Matthew Dunn - Spycatcher

Will scoured the area between the gaps in the trees in front of him. He saw nothing at first but then spotted movement to his far right. The movement was large and dark, and it flashed between the trees. It was the vehicle. Most likely it was Roger, but it could also belong either to Megiddo or to heavily armed police. He looked back at Laith and knew that he would be thinking the same.

The vehicle moved slowly from right to left. Will ignored it, looked at Laith, and saw that he was continuing to stay very still. But as the vehicle got closer, Laith gradually started to raise himself out of his self-made shallow snow hole. The vehicle was almost right in front of him. Laith immediately stood, held his gun high, and took five steps forward. The vehicle stopped dead. Laith held his gun trained at its driver.

Will sighed with relief as he saw that the driver was Roger.

Will glanced quickly around again before sprinting to Laith. They entered the vehicle, both sitting in the rear passenger seats.

“How far is it to the village?” Will asked Roger.

Roger turned to look at him. The man’s face was etched with pain. “Six kilometers. Keep your eyes peeled on the way, because if Megiddo and his captive aren’t there yet, they could be on foot, paralleling this road.”

Roger punched the accelerator, and the car immediately reversed. He spun the car around so that it was facing the direction of Saranac Lake and drove forward at a medium speed. Laith fully lowered his passenger window and said nothing as he held his gun in two hands and examined the passing roadside. Will looked at the vehicle’s trunk and was relieved to see the bags containing some of the unused weapons that Ben and Julian had brought for the assault. He reached to them and took a silenced Heckler amp; Koch MK23 pistol and three spare magazines. He rolled down his own window so that he could cover their right flank.

Snow fell fast, and Will could hear that Roger had put windshield wipers on full power to help him see through the blizzard. But Will didn’t dare look away from the tree line by his side. He slitted his lids to try to focus; he moved his eyes to try to prevent becoming disorientated by the rapid white dots of ice and snow; he scoured the gaps between the trees and the darkness of the forest beyond. He called to Roger without looking away from his task, “How much time do we have before sunset?”

Roger answered loudly over the sound of the engine, the wipers, and the wind, “With this weather probably no more than twenty or thirty minutes.”

Will cursed and muttered to no one in particular, “We don’t have enough time to try to find them here.”

“I agree.” This came from Laith.

Will looked straight at Roger. “Put your foot to the floor and get us to the village as fast as you can. I don’t think Megiddo and Lana are there yet, so we’ll overtake them now and wait for them to arrive.”

Their car lurched forward, fishtailing wildly on the icy road before Roger expertly manhandled the vehicle to get it speeding ahead. Will and Laith rolled up their windows and sat back in their seats. “Try to clean the blood off your face,” Will told Laith. “We’re heading to a place populated with civilians, and we don’t want to stand out. You look like shit.”

Laith smiled. “You should talk.”

Roger leaned forward, opened the car’s glove compartment, rummaged inside, and then tossed back a small parcel. Will caught the package and smiled as he saw it was a packet of baby wet wipes. He withdrew some of the disposable cleaners, gave the packet to Laith, and started cleaning his own face, neck, and hands. His smile faded as he began shivering. He looked down at himself and realized where the new coldness was coming from: his clothes had been saturated in the lake swim and later frozen solid in his pursuit to the mountaintop; they were now defrosting due to the heat inside the vehicle. He knew that Laith must be suffering in the same way. Roger had his own severe injuries to deal with. Will decided that the best he could do for now was to ignore the cold, the pain from his wounds, and the fatigue.

But he could not ignore the thoughts that hurtled around his earlier question to Patrick:

What could be worse than an attack on the premiers at Camp David?

Nor could he ignore another question he had for himself:

When will Megiddo decide that he’s safe enough to no longer need Lana as a hostage?

He thought about calling Patrick. He thought about telling him that his trust in Will had been misplaced. He thought about telling him that all hope of success was rapidly fading.

He thought about what Patrick would almost certainly say: “Megiddo’s men are all dead, so it’s a manhunt now. I’m going to blow this open and get local and federal police involved. Whatever happens, he’s going to kill Lana, so all that matters now is capturing him.”

Will looked at Laith and Roger. He wondered whether he should lie to them or withhold his thoughts. He remembered Roger’s words during their first encounter in the safe house in Zurich:

I know that none of us-my forefathers, their brothers, or me-has fought for our organization or our country. We’ve all fought for the man by our side.

He decided that he could never lie to the men who were sitting with him in this car. He had never worked with such professional operatives as the two CIA men here with him or the two heroic dead colleagues they were leaving behind.

He spoke. “Roger. Laith. I’m still convinced we need to do this our way and without others. I think that if other men are brought in, Lana will be killed. I think that if Megiddo feels that capture is inevitable, he may have emergency protocols in place to carry out his attack anyway. I think we still have to allow him to believe he has a chance to escape and conduct his assault.” He paused. “But I could be wrong. I could be very wrong, and I’m certain my handler in MI6 would think that and I’m certain your master in the CIA would draw that conclusion.” He looked at them both. “Patrick would not want us to go it alone at this stage, and if either or both of you agree with him, then I need to tell him what’s happening right now.”

Laith regarded him with a look of steel. “Fuck that.”

“Yeah, fuck that.” Roger gunned the car harder, and it sped faster toward the now-visible but still distant village of Saranac Lake.

Almost at that same instant, bullets rang out from ahead of them and tore through the vehicle’s engine, through the windshield, and through Roger.

The car swerved left, and Will lunged forward, wrapped one arm around Roger and his seat, and grabbed the steering wheel with the other.

Laith shouted, “Keep us on the road!” He punched an elbow through the glass in his window several times, gripped the headrest in front of him, and leaned out the window with his gun. “I’ll deal with the shooter!”

Will yanked the wheel left and right and left to try to compensate for the movement of the out-of-control vehicle, but they were going too fast and had no grip on the icy road. He shouted, “Too late! Brace for impact!”

The car spun 360 degrees, lifted into the air, rotated, crashed onto its side, and slid along the road before shuddering to a halt. Will breathed hard for a moment. He tentatively moved his arms and legs and knew he was uninjured. When he heard a banging noise, he looked over and saw Laith kicking at his passenger door. He heard the CIA man curse and felt him clamber over to haul himself through the window. Will was still holding Roger. He could hear the injured driver wheezing, but otherwise he was motionless and quiet.

Laith was now outside the vehicle, and Will could see that he was holding his handgun in front of him, looking for the man who had destroyed their car with an assault rifle, looking for the man who was definitely Megiddo. Will knew that Laith was an easy target for Megiddo if the man was still close to them. And he knew that if he himself stayed in the vehicle a moment longer, he could die.