The Buried

by Brett Battles

  He leaned against her. “It’s your work, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He didn’t know specifically what she did, but he was aware she worked in a world far different from the ones his friends’ parents occupied.

  “Why isn’t Quinn here?”

  “He’s busy. But he knows what’s going on.”

  “Is he hiding, too?”

  She squeezed his shoulder. “You’re a little too smart for your own good, you know that?”

  The baby chose that moment to adjust itself. Garrett jerked away from Orlando’s stomach, and then put his hand over the spot where his shoulder had been.

  “Did you feel that?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I felt it.”

  “I wonder what he’s thinking,” he said, still touching the spot.

  “Or she.” They had purposely decided not to know the baby’s sex ahead of time. Her son had told her he didn’t care which one the baby was, but she had a feeling he was hoping for a little brother.

  “Yeah. Or she,” Garrett said. “Do you think she dreams?”

  “I’m sure she does.”

  “What about?”

  “Us, probably.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “She doesn’t know us yet.”

  “Of course she does. She hears us talking all the time.”

  That seemed to make him think. He leaned against her again, his head resting on her arm. A few minutes later he was asleep.

  Orlando acted as his pillow until they neared Oakland. After she returned to the front, she guided Mr. Vo to an industrial park on the eastern edge of the city, and had him park in front of unit number twenty-four.

  “We’ll be here at least fifteen minutes, if not longer,” Orlando told everyone. “Might be a good time for some breakfast.”

  “Do you need help?” Garrett asked.

  She smiled. “If I do, I’ll let you know.”

  She exited the RV.

  The entrances to all the other units led either into a small front office or directly into the unit’s main space. Her entrance, however, opened into a five-foot-long, three-foot-wide steel box. At the other end was another door that would only open when either Orlando or Quinn placed their right palm on the biometric scanner beside it. If anyone else tried, the metal box would seal shut and Orlando would receive notification of an intruder.

  She pressed her hand against the glass, waited for the click, and entered. The unit was Quinn’s and her private warehouse. Secured cabinets full of weapons and ammunition and explosive devices lined the back wall. Through the center of the room ran three rows of heavy-duty shelves, holding a wide variety of other items that might be needed, such as communication gear, bugging equipment, and tracking devices. Many of the items had been created for specific one-time uses, but had been retained in case similar needs arose in the future.

  Along the entire left side of the room was a workbench with drawers built underneath, holding a myriad of parts both mechanical and electrical. A pegboard covered with several hundred different kinds of tools hung on the wall above the bench.

  She unlocked one of the back cabinets, removed several customized bags and a large plastic crate, and set them on the workbench.

  She had no idea how long she would be away, or what she and the team might need, but given Helen’s disappearance, she knew the smart move was to prepare for the worst.

  She started with the weapons, selecting handguns based on the preferences of Quinn, Nate, Daeng, and herself, and loaded them into the bag designed to carry them. She added an ample number of suppressors and four night scopes. In a second bag, she packed enough ammo to hold off a small army.

  Next up was explosives. As tempted as she was to bring along some of the big stuff, she stuck only to small devices that could be used to blow open locks and windows. That finished off the soft-sided bags, and she moved all three over to the door.

  Into the plastic crate went the electronics. She ended up going a little overboard and had to get a second box, but she’d rather have extras than end up cursing herself for what she didn’t bring.

  Leaving the bags and the crates in the unit, she returned to the RV and borrowed the keys from Mr. Vo. The camper had plenty of storage cabinets accessible from the outside, but only the two at the back could also be reached from inside the vehicle, via hatches under the dining-area bench seats.

  The Vos had stored a pair of folding chairs, a portable awning, and some blankets and pillows in Orlando’s desired spaces. She removed them and began the back and forth trips to bring all her things out.

  One by one, she slid them into the compartments, pushing them as far back as possible. When that was done, she measured the height and width of the space, and retrieved the appropriately sized metal dividers from the unit. They were a near perfect fit, making the storage areas look smaller than they actually were and completely hiding her equipment from view. She repacked the Vos’ items in front of the dividers, and then made sure the shop was secured before climbing back into the RV.

  Total elapsed time: twenty-three minutes.

  “Breakfast,” Mrs. Vo said as Orlando closed the RV door. She was holding a plate with a thick omelet and a sliced banana.

  “I don’t know if I can eat all that,” Orlando said.

  “Not for you, for baby. You eat.”

  “Okay, okay. But after we get going.”

  Mrs. Vo frowned but held on to the plate.

  Orlando looked past her to where Mr. Vo was sitting with Garrett. “Mr. Vo, do you need a little more time?”

  The man stood. “No, no. Wait only for you. Where you want to go?”

  Orlando had given that considerable thought as she’d loaded up the RV. Quinn might not need her help, but she wanted to be close enough to provide it if it turned out he did.

  “North,” she said.

  LOCATION UNKNOWN

  HELEN WOKE TO the smell of sweat and bleach.

  As she opened her eyes, her lashes batted against the fabric of a bag that had been pulled over her head.

  When did that happen?

  The last thing she recalled was reaching for her gun.

  Wait. There’d been a stinging sensation, on her…on her…

  Where, she couldn’t remember.

  Though it had been years since she’d done any fieldwork, she hadn’t forgotten the lessons she’d learned. Keeping her breaths even and her body still, she mentally checked for any injuries. She didn’t feel any pain beyond a dull headache, but she did discover she was restrained to a chair, unable to move her arms and legs.

  Focusing outward, she tried to get a sense of her surroundings. Light did seep through the bag, but the fibers were woven tight together, keeping her from seeing anything. The light, though, was telling. It was neither particularly bright nor dim. If the room was small, a few lamps at most. If larger, maybe scattered overheads.

  She listened for the sound of people, but all she could hear was her own pulse racing. She took a few deep, quiet breaths to slow her heart rate and tried again. This time she heard nothing but an empty space.

  She wanted to scrape her foot on the ground and listen to how the sound reacted to the room. That would give her a better idea of its size, but doing so might alert her captors that she was awake. It turned out it wasn’t long before she learned the answer without even moving a toe. A door opened, ahead and to her right, the sound a good forty feet away. She was in a big room, then.

  Heels clicking on concrete, or perhaps stone. A woman’s.

  The door closed again, and the footsteps headed toward Helen at a relaxed pace. Ten feet away, they stopped for a couple seconds, and then something dragged across the floor and came to rest directly in front of Helen. A chair, she realized, as it creaked when the person sat.

  In the silence that followed, a faint odor drifted off the visitor. A clean smell, more scented soap than bleach.

  “I know you’re awake.” The woman had a French accent. “You have been for th
e last seven minutes.”

  They must be monitoring my vitals, Helen thought. Perhaps a few of the restraints she’d detected weren’t restraints at all. With no reason to keep up the charade, she adjusted herself into a more comfortable position but did not say anything.

  “Thank you,” the woman said. “I hate it when people try to play unnecessary games. It’s such a waste of time.” She paused. “So, Director Cho, where are they?”

  Helen remained silent.

  “The safe house you arranged for them to use was a ruse, was it not? Where did they really go?”

  If Helen had any doubts this was about Danielle Chad, they were gone now. The only safe house she’d arranged recently was for Quinn, though she was surprised to learn he hadn’t gone there.

  The chair groaned, and when the woman spoke again she was no more than a foot in front of Helen’s face. “Where are they?”

  Though Helen’s extremities were tied down, her chest and shoulders were not, giving her room to move. The moment the last word left the woman’s mouth, Helen thrust forward with all her strength. Her aim was a bit off. Instead of smacking her forehead into the woman’s nose, she caught her interrogator on the cheek, but it was still a good, solid hit.

  The woman grunted as she knocked against her chair.

  Helen braced herself for her interrogator’s retaliation.

  But she heard the woman stand. “Perhaps a little time will make you more cooperative.”

  Helen heard the click, click, click of the woman’s heels heading across the room.

  A few seconds later, she was once more alone.

  CHAPTER 10

  NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

  LYLE CLARK STUDIED his appearance in the full-length mirror before grabbing the knot of his tie and nudging it ever so slightly to the right.

  There. That was better. Everything symmetrical.

  He was dressed in a dark gray suit handcrafted by his favorite tailor in Milan. His shirt and tie were from London, also specially made for him. His shoes, Spanish, constructed by a master cobbler in Barcelona.

  A light, double tap on his bedroom door.

  “Yes?” he said, his eyes still on the mirror.

  The door opened.

  “Sorry to disturb, Mr. Clark,” his butler William said. The man was English, naturally. It wouldn’t do to have a butler from anywhere else. “A phone call, sir.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Mr. Morse, sir.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “Very good, sir,” William said and left.

  Clark spotted a tiny bit of lint on his left sleeve and plucked it off.

  Now he was ready.

  He took the call in the study of his twenty-second-floor Manhattan apartment.

  “Good morning, Mr. Morse,” he said, looking out his window at Central Park. “I assume this is important.”

  “I have news,” Morse said. As always, the man’s voice sounded strained, his long damaged vocal cords doing their best to get his words out.

  “Concerning?”

  “The Hayes matter.”

  Clark turned away from the window, the outside world no longer of interest. “What about it?”

  “The girl’s been found.”

  Clark did his best to hold back the wave of excitement building in his chest. “Is that so?”

  “She was discovered during an unrelated operation.”

  “By us?”

  “No. Helen Cho’s agency.”

  Another government intelligence organization. That could complicate things.

  “What has she done with the girl?” Clark asked.

  “That’s unclear at the moment. What I know is that an operation in Seattle turned up more than expected. While it was still ongoing, Cho initiated a search on several names. One was Danielle Chad.”

  One on a list of possible aliases. “Are we sure it’s our Danielle Chad?”

  “Cho had a copy of the girl’s ID on her computer. It’s definitely the one we’re looking for.”

  “There must be something you can use to pressure Cho to hand the girl over.”

  “Cho is missing.”

  A pause. “Missing as in presumed dead?”

  “Kidnapped.”

  “By who?”

  “Also unclear. She was ambushed on her way to the office not long after she got the copy of the ID.”

  “Someone else interested in the girl.”

  “Yes, sir. That would be my assumption, too.”

  “Can I assume you’re doing something to find Danielle?”

  “I’ve sent a group of my best men to the area where she was last seen. Unfortunately the safe house Cho’s people were supposed to be using turned out to be a dead end. My team continues to look, though. What I need to know is if we run into resistance, how far do we take this?”

  “If Danielle Chad is really Danielle Hayes and they have her, all the way,” Clark said without hesitation. “Just remember, we need her unharmed. Anyone who gets in the way is expendable.”

  WASHINGTON, DC

  IT WAS ONE of those political breakfasts where everyone was smiling and glad-handing and saying nothing of real importance.

  Scott Bennett did at least three of them every week. Add on the even more frequent cocktail parties in the evenings, the multiple getting-to-know-you lunch meetings, and the inevitable weekend special events and he almost never saw his office or his home anymore. Such was the life of a top-tier lobbyist.

  “Senator, it would be my pleasure,” Bennett was saying. “Have him call me and I’ll take care of it.”

  Often it was the little things that served Bennett’s needs the best, such as obtaining box seats to a Washington Nationals baseball game for a senator’s friend. The senator would receive nothing on paper, but in the invisible ledger called What Have You Done For Me, another entry would appear in Bennett’s column.

  “I appreciate that, Scott. I really do,” the senator said. “Harry can’t wait to take his son to a game when they’re out here.”

  “I’ll personally see to everything. Don’t give it another thought.” By everything, Bennett meant flying the senator’s friend and son to the district, putting them up in the best hotel, providing the car that would take them to and from the game, and supplying the guide who would see them to their seats and handle the procuring of any food or drinks or souvenirs they wanted. They would do more than enjoy their evening. They would never forget it. And the friend would be sure to let the senator know.

  Bennett spoke to the man for a few more moments, and then left before the conversation could turn stale.

  The affair was informal. There were places to sit but most people stood, making it easy to see who was still new at this. They would be the ones balancing plates of muffins and fruit and sausages and eggs as they attempted to remain relevant to whatever conversation they were participating in.

  Bennett, ever the professional, never touched the food at this type of event so he could move from lawmaker to lawmaker hands free. He was heading toward Representative Loggins when someone tapped him on the shoulder. Turning, he found Ryan Barkley, his assistant, holding an envelope.

  “This just came for you,” Barkley said.

  “From who?” Bennett asked as he took the envelope.

  “A man in the lobby. I’ve never seen him before, but—”

  Bennett was about to rake his assistant over the coals when he turned the envelope over and caught sight of the single word printed in the upper left corner.

  VALOR

  “Thank you,” he said. Barkley had only been following instructions. Anything marked VALOR should immediately be brought to Bennett. “You can head back to the office. We’re done here.”

  Barkley looked confused. “There’s still another—”

  “We are done,” Bennett said firmly.

  “Yes, sir. I understand. Don’t forget the meeting at noon with General McFadden.”

  “Reschedule it.”

&
nbsp; Barkley still looked unsure, but this time he only said, “Yes, sir,” and left.

  Bennett made his way to a quiet alcove and opened the envelope.

  The Hayes girl has surfaced. Current alias: Danielle Chad. Obtain.

  Below this was a series of numbers that, once he entered them in his computer, would take him to a secured web page with additional information.

  How about that? he thought.

  He pulled out his phone.

  BERLIN, GERMANY

  THE ASSISTANT TRADE attaché at the Russian embassy answered the phone on the second ring. “Komarov.”

  “Good afternoon, Herr Komarov. This is Karl Schwartz, Schwartz Engineering. I believe you were expecting my call.”

  Komarov froze. At one time perhaps, he had been expecting it, but that had been years ago. “Of course, Herr Schwartz,” he said. “I am happy to hear from you.”

  “I hope I am not catching you at a bad time.”

  “Not at all. It is always a pleasure to speak to someone of your business experience.”

  “That’s kind of you to say. I am calling concerning the project we are working on outside Moscow.”

  “The Dishinki Hotel?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  The conversation continued in the same boring fashion, the whole time Komarov writing down the key words. After they said good-bye, the attaché rose from his desk, made sure his door was locked, and retrieved the book that served as the code key from the secret compartment at the back of his filing cabinet.

  After he deciphered the message, he composed an e-mail, similarly encoded, and sent it to the address he had memorized before being sent to Germany.

  He then settled back in his chair and picked up working where he’d left off, hoping his involvement in the matter was now done.

  CHICAGO, ILLINIOS

  RICKY ORBITS—NOT his real name, but his favorite—leaned back on his sofa, wearing only an open silk robe. He picked up the TV remote and began hopping through the channels.