by Sam Sisavath
And there, the second agent’s gun. Out in the open, just waiting for her to pick it up. The problem was that it was also visible to anyone looking through a sniper scope into the room, and in order to get to it…
She sighed and prepared herself mentally to make a run for the gun—maybe do one of those dramatic dolphin dives—when the sound of “Jingle Bells” began playing.
Or a ringtone version of it.
It was coming from the agent closest to her, the one with the dart sticking out of his chest. The man grunted, as if the noise was annoying him, even though his eyes remained closed and his body motionless.
Quinn stared at the man for a second as the phone continued to ring in his blazer pocket. It was probably his wife, or girlfriend, or maybe one of his seven kids calling to see when daddy would come home—
“Jingle Bells” stopped.
Then it started up again two seconds later.
Quinn glanced back at the window.
Was it possible?
No. Why would they call?
Maybe…
She slid along the floor until she was on the other side of the unconscious agent. She slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled the phone out and stared at the number. She expected to find a contact name, but instead there was just UNKNOWN NUMBER.
The ringtone shut off for the second time, and Quinn was still looking down at the phone when a text message appeared in a pop-up alert.
It read: ANSWER ME.
It was followed by a second message balloon: IF I WANTED TO SHOOT U I WOULD HAVE ALREADY.
What the hell is going on?
A moment later “Jingle Bells” started up again, and this time Quinn pressed the answer button.
“Took you long enough,” a female voice said on the other end.
“Who is this?” Quinn asked, looking back at the perfectly tiny hole drilled into one of the glass panes.
“I’m your guardian angel for tonight.”
“My what?”
“You know. Wings and halo? Well, minus the wings and halo part.”
“Who are you?”
The woman sighed. “Yes.”
“Yes? Yes, what?”
“Yes, I can see you, and I can shoot you right now if I wanted to.”
Quinn ducked down to the floor and crawled over to the wall until she was directly under the windowsill.
The woman laughed through the phone. “I could see you through the walls even when you were in the bathroom, staring at the toilet trying to decide what to do.”
“Bullshit,” Quinn said.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“What do you want?”
“Can you grab me one of those hospital gowns? Do they carry one in a fitted medium?”
“What?”
“Joke.”
“Was it?”
“Maybe I should fire my comedy writers. Anyways, do you want to get out of there or would you prefer to wait for more of your feeb buddies to show up and try to explain to them what happened?”
Quinn stared at the agent in front of her, bleeding from his broken nose on the floor. The one closer to the door was still on his back, still gasping for breath. They were both alive, as was Pender next to the bed, but they were three more agents of the FBI that were going to be added to her list of crimes.
Forgive me, Ben. My career’s over—maybe my freedom, too—but I hope you can survive this. I hope you can survive me.
“How do I get out of here?” Quinn said into the phone.
“Carefully, would be my advice,” the woman chuckled.
Great, Quinn thought. Jane Leno with a sniper rifle.
When Quinn stuck her head out of the room, there was no one outside. The nurses station directly across from her was empty, but she could hear voices from down the hallway to her left, coming from somewhere on the other side of the turn. There was nothing to her right but a wall.
“There are two more on standby on the floor directly below you,” the woman said through the phone. “Lucky you, they won’t be coming up here unless called.”
Right. Lucky me.
“Do you have a name?” Quinn asked. She had the phone pressed against her ear.
“Of course I have a name,” the woman said. “How would I introduce myself otherwise? ‘Hi, I’m me. Who are you?’”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“It sounded better in my head.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“What’s your name?”
“What is this, The Dating Show? Get going, feeb.”
“I’m Quinn.”
“Quinn you? I don’t even know you.”
Quinn narrowed her eyes at the empty hallway, but she kept her composure and said into the phone, “I detect an accent. English?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” the woman said. “Less talking and more walking. Fortunately for you, those pretty nurses just signed in and they’re not allowed to check up on you, so they won’t recognize you or your buddies in the room.”
“How do you know that?”
“You can find out anything if you know where to look. Payroll, time card, when nurses are scheduled for their shifts. All that good stuff.”
“Is that how you found out where the FBI was keeping me?”
“Let’s just say that the FBI’s classified data isn’t nearly as classified as they think. Now are we going to chatter away the night, or do you wanna get out of here? I’m getting bored.”
“How did you shoot a dart through my hospital room window?”
“With a gun.”
“Those things are practically unbreakable.”
“I have a very big and very long gun,” the woman said. “Now mush, before you run out of time.”
Quinn gritted her teeth and slipped outside and began moving down the hallway. She slowed down after a few steps even though her heartbeat was racing, and it was all she could do not to drop the phone from her sweat-slicked hand.
At least Pender’s clothes fit her, if just a bit too loose around the chest area. It felt good to be out of the hospital gown and in civilian garb again, even if it was another woman’s wardrobe. The fact that she was perfectly at home in Pender’s slacks and blazer was a bonus, but the weight of the sidearm in a holster clipped to her hip was even better. She had Pender’s ID wallet in her pocket, and even though it had the other woman’s face on it, in her experience most people only really focused on the shiny badge anyway.
“The agent that you shot,” Quinn said into the phone.
“What about him?” her guardian angel said.
“What was in that dart?”
“Night-night fairy dust.”
“Is that the official name?”
“What do I look like, a gun nut? They’re for shooting. I shoot them. A dart is a dart, is a dart.”
“Where did you shoot him from? Someplace high up?”
“You think?”
“You’re across the street, aren’t you?”
“You should really stop asking questions and pay attention to where you’re going.”
“I can multitask.”
“I’m sure you can, feeb. Or should I call you ex-feeb?”
“Call me whatever you want.”
“Except late for dinner, right?”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
Quinn finally reached the end of the hallway and leaned out, turning right because there was nothing to her left but another wall.
A nurses station with two nurses, one on the phone while the other was typing on a computer. The corridor was empty; the only sounds came from the two women and the beeps from the patient rooms up and down the hallway.
“What do you see, pinto bean?” her guardian angel asked through the phone.
“Pinto bean?” Quinn said.
“What do you see, breezy breeze?”
She pulled back from the corner. “Two nurses.”
“Pretty?”
“The nurses. Are they as pretty as they look in their employment files?”
Quinn didn’t know how to answer, so she didn’t.
The sniper laughed. “I take it that’s a no?”
“Actually, one of them’s very attractive. Why, you interested?”
“Maybe I am, and maybe I am.”
“Tell me your name and number, and I’ll pass them over to her.”
“Oh, good one,” the other woman said. “Now get going, Chatty Kathy, before the other two decide to check up on their buddies or the one you put in the chokehold gets up.”
“You saw that?”
“I see everything. Kinda like God. Or Goddess, in this case.”
Quinn took a breath, then stood up straight and turned the corner. She moved calmly but with purpose, like someone who was supposed to be here. She was halfway to the station when the first nurse—the one on the phone—glanced up and nodded at her.
Quinn nodded back at the woman. “Quiet night.”
“The best kind of night,” the nurse said. Her name tag read Sally.
The other one, Brenda, said, “You guys doing okay over there?”
Quinn smiled. “Yeah, why?”
The nurse stopped what she was doing to look up at Quinn, standing on the other side of the big desk. The fact that the woman was sitting meant she couldn’t see the phone Quinn held loosely at her side, or the way Quinn’s other hand had moved slightly toward the holstered Glock.
“I thought I heard some commotion,” Brenda said. “Sounded like something was going on.”
Sally, still on her landline, had paused her conversation to glance over.
“The boys were being boys, that’s all,” Quinn said. “No one likes babysitting duty. Not exactly what we went to Quantico for, you know?”
“What’s Quantico?” Brenda asked.
“The academy where they trained us.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway,” Quinn said, and looked down at her watch for effect. “My shift’s up. See you guys tomorrow.” Before the women could respond, she turned and continued up the hallway with, “Have a good one.”
“You too,” Brenda said after her.
Quinn kept walking and didn’t look back, exactly how someone who was supposed to be here would act. Or at least she hoped it came across that way.
She waited to hear the telltale signs of either Brenda or Sally alerting someone over the phone, but there was none of that. Instead, she heard Sally saying, “Can you repeat the doctor’s name to me again? I got distracted for a sec…”
Quinn didn’t stop until she had reached the elevator.
She pressed for the lobby and held the phone up to her ear while at the same time peeking briefly back down the hallway. The two nurses had forgotten she was even on the same floor as them.
So far, so good.
“I’m at the elevator,” she said into the phone.
“I wouldn’t stop on any of the other floors, if I were you,” her guardian angel said on the other end.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Just thought I’d mention it.”
“You know my name, but I don’t know yours. Doesn’t seem fair.”
“Get used to it, sweet rolls.”
“‘Sweet rolls?’”
“You have something against sweet rolls? They’re sweet, and they’re rolls. They’re awesome.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
The elevator arrived with a ping! and Quinn said into the phone, “Gotta go.”
“Watch your step,” her guardian angel said.
Quinn was about to answer when the elevator doors slid open—
—and Pete Ringo looked out at her.
Chapter 6
There were almost forty thousand people employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with nearly fifteen thousand of them qualified to be special agents. The Houston division boasted two thousand of those, second only to Dallas in the state of Texas. Given those numbers, the odds that she would run into Pete Ringo, of all people, was minute.
Of course, that wasn’t taking into consideration the kind of bad streak she was on at the moment.
“Quinn?”
So of course it would be Pete Ringo who would be standing in the elevator, looking out at her while she was in the process of putting an end to her career as an FBI agent.
“Quinn?” he said again, sounding even more confused than the first time. If he didn’t notice what she was wearing before when the doors first opened, he caught on in the five or so seconds afterward.
She didn’t know exactly how long they stood there looking at one another, but it must have been long enough for the elevator doors to start closing back up. Quinn stuck her left hand forward to keep that from happening while simultaneously stepping inside and drawing her holstered sidearm with her right.
Pete took a step back, his own hand moving instinctively toward his Glock.
“Don’t,” she said, as the elevator doors closed with a ping! behind her.
“What the hell, Quinn?” Pete said, even as his hand remained at his side.
“Don’t,” she hissed.
He pulled his hand away from his gun. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer him, and instead reached over and took out his gun and slid it behind her waist, hiding it under her blazer. She retraced her steps until she was leaning against the doors and reached over and hit the underground parking lot button.
She faced Pete standing on the other side of the elevator, with enough space between them that she felt confident she could react if he tried anything. She had already failed Ben in so many ways, the idea of hurting—God, even killing—one of her friends gave her hives. Assaulting three agents whom she didn’t know was one thing, but Pete…
“Quinn,” he said as the elevator began its descent. There were ten floors between her and (the biggest mistake of her life) freedom, but at the moment it might as well be a hundred because of how slow the elevator was moving.
“I’m sorry,” Quinn said. The words came out hollow, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“What happened to Pender? Gavin and Clyde?”
“They’re fine,” she said, and thought, I think they’re fine. God, I hope they’re fine. The last thing I need right now is three more dead federal agents on my rap sheet. She added, “Just…don’t do anything stupid.”
“Like what you’re doing now?”
“I don’t have any choice.”
“You have a lot of choices, but you’re choosing the wrong one. This isn’t you, Quinn.”
“Pete, I like you. I’ve always liked you, and I think you know that. But you don’t really know me, so stop pretending that you do.”
He sighed and leaned back against the elevator. “You’re right. The Quinn I thought I knew could never do something like this. This is not going to end well, Quinn. You know that, right?”
No, but it’s going to end the way I want it to, not handcuffed to a hospital bed waiting for strangers to seal my fate for something I may or may not have done.
“I’m doing what I have to,” she said instead. “You would too, in my shoes.” He gave her a doubtful look, but she ignored it and pushed on: “What are you doing here, anyway? I know you’re not part of the guard rotation.”
“Ben called me. Told me about getting you a lawyer.”
“Ben sent you?”
He nodded. “He wanted me to see if you remembered anything else. About Porter, about that night at the club.”
“Tell Ben I’m sorry.”
“Tell him yourself.”
“I will…if I get the opportunity.”
The elevator began to slow down, and when she glanced over she saw that the fifth floor button had lit up.
Quinn quickly hid the gun behind her back, said, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“That’s my line,” Pete said with a pursed smile.
“But I guess we’re beyond that now.”
Way beyond that, she thought while shifting over to the back of the elevator as the car came to a complete stop and pinged!, opening to reveal two nurses holding Starbucks coffee cups.
Quinn fished out her ID wallet and flashed it at the women as they were about to step inside. “Sorry, you’ll have to take the next car.”
“Oh,” one of the nurses said, before exchanging a curious look with her coworker.
As the elevator doors closed back up, Quinn heard the other nurse say to her friend, “They can do that?”
“I guess so,” the other one said, and then the elevator was going down again.
Quinn quickly shuffled back over to the doors.
“You always were quick on your feet,” Pete said.
“I have my moments.”
“This isn’t one of them, Quinn.”
“I have no choice, Pete.”
“You keep saying that.”
Because it’s true. Because something’s happening and I’m right in the middle of it, and I don’t even know what it is. But I know it’s not going to come to me while I’m in custody. I know it’s out there, somewhere.
She said, “You can’t possibly understand what I’m going through right now, and I don’t have time to fill you in.”
“Make the time. We’re friends, for God’s sake. The only people out there still fighting for you are Ben and me.”
“No, Pete, that’s not it. What I’m trying to tell you is, you can’t possibly understand, because I don’t understand it.” She clenched her teeth in frustration. “But I’ll find out. And when I do, I’ll be in contact with either you or Ben.”
The elevator began to slow again, but this time when she glanced over there was still just the underground garage button lit up.
She looked back at Pete. “When you see him, tell Ben I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
For letting him down. For screwing everything up. For giving me more chances than I ever deserved, and then watching me piss it all down the toilet.
But all she could get out was, “Just tell him I’m sorry.”
Ping! as the elevator doors opened up behind her.
