It occurred to Will that the men before him were probably two of the most powerful individuals in the Western intelligence community. It also occurred to him how very alike they looked. But more important than their physical similarities was the near alignment of both thinking and action that Will now believed more than two decades of covert collaboration had produced between Patrick and Alistair. They looked at him now.
“You must never tell anyone about your actions against the French.”
“Because even we would not be able to protect you from the repercussions if that event were ever disclosed.”
“All that matters is your operation to seize Megiddo.”
“If you’re still up to the task of capturing him.”
“But are you?”
Will patted a hand against freshly applied bandages. His wound had been examined and treated by the same small, bespectacled American man who had cared for him in New York. The man had told him he would need to keep the bandaging on for at least a week, and even then he would need to have minor reconstructive surgery to hide all traces of the bullet wound. Will had told him that he would be removing the bandages in the morning.
He looked around the minimalist room. It belonged to a CIA safe house in a residential area of Boston’s West End. He looked back at the two senior men. “Lana will meet him tomorrow at noon, and I’ll be there to watch it happen.”
Patrick and Alistair did not look at each other and instead kept their attention on Will. “Even though you’re now on U.S. soil, you do know that we still can’t give you extra intelligence resources to cover that meeting? And even though we probably could get help from the local and federal police and the military, that cannot be an option yet.”
“I know.” Will had already concluded that police involvement would not work. If things went wrong, their primary objective would be to save lives. And military involvement, even special ops, was too risky, because any individuals deployed from that quarter wouldn’t have time to learn the nuances of the mission and therefore couldn’t be trusted to make correct decisions without direct instructions. He had to continue to rely solely on Roger, Laith, Ben, and Julian.
“So, aside from wishing to check on my mental and physical well-being, why are you both here?”
Alistair smiled.
Patrick did not. He took a step toward Will. “We have new NSA Hubble intelligence.”
Will held up a palm. “It will be manufactured by Megiddo and therefore should be ignored.”
“This cannot be ignored, because it is genuine.” Alistair was no longer smiling. “It is not intelligence about the location or timing of the attack but rather intelligence pertaining to the movement of men. And it can be and has been verified by independent sources. We know that twenty-five men are traveling to the United States from Iran during the next forty-eight hours. We know that all of them are members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and we have positively identified four of them as IRGC Qods Force men. We must therefore assume they are all Qods Force personnel.”
“They must be coming to Megiddo.” Will looked at Alistair and then Patrick. “That will give him a team of thirty-two people in this country, and it must mean that his attack is going to take place here rather than in the U.K.”
“Precisely.”
Will frowned. “How do you know that the intelligence isn’t false or misleading?”
“Because it is derived from multiple entry- and exit-port database systems as well as aircraft rosters. Even Megiddo cannot manipulate that amount or type of data.”
Will thought for a moment and then asked, “Do we know anything about the men?”
Alistair answered. “Of the four that we know are definitely Qods Force, three of them have been linked to terror acts in the Middle East and South Asia. They are bombers.”
“Then the rest must be their chaperones.” Will drummed his fingers. “The men must remain untouched. I need Megiddo to feel confident that he has most of his tools in place to proceed with his mission. If we snatch his men, he’ll be so hampered that he’ll probably go to ground for who knows how long, and certainly the imperative for him to capture and interrogate me would instantly recede. He’d retreat, restrategize, regroup, and then hit his target when he felt safe to do so.”
Patrick exhaled slowly. “An NSA report like this is automatically sent to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security.”
The anger in Will was immediate. He jumped up and kicked his chair away from him. “How could you let this happen, Patrick? The Iranians will be grabbed, and then everything will be lost.”
Alistair shouted, “William, shut your mouth!”
Will had never before heard the man raise his voice.
Alistair came very close to him, cupped a hand around the back of Will’s neck, and quickly pulled his head within inches of his own. His next words were quiet and strong. “Don’t presume anything.”
Will pulled away from him and looked at Patrick. His heart was now pounding with emotion. “I told you to have confidence in my abilities.”
Patrick remained silent. He sat, crossed his legs, and placed the tips of his fingers together. Then he looked at Will. “The NSA report was shown to me two days ago while it was still in draft form. I read it and came to a conclusion. I got into a car and drove to Baltimore to see the director of the NSA. Because of who I am, the man gave me an audience, coffee, and some nice cookies. I gave him an ultimatum: destroy this report, or I would destroy the whole Hubble project on the basis that one percent of it was absolute rubbish.”
Will frowned, looking at Alistair and Patrick.
His Controller nodded once at Will and spoke quietly. “Patrick has prevented the Iranians from being touched. He has prevented the operation from faltering. He has done something that you do not have the power to do.” He narrowed his eyes. “We both have confidence in your abilities, William. But we do not wish to see our dead friend’s son be torn apart by others if he fails.”
He exchanged a brief glance with Patrick and then continued. “Patrick and I are untouchable. You are not. If there is any doubt in your mind”—his voice sounded forceful—“any doubt that you may succeed given the greater odds you now face, then you must be honest with us. If we wish it to happen, the NSA report can be recycled through CIA channels and the twenty-five men can still be arrested upon arrival here. We still have time to thwart Megiddo’s plan temporarily.” His voice softened again. “If you have absolute conviction that you will succeed, then the men must be untouched by others. But if you do have any doubt, we can arrange matters so that you can still walk away from this operation with dignity. The alternative to both is beyond our control.”
Will narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “If you touch those men, Megiddo will disappear. Leave them alone, and leave me alone.”
“What happened to you, Nicholas?” Lana’s eyes watered as she looked at his head.
Will had decided not to wait until the morning to remove his bandages but instead had taken the padding off and cleaned himself up as much as possible before meeting his agent in this Plaza Hotel room. “I made a mistake.”
She came to him and placed an arm around his back. She pressed against his body, raising her other hand close to the gunshot wound. Will could feel her breasts and her warmth, and he could smell lotions on her skin.
Lana touched the wound. She moved her fingers and touched his lips. She looked at them, then at his eyes. She pulled him even tighter against her beautiful body and shook her head slowly. “Piece by piece you are being broken.”
Will was alone in his own hotel room. It would be hours before the sun rose and many more before Lana needed to make her walk, but Will had no thoughts of sleep. He stripped and cleaned his P228 handgun, he paced the room, he studied his maps of Boston Harbor again, he poured and drank tea, he showered, he packed and unpacked and repacked ammunition clips, he checked his communications equipment, he exercised, he showered again, and he sat.
And then he wondered what mattered to him the most: getting his revenge on Megiddo or keeping Lana safe. He decided both mattered in equal measure. Both mattered to him more than anything else in his life right now.