Matthew Dunn - Spycatcher

He approached a man who looked to be in his midthirties. “Do you have a ticket?”

The man frowned at Will and no doubt briefly wondered whether he was an official before deciding he was not. “Of course. Why?”

Will shrugged and nodded toward the opera house. “My daughter’s playing in there tonight.” He shook his head. “I only found out two days ago. My ex-wife didn’t feel like telling me. I would do anything to see her perform, but I know the event’s sold out. Would you sell me your ticket?”

The man looked sympathetic. “Tough break. But I’m here with the New York Times to write a review of the concert, so unless that’s something you could do in my absence, I’m going to have to decline your request.”

Will nodded, thanked the man anyway, and moved farther up the line. He spotted a woman and gave her the same story. The woman told him to get lost.

He walked up to a man who looked to be in his sixties and was clearly suffering from the cold, with his arms wrapped around his torso. Will said, “Cold night.”

The man said, “Damn right.”

Will said, “My daughter’s playing in there tonight. I’m sure she’d love to see me in the audience. Could I buy your ticket?”

The man said, “My granddaughter’s playing in there tonight. That’s why I’ve spent forty minutes out here freezing my ass off, and I’m not about to move an inch away from this line.”

Will felt frustration coursing through him as he again looked up and down the line. He spotted a solitary adult toward the front and walked over to him. The man was very young, maybe only twenty, and was dressed like a student. Will said, “I’ll give you a thousand dollars for your ticket.”

The man looked at him in surprise. “A thousand dollars?”

Will nodded.

The man frowned, looked unsure, then repeated, “A thousand dollars?”

Will spoke in a stern voice. “In ten seconds you can walk away from this line with that cash in your pocket. But if you don’t want it, I’m sure someone else here does.”

The young man shook his head quickly and thrust his hand into his coat pocket. “Here.” He showed Will his ticket.

Will put his hand into his suit pocket, pulled out the plastic envelope that he knew contained just over two thousand dollars, looked at it, and said, “It’s a bit more than I told you. Take it and go.”

They exchanged the ticket and the cash, and Will joined the line. The young man walked quickly away.

Will was approximately ten meters from the opera house’s entrance. He pulled up the collar of his suit jacket and stamped his feet on the ground while hugging his chest to try to make him look cold to any observers. Officials kept calling, telling people to move forward. Nearly all the children were in the building now, and the plaza area was no longer crowded. Will casually looked around the place. The nine Secret Service men and women had all moved position but were still on the plaza. He looked toward the entrance and saw glimpses of the inside of the building. He saw people in his line move through a metal detector and felt huge relief that he had disposed of his weapon.

As people entered the building, Will shuffled forward until he was five meters from the entrance. He turned a little to look back up the line. His eyes narrowed as he saw the woman whom he had earlier approached take two steps away from the line and talk to a police officer. She was about forty meters from Will, looked up and down the line, shrugged her shoulders, and stepped back into the line. The police officer spoke on his radio. Will immediately fixed his eyes on one of the plainclothes Secret Service men. The man was very still for a moment before walking quickly toward one of his colleagues. Will’s heart beat faster. He knew that the woman had reported his approach to her as suspicious and that all security officials in the vicinity of the opera house would now be aware of that approach. He turned to face the entrance and shuffled forward a couple of yards.

There were three people in front of him now. Will pulled out his ticket and breathed carefully to calm himself. The ticket attendant by the door looked stressed and grabbed tickets with one hand while waving people through the doorway with the other. Will took a step forward as the three people in front of him became two. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a police officer walking slowly along the line, examining every man and woman standing behind Will. He looked away from the line and saw that four of the Secret Service people had moved closer to the line. He willed the line to move more quickly. The two people in front of him became one, and Will stamped his feet to make himself look colder. The man in front of him handed his ticket to the attendant and walked in.

Will took a deep breath and smiled as he handed his ticket to the official. He exhaled slowly as he stepped into the opera house.

He moved through the metal detector, stopped, calmly looked at the officials who were monitoring the detector, saw them nod at him, and then walked on. He moved quickly, knowing that other attendees who were not yet seated were doing the same. He glanced at his ticket, saw that he was supposed to be seated on one of the balcony aisles and that he would need to walk up the sweeping red-carpeted stairway to reach his place. But he had no intention of going there and instead walked onward at ground level, scouring doors to his left and right. People were all around him, and some seemed to know where they were going and some not. He moved forward and wished that he’d had time to study the layout of the huge building he was in. But he was grateful that he was not the only one who didn’t know the layout, and for a while he hid among the ranks of the lost.

He moved along a corridor until he was away from other people and door entrances to the auditorium. He moved on until he was alone. He reached a door that said NO ADMITTANCE, STAFF ONLY. He looked back down the corridor. Nobody was looking at him. He swiveled back to face the door, turned the handle, opened it, and walked through. Narrow stairs were immediately ahead of him. He walked quickly down them until he knew he was in a part of the building that was below stage level. A slender corridor was before him, with other corridors leading away from it to its left and right. Everywhere was dimly illuminated. A corridor on his right was lined with lockers that he imagined were used by performers, as was another corridor on his left. He kept walking.

He stopped suddenly as a huge sound came from above him. His heart pounded. He realized the sound was the start of the concert. He could now clearly hear instruments and singing. His heartbeat slowed, and he kept going. The music quieted.

There were more corridors to his left and right. Some had signs and arrows directing him to rehearsal rooms, management offices, changing rooms. Will imagined that before the concert this whole subterranean floor would have been bustling with performers getting ready, officials fretting about schedules and timings, backstage well-wishers, and crews that would move curtains and stage pulleys and manhandle props on and off the stage. But right now the labyrinth of rooms around him seemed empty.

Rapid footsteps suddenly told him that the place was not empty. He looked around quickly, trying to ascertain where the steps were coming from. He decided they were behind him but heading in his direction. He jogged forward and darted left into yet another corridor. He stopped, swiveled, crouched, and wished he still had his gun. The footsteps grew louder, and he realized they belonged to more than one person. Police officers? Secret Service? As the footsteps drew nearer, he bunched his right hand into a fist and waited, briefly wondering what he would do if armed officials found him here. He decided he would have no choice other than to inflict rapid, absolute, but nonlethal pain on them and render them unconscious.