Matthew Dunn - Spycatcher

The sole remaining member of the Iranian special operations team fired back at Will three times, but the bullets flew wide of their mark. Will ran toward him and saw the man turn and quickly race back across the snow-covered meadow in the direction of the trees. With all the energy he could muster, Will moved his legs as fast as he was able in order to close down the distance between him and his prey and to stop the man from escaping back into the darkness of the forest.

The Iranian was very fast, but Will still managed to get to within forty meters of him before firing two shots near the man’s feet and shouting, “Stop or I’ll kill you!”

The Iranian slowed and then stopped altogether. Will also slowed to a fast walk while pointing his gun at the man’s head. The Iranian held his arms outward and dropped his weapon to his side. Will moved cautiously up behind him, flicked the discarded gun away with his foot, and thrust the heel of his boot into the small of the man’s back. The Iranian immediately buckled under the impact and fell sideways, then onto his back. Will walked around the man, continuing to direct the muzzle of his pistol at the man’s head. He looked at the man’s face and saw no expression save that his eyes were blinking rapidly. The man had the look of a professional.

Will stomped on the man’s stomach and then dropped his knee onto the same spot, putting his full weight behind the position. He said, “I’m not going to kill you unless I have to. But I need to know why you attacked me.”

The man moaned softly, and Will knew that he was probably exaggerating his discomfort in order to minimize communication.

Will pressed harder with his knee. “Why?”

The man shook his head and spoke in a heavy accent. “I don’t know.”

Will smiled a little after he heard the lie. “You don’t know?” He said it slowly and deliberately. He punched the muzzle of his pistol into the man’s mouth and leaned in closer. The man writhed in agony, and Will knew he was no longer exaggerating his pain. “I want you to live so that you can take a message back to the man who most certainly does know. Tell him he underestimated me and will have to do much better than this if he wants me captured or dead.” Blood from the man’s broken teeth seeped onto Will’s gun. “One day I’ll meet him on my terms.” Will leaned in closer. “And when we do meet, I’ll kill him and everyone around him.”

“You were damn reckless!” Patrick was yelling. “I gave you an instruction not to engage them!”

“And I told you on our second meeting that your instructions may not always be correct.” Will looked at the medical dressing that had been expertly applied to his naked shoulder. Patrick was on the far side of Will’s hotel room in the Sheraton, and the man nearest to him was Ben Reed. Roger had sent over the former Green Beret and specialist in medicine as soon as he’d heard that Will was injured and back in his room. Will looked up at Ben. “Prognosis?”

Ben rose from his seat and started gathering up his battlefield medical kit. The blond Ivy League-looking paramilitary man smiled, exposing his immaculate teeth. “You were quite fortunate. The bullet glanced off the top of your humerus and then exited your body through flesh. There’s no muscle damage and only a minor fracture to your bone. You’ll have yet another scar on your body, but I can see from the rest of your torso that scars don’t bother you. Still, it was a nine-millimeter bullet that hit you, and it must have hurt like hell.”

Will smiled as he pulled on a T-shirt to cover his upper body. “What’s the latest?”

Ben shrugged. “It’s three A.M. Lana’s in her room and is no doubt asleep. I most certainly should be asleep. And Roger, Laith, and Julian are on duty around Lana’s hotel.”

“The Iranians?”

“One man and one woman are on watch at the Regent. The other is not around and so is either on rest or more likely is trying to work out what on earth happened to his colleagues six hours ago.”

Will nodded. “Thanks, Ben. You’d better go get what sleep you can before you’re back on surveillance.”

Retaining his perpetual smile, Ben left. Will knew that Patrick was going to use his departure to launch into a full tirade, so he decided to get his in first. “I told you that we had to make Megiddo desperate and frustrated. I’m confident I have achieved that. And in killing three of his men and sending a taunting message back to him with the fourth, I’m fairly certain that I’ve also now pissed him off.”

Patrick walked across the room and pointed a finger at Will. “Well, you can be dead certain that you’ve pissed me off.”

Will narrowed his eyes. “You know that my course of action was right. You know that we have to get Megiddo’s thinking off kilter. And you know that to achieve such an objective requires me to take extraordinary risks.”

“You always have to take extraordinary risks. God, Alistair and I knew you were like that when you were a kid.” He grunted in frustration. “Even the Foreign Legion wasn’t dangerous enough for you, so you had to volunteer for their special operations unit so that you could be thrown into even more hazardous missions. If Alistair and I hadn’t stepped in when we did, you’d no doubt now be long dead.” Patrick grimaced as soon as he’d uttered that last sentence.

“What do you mean, you and Alistair stepped in?” Will said the words slowly.

Patrick’s face was a mask of regret.

“What do you mean?”

The CIA man rubbed a hand over his chin and inhaled deeply. He then fixed his eyes firmly on Will, with a gaze that once again held steel. “What happened after you finished your five-year career with the Legion?”

Will looked at the man for a moment and then said, “I was approached by a woman representing MI6. She told me that I had to flex my brain and go to university. She told me that after I completed my degree, MI6 would give me a home.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“It made me annoyed, because the woman was the best thing I’d seen in a long time. I wanted to have sex with her.”

“But once she politely explained that that was not going to happen, you went along with what she offered.” Patrick shook his head a little. “Did you not wonder where the financial sponsorship came from to get you through Cambridge?”

Will frowned. “I did, but I assumed it came from MI6.” His voice grew quieter. “There were, however, times when I did ask myself whether it came from some fund my dead father had left for me.”

Patrick stepped forward quickly. “See, this is where Alistair and I disagree.” He brought his face close to Will’s. “We both do share the same amount of guilt about your father’s death, but unlike Alistair I also have an equal ration of anger.”

“Why anger?”

“Because his death led to a wife having to fend for herself and die and a son growing into something even more efficient than his father-but also something far more ruthless.”

Will closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, he looked at Patrick. “Why should that matter to you?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Patrick shook his head. “Alistair and I secretly paid out of our own pockets to put you through college and discreetly introduced you to MI6 in order to direct your talents away from what would inevitably have developed into criminality. We did this because, whether we liked it or not, we had a responsibility for your father’s son. My concern about you goes well beyond what you do as an intelligence officer. If you die, Alistair and I have failed in our pledge to stop more death in your family. This operation is yours because we know you thrive on what it delivers to you. But we also know that the things you thrive on both keep you alive and bring you closer to death. Among many reasons, I’m here to make sure that the one does not become the other.”