and know that you were part of that story, that for a few hours you helped the man who tried to save hundreds, maybe thousands of lives.”
The man looked back at him, narrowed his eyes, and gave the briefest of smiles. “Even though I come here every month, I always get lost in this city. It’ll probably take me at least an hour to find a public phone to call the police. By that time, if you keep off the streets for the remaining few hours of darkness, you should be nearly impossible to find in this place.”
Will returned the smile and said, “Drive safely.” He got out of the vehicle, walked, and then jogged away.
He emerged from the shadows of an alley as early-morning sunshine hit the city of Albany. The sidewalks and roads of the metropolis were caked in frozen snow, and the temperature was still well below zero, but the sunlight made the place look picturesque. Will tried to remember when he’d last seen a sky filled with anything other than snow, clouds, or darkness.
He checked his watch and saw that it was nearly 8:00 A.M. He felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out. Patrick was calling him. He cursed but knew that the CIA man would have spent a sleepless night wondering what was happening, would have broken operational protocol to call him because he was under immense pressure by the president of the United States and the prime minister of Great Britain to give them an update and was one of the few remaining allies Will had. He wondered what to do. He decided, took a deep breath, answered the phone, and spoke before the man on the other end could say anything.
“I am alive, Ben and Julian are dead, Roger and Laith are severely injured and are being kept in the Adirondack Medical Center. You need to get them out of there so that they can be taken to an Agency facility. I am in pursuit of our target, but anything else I say at this moment may compromise this mission.”
He closed his phone and turned it off before Patrick could respond.
He looked around him. People and cars were moving on streets and roads, and Will joined them. He decided that he needed to buy new clothes and a few other things to make him look normal. He decided that a flight out of Albany’s airport would be too risky. He decided that he would make the final leg of his journey to New York City by train.
Will entered the train’s bathroom compartment, shut the door behind him, and locked it. He grabbed a handrail to steady himself as the Amtrak train moved forward toward Manhattan. He placed two shopping bags on the floor and pulled out all the items within one of them, setting them on a shelf. The contents of both shopping bags had cost him over fifteen hundred dollars and had been sold to him by Albany shopkeepers who had looked at him as if he were a homeless man who had wandered into their shops from a local shelter. He filled the sink with water, removed his watch, and stripped naked. He soaked his face and applied gel to his stubble. He shaved carefully, then rinsed his face. He filled the bowl with fresh water and used a large towel to soak his entire body. He thrust his head into the sink water and shampooed his hair, then ran the tap and rinsed. He brushed his teeth. He used a hand brush to clean his fingers and under his nails. He dried his head and body with a hand towel before taking lotions from the shelf and applying them to his body and face. He squirted men’s Chanel Platinum Égoïste eau de toilette onto his throat, neck, and wrists. He brushed his short hair and looked at his reflection in the bathroom’s small mirror. His face bore deep lines of fatigue, and his body looked battered, bruised, and broken. But he now looked and smelled very clean and despite appearances to the contrary still felt strong and focused. He pulled out brand-new clothes from one of the other bags and dressed in underwear, a crisp white French-cuff shirt, a black Hugo Boss suit, and matching brogues. He looked at the pile of soiled clothes on the floor and rummaged in their pockets. He pulled out the silenced Heckler & Koch MK23 handgun, the three spare clips of bullets, a waterproof plastic envelope containing approximately two thousand dollars, and his cell phone. He secreted them all into his new suit, gathered up the soiled clothes, and placed them in one of the empty bags. He swept the toiletries from the shelf into the other bag, studied himself again in the mirror, decided that he looked g
ood, and walked out of the compartment carrying the two bags. He dropped the bags into an empty part of the train car he was now walking through. He continued forward so that he was heading to the very front of the train. When he reached the lead car, he chose a vacant seat, and looked around at the other passengers. They were reading or talking to one another or looking out the window or sleeping. He checked his watch, and knew that the train would arrive at New York City’s Penn Station in fifty minutes.
He wondered if he should sleep. He decided that sleep was the very last thing he needed, given that he might be dead in seven hours’ time.
Forty-Nine
Will stood on a side street just off Broadway in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and decided that the small hotel before him looked perfect. There were backpackers, badly dressed tourists, and dubious-looking women attached to dubious-looking men constantly coming and going from the place. It looked cheap, and its occupants looked cheap. In Will’s experience, cheap hotels were anonymous and often the best places to go to disappear from unwanted intrusion or to conduct covert meetings. He stepped across the street and entered the building.
A man stood behind a small reception desk and looked bored as he fiddled with room keys and papers. He glanced up at Will and continued to look bored as Will asked for a room for one night and said that he would be paying with cash. The man took two hundred dollars from Will and asked him for ID. Will told him that he’d lost his ID but was willing to pay him an extra fifty dollars just to get the room. The man hesitated, took the additional money, and gave him a key. He told him that there might or might not be hot water in the room’s bathroom, and that the room’s door lock was sometimes a bit temperamental. He announced that Will was not allowed visitors in his room after 7:00 P.M. but that in truth nobody here would give a damn how many guests he had in his room during the night or when he had them.
Will took the key and walked up narrow creaking stairs to the hotel’s second floor, squeezing past a short-skirted woman with generously applied makeup as she tottered down the stairway in high heels. He reached the top of the stairs and saw that his room was immediately to his right. He fiddled with the door lock until he felt the bolt snap open and entered the room. It was larger than he expected and had a lounge area, which led to a double bed on the far side of the room. But it smelled musty, and aside from the bed it had only one armchair, a couple of lamps and side tables, a minifridge, and an old-looking TV. He looked out of the room’s window, saw the daylight of New York, and heard the city’s noise.
He pulled out his cell phone and typed a message, which he sent to Lana’s number, knowing that it would not be read by her but instead would be seen by Megiddo. He told the man where he could find Nicholas Cree. Will replaced the phone in the inner pocket of his suit jacket and rubbed his face.
He wondered if tonight a huge hole would be carved into the city of New York. Then he wondered if that would happen shortly after he was murdered in this hotel.
Fifty
The day was darkening.
Lights were being switched on in the city, and its buildings sent shards of white light bouncing off their windows and into Will’s hotel room. Will kept his room lights switched off and went to look outside. He stood still and thought of everything that had happened to bring him to this place and everything that could still happen. He looked around the city, peering at the cracks between the buildings, and saw activity everywhere. He wondered if Lana was alive somewhere in the city. He wondered if instead her throat had been cut by Megiddo and her body had been dumped somewhere near Saranac Lake. He decided that he had to believe she was still alive, that Megiddo had to keep her alive, and that she would do everything she could to stay alive.
He heard laughing and shouting and arguing and swearing from other rooms and corridors in the shabby hotel. Doors opened and banged shut, and footsteps ran fast over wooden floorboards and stairs. He looked down at the street and saw a group of six men and women noisily exit the hotel. They seemed drunk, and Will imagined that they were going out to make themselves drunker. He was glad. Their departure meant the hotel was quiet for the moment.
He moved away from the window and wondered whether he should turn on one of the corner lamps. He decided to leave the room in darkness, save for what was visible from the lights that came from outside. He walked to the armchair and picked up his suit jacket.
Then he heard a creak on the stairway.
He put his jacket on and moved to one of the side tables. He picked up his cell phone, turned it off, and placed it within an inner jacket pocket.
The stairs creaked again.
He picked up his wad of cash and carefully secreted it within another pocket. He moved to his bed and looked at his Heckler & Koch MK23 and the three spare magazines that were laid in the center of the bed. He placed the magazines in his trouser pockets.
The stairs creaked again, and this time the noise was closer.
He looked at the gun and wondered if he would ever have a life without guns, and how it would feel to have such a life. He picked up the gun and checked its workings. He tested the weight of it in his hand. One day it might feel good to live a life without weapons. But not today.
The creaking on the stairs was now accompanied by audible, deliberate, and slow footfalls.
Will turned from his bed and looked at the room. Outside, it was now total night. Thin streaks of white city light slashed diagonally through the window and across his room and illuminated dust particles in the air. It reminded Will of the way Harry’s corridor had looked moments before Will had been shot in the head.
The footsteps were very close now. They clearly belonged to one person.
Will breathed in deeply and suddenly felt very calm. He felt as if everything outside this room was artificial; all that mattered was this room. He exhaled slowly, shut his eyes, and smiled. When he opened his eyes again, his smile was gone.
The footsteps stopped outside his door.
Will gripped his gun and raised it to eye level, pointing at the door. He waited, knowing that it was now 6:00 P.M., that now was the most important moment in his life, that it was the most important moment in many lives.
He held his gun steady and knew that directly outside his door was a deadly mastermind called Megiddo.
Fifty-One
The doorknob groaned as it turned slowly.
Will stood very still five meters away from the entrance. He kept his gun held high, pointing at the door. Outside his room he heard traffic, voices on the streets, distant sirens, and the overall hum of a nighttime city that was alive and energetic. Inside his room everything was different. It was quiet, and the night and the light made everything either black or white.
Thin diagonal blades of white light traversed the unlit room through the window blinds, flickered, and seemed to be cutting the room into slices. Will looked through those blades and moved one foot forward so that he was poised to shoot. The knob groaned louder, and the door moved open an inch. Yellow light from the hotel corridor was framed by the partially opened door. An icy breeze that had clearly traveled up the stairway from the streets below entered the room. Despite his having spent weeks in freezing temperatures, the air seemed colder than anything he had felt before.
The white light flickered and moved to different parts of the room. Will remained motionless, carefully controlled his breathing, and waited.
A final gust of the dreadfully cold air hit him in the face as the door swung open wide, showing the silhouette of a man before slamming shut and sending the doorway into total darkness.
Will knew that the man was now in the room.
For the briefest of moments, the city became utterly silent, the outside world seeming to pause and hold its breath.
Will said calmly, “Show yourself.”
Nothing happened. The white lights darted around the room but kept away from the door.
/> “Show yourself.”
Will heard a foot tread on the room’s floorboards. He heard something breathing. Something moving very slowly.
The white light flickered wildly but still did not go near the door. There was another step. And another.
The man appeared in the frenzied light.
Will’s heart pumped fast, but his mind felt focused. He pointed his gun at the man’s face, at a man who was as tall as he was, had slicked-back black hair, a smooth face, and black eyes, at the man he had seen looking down at him from the mountain outside Saranac Lake but who was now holding a handgun pointed straight at Will’s head.
The light settled and seemed resigned to providing snapshot images of the man. It showed a man wearing a tailored dark suit and an open-collared white shirt, a man who looked slender but very powerful, a man who was dressed like Will but was many years older, a man who looked totally in control of himself and all around him.
The man took another step forward and stopped. He looked straight at Will’s eyes. His gun hand was absolutely steady. His face showed no expression, no emotion.
“You know who I am?” he said.
The man’s voice was deep, polished, and barely accented.
Will did not move. “I do.”
The man nodded. “But you do not know why I am here.”
“No, but I do know that while you are here, you will try to kill me.”
“And I know that you will try to stop me from doing that and try to stop me from doing anything ever again.”
The two men were three meters away from each other. They were both very still. Their guns were at exactly the same level.
Will ran a finger over the trigger.