Matthew Dunn: Spycatcher

Will frowned, looked to her left and right to see if some hidden person was pointing a gun at her to make her do what she was doing, saw nothing, and looked back at her. He felt totally confused. He felt as if nothing made sense.

“What are you doing?” Will said the words slowly, and they did not seem like his own.

Lana stared at him. Her expression was cold. She looked unharmed and strong. She looked in command of herself.

“What are you doing? What’s going on?”

Lana shook her head slowly. “If you are here, then he is dead.”

Will’s heart pounded. Confusion overwhelmed him. “What is going on?” He could smell Lana’s perfume, feel her presence, and see her beauty. But he could also see that she had death in her eyes and that she wanted to kill him.

“You have been such a fool, Will Cochrane.”

She used my real name.

She smiled. “Such a fool.”

“Megiddo told you my real name?”

“I always knew your real name.”

Will felt an immediate sense of nausea and anger. “You’ve been working with Megiddo all along?”

She no longer smiled. “Ever since I met him all those years ago. From the beginning to the end.”

Will shook his head in disbelief.

Lana waved the muzzle of the gun a little before steadying it toward Will’s head. “You’ve been tricked by us all. Tricked by Megiddo, me, and. . all of us.”

Will narrowed his eyes as a realization struck him. “All of you, including the man who introduced your name to me.”

Lana nodded. “Harry as well.” She widened her eyes. “I have always loved Megiddo, and he has always loved me. I had to be here to complete his masterpiece because you killed all his other soldiers.” She smiled. “I came here to trigger the bombs if someone like you tried to stop our attack from happening.”

Will’s mind raced with questions and confusion. There was so much he didn’t understand about what was happening, but he also knew he had no time to find answers to these questions. “How can you detonate the bombs?”

Lana patted a breast pocket. “I have a number programmed into my cell phone. If I call that number, the bombs receive my signal and detonate ahead of their preprogrammed time of nine P.M.”

Will checked his watch. It was 8:45 P.M.

He desperately tried to think. “You will have another number in your phone. A number that if called will stop the bombs from going off at nine P.M. A number that was to be called only in the event that the concert was postponed to another day or called off.”

Lana narrowed her eyes. “That number will never be called, because I have everything I need in the concert hall-the premiers’ wives and the thousands of children.”

Will shook his head. “Surely you don’t want this atrocity to happen? Surely you don’t want their deaths?”

Lana smiled. “They will die, you will die, and I will be with Megiddo again. I will be happy when the bombs destroy everything around us.”

Will felt sick. The woman before him was a woman he did not know. Lana meant what she said. If she had any heart, it was a heart that cared for nothing other than Megiddo. He decided that his only hope now depended upon her believing a lie. He shook his head. “Lana, it is you who’s been the fool. Megiddo never loved you.”

She glared at him. “You know nothing about the love we had for each other.”

Will shook his head again. “I came here expecting to find you tied up and a bomber holding a gun to your head.”

Lana sniggered. “That is what Megiddo wanted you to expect.”

Will nodded. “He did. Even when he was on his knees and I had a gun pointed at his head, even when he knew he was about to die, he knew that there was nothing I could do to stop his attack.” Will frowned. “So why would he describe the bomber in the opera house as a naive and gullible pawn whose death would be as trivial as the deaths of the children? Why would he say that when he had no need to say such a thing to me?”

Lana frowned. “You’re lying.”

Will shook his head. “I’m not, but the comment he made was unnecessary. If Megiddo loved you, he would just have kept his mouth shut about his views of the bomber. Or maybe he would have used a more positive description. But he had absolutely no need to be disparaging about the bomber unless”-he nodded sadly-“unless he wanted me to truly know the magnitude of his strategy. He wanted me to know how he had manipulated every single person around him. Every person, including the man or woman who was going to detonate his bombs.”

Lana shook her head, but doubt clearly showed on her face. “He. . he loved me. He always loved me.”

Will checked his watch. It was 8:52 P.M. His heart was hammering, but he kept his voice calm. “Think about it, Lana. He lived his life solely to outwit others.”

“You know nothing about him!” Lana spat. “He loved his work, but he also loved me.”

Will spoke forcefully. “He has always used you, and he is using you now. That is why he described you as a naive and gullible pawn. And I agree with his description, because that’s precisely what you are!”

The generators near them seemed to hum louder. Pipes rattled and hissed. Vents groaned. The music from the concert above them sounded distant but was still audible.

A tear ran down one of Lana’s cheeks. “I love him.”

“But he never loved you.”

Her gun moved slightly.

Will watched her. “Lana, I loved you. But he had no love for anything other than his work.”

Lana looked away for a moment. When she looked back at Will, she had tears rolling down both cheeks. She spoke with a weak and trembling voice. “Then I have indeed been the fool.”

Will smiled with a look of sympathy, even though he felt anything but sympathy for the woman in front of him. “We have both been fools. And victims.”

She took a step back and leaned against a vent. She was breathing rapidly, and Will wondered if she was starting to hyperventilate. She shook her head, cursing. She lowered her gun and held it by her side. She looked around the basement and up at the ceiling. She shook her head some more and banged the butt of her handgun against the vent. She looked at Will. “What. . what should I do?”

Will took a step toward her. “You must do something to show Megiddo that you are no longer a fool. You must do something to show him that you are no longer his pawn. You must do the one thing that will hurt him the most. You must call the number to disarm the bombs.”

Lana shook her head, and tears now streamed down her face.

“Lana, if you die here, you will never be with him. You will have died for nothing. Everyone here will have died for nothing.”

Lana again banged her gun on the vent and muttered, “Oh, dear God.” She looked at Will. “He told me he loved me. He showed me he loved me.”

“He did that so you would be here.”

Lana looked up at the ceiling and screamed, “A fucking pawn?”

She lowered her head and began breathing slower. She closed her eyes. She rubbed the back of her gun-carrying hand against her face. She looked at Will.

“Call the number.” Will looked at the time. It was 8:57 P.M.

She reached into her breast pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She looked at it. For a long time. She frowned. Then she looked at Will before looking back at the cell phone.

It was now 8:59 P.M.

“We have no time, Lana!” Will’s heart was racing.

She breathed in slowly. She pressed numbers into the phone. She held it to her ear. She waited a moment, then nodded. She dropped her arm to her side, still clutching the phone. She began weeping and shaking.

“Are the bombs disarmed?”