by Matthew Dunn
“I see her stop. I see one of the team speaking to her. I see that man pointing. I see four other team members move in close around her.”
Laith spoke. “I’m at stop one hundred meters behind them. What’s happening?”
“Not sure.” Roger’s voice sounded as uncertain as his words. “Everyone hold position.”
Will watched Julian stop. He saw him reach into a pocket and knew that he would be caressing a weapon.
“There’s some discussion taking place.” Laith’s voice was strained. “One of them tries to put his hand on our lady’s arm. She shrugs it off. She waves arms in the air. The man tries to touch her again. Two other men move close to her. Something is wrong.”
Will frowned. He pictured the maps of Boston that he’d studied the previous night. He pictured the road routes out of the city. He pictured the alleys and side streets that could be used to move people quickly away on foot. He remembered the timetables and the layout of the city’s subway system. He remembered the same for its public bus company. He pulled back his jacket hood so that frozen air could course over his head. He looked at the tourist families playing around him, and he looked back out at the harbor. He felt his stomach churn as he realized what was happening, and he reached for his pressel switch. He spoke very quickly. “The ferry. They’re keeping her on Long Wharf because that’s where the ferry terminal is. Either Megiddo’s coming in on the next ferry or they’re taking her out on it.”
“Which is it to be, Will?” Roger’s voice sounded as annoyed as Will’s thoughts felt.
Ben spoke. “The ferry goes from Long Wharf to Charlestown Navy Yard in the north. It’s a ten-minute crossing, but if you want me at Charlestown, you’d better tell me now, because this weather is killing the roads.”
“Which is it to be, Will?” Roger’s voice was now loud.
Before Will could answer, Laith spoke. “I can see the ferry coming in. It will berth in two minutes.”
“Will?”
The icy air was now causing the bullet wound on Will’s head to throb. He ran his fingers through his hair and stared out at the harbor. He saw the ferry and could tell that it was slowing to come alongside the jetty. He desperately tried to think and define the correct course of action. If Megiddo was on that boat, Lana would signal that it was him by taking off her fur hat. If that happened, Will needed every available resource around Megiddo on Long Wharf. And if he sent Ben ahead to Charlestown now, he’d be taking a huge risk, as he’d be diverting the team’s only mobile resource. But if he held back from deploying Ben to Charlestown and Lana did subsequently get on the boat, he would have lost invaluable time. There was no correct course of action.
Will spoke to everyone. “We wait to see if he’s on the ferry.”
“That’s cutting it fine, Will.” This was Ben. “If he’s not on the ferry and she gets taken on board, I can’t guarantee I can make the route to Charlestown before it reaches there.”
“Will’s given us his decision, so we stay here.” Roger’s voice was firm. Will wondered, though, whether Roger agreed with him.
The ferry moved alongside the pier. It bobbed up and down a little with the swell of water before ropes secured it fast against the jetty structure. People came off the boat. Will scoured Long Wharf, but from his position in the park a large jetty building prevented him from seeing Lana or the Iranians. He watched more passengers disgorge from the vessel, and then he saw no more people.
“Our lady’s being ushered toward the ferry.” Roger’s tone sounded neutral. “He’s not here. All six of them are taking her on the boat.”
Will stomped on the ground in anger. He spoke to Ben with no attempt to hide the urgency or frustration in his voice. “Come and get me, Ben. The rest of you follow her onto the boat.”
Roger spoke. “Will, if we put the whole team on there, chances are we’ll be spotted by the Iranians. The vessel’s too small. Do you want to take that risk?”
Will could not take that risk. If the Iranians discovered that Lana was being followed by others, everything would be lost, because Megiddo would suspect that she’d set him up.
“Julian, get on the boat. Everyone else, get onto Atlantic Avenue for collection by Ben.”
Will sprinted out of the park and stopped on the adjacent road. He turned and looked back at Long Wharf just in time to see the ferry leaving. He checked his watch. He glanced back along the road.
“I’ve got Laith.” Ben spoke loudly over the noise of his vehicle.
Will checked his watch again. The ferry now had nine minutes to reach its destination. Cars were moving very slowly along the road before him. Some had their hazard lights on, and in the distance to his right Will could see multiple rear taillights, meaning that traffic was grinding to a halt somewhere along the route they needed to take.
“Roger’s with me. We’re on our way to you, Will.”
The ferry would be reaching Charlestown in eight minutes.
“Okay, we see you.”
Will squinted through the blizzard, looking to his left. Multiple headlights were moving along the road, and he looked at them all to try to ascertain which ones belonged to Ben’s vehicle. He saw a car drive diagonally across the roadway and at a much faster speed than the others around it. The car’s headlights flashed twice, and as it came to within twenty meters of him, a rear door opened. The car slowed and moved alongside him but did not stop. Will ran alongside it and jumped through the open door. The vehicle immediately lurched forward at speed, and Will could feel its tires struggling to maintain their grip on the road. He pushed himself back into the seat. Roger was next to him, and Laith sat next to Ben in the front. Nobody spoke at first.
They had six and a half minutes to reach their destination.
Will looked at Roger. “I made the wrong decision.”
Roger removed a handgun from his jacket. “It could have been the right decision if he was on that boat.”
Will peered ahead. Laith was talking quietly to Ben.
“Stay on Atlantic Avenue. Switch lanes in fifty. Commercial Street joins us from the left. We’re now on Commercial Street. Massachusetts 1A joins us from left. Progress through crossroads, traffic ahead slowing. Change lanes. Change back again. Take the gap between the two vehicles ahead.”
Will placed his left hand on the back of Ben’s seat so that it exposed his watch. They now had a maximum of four minutes to reach their destination.
“Traffic slowing. We’ll have to take every gap we can. Move left, vehicle on your right. Accelerate. Now decelerate, move ahead, road goes forty-five left. Charlestown Bridge is in one hundred forty meters. Take the next gap at speed. Slow now. And accelerate.”
With his right hand, Will removed his handgun. He heard Julian’s voice. “Clock’s ticking. I can see our jetty at the Charlestown Navy Yard.”
Ben said nothing as he drove. He was clearly totally focused on his task and on the words coming from Laith.
“We move onto the bridge. Traffic looks lighter for one hundred. Make up ground now.”
The car sped forward, and Will wondered how Ben was managing to stop it from careening off its route.
They now had two and a half minutes.
“Take the inside of the bus. Move right. Heavier traffic, try to make that gap-correction, too narrow. Go left and progress.”
“What do you want me to do, Will?” Julian’s words were hushed.
Will leaned forward to speak to the men in the front of their vehicle. “Are we going to get there in time?”
The men ignored him, and Laith carried on coaching Ben. Will sighed, because he knew they could not give him an answer. All they could do was focus on covering ground as quickly as possible.
“We’re slowing up.” Julian could barely be heard. “We’re nearly there. Do you want me to stop them from getting off the vessel?”
Will punched the seat before him.
Julian spoke again. “It’s decision time again, Will. Do you want me to interven
e?”
Will looked ahead. They were nearing the end of the bridge and would soon be turning right into Charlestown.
“Our ferry will be there in thirty seconds. Do you want me to intervene?”
Will glanced at Roger while hearing Laith continue his instructions.
“Going ninety degrees right now onto Chelsea Street. Six hundred fifty meters to destination. Multiple traffic ahead. Shit.”
Their car slowed quickly and then stopped behind a wall of stationary vehicles.
Ben looked over his shoulder at Roger. “No way through.”
Roger instantly opened his car door and shouted, “Laith and Will, with me on foot! Ben, do what you can to meet us there in the vehicle!”
Will opened his door, shoved his weapon into a pocket, and ran. As he did so, Julian spoke again.
“We’ve stopped. If you want me to do anything, now’s the time to say so.”
Will’s hand flew to his pressel switch. “Nothing. You’re outnumbered, and she might get killed in the cross fire. Do nothing.”
He moved with Roger and Laith between vehicles and over thick plowed snow. Cars were sounding their horns, presumably to try to get traffic moving, and some drivers had exited their vehicles and were looking ahead down Chelsea Street. Will dodged between cars and people and ran as fast as he could around the barriers ahead of him. Over the noise of the cars and his own rapid breathing, he heard more of Julian’s words.
“They’re walking off the ferry. They’re walking down the pier. I see their vehicle waiting for them.”
Will shouted, “Just watch them! No intervention!” He tried to run faster. He stumbled over a pile of snow, fell to the ground, and landed on the shoulder bullet wound he’d received on Medvednica Mountain. He winced in pain, felt a hand grab his jacket, and was hauled back onto his feet. He looked at Laith and continued running. He saw the navy yard to his right. With Roger and Laith, he moved off Chelsea Street and ran across open ground and a parking lot toward his destination. He pulled out his handgun. He sprinted. He heard Julian speak again.
“I see them get into their SUV. I see the vehicle drive away from my position. I see the vehicle drive away from your position. You’re too late. They’re gone.”
Forty-One
“Megiddo’s held his nerve-now it’s our turn to do the same.” Will spoke the words loudly while leaning over a map of Massachusetts. He was in the CIA safe house in Boston’s West End. Patrick and Roger were with him. Will jabbed at the map and looked up at Patrick. “There’s nothing else that can be done right now.”
“There’s nothing that can be done to undo your mistake.” Patrick pointed a finger at Will before thrusting his arms in the air. “She should never have been taken away by them. Megiddo could torture her.”
“I’m aware of that,” Will snapped, running fingers distractedly through his hair. He felt sick with frustration and failure and an all-encompassing fear for Lana’s safety.
“Then you’ll also be aware that if she’s tortured, she’ll reveal our hand and everything will be finished.”
“Is that all you care about?” Will shouted. “What about Lana? Her life? Don’t you care about that?”
“I care about the thousands of lives we might lose if she tells them what we’re doing. She knew the risks in working with us.”
“How could she? How could a woman like her know the real risks in the work we do?”
Patrick paced forward. “There is no excuse for losing her to them.”
Will banged a fist down onto the table before him. “I’m not the first person in this room to lose someone.”
Patrick shook his head quickly. “Don’t throw that at me. You’re deeply mistaken if you think that losing Lana to Megiddo is comparable to Alistair and me not capturing him in the first place.”
“It’s convenient for you to think that way now.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Patrick’s arms flew up in the air again. He spun around to face Will. “It’s not comparable.”
Will felt the anger increase within him. “Why not?”
Patrick spoke in an exasperated tone. “The comparison is flawed because you’ve done something that we could not do. We never had the young Megiddo in our sights. But you’ve managed to bring the older Megiddo, a man who is now the most wanted mastermind on this planet, to within a cat’s whisker of capture.” Once again he pointed at Will. “I’m angry with you because you’ve achieved far more than I or Alistair could manage to do and yet may have thrown it all away at the last moment. I’m angry because you are no longer in total control of events. I’m angry because we are now vulnerable to Megiddo’s view of Lana.”
“We’re not vulnerable.” Roger said the words quietly and calmly while staring out a window. “Megiddo will not torture Lana.”
He had gotten everyone’s undivided attention.
Patrick spoke up eventually, and his tone was tentative. “How can you be so sure?”
Roger shrugged. “All that matters to Megiddo is the successful completion of his mission. He could be suspicious of Lana, but he’ll be equally mindful that she could be telling him the truth. If he tortures her, he’ll lose her cooperation. His priority now is to get Will, and he’s totally reliant on Lana to make that happen.” Roger turned and nodded at Will. “It’s Will he wants to torture.”
Patrick did not move. “I hope you’re right.”
“I know Roger’s right.” Will rose to his full height and moved away from the map. He looked at Patrick. “Lana will call me to arrange a meeting. She knows it’s what I want, and I know it’s what Megiddo wants. We have to hold our nerve.”
Patrick sighed. “We don’t have time to hold our nerve. The other twenty-five men have entered the country.”
It was night now, and Will was alone. He stared at his cell phone. He desperately needed to hear it ring.
He wrapped his arms around his body. He wanted to believe his own words. He wanted to hold his nerve. But he felt helpless and hopeless.
He felt three bullets in his stomach, and he smelled New York grass. He saw Lana open the door of her tiny Parisian home and frown at him. He saw Ewan shake his head and fall down dead onto Bosnian snow. He saw a man who could have been Will or Megiddo holding a knife to Harry’s throat. He stood close but not close enough to a young Lana as she curled into a ball in a Balkan forest while surrounded by rapists, and he saw her look of fear and defiance. He looked over his father as the man he did not know stood on a lonely road near Bandar-e ’Abbas. He watched an old man no longer wish to be haunted by his past. And he witnessed a bomb rip through unknown lives somewhere in the United States.
Everything now seemed pointless, unreal, or inevitable.
He stood and walked across his hotel room and back again and did not know what to do. He heard noises. He looked at his phone. He stopped breathing. He stopped thinking.
Lana was calling him.
Forty-Two
Will stepped out of his hotel shower and regarded his reflection in the bathroom’s full-length mirror. He saw scars, welts, bruising, puncture wounds, and burns. He stood for a moment and then reached for a towel. Then he turned and walked through to the bedroom. He looked at the clothes he had laid out over the bed, and for the third time this evening he checked every pocket and fold of every item. Once he was satisfied that there was nothing compromising within them, he dressed in an Ede amp; Ravenscroft white French-cuff shirt, silver cuff links, a Chester Barrie navy tie, a bespoke Huntsman blue suit, and a pair of Crockett amp; Jones black shoes. He examined himself again in a different mirror. With the exception of the darkened bullet groove on the side of his head, he was satisfied that he looked respectable.
He pulled on an overcoat and gloves and walked over to a side table where his wallet, cell phone, and passport waited. He removed cash from the wallet and stuffed it into a pocket, leaving everything else untouched. He glanced at a bedside clock, waited for a few moments, and then left the room.
He walked through the lobby of the five-star Mandarin Oriental hotel before exiting the place to face Washington, D.C. A doorman came to him and asked if he would like a limousine. Will rejected the offer and answered that despite the heavy snowfall over the city, he preferred to walk to his destination. The man politely told Will that he was crazy and then left him alone. Will pulled up his overcoat collar and walked.
He knew that Roger, Laith, Ben, and Julian would be close to him, but he didn’t bother looking for them. He knew that they would be talking to one another, but he had no communications equipment to hear them. He knew that they would be sufficiently armed to compensate for the fact that he carried no weapons.
He walked through the barely populated Seaton Park, past the park’s Smithsonian Institution and National Gallery of Art before heading north on Seventh Street N.W. He arrived at his destination.
He looked at the luxury Hotel Monaco and smiled. To anyone else the elegant, marbled, tastefully illuminated place would no doubt appear welcoming and inviting. But Will knew that the hotel held men who would try to kill him. He stood still for a moment and then walked through the building’s entrance. He approached the concierge, gave his name, and said that he was a guest of Miss Lana Beseisu.
Will rode up four floors until he reached the area containing the hotel’s Majestic Suites. He paused by the room he needed to enter. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes for a moment. After he opened them, he pressed the bell.
Lana stood before him. She looked stunning and showed no signs of being hurt. But her eyes were wet, and her expression clearly showed that she was under strain. She stared down at the floor and muttered, “Nicholas. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
Will wanted to step forward and hold her. But he knew he could not. He wanted to ask if she was okay. But he knew that the question had to remain unspoken.
