Matthew Dunn - Spycatcher

Ben looked at Will and said, “I bet it feels like someone’s struck your head full force with an iron bar.”

Will raised his hand to the side of his head and felt padding. “Shit. What time is it, and where’s Roger?”

Ben spoke as he applied a damp swab to Will’s face. “We got you here two hours ago. Roger and Laith are now on a plane, seated a few seats behind Lana. They’ll be landing in Boston in eight hours.”

Will pushed himself away from Ben and sat upright on the bed. He swung his legs off the bed and stood. He instantly felt giddy, and in his peripheral vision he saw the two CIA men come to his side to hold him. He closed his eyes, breathed, then opened them again. “Let go of me.”

The two men held their grip for a while and then did as he asked.

“What time is the next flight to Boston?”

Ben frowned. “There’s a Lufthansa flight via Munich at twelve-fifty-five P.M., but that’s in three hours’ time and there’s no way you can be fit for that flight.”

“I’ve got to be. Lana’s meeting is at lunchtime tomorrow. I have to be on that flight.”

Ben took a step closer to Will. “There’s no way. .”

Will held a hand up. “Remove my bandages. Disguise the wound as much as you can. Make sure that I’m clean and that this stench of smoke and blood is off me. Get me into decent clothes, and get me on that plane.”

Will was returning to the United States of America. Four weeks ago he had left the country in a severely wounded state, and he was now going back there in a similar condition. He reclined his first-class seat back a little and looked across the aisle toward his traveling companions. Ben looked to be sleeping, but Julian was awake, and he immediately got out of his seat and came to Will’s side.

“Do you want some more painkillers?”

Will shook his head. “No. They’ll stop me from thinking straight.”

“You need to rest.”

“I need to work through this.”

Julian returned to his seat, and Will closed his eyes. He saw the assassin standing perfectly still amid the beams of light, saw him set the house ablaze, saw the man shoot him with a precision that ensured that the bullet glanced along one side of his head rather than penetrated his brain. He wondered why the man had then lifted him onto a shoulder to carry him through the smoke and fire and out into the garden. He wondered why the man had told him he needed Will to stay alive. He wondered why the man had left him on that ground and whether he’d done so for fear of his own capture or death. He wondered why Harry had disappeared shortly after telling him that everything was now upside down.

Will opened his eyes. There was one thing he did not wonder about. He knew that the assassin had to be Megiddo.

It occurred to Will that the men before him were probably two of the most powerful individuals in the Western intelligence community. It also occurred to him how very alike they looked. But more important than their physical similarities was the near alignment of both thinking and action that Will now believed more than two decades of covert collaboration had produced between Patrick and Alistair. They looked at him now.

“You must never tell anyone about your actions against the French.”

“Because even we would not be able to protect you from the repercussions if that event were ever disclosed.”

“All that matters is your operation to seize Megiddo.”

“If you’re still up to the task of capturing him.”

“But are you?”

Will patted a hand against freshly applied bandages. His wound had been examined and treated by the same small, bespectacled American man who had cared for him in New York. The man had told him he would need to keep the bandaging on for at least a week, and even then he would need to have minor reconstructive surgery to hide all traces of the bullet wound. Will had told him that he would be removing the bandages in the morning.

He looked around the minimalist room. It belonged to a CIA safe house in a residential area of Boston’s West End. He looked back at the two senior men. “Lana will meet him tomorrow at noon, and I’ll be there to watch it happen.”

Patrick and Alistair did not look at each other and instead kept their attention on Will. “Even though you’re now on U.S. soil, you do know that we still can’t give you extra intelligence resources to cover that meeting? And even though we probably could get help from the local and federal police and the military, that cannot be an option yet.”

“I know.” Will had already concluded that police involvement would not work. If things went wrong, their primary objective would be to save lives. And military involvement, even special ops, was too risky, because any individuals deployed from that quarter wouldn’t have time to learn the nuances of the mission and therefore couldn’t be trusted to make correct decisions without direct instructions. He had to continue to rely solely on Roger, Laith, Ben, and Julian.

“So, aside from wishing to check on my mental and physical well-being, why are you both here?”

Alistair smiled.

Patrick did not. He took a step toward Will. “We have new NSA Hubble intelligence.”

Will held up a palm. “It will be manufactured by Megiddo and therefore should be ignored.”

“This cannot be ignored, because it is genuine.” Alistair was no longer smiling. “It is not intelligence about the location or timing of the attack but rather intelligence pertaining to the movement of men. And it can be and has been verified by independent sources. We know that twenty-five men are traveling to the United States from Iran during the next forty-eight hours. We know that all of them are members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and we have positively identified four of them as IRGC Qods Force men. We must therefore assume they are all Qods Force personnel.”

“They must be coming to Megiddo.” Will looked at Alistair and then Patrick. “That will give him a team of thirty-two people in this country, and it must mean that his attack is going to take place here rather than in the U.K.”

“Precisely.”

Will frowned. “How do you know that the intelligence isn’t false or misleading?”

“Because it is derived from multiple entry- and exit-port database systems as well as aircraft rosters. Even Megiddo cannot manipulate that amount or type of data.”

Will thought for a moment and then asked, “Do we know anything about the men?”

Alistair answered. “Of the four that we know are definitely Qods Force, three of them have been linked to terror acts in the Middle East and South Asia. They are bombers.”

“Then the rest must be their chaperones.” Will drummed his fingers. “The men must remain untouched. I need Megiddo to feel confident that he has most of his tools in place to proceed with his mission. If we snatch his men, he’ll be so hampered that he’ll probably go to ground for who knows how long, and certainly the imperative for him to capture and interrogate me would instantly recede. He’d retreat, restrategize, regroup, and then hit his target when he felt safe to do so.”

Patrick exhaled slowly. “An NSA report like this is automatically sent to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security.”

The anger in Will was immediate. He jumped up and kicked his chair away from him. “How could you let this happen, Patrick? The Iranians will be grabbed, and then everything will be lost.”

Alistair shouted, “William, shut your mouth!”

Will had never before heard the man raise his voice.

Alistair came very close to him, cupped a hand around the back of Will’s neck, and quickly pulled his head within inches of his own. His next words were quiet and strong. “Don’t presume anything.”