Matthew Dunn - Spycatcher

He cursed, then saw a cab turning onto Broadway half a block ahead and knew he had to catch it. Another sprint later, he caught it as it slowed down at a stoplight. He jumped in and told the driver “Lincoln Center. As fast as you can.”

He kept thinking, trying to outthink Megiddo, reminding himself that the man was a mastermind, telling himself that the man did everything for a reason, would have left nothing to chance, and would have thought through every possible potential outcome.

Megiddo told me about his plan because he knew that if I killed him, I would take action to stop the bombs from detonating at 9:00 P.M. He wanted me to be in the opera house or, if not, close to it when bombs went off. He wanted me to suffer, because he thought I was the son of his father’s killer. But I am not. And that was why he finally concluded that his presence in the hotel room was pointless.

He knew he was right. And he also knew that even though Megiddo was dead, he was still outsmarting him.

Why was Megiddo so confident that he would succeed no matter what I did?

He closed his eyes for a moment as the answer banged into his brain.

Megiddo has a bomber in the building. That man took Lana into the building earlier in the day and is watching over her. That man is there to detonate the bombs ahead of 9:00 P.M. if I or the FBI tries to evacuate the building. The man is prepared to die by his own hand.

He opened his eyes, saw the city racing past him, and he felt hopeless.

Traffic and sidewalk crowds were growing as they got closer. He checked his watch and saw that it was just after 7:30 P.M. The concert would begin in less than thirty minutes. Bombs would destroy the place in less than ninety minutes.

The cab slowed as traffic became heavier. Will looked around. He could see glimpses of trees beyond two blocks to the east. They belonged to Central Park. He would never think of that place and not think of Soroush. Every place in New York now reminded him of Soroush.

He forced the recollection out of his mind to focus on what was happening here.

By the time the cab got to Sixty-Ninth Street, it was bumper to bumper traffic, so he threw some cash at the driver and got out to run the rest of the way. He dodged pedestrians for several more blocks, then stopped to get his bearings, bent over, and sucked in a lungful of air. When he stood up, a bus pulled away from the curb and revealed the massive glass-fronted Alice Tully Hall and the Juilliard School right in front of him, only one more block to the south. He knew the Metropolitan Opera House would be just beyond, slightly to the west.

When he made it to Lincoln Center Plaza, crowds of people were outside the front of the Met, and it was clear that they were there for the concert. Most were children, and they were being marshaled into groups by supervising adults wearing different-colored fluorescent jackets bearing the names of various schools or clubs. Everyone was dressed in coats and other warm clothes as protection from the cold and snow, and some held umbrellas. Gradually the crowds were organized into long, snaking lines that curled across the open plaza and around the brightly illuminated fountains. The supervisors moved back and forth, barking instructions at the children, and they were no doubt anxious to get their wards out of the cold and into the building as quickly as possible. Will slowed to a walk and moved among the crowds. He felt his hidden Heckler amp; Koch MK23 brush against his hip bone as he did so.

He stopped and knew that he needed to make a decision, even if it was the wrong one. He decided the FBI could not be involved because its arrival here would be too visible, that he had to enter the building covertly and alone, hope that he was not seen by the bomber, and finish this one way or the other.

He moved close to the building’s entrances and saw members of the opera house’s staff standing by them. He turned and looked back at the crowds. He saw five lines of children and their supervisors, and he saw a sixth line that contained only adults. He looked away from the lines that led to the house’s entrances and examined adults who were not part of any lines. Many were clearly parents of the children standing in the lines, waving and calling to their sons and daughters. A small number were media types and were taking photographs or using video cameras or holding microphones. Some seemed to be passing tourists or New Yorkers who were taking in the evening spectacle. Some looked like parents or media types or passing tourists or random New Yorkers, but Will’s trained eye could see that they were none of those things. He saw one of them, then another, then counted six of them before deciding that there were nine of them spaced out in the plaza area before the building. They were not wearing their trademark and recognizable black suits and lapel pins but instead were dressed like anyone else in this weather. They were Secret Service and were clearly here because of all the VIPs. And they were clearly positioned among the crowds to search for bad people or people like Will.

Will looked around in frustration. He was in danger of appearing out of place and therefore being identified by one of the Secret Service men or women. They would have no hesitation in trying to put him on the ground with guns pointed at him for simply looking as though he shouldn’t be there. They were trained to be some of the quickest and deadliest shooters in the world, although he knew he would be quicker and deadlier than all of them put together. But if a confrontation ensued, the bomber might be warned that something was happening.

He walked casually away from the plaza so that he was looking down one side of the opera house. Police were gathered there, and they stood alongside barricades that stopped pedestrians from getting too close to the building. Will swore under his breath, although he had expected all but the main entrances to be sealed off and protected. He moved to the other side of the building and saw more barricades and more police and also more Secret Service men and women. He stood for a while watching them. He stood as one limousine, two unmarked cars, and four police vehicles pulled up to the side of the building. He saw doors open and men exit and stand by their stationary vehicles as a group of four indistinguishable women walked quickly from the limousine into the opera house. He watched the cavalcade move off quickly. Within an additional ten minutes, three more cavalcades came and went after offloading three more women. Will walked back to the front of the house, knowing that the premiers’ wives were now in the building.

The lines were moving forward, and Will estimated that at least half of the crowd was now inside. He checked his watch again and saw that the concert was due to start in minutes. He heard the staff members by the entrances call to their crowds to keep moving forward, saw the children’s supervisors liaise with them while holding clusters of tickets and sheets of paper, and watched uniformed police officers walking slowly through the crowds.

He knew that he was running out of time and options. He felt his handgun press hard against his body, and he decided he had to get rid of the weapon. He looked around, saw a garbage can, walked to it, and quickly dropped the gun and spare bullet clips inside. He walked slowly back to the center of the plaza and looked at the line containing only adults. There were approximately three hundred people in the line. Most of them were couples and therefore of no use to him, as he knew that they were most likely parents of either child performers or spectators and therefore would never give up their space in the line. But a handful of them were solitary adults, and Will looked up and down the line at them. He wasted no time in moving toward the line.