Authors: Matthew Dunn
T
he doorknob groaned as it turned slowly.
Will stood very still five meters away from the entrance. He kept his gun held high, pointing at the door. Outside his room he heard traffic, voices on the streets, distant sirens, and the overall hum of a nighttime city that was alive and energetic. Inside his room everything was different. It was quiet, and the night and the light made everything either black or white.
Thin diagonal blades of white light traversed the unlit room through the window blinds, flickered, and seemed to be cutting the room into slices. Will looked through those blades and moved one foot forward so that he was poised to shoot. The knob groaned louder, and the door moved open an inch. Yellow light from the hotel corridor was framed by the partially opened door. An icy breeze that had clearly traveled up the stairway from the streets below entered the room. Despite his having spent weeks in freezing temperatures, the air seemed colder than anything he had felt before.
The white light flickered and moved to different parts of the room. Will remained motionless, carefully controlled his breathing, and waited.
A final gust of the dreadfully cold air hit him in the face as the door swung open wide, showing the silhouette of a man before slamming shut and sending the doorway into total darkness.
Will knew that the man was now in the room.
For the briefest of moments, the city became utterly silent, the outside world seeming to pause and hold its breath.
Will said calmly, “Show yourself.”
Nothing happened. The white lights darted around the room but kept away from the door.
“Show yourself.”
Will heard a foot tread on the room's floorboards. He heard something breathing. Something moving very slowly.
The white light flickered wildly but still did not go near the door. There was another step. And another.
The man appeared in the frenzied light.
Will's heart pumped fast, but his mind felt focused. He pointed his gun at the man's face, at a man who was as tall as he was, had slicked-back black hair, a smooth face, and black eyes, at the man he had seen looking down at him from the mountain outside Saranac Lake but who was now holding a handgun pointed straight at Will's head.
The light settled and seemed resigned to providing snapshot images of the man. It showed a man wearing a tailored dark suit and an open-collared white shirt, a man who looked slender but very powerful, a man who was dressed like Will but was many years older, a man who looked totally in control of himself and all around him.
The man took another step forward and stopped. He looked straight at Will's eyes. His gun hand was absolutely steady. His face showed no expression, no emotion.
“You know who I am?” he said.
The man's voice was deep, polished, and barely accented.
Will did not move. “I do.”
The man nodded. “But you do not know why I am here.”
“No, but I do know that while you are here, you will try to kill me.”
“And I know that you will try to stop me from doing that and try to stop me from doing anything ever again.”
The two men were three meters away from each other. They were both very still. Their guns were at exactly the same level.
Will ran a finger over the trigger.
The man breathed in slowly through his nose before speaking again. “At every step of my journey to this room, I have felt your presence. You have exceeded my expectations. You have proved to be the most worthy opponent.” He angled his head. “You have intrigued me, gained my admiration, and shown me that you never stop.” His smile vanished, and he looked very intense. “At first you inconvenienced me. Later you slowed me down. Finally you took nearly everything away from me.” He breathed deeply. “But I never fail. I am not a man like other men.” His eyes widened and looked filled with death. “I am Megiddo.”
Time stood still.
Will kept his gun pointed at Megiddo's forehead. He knew that if he lost any focus, the man could kill him. “Do you know what I want?”
Megiddo smiled, but his expression was very cold. “You want my secret and my life.” He shook his head slightly. “I am willing to give you one of those things.” His smile vanished. “But I will not give you both.”
“We will see.”
“We will indeed.”
Will took one step toward Megiddo. “I, too, never fail. I, too, am not like other men.”
Megiddo took one step toward Will. “I can see that, Will Cochrane.”
Will felt his stomach tighten. He gripped his gun tighter.
Megiddo bared white teeth. Light flickered over his face.
Will breathed slowly and spoke with a commanding voice. “Very few people know my real name. How are you one of them?”
Megiddo shook his head. “You will have some of my secrets, but not all of them.”
Will kept his eyes fixed on Megiddo. He would not blink. He dared not blink.
“What is your mission?” Megiddo asked.
“I should ask you the same question.”
“You will in a moment.”
Will narrowed his eyes. “My mission is to stop you from killing others.”
Megiddo snapped, “What else?”
Will raised his own voice. “That is the mission, and that is what I will do.”
“What you want to do is determined by many factors, and not just because you fear that others will be killed by my hand.”
For the briefest of moments, Will wondered whether he should end this now and send a bullet into Megiddo's skull.
Megiddo stared at him. “Lower your weapon, Mr. Cochrane. I will do the same. Our intentions toward each other are in danger of killing words that need to be spoken.”
Will remained still.
So did Megiddo. “I could have killed you in Sarajevo. I could have killed you on the mountain. I could have killed you on the street in the village of Saranac Lake. But I chose not to for a reason. Instead I chose to come here to talk to you. Only after that is done will I pull my trigger. So let us lower our weapons together and not fear each other for a few important moments.”
Will stared at Megiddo and wondered if the other man was trying to trick him. He decided that he was not. “Together.”
Megiddo nodded.
They kept their guns still for a moment, each staring at the other's weapon. Then they simultaneously made the tiniest of movements until the handguns were moving down at the same pace and were by their sides.
But they kept their guns firm in their grips. Will knew that when the guns were raised again, one of them would be dead. He recalled Laith's words.
The man was so fucking fast, so damned deadly.
Megiddo nodded. “Why else is your mission so important to you?”
Light moved again and exposed different aspects of Megiddo's face. It showed a handsome man with features that suggested immense intelligence but also deadly intent, knowledge, coldness, experience, death, and some other things that Will could not yet define. It was a face of contradictions and hidden depths.
Will exhaled slowly. “Saving lives is what matters to me.”
“For a man like you, I am sure it is all you have to explain your existence.”
“A man like me does not need to explain his existence to a man like you.”
Megiddo shook his head. “True. But you are also a man who is now driven by vengeance . . . a vengeance that must be fulfilled, a vengeance that requires my death.”
Will felt his heart miss a beat. “Then you will know why I demand vengeance.”
“I do.”
Anger raged through his body. “Why did you kill my father?”
Megiddo looked at Will's gun before looking at his face. “One of the two reasons I am here is to answer that question. But before I do so, I should ask you whether you have ever killed fathers. I'm sure you have. I know you have.”
Will shook his head and muttered through clenched teeth, “If they were bad men, yes. But I've never savaged a man in the way you savaged my father.”
Megiddo smiled.
Will fought every urge in his body to kill the man before him.
Both men stood still.
Will breathed deeply. “Why is
your
mission important to you? Why do you wish to commit a massacre?”
Megiddo smiled. “The massacre is not important to me. It will merely be the result of what is important to me.” His eyes darted toward the window and New York City before looking quickly back at Will. “I hold the rank of general in the IRGC Qods Force. I have been the strategist behind every major Iranian terrorist attack during the last few years. Those attacks have been deemed by others within Iran to be an important means to further the country's ambitions in the Middle East and beyond.” His eyes narrowed. “But more important than the ambitions of others, the attacks have increased my power and influence within my country. This massacre will cement my power. It is going to be my masterpiece.”
Will thought for a moment. “But a masterpiece needs a master artist who is seen and recognized by others. Aside from a tiny number of Iranian leaders, nobody will know that you are the mastermind behind your attack.”
For a mere instant, Megiddo's face filled with anger.
Will made ready to sweep his gun upward.
But then Megiddo's anger receded. “You are right. And that is the other reason I am here. I have chosen to make you my audience, to tell you what I am going to do.” He flashed a brief smile. “It matters not to me, because you are too late to stop me, and in any case I am going to kill you.”
Will kept still.
Megiddo took a small step toward Will. “There is a children's concert at the Metropolitan Opera House in this city. There will be four thousand attendees and performers, and most of them, naturally, will be children. The concert is sponsored by a wealthy Middle Eastern foundation and is intended to promote peace, learning, and intercultural compassion within the Gulf and Levant regions. The concert will start at eight this evening. My bombs will destroy the child performers and everyone else in the building at nine
P.M.
”
Will felt his stomach tighten. “That is an indiscriminate atrocity.”
Megiddo chuckled softly. “Not indiscriminate.” His face hardened. “Certain women, Mr. Cochrane, are the real targets. There are to be guests of honor at the event. The wives of the Emirati, Syrian, Saudi, Egyptian, American, and British premiers attending Camp David. And the wife of the Iranian president.” Megiddo smiled. “Her husband is not allowed into this country, but she has been invited as a gesture of goodwill.”
“The premiers' wives?” Will felt incredulous.
Megiddo had no expression. “I will destroy the place in the same way I would have destroyed the German government”âhe shrugged nonchalantlyâ“had that not merely been a ruse intended to throw you off my scent. A ruse you uncovered.”
Will silently cursed as he remembered the devices that the German GSG 9 assault squad had found in the attic of the house in Berlin's Onlauer Street, bombs that contained combined thermite cutting agents and explosives so that they could propel fire through any material, including concrete and steel, and destroy everything around them.
Megiddo looked at him intently. “I managed to get employment passes for the opera house so that my bombers could pose as cleaners within the building. They planted their tiny numerous bombs over the course of several days. The building will have been swept today by antiterrorist police with their equipment and sniffer dogs, but they will not have found the bombs. They are too well hidden, away from scent, sight, or special detectors.”
Will shook his head. “You plan to burn everyone in the Metropolitan Opera House to death? Why?”
“No doubt you find it utterly abhorrent that I am prepared to kill four thousand people, most of them children, as well as the wives of the premiers. But that is not my endgame, my masterpiece. No, my masterpiece will be of a far more epic scale.”
Will waited.
“The collective attendance of the premiers' wives is unprecedented and has been organized amid grave concerns from their husbands that should anything happen to the women, the results could be catastrophic. But the American security services have given the Arab leaders an assurance that nothing will happen to their wives in this country.” Megiddo chuckled. “It was a very cavalier and foolish assurance.”
Will felt a sudden sickness as a realization struck him. “The Arab and Persian populations of the premiers' countries would blame the West for any attack on the women.”
“They would indeed.” He nodded. “I live in a part of the world that is deeply conspiratorial. The fact that the First Lady and the wife of the British premier were killed in an assault would not matter to most people from my world. They would see that as simply a devious means to cover the West's hand in the attack.”
“But you're also going to kill the wife of the Iranian president. How can you allow that to happen?”
Megiddo leaned forward. “She needs to be sacrificed. No fingers must be pointed at Iran. The president of my country knows nothing about the attack. I have ensured that.” He was enjoying himself. “The concerns expressed to the United States by the Arab premiers were simple and blunt: Should anything happen to their wives, then the populations of their country would blame the United States. The Arab premiers and their administrations would try to calm their countrymen and tell them that the United States was not behind the attack, but their people would not believe them, would think they were weak and puppets of the West. And they would rise up fueled by anger and hatred toward them and the United States.”
“There would be revolutions, regime changes, armies mobilized.” Will shook his head. “Chaos and war.”
“Not total chaos,” Megiddo corrected him. “Iran would remain strong and would be the only nation whose leadership blamed the West for the attack. But the Arab nations would tear themselves apart before transforming themselves into new regimes that were steadfast allies of my country. Iran's former Arab enemies will unite with us against the United States and its supporters. They will engage in total war against the West. It will be genocide, and hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, will be killed in the battles that will follow.”