Matthew Dunn - Spycatcher

Lana

“Excellent.” Will handed the letter back to Lana. “You need to get this to the embassy straightaway.”

“You were really attacked?”

He smiled. “Sort of.” He rose from his chair and nodded toward the door. “I’ll go first. You leave in fifteen minutes.”

“His people are watching me, aren’t they?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Don’t take me for a fool.” Lana’s words were forceful, but the anger didn’t show on her face. She walked up to Will and touched his arm. The action caused him to wince in pain. She spoke in a hushed but urgent voice. “Nicholas, you are hurt.”

“It’s an old injury that’s just been acting up lately. I’m fine.”

She shook her head, then kissed him gently. “Why don’t you wait for me here so that when I return from delivering the letter I can attend to your wound?”

Will sighed. “Lana, you know I can’t.”

Lana walked toward the door, then turned to look back at him. “One day you’ll be here for me. I know you will.”

As Will exited Lana’s hotel, his cell phone rang. He listened to Roger’s voice.

“The surveillance team has immediately changed formation and has certainly spotted you. One of them has made a call. They must have put the hit team onto you.”

Will nodded. “Let’s hope they bring their passports with them. I’ll wait here for an hour so that I can be certain the hit team has me in its sights. Then I’ll move and meet you there.”

“Understood. Hold on.” Roger was silent for nearly thirty seconds before speaking again. “I’ve just heard from Laith. He’s been watching the hit team’s house. Six of them have just left, but the remaining four are sitting tight.”

“Damn it. I was hoping they would put the whole team onto me.”

“It looks like they’re too professional to take that kind of risk. They’ve kept some men behind as backup should things go wrong.”

Will thought for a minute. “Can one of your team get me a weapon for when I return to Zagreb? Preferably something better than a handgun.”

“I’ll see what can be done.”

Will closed his phone and sighed. He knew that whatever happened, there would be a lot of death this night.

It was evening now, and Will dined alone at a rear corner table in the prizewinning Steirereck restaurant in Vienna. He had decided to dress appropriately for the venue and wore a Manning amp; Manning suit, a Dunhill French-cuff shirt, and a silk tie that he had bound into a Windsor knot. He ate smoked catfish on a hot artichoke salad, paprika beef goulash with toasted bread wrapped around leek and pumpkin, and a warm damson tart. He drank a glass of Gruner Veltliner with his food and ordered a glass of Hine cognac when he had finished.

As his digestive was delivered, some new diners arrived at the empty table nearest to him. Judging by their attire, they’d just come from the opera. They were a middle-aged couple and a boy, probably their son, of twelve or thirteen. The boy seemed bored and tired. Will asked the waiter for his bill and found himself observing the trio. The mother was animated, and though Will’s German-language skills were limited, he was able to ascertain that she was explaining the opera’s story to her son, laughing and waving her arms in the air while reenacting the dramatic climax. The father sat quiet, smiling gently at them. Will watched the man reach a hand across their table and squeeze his boy’s shoulder. The boy looked at his father’s hand and then grinned. He suddenly seemed reinvigorated and happy.

Will took a sip of his cognac and then exhaled slowly. He wondered what the future held for the young Austrian boy at the next table. He hoped it was a good future and that the boy would never have to say a routine good-bye to his father only to hear days later that he’d been killed in an accident, would never have to feel ashamed that his youth prevented him from looking after his mother, and would never grow into a man who would do things like what Will had to do this evening.

Will’s feet crunched over snow as he walked across the Stadtpark before exiting into Gartenbaupromenade. He walked quickly in a northwesterly direction across the city center. Despite its being near midnight, there were too many pedestrians on the streets, and Will knew he had to find a place where he could be alone and unobserved. But the place also needed to be public, so as not to arouse suspicion. He went past hotels, shops, restaurants, and bars, and then, as freezing weather seemed to be finally driving people off the streets and back to their homes, he spotted a small cafe. He entered and ordered an espresso, which he drank while perched on a window-facing stool. He made the coffee last fifteen minutes before he stepped back out onto the city streets. All around him was now nearly deserted, and he continued his journey northwest before arriving at the place where he hoped things would happen.

Before traveling to Austria, Will had carefully studied the route he’d just taken and the grounds of the building now before him. The church was called Votivkirche, built in 1879 at the request of Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph after his brother, Emperor Franz Joseph I, was stabbed in the throat on the site by a Hungarian nationalist. Votivkirche was tall, with two illuminated towers, but its base and the expanse of snow-covered woodland before it were dark. Will could see no one around him.

He stood facing the church and listened, but aside from occasional distant traffic noises he could hear nothing. Although his legs began to ache from the cold and lack of movement, he ignored the discomfort and tried to remain as still as he could. He counted seconds and minutes in his head, then finally gave up when he realized he’d been in this position for close to half an hour.

Doubt overwhelmed him. He wondered if he had overestimated the Iranian hit squad’s ability to follow him to Vienna. He wondered if he should have waited longer at Lana’s Zagreb hotel to allow them to pick up his trail. Either way he began to wonder if his trip to Austria had been in vain. He waited, still listening, for what seemed like another ten minutes. He took his cold hands out of his pockets and stretched his arm to expose his watch, flicking on a lighter to illuminate the watch’s surface. It was nearly midnight. He sighed and placed both hands back in his pockets. That’s when he was struck from behind with terrific force.

For a split second, Will was aware only of the sound of rapid breathing, the weight on him, and the sensation of snow against one side of his face. He tried to move his limbs but could not do so, and the pain from the impact shot up his spine. He shook his head and struggled desperately to think. More noises. They sounded like rapid footsteps, and then he heard two distant snapping sounds, followed by two louder thuds. He summoned all his strength and forced himself to focus. He managed to twist slightly, catching sight of the man who was pinning him down with a viselike body hold. The blurred image of a second man’s face appeared and seemed to be saying something, then disappeared. The man holding him adjusted his position slightly and jammed an elbow against Will’s throat and pressed down. Will knew that his attacker was trying to render him unconscious.

The man raised himself a little to improve his leverage. But the action and the increased distance between the two men gave Will the chance he needed. Pulling one arm loose, he punched the palm of his hand repeatedly upward into the base of the man’s nose. It took seven strikes before his assailant fell limply over him. Will pushed the dead man aside and immediately rolled before standing. One other man was standing twenty meters away, with his back to Will. Two men lay dead on the ground at his side, and Will knew they’d been shot by Roger. He also knew that the man standing over them was most certainly not Roger and was probably scanning the area to find his colleagues’ killer. And the fact that Will could account for only four rather than six of the unit meant that in all probability the other two were now engaging with Roger near his out-of-sight position by the church.