The Silenced

by Brett Battles

  The two front doors opened, and the driver and the front passenger got out. The driver was about Quinn’s height, and at least fifty years old. Quinn had never seen him before.

  The passenger was different, though. Quinn knew exactly who he was.

  “Hello, Mercer,” Quinn said.

  Mercer sneered at Quinn.

  The driver opened the rear passenger door and leaned inside. When he stood back up, he had Liz with him. She looked scared.

  “Now the bags,” the Ghost said over the phone.

  Quinn slipped the phone into his pocket, then pulled the bags out of the van and walked them over to the car.

  On the road in front of the property, two cars appeared—a Mercedes and an Audi. A moment later they turned down the driveway.

  “What is this?” Quinn yelled.

  The rear passenger door on the other side of the S600 opened, and an elderly man climbed out. There was no mistaking his face. He was the older version of the wavy-haired twin in the Young Leninist photo, and the middle-aged man from the headshot in Annabel Taplin’s folder.

  The murderer.

  The faux Trevor Robb.

  The Ghost.

  He was smiling an ugly smile.

  “I’m afraid this was a career-ending job from the beginning. For a last assignment, I’m sure it wasn’t as satisfying as you would have hoped, and for that I apologize.”

  The Mercedes and the Audi pulled to a stop behind the Ghost’s car.

  “What are you talking about?” Quinn asked, wiping the water from his face.

  “You know about the people I’ve had removed. You obviously know about the late Mr. Robb. I’m afraid you are too dangerous to me alive. I can’t have that.”

  “So you’re just going to kill me?” Quinn said.

  “You and your new friends,” Palavin said, glancing back toward Petra and Mikhail. He smiled. “Yes. I know who you are. Dombrovski’s puppets. Mercer was kind enough to take photos of each of you in Maine before he killed your friend.” He looked back at Quinn. “So kind of you to team up with them. Makes things so much more neat and easy.” He then said something in Russian.

  Mikhail spat several words back.

  Palavin laughed, then said in English, “A fool’s quest to think you could best me.”

  “So you and your two men there are planning to take on all of us?” Quinn asked.

  “Me and my two men?” He waved toward the two cars behind his. “There’s far more than just the three of us.”

  “If that were true, shouldn’t there be a third car? I mean, in addition to the two cars that were shadowing you, didn’t you have another one following me?”

  Palavin cocked his head, his eyes narrowing. “So you had your own surveillance,” he said. “So what? My third car is just down the road, making sure we’re not disturbed.”

  “No,” Quinn said. “It’s not.”

  Even from this distance, he could see doubt flash across Palavin’s face. He stepped toward the Mercedes.

  “Stop,” Palavin ordered. His gaze flicked to the man standing with Liz. “Fedor!”

  The man raised a gun to Liz’s head.

  “She’s dead if you come any closer,” Palavin said.

  “I don’t think so,” Quinn said.

  The thup of a bullet passing through a suppressor was all but drowned out by the rain. Fedor collapsing to the ground dead, though, was impossible to miss.

  Liz, jerking in surprise, let out a disbelieving shriek as she looked down at Palavin’s driver.

  “Get down!” Quinn yelled at her.

  On the left side of the car, Mercer drew his own gun. But before he could aim, Quinn dove to his right, his hand reaching out for the pistol Fedor had dropped. As his fingers curled around the grip, a bullet pierced the air a few inches above his back.

  Quinn rolled forward so he was against the car, out of Mercer’s direct line of sight.

  The rain muffled a lot of the other sounds, but Quinn could still hear the doors of the Audi and other Mercedes opening further down the driveway.

  “Kill them all!” Palavin yelled.

  “Give it up, Quinn. You don’t have a chance,” Mercer demanded as he popped out from around the end of the car, his gun trained on the place he thought Quinn would be.

  But Quinn had used the noise of the rain as cover and had moved along the front of the car, stopping a few inches shy of the corner. When Mercer came into view, Quinn was much closer than the other man expected.

  “I don’t think so,” Quinn said as he pulled the trigger.

  Mercer twisted to his right just enough so that the bullet caught him in his shoulder instead of his heart. He yelled out in pain and fell to the ground, his gun landing with a thud on the wet gravel a few feet away. Still in survival mode, he tried to grab at it, but Quinn kicked it out of reach.

  “You keep moving like that, you’re going to bleed to death,” Quinn said, pointing the gun at him.

  “What are you waiting for?” Palavin shouted toward the backup cars from his crouched position behind the car door. “Take them out!”

  The sound of weapons being drawn and slides being pulled back could be heard by everyone, even in the rain. But no triggers were pulled.

  Quinn moved around the door until he could see the Ghost, then pointed his gun at him. “I’m sorry,” he said, acting embarrassed. “Did you think those were your men in those cars?”

  The blood drained from the Ghost’s face as he turned to look behind him.

  There were eight men, each with guns trained on the former KGB agent. On Quinn’s earlier command, Nova and his men had “dropped the hammer” on the Ghost’s backup cars, then procured the vehicles for themselves.

  Orlando stepped out from the bushes near the pond, adding a ninth gun to the mix.

  Quinn motioned for her to get Liz, then he pulled Palavin to his feet.

  “You can’t kill me,” Palavin said. “I’m under the protection of MI6. If anything happens to me, they’ll hunt you down and make you pay.”

  “Really? That’s what you’re counting on? Some tenuous, outdated relationship with British intelligence?” Quinn smiled, then leaned in close. “Who do you think gave me your phone number? MI6 is done with you.”

  Palavin’s face turned red. “You won’t kill me and you know it.”

  Behind him, Quinn could hear two sets of footsteps approaching on the wet driveway.

  “You’re right. I won’t. I don’t need to.” He glanced over his shoulder. Petra and Mikhail were now standing behind him. “My friends here might have other ideas, though.”

  Petra said something in Russian, and though Quinn wouldn’t have thought it was possible, Palavin went even paler.

  “You can’t leave me with them,” the old man said.

  “Is it Ghost? Or Mr. Ghost?” Quinn asked.

  The old man could only stare at Quinn, his lip trembling.

  “Well, Mr. Ghost. No one ever messes with my family or my friends and lives to talk about it.”

  “I HAVE PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING TO BE LOOKING for me.” Mercer said as he was being led toward the van, his shoulder patched up enough to stop the bleeding.

  “We both know that’s not true,” Quinn said. “No one cares about you. And even if someone did, they’d never find you.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means you’re going on a trip.”

  “What trip?”

  Quinn turned to Petra.

  “I’m very pleased to meet the man who killed my friend,” she said to Mercer.

  “Now, wait a minute. Hold on. I was only doing—”

  “Enough,” Petra told him. She motioned to Mikhail, and he slipped a gag over Mercer’s mouth. “You’ll be coming with us. We have a boat waiting that will take us home to Russia. It’s beautiful there, but you probably won’t be able to see much. We’ve already planned on one trial for your employer.” She nodded toward the van, where they had already loaded the Ghost.
“It won’t be much trouble to have two. You can speak all you want then.”

  Once he was loaded inside the van and the doors were shut, Mikhail held out his hand to Quinn. “I never thought this day would come,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Quinn shook it and said, “Be safe.”

  Petra was not interested in handshakes. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Quinn. “We would have never succeeded without you.”

  “I hope this puts some of your demons to rest,” he said.

  “Some,” she admitted as she let him go. “But it will never bring Andrei back. It will never bring any of them back.”

  A few moments later, Petra, Mikhail, and a contingent of Nova’s men set off in the van for a boat moored at Ramsgate Harbour on the coast. From there it would be a nice, slow cruise to St. Petersburg.

  Quinn and Orlando took Liz to a suite Orlando had prearranged at the Crowne Plaza. Quinn promised to take her to see Nate if she promised not to try and leave while he ran a final errand. Once she agreed, he and Orlando returned to the Silvain Hotel.

  Annabel Taplin was standing by the window when they arrived.

  After Quinn asked the guard Nova had provided to step outside, Annabel said, “What happened?”

  “The Ghost is no longer your problem,” Quinn said.

  “Good. That’s good,” she said, though she still looked uneasy. “Can I go now?”

  “Soon enough.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “No problem,” Quinn said. “I just want to make sure we’re in sync on a couple of things.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What things?”

  “First, I have a colleague who is in critical condition at University College Hospital. You will have him transferred to a private facility as soon as he can be moved. There he is to be provided with unparalleled medical care. His own physician, his own nurses, anything and anyone he needs. The incident he was involved in will be covered up. I don’t care how, but neither he nor any of us are to be involved. Is that clear?”

  She thought for a moment, then said, “I can do that.”

  “You will do that,” Quinn said.

  “Yes. I will do it.”

  “Second, no matter what kind of internal mess our business with Palavin creates for you and MI6, absolutely none of it will blow back on me or my team. Not now. Not ever.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “These are the conditions of your release,” Quinn reminded her.

  “It’ll take some work … but … but I’ll get it done. Can I go now?”

  “Not until our Russian friends are out of the country. Consider it a precaution.” Quinn glanced at his watch. “Another two hours should do it. If you, at any point, feel the need to renege on our agreement, know this. Palavin is still alive. My friends have him, and, therefore, his entire story, including his close relationship with the British government through MI6. If even part of one of my conditions is not fulfilled, that story, with your name featuring prominently, will be front-page news around the world.”

  She looked stunned.

  “Do you understand?”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  “Do you agree to the terms?”

  “I agree.”

  Annabel Taplin kept her word. Nate was moved late the next day to a secure private hospital. No questions were asked. The shooting was covered up as a drug deal gone bad, and soon forgotten.

  Liz spent all her time by Nate’s side, holding his hand, reacting to every sign of movement whether real or imaginary, and even sleeping in the chair beside his bed. Because of this, Quinn kept his own visits to a minimum, spending more time in the visitors’ lounge or with the doctors than with his ailing apprentice.

  The good news was that his mother was back home, and safe. He had spoken to her briefly and promised to visit soon.

  “I trust you, sweetie,” she’d said. “If you say it was necessary, it was necessary. And if you don’t want to tell me, I don’t need to know.”

  “I love you, Mom.”

  The distressing news was that for three days Nate was touch and go. Finally, on the fourth day, he began to show signs of recovery. His lung was damaged, and that was something that might cause him problems later in his life. But the doctor emphasized Nate’s youth, saying there was a good chance he would have few lasting effects from the injury.

  The scar, though, would always be there.

  “You’re doing it again,” Orlando said.

  “What?” Quinn asked.

  They were alone in the waiting room.

  “Blaming yourself.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this right now,” he said.

  “Then, what do you want to talk about?” she asked.

  “Vacation.”

  She gave him an odd look.

  “I think we should go away. You, me, and Garrett. A nice long trip someplace warm.”

  “Garrett’s in school,” she reminded him.

  “There’s no way he can take a little time off?”

  “That’s not how it works and you know it,” she said.

  “We need to get away soon, or I’m going to go crazy.”

  “You get another gig you can dive into and you’ll be fine.”

  Quinn wasn’t so sure about that, but he said nothing. The future was not something particularly clear to him at the moment.

  Orlando must have sensed something, because she said, “How about Christmas? He’ll have two weeks off then.”

  A little over two months away. Not soon enough, but he knew there was little he could do about it. “Sure,” he said.

  They sat in silence for several minutes.

  “You know, you’re going to have to go in and talk to her at some point,” Orlando said.

  He shook his head. “She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

  “She wants to talk to you more than anything in the world.”

  Smiling without feeling, he said, “She wants Nate to get better more than anything, I think.”

  “She can want both.”

  He stared at the floor, unsure.

  “If you don’t do it for yourself, or even for her, you need to do it for Nate. He nearly sacrificed his life to save her. He did that for you.”

  Quinn rubbed his hands across his face. “I know,” he whispered.

  “So make it right,” Orlando said.

  She got up and walked out of the room.

  Make it right. For the third time in his life, he was responsible for nearly getting his sister killed. Make it right? He should just walk away, like he did before. That would make it right, wouldn’t it?

  But ten minutes later, he found himself standing in front of Nate’s door, not sure how he got there. He remembered getting up. He remembered walking down the hall. But he didn’t remember choosing to do either.

  Make it right, he thought, breaking the trance.

  He placed his palm against the door and pushed, hoping that for some reason it would be locked. But it swung inward.

  He took a step forward. And then another.

  His sister was there, her chair pulled up next to Nate’s bed, his hand in hers. It was as if she hadn’t heard Quinn come in. Then, finally, she seemed to sense that she was no longer alone, and turned to see who it was, her face blank.

  Quinn hesitated a moment, then took the last step into the room, and let the door swing shut behind him.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’LL TRY TO KEEP THIS BRIEF THIS TIME. ALL THE usual circus clowns did superb work keeping me on track, helping me out of holes, and generally moving me forward. Thank you Tasha Alexander, Rob Browne, and Sophie Littlefield. Special recognition and thanks for head clown Bill Cameron for being the perfect sounding board/story compass. And to Tammy Sparks for keeping me from sounding like an idiot.

  In addition, special thanks to all the wonderful folks at Preface in the United Kingdom for taking me into your arms and being the most wonderful hosts while I stumbled around
London researching this book: Rosie de Courcy, Ben Wright, Nicola Taplin, Trevor Dolby, and the rest of the crew. Thank you!

  Big thank-you to the folks at the Novel Café for providing a great environment to spend countless hours writing, and for keeping me well fed.

  And to K, of course. You were a big part of this one. Thank you.

  Finally, to my editors Danielle Perez and Randall Klein, to Nita Taublib, and to my agent Anne Hawkins. Thank you all for everything you’ve done to support and help me with this book.

  Oh, one last thing. I blame all errors on software glitches. Yeah, that’s it. Software glitches.