The Damaged

by Brett Battles

  “Isn’t it a full mission meeting?”

  “It is, but…Juarez had to make a last-minute substitution on the ops team. An agent named Terrance Sala. You know him?”

  “I’ve worked with him a couple times.” Sala was a solid operative. Quinn couldn’t imagine a reason why his presence would be an issue.

  “Sala was on the Resnick job with Durrie last summer.”

  Quinn groaned inwardly. That was the gig on which the civilians at the bus stop had died. “Let me guess. No one knows Durrie’s working with me.”

  “Of course they don’t. If they did, they would have protested. So, it would probably be better if those who don’t need to know remained in the dark.”

  No kidding, Quinn thought. The good thing was that other than the meeting tomorrow morning, there were no other instances when the ops team and the clean team would cross paths.

  “No problem. I’ll go to the meeting by myself,” he said. “Any other fun facts I should know about?”

  “Only that there are a lot of eyes on this, so don’t screw it up.”

  “Not planning on it. Listen, um, Durrie was wondering what his next steps are after this job.”

  “He shouldn’t be wondering about anything right now. He should be focusing on the job at hand.”

  “He is,” Quinn said. “I just thought it might be motivation, knowing that the next thing was out there. You know, like this job was. I was thinking maybe I could mention that San Francisco job.”

  “San Francisco? I’m not so sure about that. I’d be much more comfortable if we kept him on things out of the country for a while.” He paused. “Look, if you feel dangling something in front of him will help, that’s your call. Do what you think is best.”

  “Thanks, Peter.”

  After hanging up, Quinn checked his messages and saw he’d received not one text, but two. The first was the expected message from Durrie, giving him the name of a restaurant two blocks south of the hotel. The second was from Orlando.

  Just checking in. Hope you guys had a good flight.

  Though she didn’t come out and ask, Quinn knew she was wondering whether or not Durrie was behaving.

  He punched in a response.

  All good here.

  She sent him a smiley face.

  He almost put his phone away, but tapped out a second text.

  Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine.

  His finger hesitated over the send arrow. The message was a violation of one of the rules Durrie had taught him. “Never promise anyone anything in this business,” Quinn’s mentor had said. “You’re not God. You can’t predict the future. And as much as you might think you know what will happen, you don’t. The only thing a promise will ever get you is in trouble.”

  He pressed the arrow and the message was sent.

  A few seconds later, Orlando replied:

  Thank you.

  Durrie kept the smile on his face until he exited the hotel room and Ortega had shut the door behind them.

  Ortega opened his mouth to say something as they walked down the hallway, but Durrie signaled him to wait. He was positive Peter had the place bugged, so they rode the elevator down in silence.

  When they reached the street, Durrie pulled a scrambler out of his pocket and flicked it on. About the size of a trio of sugar packets stacked together, the device created a sound bubble around them, preventing any microphones from picking up anything they said. It would also disrupt the transmission of any bugs Quinn might have planted on them.

  Durrie was pretty sure he was clean. The only time he’d touched Quinn was when they shook hands at the airport, and since then he had meticulously avoided getting any closer than a meter to his apprentice. He hadn’t even slept on the plane, only rested his eyes while keeping his senses on alert. He was less convinced Ortega hadn’t been tagged. The kid was smart, but he was still learning the game.

  “Okay, we can talk,” Durrie said. “Thoughts?”

  “He’s exactly like you said he’d be.”

  Durrie nodded. “On the outside.”

  “Yeah. If you hadn’t told me it’s all an act, I would have never believed it.”

  “Johnny’s one of the best. He even fooled me before. You gotta stay on your toes, Angel. Behind that calm expression hides the mind of someone who’d prefer I was out of the picture.”

  “And after all you did for him. What an asshole.”

  Durrie nodded again but said nothing this time.

  “I guess this means your plan is a go.”

  A snort from Durrie. “I wish I had another choice.”

  “Don’t worry. You know you can count on me.”

  Durrie smiled and clapped Ortega on the back. “I do.”

  Quinn joined Durrie and Ortega at the restaurant before their meals were served, and he and his old mentor ended up telling stories to Ortega from when Quinn was an apprentice.

  While a few glasses of wine helped lubricate the conversation, it was Durrie’s willingness to open up and talk about things that didn’t always put himself in the best of light that convinced Quinn to share tidbits he would have normally kept to himself.

  It reminded Quinn of the times during his apprenticeship when Durrie would take him along to evenings out with other members of a team. Quinn would sit and listen to their tales and the boasts, soaking up every moment of it. That was probably how Ortega was feeling now, and a part of Quinn couldn’t help but feel a little envious of the kid.

  As they walked back to the hotel, Quinn touched Durrie on the arm, slowing him so that Ortega moved ahead of them.

  In a low voice, Quinn said, “I looked into my schedule, and there’s something coming up next week that I might be able to use you on.”

  “Really?” Durrie said, appearing surprised. “That’s great news. Where is it?”

  Quinn hesitated. He’d been planning on just dropping the info about a possible job without going into details. But as Peter had said, it was his call, and he thought telling Durrie might help improve his performance. “It’s…in San Francisco.”

  “That would be fantastic.”

  “It will still depend on how things go here, of course.”

  “Sure.”

  “And I’ll need to clear it with Peter.”

  “Of course.”

  “But I don’t see any reason why it won’t happen.”

  Durrie grinned. “Thanks, Johnny.”

  An hour later, Durrie lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling.

  San Francisco.

  He snorted.

  Yeah, he knew what that job was.

  Quinn, what a two-faced bastard.

  Durrie had asked the question about another job as a test. He always figured Peter and Quinn’s plan was to have the Rio job go smooth as silk, then follow it up with the mission on which they would terminate him. He knew Quinn had been lying on the plane when he said he’d have to look into his schedule. The asshole had known from the beginning what was next. He just wanted to make the offer look natural.

  Durrie had to give him credit. If he hadn’t been on to Quinn’s game from the start, Durrie would have bought the lie. But since he was in the know, when Quinn mentioned something was coming up, Durrie had had to fight to keep the sneer off his face. And when his apprentice said it would take place in San Francisco, that sealed the deal.

  A US location, at a port city, where there would be plenty of agency backup if necessary. An obvious choice for the removal of someone they had labeled redundant.

  Too bad for them things didn’t always go as planned.

  Chapter Eighteen

  WEDNESDAY, PREP DAY

  ONE DAY UNTIL OPERATION REDEEMER

  Enrique Juarez opened the door and smiled at Quinn. “There he is. Good to see you, buddy.” The man pulled Quinn into a bear hug before letting him inside and looking past him into the hallway. “You alone?”

  “Had some errands I needed my guys to take care of this morning. I’ll fill them
in on anything they need to know later.”

  Quinn had tasked Durrie and Ortega with scoping out their route, from the warehouse in which the termination would occur to the mortuary that was the backup body disposal site, as well as checking out the mortuary itself. To Quinn’s relief, Durrie and Ortega had taken to the task without questioning why they weren’t included in the op meeting.

  Juarez led Quinn over to the table where the rest of his strike team was gathered.

  Motioning to each of the others in turn, the op leader said, “Gary Crist, Hannah Upland, Dominic Aquino, Choi Do-won, and Terrance Sala.”

  Quinn shook with each of them. Crist and Aquino were new to him, the others he’d worked with on at least one job.

  Juarez got right down to it. The latest intel indicated El-Baz was still on track to arrive the next evening. “We have satellites watching the Saudi airfield we believe he’ll be leaving from. That will be happening late tonight, our time. The satellites should also give us an exact count of how many others are traveling with him.” Juarez tapped some keys and a map focused on Africa and South America appeared on the large monitor at the end of the table. “Given the type of aircraft available to him, the distance between there and here is too far to go in one shot, so he’ll have to refuel on the way. Our source says that should happen here.” He pointed at a spot along the west coast of the lower half of Africa. “It’s a private airfield just outside of Kinshasa in the DRC.” Democratic Republic of Congo. “There will be a team in place to observe them from the ground, and another satellite watching from above, to make sure anyone who gets off the plane gets back on.

  “From there, it’s a long trip across the South Atlantic to here.” He tapped a few keys on his computer, and the map zoomed in on an airfield, near the opening of Guanabara Bay, with the initials SDU hovering above it. “Santos Dumont Airport. It’s pretty much exclusively for domestic use, which means El-Baz’s jet will likely be representing itself as coming from somewhere else in the country.”

  Using this tactic would avoid the scrutiny that would come if they arrived at Galeão International Airport twenty kilometers away.

  Juarez enlarged the map even more, focusing on the airport itself, and switched to a satellite image. “Okay, let’s talk end of the mission first. We don’t know exactly where the plane will be parked, but our best guess is one of these three locations.”

  With a touch of a key, three arrows appeared on the map, two at points along the building just north of the commercial terminal, and one near a building at the southern end of the airfield.

  Juarez looked at Quinn. “Whichever it is, you’ll bring the cargo in through this gate.” Another arrow appeared at one of the airport’s gated entrances. The ops leader picked up a packet from the table and tossed it to Quinn. “ID badges for you and your team. You just need to insert pictures. There’s also a sticker that needs to be put on your vehicle. You’ll be on the list of expected deliveries so there shouldn’t be any problems.” He paused. “One of you speak Portuguese, right?”

  “I do,” Quinn said. Ortega apparently did, too, but there was no need to mention that.

  “Great.” Juarez nodded across the table at two members of his team. “Hannah and Dominic should have the remote controls installed by the time you arrive. If you need the assistance, they can help transfer the bodies.”

  Quinn nodded. Since Sala wouldn’t be there, Quinn didn’t need to say no to having the extra hands available.

  “Once you’re done,” Juarez continued, “you’ll exit the way you arrived, then proceed to the standby location here.” The spot was a small parking lot about a dozen blocks away. “Hannah and Dominic will handle things from there.”

  Hannah nodded. “As soon as the plane is closed up and Quinn has left the airport, we will radio for takeoff clearance. Dominic and I will remotely fly the plane to the crash zone over the Atlantic, where we will ditch it.”

  Juarez said to Quinn, “Once the plane is airborne, you’re released.”

  If something happened that prevented the plane from leaving—problems with the remote control or issues with getting clearance in a timely manner—Quinn’s team would return, pick up the bodies, and use the mortuary to dispose of El-Baz and his men. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

  “So, that’s the easy part,” Juarez said with a grin. “Let’s talk about the takedown.”

  Over the next twenty minutes, Juarez went step by step through the plan to ensnare El-Baz and eliminate him and his bodyguards. Juarez went through all the ways things could go wrong, and the contingencies his team would enact for each.

  It was all good information for Quinn, but his team’s only responsibility during this stage would be getting into position to deal with the aftermath.

  By the time the meeting ended, it was nearly 9:45 a.m.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as we have confirmation that the plane had left Saudi Arabia,” Juarez said as he walked Quinn to the door.

  “Thanks,” Quinn said, then shook Juarez’s hand again. “Good luck.”

  Quinn spent the rest of the morning doing drive-bys of the airport and the takedown location, a few kilometers northwest of SDU at the Port of Rio. He’d picked out several routes between the two places during his prep time in L.A., and now that he was in country, he was able to drive and rank them from most to least desirable. He also identified shortcuts between the routes, in case situations arose that forced his team to improvise. As Durrie had taught him early on, preparation was key to every successful mission.

  At one p.m. he met up with Durrie and Ortega for lunch, at a small restaurant a few blocks from Ipanema Beach. After filling them in on the ops meeting, he said, “How did your visit go?”

  “The route is easy enough. But I gotta say, given the number of bodies we’re talking about, the mortuary isn’t as big a place as I would like,” Durrie said. “It’ll take him a couple days to get through everyone.”

  “That’s not ideal,” Quinn agreed.

  “Are there any other places we can use?” Ortega asked. “You know, spread the load?”

  “This was the only crematorium I found that would service our needs,” Quinn said. “But maybe Peter has some contacts I’m unaware of. I’ll check with him.”

  “He’s bound to know someone,” Durrie said. “But here’s to everything going smoothly so we don’t have to worry about alternatives.”

  It was a surprisingly upbeat outlook. Even on-top-of-his-game Durrie from back in the day would seldom say anything so rosy.

  After lunch, they picked up the remaining items they needed, including the cargo van they would be using the next day. Quinn then showed them the routes he’d chosen between the termination site and the airport. By the time they arrived back at the hotel, the sun had set.

  Durrie and Ortega went out to dinner together again. This time when asked if he wanted to join them, Quinn begged off. He wanted to spend a few hours studying everything again, making sure he hadn’t missed any details.

  Instead of heading straight to dinner, Durrie and Ortega ran a few errands of their own first.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Hey, babe.”

  Orlando smiled at the sound of Durrie’s voice. “Hi. I didn’t think I was going to hear from you.”

  “Had a little time. Thought I’d see how things were going there.”

  “Quietly. Just reading a book.” The hardback lay on the couch beside her, opened to the same page she’d been trying to get through for the last hour. Her mind kept drifting to thoughts about Durrie and Quinn’s mission. “How are you doing?”

  “Fine. I mean, it’s Rio, right? Nothing to complain about.”

  “You eat dinner yet?” Though it was barely five p.m. in San Diego, it was nine p.m. in Rio.

  “Just finished.”

  “Good. I was thinking about scrounging up something myself.”

  He said nothing for a second, then, “We’ll know if we’re a go by the morning.”
<
br />   Telling her this was a breach of protocol. Mission particulars were not to be shared with anyone not directly involved, especially this close to actual engagement time. But she was glad he did.

  “Everything look good?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Solid plan. Plenty of contingencies.”

  “Happy to hear it.” When he didn’t say anything, she said, “You’ll call me when you’re done?”

  “If you want me to.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then I’ll call.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  “Love you, too. I’ll, um, I’ll talk to you soon.”

  The line went dead.

  She lowered the phone into her lap and stared at it.

  “It’s fine,” she whispered. “It’s all going to be fine.”

  Quinn looked up from his computer and rolled his head over his shoulders. His stomach growled so he checked the time—9:47 p.m. He’d been at it for over two and a half hours.

  He stood and stretched, then listened at the door to Durrie and Ortega’s room. Hearing nothing, he knocked. When no one answered, he considered opening the door and taking a look but thought better of it. They were probably still out, grabbing a drink somewhere and relaxing before the big day. Quinn couldn’t help feeling a bit worried that Durrie might overindulge, but his mentor had behaved well so far. Hopefully, it would be fine.

  Quinn’s stomach growled again.

  He left his room and went down to the ground floor, thinking he’d grab a quick bite to eat at the place where they’d had dinner the night before. As he was nearing the lobby’s exit, Durrie and Ortega walked in. Neither looked inebriated, though they did appear surprised to find him there.

  “Something up?” Durrie asked.

  “Just got hungry,” Quinn replied.