The Destroyed

by Brett Battles

  The humor that normally ran through Julien’s voice vanished. “Let me see what I can do.”

  “Thank you.”

  Quinn hung up and made a second call. “Jergins? This is Quinn.”

  “What’s up?” the team leader asked.

  “I’ve been giving it some thought, and I think I’m going to bring in a man to help out. It’ll just keep things smoother.”

  “Sure. Do you have a name?”

  “Not yet. I’ll make some calls.”

  “All right. As soon as you know who it is, let me know. Peter wants a listing of all those involved.”

  Having zero intention of actually doing that, Quinn said, “No problem.”

  CHAPTER 16

  ROME, ITALY

  IT HAD BEEN a quiet night outside Julien’s apartment building. Quinn had taken the second shift, the hardest because it split sleep time in half, or it would have if he had actually fallen back to sleep when he returned to the room. Eventually, he gave up trying and went out for a long walk around the city.

  When he returned, Nate was dressed and about to head down for the breakfast that came with the room.

  “You going to go relieve Daeng after you eat?” Quinn asked.

  Nate gave a hesitant nod, and said, “I have someone I need to meet first.”

  “Oh? Who?”

  “If you haven’t noticed, we’re a little equipment shy. I thought it’d be good to gear up a bit.”

  Of course, Quinn thought. “Bianchi?”

  “No. He’s out of the business.”

  “What?”

  “Heart attack.”

  “Dead?”

  Nate shook his head. “Just scared the hell out of him apparently. He left the city and moved in with a daughter somewhere in the south.”

  In the past, Quinn would have been up on news like this, but during his exile, the world had moved on. “Who took his place?”

  “Several players have stepped up, but none to Bianchi’s level. The guy I’m seeing is named Nicholas Giacona. I used him once before. Seems okay.”

  I used him once before? Quinn was surprised. Nate had apparently been busy while he was gone. “You want me to come along?”

  “Sure. You can help carry the bags.”

  __________

  THE TAXI DROPPED them off two blocks from their destination. The area was crowded with cafés and shops and other businesses, but at this early hour, it was only the cafés serving breakfast that were open.

  “It’s up this way,” Nate said.

  Though he’d been to Giacona’s place only the one time, he remembered the route well. He led Quinn to the end of the block, through a narrow alley, then half a block down the next street before stopping in front of an unmarked door next to a butcher shop. On the wall near the jamb was an intercom. Nate pushed the button.

  “Si?” a male voice said through the box.

  “Buon giorno,” Nate said. “I have an appointment.”

  “Signor Quinn?”

  “Si,” Nate said quickly, fighting the urge to look at his mentor.

  The door buzzed and he pulled it open. On the other side was a scuffed-up hallway that ran the length of the building. There were several doors along it, all closed.

  As they neared the back, Quinn said, “Are you going to explain that, or—”

  The door at the very end opened, and a fiftysomething Italian guy with a goatee and salt-and-pepper hair looked out. “Quinn. Good to see you again.”

  Nate picked up his pace, and extended his hand. “I appreciate you getting up so early, Nicholas.”

  As they started to shake, Giacona noticed Quinn for the first time. “Your friend, who is he?”

  “This is Jonathan. We’re working together.”

  Giacona eyed Quinn for a moment. “If you say he’s okay, fine.”

  “He’s okay,” Nate said.

  The arms dealer nodded. “Then come in, come in.” He waved for them to follow him and disappeared inside.

  Before they could step through the doorway, Quinn grabbed Nate’s arm and pulled him back a few feet. “Why’s he calling you Quinn?”

  “Later,” Nate said.

  “Does he think you’re me?”

  “I said later.” Nate had known this was something that would eventually come up, but he couldn’t worry about it. He’d done what he had to do.

  They passed through the doorway into a workshop that took up half the space of the ground floor. There were lathes and drill presses and hydraulic metal cutters and several other machines Nate didn’t even try to figure out. To most of the world, Giacona ran a small but efficient machine shop that specialized in repairs and customized metal work. To those in Nate’s and Quinn’s world, he was a local supplier who was building a reputation as an expert in all things hard to get.

  “Your call surprised me,” Giacona said. “I didn’t realize you were in town.”

  “A last-minute thing,” Nate told him.

  “Something I should know about?”

  “Is it ever?”

  That elicited a laugh from the Italian. “I always like to ask. So, what is it you need today?”

  Fifteen minutes later, they left with three SIG Sauer P226 pistols—Quinn’s weapon of choice and one Nate was growing fonder of—extra clips and ammunition, a couple miniature remote video cameras with built-in wireless connectivity, a compact set of short-range bugs and tracking devices, six sets of communication gear, and, as a last-second request from Nate, a set of lock picks. Everything fit nicely into a single, medium-sized duffel bag.

  “Okay, it’s later,” Quinn said once they were on the street.

  Nate looked around to make sure no one was nearby, then focused on his old boss. “He called me Quinn because I am Quinn to him, and to several others, too.”

  “Others? What are you talking about?”

  “After you left, we still had calls coming in, jobs that wanted only Quinn.”

  Quinn’s eyes widened. “You…pretended to be me?”

  “I had to keep things going. I didn’t know if you were coming back or not, but if you were, I thought it would be better if your reputation didn’t tank completely while you were gone. So, yeah, I told people I was Quinn, not Jonathan Quinn, just Quinn. And you know what? I took jobs, did them, and never once had a complaint or problem.”

  “What if I don’t return? You’ll just go on being Quinn?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’ve been doing this for you. Holding things together for you. If you can’t see that, it’s not my problem.”

  Nate started walking again. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. His anger was unfair, he knew, but he couldn’t rid himself of it. No matter how much he knew that Quinn’s disappearance had been necessary, he was having a hard time forgiving his mentor for basically abandoning him.

  A few seconds later, he heard steps behind him, but didn’t turn to look. Then Quinn drew abreast of him, and they walked in silence to the end of the block where several taxis were parked.

  “Nate,” Quinn said before they climbed into one of the cabs.

  Nate turned.

  “I…” Quinn paused, his head twisting to the side as if frustrated. Finally he looked back. “I’m not sure what to say. It seems every time I…I open my mouth, I…” He stopped again. “I wanted to forget about the world, isolate myself and clear my head. The thing is, I didn’t think about the world continuing on without me.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what happens.”

  “I have no right to be angry about any of it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t react without thinking again.”

  “So are you apologizing for now or the future?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  “I’m not going to let you off that easy,” Nate said as he opened the cab’s door. “We’ll take it on a case-by-case basis.”

  “Sure. I can live with that…Quinn.”

  Nate rolled his eyes. “Oh, is that an attempt at humor? You know
what? Maybe you should call me Quinn from now on.”

  “Don’t press your luck,” Quinn said as he climbed into the car.

  __________

  USING PAPERS THAT identified her as a German elementary school teacher, Mila crossed the English Channel on a ferry, then took a train from Belgium across France and finally to Milan, Italy. For a brief time, she considered taking the train all the way to Rome, but when she read in the International Herald that a Mr. Johnston, a book dealer outside London, had been discovered murdered in his office, she decided that a less public entrance to the Italian capital would be prudent.

  She knew the police would not be after her. There was no way they would ever figure out that the former spy’s death had come at her hands, but those she was actually tracking down might be able to figure it out. Best to do everything she could to avoid detection. So she appropriated a car and drove south to the Italian capital.

  Of course, going to Rome was in itself a risk, but not going had never been a choice.

  She knew Julien was dead. The fact that he’d stopped checking in with her every few weeks had been the first indication something was wrong. Even in the assumed life she had been living in Canada, she had secure ways of checking in on her old world. That’s how she learned that he’d been murdered on the streets of Paris. It had almost been enough to push her out of exile and go in pursuit of his killers, but the more she looked into things, the more she’d realized that there was a very good chance his killers had already been dealt with. That was enough for her to crawl back into her hole and pretend to be someone she’d never wanted to be.

  It was a story in a magazine that made her realize her time in exile was at an end. She knew if the Lion was indeed behind the incidents in 2006—something now confirmed by the late John Evans—she had to do something.

  Once Evans had given her the answer she’d been looking for, she knew it was time to go to Rome and retrieve what was waiting for her in Julien’s apartment. Another part of her also saw the Rome trip as a too-long delayed pilgrimage, a chance for her own private memorial service for the man who had loved her unconditionally, despite the fact that as a couple they could never make it work.

  Thinking about him again—his big meaty hands, his always-smiling face, and that mane of hair she kept trying to get him to cut—made her catch her breath, and see the road through tear-filtered eyes.

  Damn you. Damn you for dying, she thought.

  She reached Rome midmorning, and fought traffic across town to the neighborhood where Julien had lived. As much as she wanted to drive down his street, she resisted. Best if she came at it quietly and on foot, so she could observe things before getting too close.

  She parked the car seven blocks from the apartment, within sight of a Metro station. If the wrong people found the vehicle and knew she’d been in it—something she was sure was next to impossible—they would hopefully assume she’d jumped on the subway.

  From the bag that held her few remaining possessions, she pulled out a scarf and sunglasses and donned them as she headed in the opposite direction of the station.

  __________

  “YOU SEE THAT guy?” Daeng asked over the radio.

  “Which one?” Quinn said.

  He and Nate were hiding in the maintenance room in the basement below Julien’s apartment, watching a video feed from one of Giacona’s cameras that Nate had set up to monitor the street. Daeng was positioned on the roof of the building across from Julien’s, so he didn’t need the camera.

  “The one who just walked by your friend’s place,” Daeng said.

  “I see him.”

  “That’s his third pass since seven a.m.”

  Quinn watched the man disappear from frame. “Probably just lives in the neighborhood.”

  “Perhaps. But he was wearing a suit earlier. Now he looks like a tourist. Is it possible this woman is working with someone?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Quinn said.

  “We don’t both need to wait here,” Nate suggested. “I could follow him.”

  “If he comes by again, maybe.”

  Over the next several minutes, only a handful of people walked by, then Daeng said, “New contact.”

  Quinn studied the screen, but saw no one. “Where?”

  “Coming from the north on foot. A woman. She’s wearing a scarf, so I can’t see her hair. Also wearing big sunglasses.”

  “How tall?”

  “One hundred and sixty centimeters.”

  Around five foot three, Quinn thought. The right height.

  “You should be able to see her in just a second,” Daeng said.

  True to his prediction, the woman soon appeared on screen. She was wearing pants and a loose-fitting shirt that made it difficult to judge her shape. She also had a small canvas backpack slung over her shoulder.

  As she neared Julien’s building, her head swiveled slightly side to side, and her pace slowed. Then, with a surprising suddenness, she cut to her left, moving quickly to the door. There was no hesitation as she punched a code into the security pad.

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” Nate asked as they watched her enter the building.

  “It’s got to be,” Quinn said. “Daeng, stay where you are in case we’re wrong.”

  “Got it,” Daeng said.

  They headed out, Nate carrying the bag they’d received at Giacona’s. Inside were a few of the items they thought they might need. At the top of the basement stairs was a door. Quinn and Nate moved up to it, but didn’t open it. On the other side was the back room with the door that led out to the rear patio where Julien’s keys were hidden. If the woman was Mila, that would be her first stop.

  Quinn turned his head and listened, but could only hear the distant whine of a motor scooter on the street out front.

  Ten seconds passed, twenty, then thirty. He was starting to think that maybe they’d been wrong, when all of a sudden there was the sound of someone in the hall beyond the door. Only the person wasn’t exiting the building into the courtyard, but coming back in from it. Quinn realized she must have made her way through the lobby and gone outside before they’d even reached the top of the stairs.

  Beyond the door, the steps receded toward the front of the building, then faded away.

  “Anyone just leave the building?” he asked Daeng.

  “No one.”

  The person had gone upstairs.

  Quinn waited an additional fifteen seconds, then eased the door open. Silently, he and Nate moved down the hall to the stairs. Pausing at the bottom, he listened again, but could hear nothing from above. He did a quick time estimate in his head. If it was Mila, she would have gone one floor up, down the hall to Julien’s door, listened for anyone inside, then used the keys to enter. He guessed it would have taken her forty-five seconds at most.

  He counted off a full minute in his head, then nodded at Nate.

  Into his mic, he whispered, “We’re going up.”

  “Copy,” Daeng replied.

  They stayed at the edge of the stairs to keep any noise to a minimum, and made their way to the top. The common hallway on Julien’s floor was empty. Staying in the lead, Quinn approached Julien’s door.

  From somewhere deep inside the apartment, a floorboard creaked.

  Quinn glanced at Nate and pointed at the door, indicating she was there.

  He put his hand on the knob and tested it. Locked, but only the handle. She hadn’t engaged the deadbolts, probably because she didn’t want them to trip her up if she had to get out of the flat in a hurry.

  He moved out of the way and let Nate set to work on the lock with the new set of picks. Twenty seconds later, Nate opened the door, peeked inside, and nodded. Silently, they both entered the apartment.

  Quinn glanced at the alarm panel, noted it had been disarmed, then scanned the room. The living and dining areas were both empty, as was the kitchen. He walked slowly toward the hallway with Nate following a few steps behind.

  “Our wal
king friend is back,” Daeng said just as they reached the kitchen. “He’s not alone, either.”

  Quinn paused.

  “Three men. They’re walking fast, coming from the north.” There were a few seconds of dead air before Daeng added, “They’re heading into the building. No question.”

  Stealth was no longer an issue.

  Quinn looked at Nate. “Door.” He ran toward the hallway and called out, “Mila!”

  Behind him, he could hear Nate engage the deadbolts and start to pull something across the floor toward the door.

  “Mila, it’s Quinn. We’ve got to get out of here!”

  He stepped into the hallway.

  “Stop right there. I’m armed.”

  It was Mila, all right. Though he hadn’t heard her voice since that night in Las Vegas, it was the same.

  “There’s a team headed into the building right now, and I’m guessing they’re here to get you.”

  “How do I know that’s not why you’re here?”

  “It’s me! Quinn! I’m here because I want to help.”

  He took another step forward.

  “Stop!” she yelled. “Maybe you’re Quinn. Maybe you’re not.”

  “Just let me turn on the light, okay? So you can see it’s me.”

  “Don’t! Even if you are, I don’t know whose side you’re on now.”

  From behind Quinn, Nate whispered urgently, “I hear them in the corridor.”

  “Who’s that?” Mila asked.

  “He’s with me. My partner. I came here to warn you that people know you’re alive and are looking for you. But it sounds like they just found you.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  He could hear her move again, but couldn’t see her. He took another step deeper into the hallway. “Mila? Please.”

  Nate rushed up to him. “They’re trying the door. They’ll be inside in seconds.”

  “Mila?”

  Nothing.

  “Mila?”

  The only answer he received was the sound of the front door shattering.

  CHAPTER 17

  “I DON’T NEED your help!” Mila yelled at the guy claiming to be Quinn. She shut the bedroom door and shoved a chair under the handle.