The Cleaner

by Brett Battles

  The mention of home made Quinn pause.

  'On the other side of the hall there's a bathroom,' Orlando went on. 'I checked the water. It's still running. It's only cold, though.'

  'Orlando,' Quinn said.

  She looked over at him. 'What?'

  He glanced at the floor, buying himself an additional moment to collect his thoughts. 'Borko said something to me,' he began. 'It's probably just a bluff.'

  She was staring at him now, her eyes unblinking. 'What did he say?' 'He said if we needed any more reason to back down, I should tell you to . . .' Quinn paused. 'What? Tell me what?'

  'Tell you to call home.'

  Her gaze passed through him for a moment, her face blank. When she took a step toward him, her movement was so sudden it surprised Quinn.

  'Give me your phone,' she said.

  'He was probably lying.'

  She reached for his jacket, grabbing at one of his pockets. 'Give it to me!' 'Wait,' he said, pushing her back. 'It's not there. I'll get it for you.'

  He pulled off his backpack, set it on the floor, and kneeled beside it. From one of the smaller zippered pouches he removed his phone. Before he could even move, she grabbed it out of his hand.

  Within seconds she had it open and a number already punched in. She waited with the phone pressed against her ear for nearly a minute, then disconnected the call and input another number. This time someone answered.

  She spoke rapidly in Vietnamese, and though Quinn couldn't understand what was being said, he could tell by the rising anxiety in her voice that it couldn't be good. When she finally finished, the hand holding the phone fell to her side and her eyes closed.

  'Tell me,' Quinn said.

  She opened her mouth, but instead of speaking she sucked in a convulsive breath. When she opened her eyes, they were watery but no tears escaped.

  'What is it?' he asked.

  She tried to speak, her mouth moving, but nothing coming out. Her body began to shake, and the tears finally began to stream down her cheeks.

  'Garrett,' she finally said, her voice a forced whisper. 'He's gone.'

  It took a while, but Quinn finally got the whole story. It was Mr. Vo, Orlando's assistant at the relief agency, she'd talked to. Apparently he had tried calling Orlando several times, but because her phone was one of the items she'd left during her escape, he hadn't been able to reach her. Trinh, the nanny, was in the hospital. Mr. Vo said she had been beaten badly. A concussion, broken leg, cuts, and bruises. No one knew exactly what had happened. Trinh had been in and out of consciousness, then had been drugged to allow her body to heal. What she had been able to say was that it had been at least two men – one Asian and one Caucasian. It had been in a park while Garrett played. When she awoke, she was in the hospital and Garrett was gone.

  The only clue came in the form of a simple business card slipped carefully into Trinh's pocket as she lay bleeding on the grass. Like those left on the victims of the disruption, there was but a single word on it. Instead of pronouncing the word, Mr. Vo had carefully spelled it out so that he wouldn't get it wrong. 'D-a-h-l,' he had said.

  Quinn's head began to spin as he processed this. Dahl? In Vietnam? Why? And was it even possible? The idea was almost too bizarre to accept. But the card was proof. Just as with the disruption, he wanted them to know who was responsible.

  'We have to find Borko,' Orlando said. 'Right now. We'll force him to take us to Dahl.'

  'We don't even know if Dahl is in Germany,' Quinn said.

  'I don't care. We have to go. We have to find Garrett.' She was frantic now, her eyes darting around the room. Her body moved from side to side, her hands touching her arms, her shoulders, her face. But her feet remained rooted to the floor, paralyzed with indecision.

  Quinn took a deep breath, hoping she would do the same. He needed her to calm down and think more rationally. He tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off. 'We will find him,' he said, keeping his voice soft and even. 'But think it through. It's not even dawn yet. We don't know where Borko is, or even what Dahl looks like.'

  'We can't just sit here.'

  'Yes,' Quinn said. 'We can.' This time he put a hand on each of her shoulders and held on as she attempted to remove them. 'Orlando, we have to be smart about this. Rushing will hurt more than help. That's probably what they're hoping for anyway.'

  'No,' she said, trying to twist away from him. 'They have my son!'

  He pulled her to him, putting his arms around her and holding her tight as she fought him. Slowly, she began to stop pulling away. She leaned her head against his chest. There was no sobbing, though, just the deep, rapid breathing of panic and anger.

  'Listen to me,' Quinn said. 'Gathering information, then operating from a position of strength. This is what we do.'

  She looked up at him. 'You just want us to do nothing and wait?'

  'Wait, yes. Do nothing?' He shook his head. 'No way.'

  Neither of them said anything for over a minute. Finally, Orlando pushed herself away from him. But it was gentler; the fight had temporarily gone from her.

  'God knows what they're doing to Garrett right now,' she said. 'We should get help. You can use your contacts at the Agency.'

  "They won't do anything to him,' Quinn said. 'Garrett's too valuable. They'll only do anything if Dahl thinks we're becoming too much of a problem. That's why we can't call anyone. You know that. Garrett's best chance is with us. No one else.'

  Her shoulders sagged, and he knew she realized he was right.

  'I promise,' he said, 'the moment an opportunity to get Garrett comes up, one where we have a chance of succeeding, we'll take it. Until then we do things step-by-step. Okay?'

  She didn't answer.

  Quinn reached into his backpack and pulled out the small first-aid kit he carried. It was no more than a cloth bag with a zipper on top, about the size of an average eyeglass case. From inside he removed a small packet, opened it, and dumped two pills into his palm – sleeping pills. He held them out to her. 'I want you to take these.'

  Her eyes narrowed, and she shook her head. 'No.'

  'Take them,' Quinn said. 'You're not going to be able to help your son unless you're sharp. And you won't be sharp unless you get some sleep.'

  'I said no.'

  'Orlando. Please. He needs your help, and I need your help. But not when you're like this.' 'I don't want to,' she said, but her voice was low, not fighting him, just telling him. 'I know,' he said, still holding the pills out to her.

  Finally she reached out and took them from his hand. She stared at them and then, without saying anything else, put them in her mouth and dry-swallowed them.

  'We'll get him back. I swear to you we will.'

  Without a word, she turned away and moved over to the wall, then sat down with her back against it. From inside her coat she pulled out something small and rectangular. She held it in her hand, staring at it until her eyes finally closed.

  Once she was asleep, Quinn sat on the floor beside her. He looked over to see what she held so tightly in her hand. It was a plastic wallet insert, the kind that would hold several pictures. It was starting to slip out of her hand, so he gingerly picked it up with the intention of setting it on the floor beside her. Instead, he glanced down at the photo she'd been looking at. Garrett. He could have guessed as much. Most of the other pictures in the miniature album were of Garrett, too. Only the last one was different. A cropped image of the same photo sitting on the altar in Vietnam. Durrie.

  Feeling like he was trespassing, he set the pictures on the floor.

  To get his mind on something else, he pulled the remote viewing monitor from his backpack, setting it on his lap. The device wasn't much bigger than a typical hardback book, and only a half-inch thick. On the upper portion of the flat front surface was a color screen that provided sharp detail. Below the screen was a keypad, not unlike that of an accountant's calculator. The pad allowed its user to switch rapidly from one camera position to anot
her. It also had an internal hard drive that would allow for several hours of multi-camera recording. There were two data ports for external devices to be connected, a built-in speaker, and a place to plug in a set of headphones.

  Since his current position was well within the one-mile signal radius of the cameras, he expected to have no problem receiving an image. He turned the monitor on, then removed the set of Sennheiser earphones that went with it from his backpack. He plugged them into the audio slot and fit the earpieces into his ears.

  Outside it was dark. The winter sun was still hours away from rising. Quinn shuffled through the views coming from the six cameras. Everything looked quiet. Exactly what he expected at this early hour. He turned the monitor off and set it on the ground.

  His eyes grew heavy, and as he was falling asleep a thought grew in his mind, one that would shape his dreams over the next few hours.

  What if I can't keep my promise?

  By 10 a.m., Quinn was awake again, studying the monitor. Orlando, still asleep, had slumped onto her side. There was activity in the water plant now. Two men were moving through the sphere into the bio-containment room. They were wearing biohazard suits. Each was carrying a hard plastic case, about the size of a typical carry-on suitcase. Quinn recognized them as the cases he had seen sitting open in the basement room containing the refrigerator.

  Once the men were in the center room, they set the cases on the stainless-steel counter. The taller of the two men went over and opened the door of the refrigerator nearest the room's entrance, while the other opened his case. The first man then returned to the counter and opened his own case. They began removing small cardboard boxes from inside and setting them on the table. It didn't take long. There were only a total of eight boxes.

  They then took turns carrying the boxes one by one from the table to the refrigerator. It was all done very slowly, and very methodically.

  On the second-to-last trip, one of the men stumbled. It wasn't much. There was no danger of spilling the contents of the box. Still, the other man rushed over and took the box from his companion's grasp. He quickly carried it back to the table and opened it. Leaning down for a closer look, he appeared to be checking that everything inside was all right.

  After a moment, the man seemed to relax. Apparently everything was as it should be. As he was closing the box again, Quinn caught a glimpse of something inside. Balls or pellets or something similar. They were white.

  The men put the two remaining boxes in the refrigerator, then closed the plastic cases they'd arrived with and stowed them under the counter. Their job seemingly finished, they departed.

  Quinn waited another hour to see if anything else was going to happen. But the room remained empty.

  'Coffee?' Quinn asked when Orlando finally stirred and sat up.

  There was a market a couple of blocks away. Quinn had chanced leaving Orlando alone and had gone to get a few supplies. He'd also purchased two large cups of coffee to go from a kiosk inside the store.

  'Sure,' she said, without much enthusiasm. He handed her a cup. Once she'd taken a drink, he asked, 'How do you feel?' 'How do you think I feel?' She noticed the monitor sitting on the floor. 'You see anything?' 'Yeah,' he said, then told her about the two men and their activities in the containment room.

  She was quiet for several seconds. 'What could this possibly have to do with Garrett? They don't really need him as insurance against us. That's what Nate's for, right?'

  She was right, Quinn knew. Nate was all the insurance they should have needed. Taking Garrett had been overkill. More than overkill, it didn't make sense. Too much work would be involved in pulling it off.

  'How did they know?' she asked. Because I went to Vietnam, Quinn thought, unable to actually say the words. But Orlando wasn't an idiot – she'd already made

  the connection. 'Piper tipped him off, didn't he? Somehow he knew I was there and he tipped Dahl off.'

  Quinn nodded. It was the same conclusion he'd come to. Piper wasn't as clean as he made himself out to be. Maybe he was working for Dahl directly. Maybe he and his team had followed Quinn to Vietnam. There was no telling what Piper had lied about. Except for Borko. But even that revelation hadn't made a difference in the end. If anything, it had lent credibility to Duke's job offer, sweetening the trap.

  'I'm sorry.' Quinn wanted to say more, but couldn't find the words.

  'Don't,' she said as she closed her eyes. 'I made a choice to come here. I should have stayed home. I should have protected him.'

  If he wanted to, he could have continued the argument. Saying it was his fault Piper had found her in the first place. Then she would have found some other excuse for blaming herself, and they would go around once more.

  Quinn took a step back. 'I need to check a few things out,' he said. 'Will you be all right here?'

  'I can't just do nothing.'

  'I'm not asking you to do nothing.' He picked the monitor up off the floor and handed it to her. He then motioned to the corner where he'd put the bag containing the items he'd bought at the store. 'If the power is getting low, there's some stuff in that bag you can use to rig a line down from the light socket. Otherwise, I need you to watch.'

  * * *

  302

  Quinn was able to buy some computer time at the Berlin Hotel, then logged on to the e-mail account he'd created the day before. As he had hoped, there was a message from the Mole.

  36.241.10

  Keeping himself on the move, he took a cab to KaDeWe. It was Berlin's largest department store, and, with the exception of Harrods in London, the largest in all of Europe. It was located near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. He took a table in the cafe, then used the code the Mole had sent him to adjust the previous phone number to a new one.

  'It's Quinn,' he said once the connection was made. 'What have you got?'

  'Taggert,' the Mole said.

  'You know who he is?' Quinn asked.

  'There's still a question of payment.'

  Quinn scowled. 'How much?'

  'My standard fee . . . is five K per request. . . you've . . . made two requests . . . that's ten thousand . . . U.S.'

  'I'm good for it.'

  'Not if you're dead,' the Mole said.

  'I'll wire you the money. E-mail me your information.' 'When?' 'As soon as I get your info.' There was a brief silence from the other end of

  the line. 'A viral biologist by the name of. . . Henry Jansen has been MIA for months . . . he fits the description . . . of your . . . victim in Colorado.'

  'Maybe,' Quinn said. 'But that fire was only two weeks ago.'

  'I can't help you with . . . your time line . . . but the . . . maiden name of his paternal grandmother . . . was Roberts . . . you want . . . to guess the maiden name of his . . . maternal grandmother?'

  'Taggert?'

  'Well done.'

  'Any way you can get me a picture?'

  'Sending the e-mail now.'

  'And the other matter?' Quinn asked.

  'The International Organization . . . of Medical Professionals.' 'IOMP,' Quinn said, impressed. 'They are . . . about to hold their annual . . . convention.'

  'Where?'

  'Berlin,' said the Mole.

  Of course, Quinn thought. Where else would it be?

  'I have another request for you,' Quinn said. 'And before you say anything, I'll include the additional payment in the wire transfer.'

  'Go on.'

  Quinn told him about the abduction of Garrett. 'See if you can find any signs of Orlando's son. He may have been taken out of Vietnam. If so, somebody must have seen something. Hell, maybe you can figure out why Dahl would want him in the first place.'

  'I will . . . try.' The Mole paused. 'The inscription.'

  'You figured it out?'

  'Most . . . it is an FTP address . . .' A file transfer protocol site. 'The inscription . . . includes the user . . . name . . . but the password has . . . been destroyed.'

  'Have you tried to hack in?' />
  'Of course . . . but the security is . . . unusually tight.' 'Text message me the information,' Quinn said. 'Hold.' A few seconds later, Quinn's phone beeped. Message received.

  'Got it,' Quinn said. 'What about the slide? Is it a tissue sample?' 'Yes . . . damaged.' 'By the fire?' 'Not the . . . fire . . . by something from . . . the inside.'

  Quinn sucked in a breath.

  'There is . . . still uncertainty about the actual. . . identity of what . . . caused it to happen . . . it is complicated . . . we should . . . have that maybe by . . . tomorrow . . . but I can . . . tell you one thing.'

  'What?'

  'It is a virus.'

  Chapter 28

  Quinn found Internet access at a small coffee shop a couple of blocks from KaDeWe. The Mole's promised picture of Henry Jansen was waiting for him. Quinn recognized the face in the picture immediately. Taggert and Jansen were indeed the same man. He spent the next fifteen minutes trying to get into the FTP site. He attempted variations on 'Taggert' and 'Jansen' and 'virus.' He typed in the birthday that had been listed on his driver's license, and '215 Yancy Lane' – the address of the house Taggert had stayed at in Colorado before it had burned down with him inside. He even tried 'Campobello,' thinking for a moment that had to be it. But nothing worked.

  Outside again, he called Peter.

  'You either help now, or we're done,' Quinn said.

  'Is that a threat?' Peter asked.

  'Absolutely.'

  Peter didn't say anything for a moment. 'Do you remember four years ago?' he asked. 'Montevideo.'

  'Ramos,' Quinn said.

  Ramos was a local politician who'd run afoul of a drug cartel. It was apparently in someone's interests to help him out, so the Office was hired to assassinate the head of the cartel. Quinn made a few bodies disappear when things didn't go as planned. 'What about it?' Quinn asked.

  'Your contact on the operation.'

  Quinn thought for a moment. 'Burroughs. Some kind of Agency or NSA guy, wasn't he?'

  'Something like that.'

  'So?'

  'He'll have some answers for you,' Peter said.

  'Where do I find him?'

  'He's working out of NATO headquarters.'