Matthew Dunn - Spycatcher

“You had other men with you in Central Park.”

“Against my wishes. They died and let me down. I should have been there alone. My agent would still be alive if I hadn’t put my faith in others to help him.”

“And yet it was ultimately you who ended his life.”

Will was silent.

Patrick inhaled deeply. “However you intend to construct this operation, Alistair and I are in complete agreement that you must have support. And your priority must be to capture Megiddo, not protect Lana. You certainly can’t do both.”

“I can damn well try.”

“You talk of risk.” Patrick smiled a little, but his look remained cold. “Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”

Will said nothing.

Patrick nodded. “We’ve calculated that you need at least eight men for all surveillance, protection, and attack requirements. But I can only get you four specialists, and Alistair has advised me that he can’t get any shooters from MI6.”

“I thought this operation had been countenanced from on high? Surely the premiers would give us all the resources we needed?”

Patrick glanced down at an inch-high pile of loose papers. “You bring me back to that ‘but.’ ” He placed a thumb against the pile and strummed the papers’ edges. “The Hubble report I showed you is without doubt genuine. However, since its release, something else has happened. Hubble has been inundated with further signals from intelligence about other intended attacks across Europe and the U.S. It’s caused a state of high anxiety, to say the least, and it has stretched resources beyond reason. I was lucky to secure you four CIA paramilitary officers.”

Will frowned. “Are you getting results from actions taken on the content of these other NSA reports?”

Patrick shook his head and looked frustrated. “That’s the thing. The reports are informative enough to be taken seriously but not specific enough to guarantee results.”

“What does NSA say?”

Patrick rose from his chair and walked to a window. He placed his hands in his pockets and stared out. “You have to understand that we live in a world of bureaucracies and conflicting agendas.” He turned to face Will. “NSA is so damn protective of their precious Hubble operation that they’ve decided it cannot be challenged. I’ve asked them about the new reports, and they’ve told me to mind my own business. I can’t even get the president to order them to cooperate with me, since for him to do so would prompt too many intrusive questions from Congress.”

Will shrugged. “Well, providing you’re convinced of the validity of the initial Hubble report, these other reports should be of no concern to us. Aside from the fact that according to you it means my operation does not have enough resources.”

Patrick folded his arms across his chest. “I think these other reports could be of every concern to our operation.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t prove anything to you yet. What I can say is that these other reports look too similar to the original Hubble report of two weeks ago. But unlike the original report, I think the subsequent reports have been manufactured. The trouble is, only NSA can substantiate that view.”

“Good luck.”

Patrick smiled. “I should be wishing you good luck.”

He turned back to look out the window. “I told you that I’m used on extreme matters. I told you I needed you because you had a head start with the operation against Megiddo. What I didn’t tell you is that you also have another use to me.” Patrick turned again to look at Will. “You’re deniable.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“At seven-thirty tomorrow morning the children and wife of the NSA’s Head of the Middle East Counterterrorism Desk will leave for school and work. At eight-thirty the NSA officer himself leaves for work. I need you to be in Baltimore tomorrow to have a little chat with him before he heads off for his morning duties.”

Will frowned. “You want me to interrogate a senior NSA officer?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

Will thought about the question. “I’m willing to frighten him, even hurt him a little, but I refuse to torture a man who’s on our side.”

Patrick held up a hand. “I do have to make tough decisions, but thankfully making a decision to torture a Western intelligence analyst isn’t one of them right now.” Patrick walked back to the table. He said nothing for a while, just stood looking at Will. He then spoke quietly. “Alistair has warned me that you view your work as a means to take revenge against the tragedies of your early life. He’s warned me that you never stop, that you make immense personal sacrifices, that you care nothing for rules or protocols, and that your compassion for the weak and innocent is balanced with an unflinching desire to slaughter evil.” He raised his voice. “But he’s also warned me that there are aspects of your character that neither he nor you yet fully understand.” His voice hardened. “The operation to capture Megiddo requires us to play with the very highest stakes. For reasons that will become clear to you in a moment, I need to know that you can be controlled.”

Will narrowed his eyes. “I control myself.”

“How? How can you do that?” Patrick demanded harshly. “How can you do the things you do without professional and personal guidance? How can you continue to exist without those things?”

Will was silent before saying, “When my war ends, I may be forced to face those questions. But by then it won’t matter, because I’ll most likely be dead.”

Patrick waved a hand in what looked like frustration. “You are your father’s son, but through circumstance you’ve also become a distillation and a corruption of the man I last saw in Bandar-e ’Abbas.”

Will stood quickly and kicked his chair to the floor. He took two paces toward Patrick and glared at the man.

Patrick stepped back and raised a hand. “Please sit down.”

Will didn’t move.

“Please sit down.”

Will held his gaze on Patrick. “Be very careful with your words.” He sat and watched Patrick do the same.

Patrick seemed to be composing himself. “There’s another reason Alistair and I know that you’re the best officer for this mission. And that reason will change everything for you.” He nodded slowly and lowered his voice. “Everything.”

“What do you mean?”

For the longest time, Patrick studied Will. “What’s your last memory of your father?”

Will narrowed his eyes. “I was five years old. I remember seeing him walk across a stretch of tarmac to an airplane. I was waving to him with one hand while holding my mother’s hand with the other. I saw him get onto the plane. And I never saw him again.” The anger within Will receded as he pictured the memory. “I later learned that the plane was bound for Iran.”

Patrick nodded. “That would have been his first and last trip into Iran and three weeks before his capture.” He broke eye contact for a moment, and when he looked back at Will, there was sadness in his eyes. “For the first year of his captivity, we knew from our agents that your father was moved around Iran by the revolutionaries and kept in cellars and other secret locations. But after the revolution of 1979, the revolutionaries became officials and your father’s incarceration was formalized. He was transferred to Evin Prison in Tehran and kept in solitary confinement between the frequent bouts of torture inflicted on him. In the seventh year of his imprisonment, your father was taken into the room that was normally used for his torture, but instead of seeing one of the many usual torturers, he was confronted with the revolutionary man who had set us all up. That man had now become an important person, and the prison guards stood back as he set about his task.”