Matthew Dunn - Sentinel

“So he’s already started torturing Sentinel.” Roger’s words were solemn.

Will looked at the CIA officer, then at the distant burning church. “Yes, but I doubt he’s broken him yet. I think Sentinel deliberately told Razin that we’d be going after Guy, hoping that it would give us one last chance to kill Razin.” He looked down and muttered again, “Shit.”

Roger placed a hand on Will’s shoulder. “You thought Sentinel’s strategy was too risky, and you were proven right. Your strategy to discredit Razin is where our hope lies. But as for Sentinel, there’s nothing more you can do.”

Will’s mind raced. He thought about the profiles of Sentinel’s tier-1 agents, every piece of information he’d read about them in the files in Langley, anything that might be useful. One name stood out. He looked at the CIA operatives. “I’ve got an idea that I wouldn’t have tried at the outset of this mission, but now I think it might be worth a shot.” He paused. “If I asked you both to stay in Russia a little longer, would you do so?”

“Fuck, yes.”

“Damn right.”

Will nodded. “Razin can’t just detonate the bomb in a Russian installation and hope it sparks a war. His plan must be more precise than that.”

The sirens were drawing closer.

“The key to finding Sentinel now lies in finding out where and when Razin intends to strike. And I think I know someone who might be able to get that information.”

It was eleven A.M., and Will was in a cheap hotel room in the center of Moscow. He, Roger, and Laith had arrived at the hotel early that morning, having traveled nearly sixty miles on foot from the church to the city and having discarded all remaining weapons save their handguns. They had paid cash for their rooms and had told the receptionist that they did not want to be disturbed the rest of the morning.

Will stood in the center of the tiny, barely furnished bedroom wearing a towel wrapped around his waist and nothing else. His clothes hung over radiators, drying after he had hand washed them in the bathroom’s sink and shower. There was a knock on the door. Will immediately moved to a side table and placed his fist over his pistol. The door opened. Will removed his hand from his gun as Roger entered and let the door swing shut behind him.

Roger smiled. “You’re not going to make a pass at me, are you?”

Will smiled. “Fuck off. Did you get the flight?”

Roger rubbed his fatigued face. “I did.”

“Excellent.” Will picked up his travel bag and swung it onto the bed. “What time do we depart?”

“We need to be out of here in one hour.”

“Okay.”

Roger laughed. “If we’d been able to wait another fourteen hours, we could have saved ourselves $45,000 by getting a regular commercial flight.”

Will snapped, “I can’t afford to waste any time.”

Plus they needed to avoid airport security so that they could get their guns through.

Roger nodded. “I know. How are you?”

Will frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a straightforward question. How are you feeling?”

Will stared at his colleague for a moment before replying, “I’m absolutely fine.”

The tall American held his gaze and said softly, “Your plan to capture Guy was a good one. He was our most direct means to locate Razin. And you had no intention of harming Guy, just scaring him.”

Will said quietly, “True. But ultimately it was me who put a bullet in his brain.” He looked away. “I killed a British national, a senior member of MI6.”

“You put him out of his misery.” Roger was motionless. “Some people in a similar position would have just let the bastard burn to death.”

Will muttered, “Nobody’s in my bloody position.”

“I know.” The ex-DEVGRU SEAL’s voice was one of total sympathy. “That’s why I asked.”

W ill turned on the shower, watched brown water emerge from the nozzle, and waited a moment before stepping into the cubicle when the water ran clear. Raising his face, he allowed the hot water to pour over his head and torso. He washed his grimy body with a bar of soap and tore open a small sachet of shampoo to use on his dark, cropped, greasy hair. Satisfied that he was clean, he closed his eyes and lowered his muscular physique until he was sitting on the floor with the water falling all over him.

He reflected on Roger’s words and frowned. A memory came to him, one that he hadn’t even known was in his head until just now.

Will was seated on a grass lawn. It belonged to his parents’ house in the States. It was a sunny, warm day. He was a barefoot five-year-old wearing a University of Virginia shirt and jeans. His hair was blond in those days, and he had freckles across his nose and cheeks. His American father was walking toward him, wearing a smart dark suit and crisp white shirt. To the small boy, his daddy looked like a giant, but he had a smile on his kind face. Crouching down in front of Will, he rubbed the boy’s arm and looked at the toy held in his hand. A green plastic handgun.

Will grinned and proudly held out the gun. His daddy took it, examined the pretend weapon, nodded, and gave it back to his son.

He said something that Will could not quite remember, something about toy guns being okay but real guns being bad.

The boy looked at his CIA father and giggled. He lowered his eyes and glimpsed something on his daddy’s hip, visible between his open jacket. He pointed at the real gun.

His father looked down and quickly buttoned up his jacket to hide his sidearm. He looked perturbed as he placed both hands on Will’s shoulders. His serious expression was quickly replaced by another smile. After kissing his son on the forehead, he walked away toward his car to go to work.

Later that year he was deployed by the CIA to Iran, where he was kidnapped and thereafter brutally murdered.

Will opened his eyes and swallowed hard to check the emotion he was feeling. He wished his father had been alive to watch and guide his growth into adulthood. More than anything, he wished he could have had the opportunity to share his first beer with the man and give him a promise not to lead a life filled with weapons and violence.

He pictured that little boy sitting on the grass and wondered how that innocent could have turned into a man who could calmly terrify a man in a Russian church before putting a bullet into his head.

He loathed what he sometimes had to do in his work.

No. The truth was more than that.

He loathed the person he’d become.

F orty-five minutes later, Will stood outside the shabby hotel dressed in a dark blue heavy wool suit, white shirt with French cuffs and silver cuff links, Royal Navy silk tie that he had bound into a Windsor knot, gleaming black brogues, leather gloves, and a smart overcoat. He was clean-shaven and had applied Chanel men’s lotions and Platinum Egoiste eau de toilette to his body and face. In one hand he gripped his expensive leather travel bag containing his other hand-washed and dry clothes. Tucked into his belt, hidden against the small of his back, was his handgun.

Beside him were Roger and Laith. Both men were also immaculately dressed and carried their own bags. Roger hailed a taxi, and soon they were en route to Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport.

T hey entered Terminal D, the place used for the airport’s domestic flights. Roger led the way, walking quickly past ticket desks, passengers, flight crews, check-in desks, retail outlets, and approximately four hundred soldiers who were clearly about to embark on a military flight, until they were by a desk marked PLATINUM BUSINESS JETS. Will and Laith held back as Roger walked up to the man behind the desk, spoke inaudible words to him, nodded at his colleagues, and looked back at the official. The man beamed, jumped down from his stool, and walked around the desk holding a clipboard. Will and Laith moved up to Roger, carrying their bags.