Matthew Dunn - Sentinel

That evening, Will sat at a corner table in the discreetly lit wine bar at Washington, D.C.’s, five-star Willard InterContinental hotel. The place was half full, and around him earnest-looking, sharp-suited men and women sat in couples, hunched over drinks, leaning close to each other, and talking in low voices.

A tall man walked across the bar, carrying drinks in one hand, and sat opposite him. He was wearing a suit but no tie, looked sinewy and very strong, was three years older than Will, had straw-colored hair, and a face that was handsome but etched with the weight of experiences that few men ever had. Placing two glasses of Maker’s Mark whiskey on the table, the man looked at the people around him and smiled. “Lobbyists, senators, businessmen, political consultants. I know ’em all, but they don’t know me.” The man pushed one of the glasses across the table, looking at Will. “Have a drink.”

Will glanced at his glass before looking at the CIA Special Operations Group paramilitary officer. He smiled. “Hello, Roger.”

Roger Koenig lifted his glass and tapped it against Will’s. “It’s good to see you again.”

The last time Will had seen Roger, the officer had had bullet wounds and had been lying on a hospital floor in the small village of Saranac Lake, New York. He was Will’s only friend. “When did you get back on active duty?”

“Few months now.” The former DEVGRU SEAL took a swig of his drink. “How long are you in town?”

Will drank some whiskey. “I’m leaving in a few hours.”

“Shame. My wife wanted me to invite you over to our place for dinner.”

“I-”

“Yeah, yeah. Your work comes first.” He seemed to be studying Will. “Don’t worry. I know, you’d have hated it.” He grinned. “You can talk your way out of any situation, but you’re terrified of a family dinner and idle chat. You really do need to lighten up a bit.” His expression and tone of voice changed. “Patrick told me you just got back from Russia, that you were nearly killed.”

“Did he send you here to check up on me?” The moment he said the words, Will regretted them.

Anger flashed across Roger’s face. “You should know me better than that. I came here to have a drink with the man who saved my life.”

“Stupid question. I’m sorry.”

The anger on Roger’s face receded, but his expression remained stern. “Don’t try to push me away, Cochrane. I’m not like the others.”

Will nodded slowly. He wondered why Roger stuck by him. It was true that he’d saved the CIA officer’s life, but he’d saved many people’s lives and none of them had wanted to be in his presence for a second longer than they had to.

“Have you heard from your sister?”

Will shook his head. “She won’t return my calls or reply to my letters.”

“Give it time.”

Will had given it time. He’d seen Sarah only once by chance during the last nine years. His existence reminded her of the day that criminals had come to kill her and their mother when Will and his sister had been teenagers. Will had killed the men but had been too late to stop his mother from dying. “I bought some gifts for your children.” He handed Roger a duty-free carrier bag.

Roger looked inside. “Teddy bears? My twin sons are twelve and spend every free hour killing each other in Xbox games, and my daughter’s just turned fourteen and is starting to think about cuddling other things.” He smiled. “But thanks for the thought.”

Will felt foolish. “How’s Laith?”

Laith was a CIA SOG officer and ex-Delta Force operative who had worked with both men in their last mission. Like Roger, Will had last seen Laith in Saranac, though Laith’s stomach had been slashed open with a knife.

“He was in the hospital for a while, but he’s operational again.” Roger’s cell phone bleeped. He checked the screen, his expression one of irritation.

Will smiled. “Work comes first.”

“It thinks it does.” He stood, a wry smile now on his face. “Find a nice woman and marry her. It’ll be the solution to all your problems.”

A n hour later Will was in his hotel room. His bag was packed; he’d be checking out shortly. Turning on the television, he flicked through the channels until he found one devoted to classical music. An orchestra was playing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6. He sat down, closed his eyes, and placed the tips of his fingers together.

As the third movement commenced, one of his rare good memories came to him. He was sixteen years old, and he was on his first proper date with a girl named Mary. He had known her for a couple of years-they played viola together in their school orchestra-but had only recently plucked up the courage to ask her out. They went to a National Symphony Orchestra performance in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The musicians were delivering an excellent performance of Symphony No. 6. Will was nervous and his date looked nervous, but halfway during the third movement, he looked at Mary, smiled, and took her hand.

The television concert paused before commencing the fourth movement. The memory vanished and was replaced by another. He was twenty years old, and he was sitting in a cafe on the banks of the Barada River in Syria’s capital, Damascus. He was dressed in jeans and an open-neck shirt and was sipping a glass of arak. The early-evening sun felt good on his tanned skin, and he smiled as he listened to Tchaikovsky’s fourth movement coming through the old speakers of the cafe. Several tables away from him sat a woman who looked to be around the same age as him. She was very pretty, had a glass of wine, and was reading a book. She glanced at him; Will smiled wider, and she responded. Three men walked in. Dressed in nice suits, they appeared middle-aged. Sitting down at a vacant table, they ordered drinks and began talking to each other with earnest expressions on their faces. Will looked at the woman again and wondered if she would be offended if he offered to buy her a drink. He looked at the three men and saw a waiter approaching them, carrying a tray with glasses. One of the men’s cell phones rang. The man stood, listened to the call, closed his phone, and spoke to the other men while ushering the waiter away. The men clearly had urgent business elsewhere.

That was not supposed to happen just yet.

They were supposed to be there until closing time, when the cafe would be empty of innocents.

Will put cash onto his table to pay for his drink, stood, pulled out a handgun, and shot the three men in their heads.

Will opened his eyes as the memory faded, but he could still remember the expression on the woman’s face turning from shock to disgust as she looked at him. He could still hear the screaming from the other people in the cafe; he could still remember standing in front of his GCP commanding officer and an anonymous French intelligence officer from the DGSE three days prior to that event. And he remembered his commander’s words to him: This is your first black operation. If you do well on this job, you’ll be given plenty more just like it.

The business-class section of the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 was at full capacity, with most passengers eating lunch. Will looked out of the window and saw that they were traveling over the snow-covered Transylvanian Alps of Romania. He’d not slept since departing Washington, D.C., fourteen hours before, taking flights to London, then Vienna, and now onward to Odessa. The plane would be landing in approximately one hour. Soon after that, he would be meeting Sentinel.

Not for the first time on the journey, Will wondered what Sentinel would be like. Alistair had forewarned him that Sentinel would be a complex and difficult man to deal with and rightly so. There were few men, if any, within the Western intelligence community who had proven, to such an extent, and over such a protracted period of time, that they were of such value.