The Destroyed

by Brett Battles

  It was a well-used trick. Sign up for a free account, write an email with whatever secret message needed to be conveyed, but instead of sending it, just save it as a draft. The intended receiver of the message would also have the email account information. That person would then sign on, open the draft folder, and read the message. There would be no trail of the email being sent, no warning light flashing in some NSA data collection center, no indication of anything going on at all because in the virtual world, the email never went anywhere.

  Helen’s draft folder contained a single message.

  What is your definition of domestic terrorism? Someone who sets off a car bomb on a crowded street? Someone who targets a country’s leaders for death? Someone who calls for the overthrow of the government? Someone who advocates change?

  The slope is slippery.

  Peter frowned. It was the same philosophical question the intelligence community had been grappling with for decades. If anyone had come up with a definitive answer, he hadn’t heard it.

  He clicked on the picture file attached to the message.

  There was a delay as the appropriate program was launched.

  Peter stared at it for a moment, unsure of what it meant. He recognized the face, but the name wasn’t coming to him right away. Whoever it was, it had been a while since Peter had—

  Wait.

  He did know who it was, but that didn’t really help him understand why Helen had sent it to him. He reread her message, and looked at the face again.

  Project Cancer.

  Cancer.

  As the realization of what Mygatt and Green had done dawned on him, the skin on his face felt as if it had been suddenly pulled tight against his skull.

  Holy shit.

  If he was right, he wasn’t just sitting on a powder keg. He was straddling a hydrogen bomb.

  CHAPTER 31

  LAZIO REGION, ITALY

  “NOTHING,” NATE SAID, as he raced out of the basement cell Mila had been in.

  He and Orlando had already checked the main floor and were now doing a thorough search of the area below ground.

  Orlando popped out of the cell she’d been going through and shook her head.

  “This place wasn’t built with any other way out,” Nate told her, his frustration starting to show.

  “There’s got to be one. There’s always one.”

  Nate did a full three-sixty, scanning the basement once more. “Well, I’m not seeing it.”

  Orlando moved from one cell door to the next, scanning the room inside. As she turned away from the one closest to the stairs, she paused, her narrowing eyes focused on the door itself.

  “I think it’s got to be in here,” she said, nodding into the cell.

  Nate hurried over. “Why?”

  She pointed at the inside part of the door. “You see it?”

  Before he could answer, she put her finger in a small divot in the door, about a foot above the ground, and pulled out a ring handle, just large enough to get her finger into. She twisted it, and the door latch turned. In this cell, someone on the inside could actually open the door.

  A quick check of the other cells revealed none had the same ring handle.

  “It’s here somewhere. We just have to look harder.”

  Nate dropped to his knees and started feeling along the tile floor for anything usual, while Orlando made a similar examination along the wall.

  “Hey!” Mila called down from the stairway. “Get up here. Something’s going on.”

  Nate and Orlando rushed out of the room, and found Mila at the top of the stairs.

  “What is it?” Nate asked.

  “I…I don’t know. But…” She pointed toward Daeng standing near the entrance.

  They moved over to him.

  “We suddenly heard a lot of noise,” Daeng said.

  “Maybe they’re trying to get in,” Orlando suggested.

  “No, no. Yelling, but not at us. And something else.”

  “What?” Nate asked.

  __________

  QUINN FOUND A dry rag and tied it around a can of tomato soup he’d grabbed from a kitchen cabinet. The matches were a bit harder to locate. He thought they’d be near the stove, but instead they were in a drawer next to the sink.

  He moved over to the window, raised it as far as it would go, and used a knife to cut through the screen.

  He blew out the pilot lights on the gas stove, and turned all the burner dials to high. He then did the same with the oven, leaving the door open. The second he was sure gas was spewing out, he jogged over to the window, climbed out, and shut it behind him.

  For ninety seconds, he huddled in the bushes a few feet away, letting the gas fill the kitchen. As much as he would have liked to wait longer, he knew he couldn’t afford to, so he moved as far away from the window as he dared, given his injury. He lit the rag, then cocked his arm back and awkwardly launched the flaming can of soup through the glass.

  As he turned away, the kitchen ignited in a loud wah-umph.

  He sprinted across the grass, making the cover of the vines seconds before two of Michaels’s men rushed around the back of the house to see what happened.

  Flames licked at the windows. The exterior stonewalls wouldn’t burn, but everything inside would, leaving an empty husk if the fire wasn’t extinguished in time.

  Quinn moved off to a point where he felt safe enough to circle around to the trees on the other side so he could better see what was going on.

  He’d been hoping that Michaels and all of his men would switch their attention to the fire, giving Nate, Orlando, Daeng, and Mila an opportunity to get out. Instead, only five of Michaels’s men had repositioned to the main house, while Michaels and the three others remained near the detention building.

  Which, of course, meant Quinn’s friends were still stuck inside.

  Michaels was talking to the three still with him, aiming the majority of his words at the two men on his right. When he finished, the two nodded and separated, moving out wide to either side. Quinn watched, already having a pretty good idea of what they were up to. The moment they curled back toward the building, he knew he was right. Their plan was to approach the detention-building door from both ends.

  While they were doing this, Michaels and the other man moved a car into the field fifty feet in front of the building, positioned themselves behind it, and aimed their weapons at the door.

  A classic solution.

  The two by the door would open it, then get out of the way while their boss and the other man would shoot into the building. At some point they would rush inside, and mop up whatever was left.

  Quinn couldn’t let it get close to that point.

  Again, the phone in his pocket rang, and again, he ignored it.

  There was about a hundred and ten feet between him and the car Michaels and his man were now standing behind. He could probably pick them both off…if he wasn’t injured. While he knew his first shot would run true, he wasn’t sure how his sewed-up wound would affect the second, and he couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

  He had to get closer.

  Which meant he had to move out into the open.

  __________

  NATE PRESSED HIS ear against the front door. Whatever yelling there had been, he didn’t hear it now. What he did hear was the roar of a fire.

  Quinn.

  His mentor must have lit up the house to give them a diversion. The problem was, they had no way of checking outside to see if the route was clear. His hand dropped to the knob.

  Just a quick look, he thought.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to turn it.

  Instead, he said, “Basement. Everyone.”

  __________

  THE GROUND BETWEEN the trees and the car was a patchwork of grass and dirt and weeds. His gun held firmly in his hand, Quinn stayed low as he moved in directly behind Michaels and the other man, staying out of their line of sight.

  Through the windows of the car
, he could see that the duo at the building had arrived at the door. Michaels waved his arm, and one of the men reached across the entrance and grabbed the handle.

  Wait! Quinn willed them, knowing he wasn’t close enough yet. If he tried to go faster, they would hear him.

  The man started to pull the door open.

  __________

  NATE WAS THE last one down the stairs. As his foot touched the basement floor, he heard something from above. A metal scratch, muffled and distant. He was about to ask the others if they’d heard it, too, when the unmistakable sound of bullets slamming into the walls of the ground-floor corridor answered the question.

  “Go! Go!” he yelled, urging the others into the cell.

  “Check everywhere,” Orlando ordered. “There’s got to be a hidden latch or panel or something we missed before.”

  They spread out and ran their fingers over the walls and floor. Nate chose a spot nearest the door so he could hear what was happening above. Within seconds of the initial barrage, the shooting stopped. He imagined several of the others moving into the upper hallway. He couldn’t hear them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  “I’ve got something,” Mila said.

  Everyone moved over to her.

  She jiggled one of the floor tiles. It moved, not much, but enough to show it wasn’t cemented into place.

  “Is there a way to pull it up?” Orlando asked.

  Mila ran her fingers around the edges. “I don’t think—”

  “Let me,” Daeng said.

  He was holding a twisted piece of metal that must have come off one of the doors during the explosion. He slipped the edge between the tile and the mortar, and levered it up. Underneath was another ring tab, only this one was large enough for a whole hand to grab.

  “Please, everyone move back,” Daeng said.

  Once the area was clear, he gave the ring a yank. A three-foot-square section of the floor opened.

  “Get in!” Nate ordered. He was sure the people above were heading down the stairs at that very moment.

  Orlando went first, then Mila.

  When Nate entered, he put his hands on the underside of the hatch, and said to Daeng, “I’ve got it. You put the tile back in place, then sneak around behind me.”

  After Daeng did as instructed, Nate shut the hatch.

  __________

  MICHAELS AND HIS companion opened fire on the building.

  With no choice left, Quinn ran, and was able to get within ten feet before Michaels cocked his head and began to turn. Quinn lunged forward and grabbed the man’s arm, shoving his SIG into the base of Michaels’s skull.

  “Cease fire,” Quinn ordered.

  The other man noticed Quinn for the first time and started to bring his weapon around.

  “Don’t,” Quinn said. “Throw it on the ground behind me.”

  The man hesitated.

  “Do as he says,” Michaels told him.

  The man tossed the gun behind Quinn.

  “Now lie on the ground,” Quinn instructed. “Facedown, spread eagle.”

  The man did as he was told.

  Quinn glanced at the men near the door of the building.

  “Tell them it’s all clear, and have them come back here.” Quinn emphasized the command with a gentle push of the SIG’s muzzle against Michaels’s head as he moved so that Michael’s body would shield him from their view.

  “We’re all clear,” Michaels yelled. “Come here for a minute.”

  Still looking confused, the men started walking across the grass.

  Without moving his head, Michaels glanced to the side. “You’re Quinn. I’m glad to see we didn’t kill you.”

  “Are you really?”

  “Yes. The shot was only meant to warn you off.”

  “Then whoever took it needs some target practice.”

  The men from the building were nearing, but their pace was starting to slow as they realized something was wrong.

  “Tell them to throw their guns off to the side as far as they can, then get on the ground like your buddy here.”

  Michaels relayed Quinn’s order. While neither man looked happy, they seemed to realize Quinn had the upper hand at the moment, so they tossed their guns and lay on the ground.

  “What do you want, Quinn?” Michaels asked.

  “That’s a dumb question.”

  “Look, we’re just doing our job. We were hired to find the girl, so we did. I wish I could let you have her, but I can’t.”

  “Too late.”

  “You already have her?”

  Quinn noticed those at the farmhouse were starting to head back.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Quinn said, just as his phone vibrated for the third time in the last ten minutes. He reached down and hit the button that sent the call straight to voice mail. “You’re going to wait until they get—”

  Michaels jerked in surprise. “Sorry. My phone. Someone’s calling.”

  Quinn’s eyes narrowed. He thought that maybe Michaels was trying to pull a fast one, but then he heard the low buzz of the other phone. It rang twice more, then stopped. Five seconds passed, and Quinn’s vibrated again.

  What the hell?

  “Don’t move,” he said to Michaels.

  Keeping his gun pressed against Michaels’s skull, he pulled his phone out. “Yes?”

  “Quinn?”

  Quinn smirked as he punched the speaker button. “Hello, Peter.”

  CHAPTER 32

  FRIDAY, MAY 12th, 2006

  7:48 PM

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  LOSING THE TAIL had been easy. Friday night. Vegas. Spring. The town was rapidly filling with what seemed like half the population of California. Everywhere you looked, there were cars with license plates from the Golden State clogging up the Strip.

  Quinn had counted on this, and had not been disappointed. All it had taken was one well-timed acceleration through a yellow light, and they were free. Julien confirmed the tail had not seen them turn down the side road, so there was no way the spotter could know they had returned to the Manhattan.

  Quinn pulled the car to a stop at the back of the casino’s parking garage.

  “Walk through there,” he said, pointing at one of the car exits. He handed her a map he’d drawn himself. “Follow this to the safe room, and stay there until you hear from one of us.”

  She had yet to shake the stunned look that had overtaken her when he’d explained what was going on. Not only did she just find out she’d come within less than an hour of dying, Quinn had also explained the extreme measures she would have to undertake to remain alive.

  “Be someone else…forever?” she’d said.

  “Maybe, maybe not. But whoever you crossed undoubtedly has a long reach.”

  “I should have never—”

  “Wait,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to know what brought this on. It’s better for you and me if I’m out of the loop. From this point forward, Mila Voss is dead and whatever she knew died with her. Unless you do something stupid, they’ll have no reason to believe you haven’t been removed. Stay away from the business, contact no one you’ve ever known, find yourself a nice, uncomplicated life. That’s the only way you’re going to survive.”

  She fell into her thoughts for a few minutes as Quinn drove, then she looked up and said, “Julien and you, too.”

  “What about us?” Quinn asked.

  “If I show up somewhere alive, they’ll want to know why you said I was dead.”

  “Don’t worry about us. My cover is tight, and they don’t even know that Julien’s here. But if it helps you stay hidden, then fine. You’ll be endangering us, too.”

  That had been the last they said to each other until he stopped next to the garage.

  She studied the map, but he knew she wasn’t really seeing it.

  “I don’t mean to rush you,” he said, “but if we’re going to pull this off, I need to be someplace else in five minutes.”<
br />
  She nodded, but still didn’t move. “Why are you doing this for me?”

  “Don’t ask me that,” he said. It was not a question he wanted to even think about. Whatever answer he might have, this had to be a one-time thing.

  Until it happens again, a voice in the back of his head countered.

  He looked at his watch. “Mila, please.”

  “Right, right. Of course. Sorry.” She pointed out the back window toward the trunk. “My bag.”

  “No bag.”

  “But—”

  “No bag. Everything new. Your cell phone, too. Leave it here.”

  Looking shattered, she pulled out her phone and handed it to Quinn. He immediately removed the battery, pulled out the SIM card, and snapped it in half.

  “God, I can’t believe this. All because of that stupid—” She stopped herself, then opened the door. “Thank you. For…my life, I guess, or whatever life I’m going to have.”

  He nodded, but kept his mouth shut. His words would only prolong their parting and cut into valuable time.

  As soon as she shut the door, he dropped the car into drive, and sped off. For a few seconds, he could see her through his rearview mirror, standing at the side of the road, watching him drive away, but when he looked up again, she was gone.

  Moving to the next item on his itinerary, he pulled out his phone.

  “Nine-one-one operator. What’s your emergency?” a female voice asked.

  “I have passenger who collapse in seat,” Quinn said, using a flawless Russian accent. “I think she not breathing.”

  “What is your location, sir?”

  “I driving now. I pick her up at airport, suppose to take to Planet Hollywood. But go for hospital now, yes?”

  “Are you close to a hospital?”

  “Yes. Think only a few minutes.”