“Hold on,” Quinn said, then moved his hands to get a better grip on the body. “All right.”
As they stepped outside, Quinn registered a quick, sudden movement in his peripheral vision. But when he turned to look, nothing was there.
They maneuvered the body into the back of the van, then Quinn leaned over to Nate and whispered, “I think we have company.”
Nate kept his focus on securing the body so it wouldn’t roll around. “Where?”
“At the end of the building. I’m going to slip back inside. If we do this right, he won’t see me. What I want you to do is get in the van and drive off. Take the body to Bernie’s like we planned. I want to keep on schedule.”
“And you?”
“I’ll meet you at home.”
“What about the bullet?”
“Don’t worry about it. Even if someone finds it, they won’t have anything to tie it to.”
“Got it.”
Quinn used the open doors of the van to cover his retreat back into the building. Without being told, Nate completed the ruse by closing the van’s doors from inside, and crawling through to the front instead of walking around and getting in through the driver’s side door. There was no way for anyone watching to know that Quinn hadn’t been with him. Quality, intuitive work that emphasized it wouldn’t be long before Quinn would have to either make Nate a full partner or set him free to pursue his own projects.
Another year, tops. Probably less.
The crunch of loose gravel as the van pulled away was soon replaced by an eerie silence cut only by the distant drone of the 101 freeway. Most people would have been surprised by the lack of activity so close to downtown. But the warehouse district was one of the most underpopulated parts of Los Angeles. After several quiet minutes passed, Quinn began to consider the possibility that the motion he’d seen had been nothing more than one of the homeless looking for a warm place to sleep.
More silence.
Then a sound — no more than a single pebble skipping over the ground.
There was no second pebble, no sound of footsteps on the gravel. Just that one moment of disturbance in an otherwise deathly still night.
Quinn eased down the hallway until he reached the doorway of the large open space that had once been the main storage area. He stood in the threshold looking back toward the rear entrance.
Click.
A sound that almost wasn’t a sound at all.
But he’d been waiting for it. The doorknob had been turned.
Quinn stepped all the way back into the storage room, then leaned forward just enough so he could still see the back door. Nothing happened for thirty seconds.
Cautious, Quinn thought. Definitely not a street person.
Then, almost in slow motion, the door began to swing open.
Quinn pulled completely back into the storage room, then took a quick look around. There was nothing he could hide behind except the door itself. But he knew he didn’t actually need to hide behind anything. If he went far enough in and kept near the wall, the darkness would be enough to conceal his presence. He began moving away from the door, careful not to step on any of the trash that was scattered around. As he did, he lowered the zipper on his coveralls enough to pull his gun from its shoulder holster. It was his standard SIG Sauer P226. From one of the pockets, he removed a suppressor, and attached it to the end of the barrel.
After he’d gone twenty feet, he stepped against the wall and stopped.
He could hear footsteps. Soft, with no pattern. Whoever was in the hallway was taking a step or two, stopping, then starting again. Cautious.
Quinn rested his gun against his thigh as he tried to picture what the other person was doing. Whoever it was had to have at least seen Quinn and Nate put the package into the back of the van. There was a good chance he had seen the operations team leave, too.
If this person was not here by chance, then the only way he could have found the warehouse was by following the ops team in. Quinn was the one who had secured the building, the one who had informed the operations team where it was after they were already en route. No one other than Nate knew about the location, and they had arrived together, without being followed.
But whatever the reason the intruder was here, he was only one thing to Quinn — a problem.
Quinn’s job was to cover up the crime scene, and make it so no one would know what had gone down. Sometimes that meant misdirecting someone who’d strayed dangerously close to the job site.
But this was different. Here was a person who obviously knew that something had happened. By now the still-potent smells emanating from the op room were acting as a guide, drawing the intruder forward. The question was, what should Quinn do about it? Killing was not a normal component of his job.
In the hallway, the steps stopped right outside the door to the big room.
Quinn raised his gun and aimed it along the wall.
A dark shape leaned through the doorway into the room.
Not a man, Quinn realized. A woman.
She was maybe five-five or five-six. Age, hair, skin tone, all impossible to tell due to the lack of light.
She hung in the doorway, unmoving and patient. She was good. If someone other than Quinn had been the one hiding, he might have made a move by now, alerting the woman to his presence.
So was she a direct threat or not? If yes, all he had to do was pull the trigger and she would be dead. But that would create another mess that would need to be cleaned up, this one without the benefit of any pre-placed plastic. And for all Quinn knew, she might not be alone. A successful cleanup was obtained through knowledge and planning. He had neither with this woman. Who knew what chain of events her death would set off?
Until he saw a gun in her hand moving in his direction, he would wait and observe. Without shifting the SIG, he removed his finger from the trigger.
The woman stood in the doorway a few seconds longer, then disappeared back into the hallway. As Quinn lowered his gun, he could hear her steps moving toward the op room.
Quietly, he made his way back to the door, stopping just short of the jamb. The woman continued down the hall away from him, still unaware of his presence. As soon as he was sure she’d entered the op room, he headed for the rear exit.
When he reached it, he checked back down the hallway, then stepped outside.
* * *
It was another ten minutes before the intruder exited the building. Quinn watched her from behind a couple of old weather-beaten signs. She moved with caution, but not as much as she’d used entering the building. Quinn could now see she was Caucasian, in decent shape, and probably about ten years older than he was.
He waited until she had rounded the side of the building out of sight, then crept out from behind the signs. The woman only had two choices: return to the back of the building or head toward the main road. Of the two, the latter made the most sense.
Instead of following her, Quinn cut over to the other side of the building and made his way to the street, paralleling the path she would be taking on the far side.
He stopped at the corner, tight to the wall, and did a quick visual sweep. The areas in front of the warehouse and off to the right were deserted. The building next door, a dingy two-story monstrosity with more windows broken than intact, was dark and dead.
Quinn turned to the wall, then eased his head out just enough to clear the corner. In the distance, the lights of downtown glimmered against the night sky. Closer, but still about a hundred yards away, a solitary streetlamp provided the only illumination for blocks.
He searched for any sign of the woman, but all was still. He then focused on the far corner of the building and waited.
It wasn’t long before a shadow took a step away from the warehouse, paused, then took several more. He gave her a head start, then followed. She must have a car stashed somewhere. His goal now was to get a plate number. He stuck as close as possible to the empty buildings that lined the street, and
kept a good fifty feet between himself and the woman as she walked along the curb.
About sixty feet shy of the feeble streetlight, she turned into a small warehouse parking lot. Quinn slowed, then dropped to a crouch and continued forward another twenty feet. There he used the bushes growing at the base of a useless chain-link fence as cover. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, accessed the camera, and switched to night vision mode.
Ahead he heard a car door open, then voices. One voice was muffled and indiscernible, while the other was clearer and female. The words they spoke weren’t from any of the several languages Quinn was either fluent in or familiar with. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have a pretty good idea what language they had used.
Russian. Or, at the very least, some derivative.
Quinn slid around the chain-link fence and shimmied in as close as he could get, then watched the woman climb into the car and pull the door closed. He took four pictures before they pulled away: one of the car, a close-up of the license plate, and one each of the young guy behind the wheel and the woman. The intruder.
Whoever she was, Quinn had never seen her before.
Chapter 6
“I’m not a killer,” Quinn said.
He was walking toward Little Tokyo, a more populated part of downtown Los Angeles, where he’d be able to arrange for a taxi. Under his left arm he carried the folded-up coveralls he’d been wearing over his clothes at the warehouse. His first call had been to Nate to make sure everything was going as planned.
It was.
He’d then put in the call to David Wills.
“I know you’re not a killer, but aren’t you supposed to take care of loose ends?” Wills said, irritated. “Aren’t you supposed to make sure no one finds anything?”
“And she didn’t,” Quinn said. “We were finished by the time she entered the building.”
“Did she see you carry the body outside? Did she see the vehicle that took it away?”
Instead of answering, Quinn tried to change the focus. “Whoever she was, she had to have followed the ops team in. She waited for them to leave before nosing around.”
“So you’re saying she didn’t see you remove the body? Didn’t maybe take a picture of your vehicle’s license like you did of hers?”
“If she did, it’s not going to lead her anywhere.” As always, he and Nate had taken the proper precautions. “And in case you forgot, my standard procedure when something like this happens is to follow, identify, and report. It’s one of the conditions we discussed when we first started working together. Or don’t you recall that?”
“What if she was a police officer?”
“Even better reason not to shoot her,” Quinn said, then added, “She wasn’t police.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Because the cops in L.A. don’t usually speak Russian.”
Silence. Then, “What do you mean?”
“I heard her say something to her partner.”
“In Russian?” The Englishman sounded troubled, but not surprised.
“If it wasn’t, it was pretty damn close. Does that mean something to you?”
“You’re sure she wasn’t waiting there the whole time?” Wills asked.
“Yes, David. I’m sure. I was the only one who knew about the location ahead of time. When I called your ops team, I was already there, and had done several area checks. We were clean at that point. The only possibility is that she followed the others. Unless you have some other theory.”
Wills said nothing.
“I don’t like the fact someone showed up on one of my jobs any more than you do,” Quinn said. “But I did everything according to my rules. I even got you pictures.” Around him traffic was starting to pick up. “Sorry you’re not happy, but that’s not my problem. Gotta go.”
“Wait,” Wills said. “Look, I apologize. You’re right. You did exactly what you should have. I’m just feeling a lot of pressure on this one. But that’s not an excuse.”
Quinn took a moment, letting his own agitation ebb. So far Wills had been a decent client, fair even. No sense in damaging a good relationship.
“It’s fine, David. It happens.”
“I seem to be staying just a step or two ahead on this one, when I’d rather it be a mile,” Wills said. “We need to talk about the next assignment.”
Quinn looked around. Though there were more cars on the street, he was still the only one on the sidewalk. “All right.”
“After what happened tonight, I don’t want to take any chances, so I’m moving up the next phase. I need you and your team on the East Coast by tomorrow morning.”
Quinn didn’t need to check his watch to know it was almost 10 p.m. “Not possible. By the time we could get to the airport, there won’t be any flights.”
“You won’t go commercial,” Wills said. “I’m chartering a plane for you. I’ll email the details within the next thirty minutes.”
“Where exactly are we going?”
“Maine.”
* * *
Petra had told Kolya to drive straight to the airport. After leaving the car in one of the long-term lots, they grabbed a free shuttle to the terminals, taking seats in the back as far from the handful of other passengers as possible. The bus was nearing Terminal 1 when her phone began to ring. She didn’t need to look at the display. Only Mikhail and Kolya had the number.
“Where the hell have you been?” she asked. She’d been trying to reach him for the last half hour with no luck.
“Busy,” he said.
Petra frowned. “We’re at the airport. Did you get us a flight or not?”
“Winters?” he asked.
“Dead.”
Mikhail paused for a moment, then, “Continental Airlines 634. You leave at eleven-thirty.”
“Okay,” Petra said. “Have a car meet us when we arrive. We’ll see you at the hotel.”
“You’re not flying to New York.”
That caused her a moment’s pause. “You’ve found him?”
“I’ve narrowed it down,” he said.
“Where?”
“You switch planes in Cleveland, Ohio, then fly on to Boston. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“You’d better be.”
Chapter 7
The private jet could have easily fit twenty passengers, but besides the two pilots up front and a single attendant, Nate and Quinn had the plane to themselves.
As soon as they were in the air, Quinn announced that he was going to get some sleep.
Nate knew this was more than just information; it was a suggestion that he do the same. With seats that reclined to a fully horizontal position, and the eyeshades and earplugs that had been on the seat cushions when they came aboard, sleep should have been easy.
Nate removed the prosthetic that served as his lower right leg, tilted his own seat back, and tried to get comfortable. But an ache in his missing ankle kept sleep from finding him. Phantom memories, the physical therapist had explained. “You’ll have them the rest of your life.”
Great.
Like he often did, he began to wonder why he could remember his leg, but couldn’t remember the moment it had been crushed. It had happened in Singapore outside a hawker center. Arriving at the center with Quinn and Orlando — yes, he remembered that. Racing into position to back up his boss, that too. But the moment the car had intentionally rammed into him? Nothing.
When he woke up a day later in a private hospital, his right leg had already been amputated below the knee. Doctors and nurses had come in and out in no apparent pattern, some looking at his stump, some checking his charts, but few talking to him. The ones who did told him he would be fine. That artificial limbs had come a long way from the plastic and metal boat anchors they’d once been.
At the time Nate had barely listened. Part of it was the shock, but mostly it was the almost-certain knowledge that his career as a cleaner was over. What awaited him was a return to normal life, to a life de
void of the challenges and the excitement and the sense of truly being alive that he’d had as Quinn’s apprentice. When he realized this, he almost wished the car had killed him, because he knew the boredom he was facing surely would.
But then, two nights after the accident, Orlando came to see him. It was her second visit of the day. Earlier she’d come with Quinn, who’d hardly been able to say anything.
Pity, that’s what Nate thought his boss was feeling. It had been enough to drive Nate deeper into depression.
As soon as Orlando walked back in, Nate looked to the door expecting Quinn to follow.
“I’m alone,” she said as she approached his bed. “I wanted to say goodbye.”
Nate nodded, the look on his face neutral. “Okay.”
On the table that hovered above his waist was his untouched dinner. He picked up the fork and pushed some of the rice around.
“I need to get back to Garrett,” she said. Her son was still living in Vietnam at that point.
“Sure, I get it.” He squeezed his eyes closed as pain spiked up his leg into his torso.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I could get the nurse. Get you some painkillers.”
“I’m fine!” His voice leaped from his throat, harsh and loud.
Neither of them said anything for several seconds.
“Sorry,” Nate said. “I just … I …”
“You should eat,” she said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“What are you talking about? This looks great.”
“You can eat it, then.”
She picked up the spoon from the tray and scooped up some vegetables, a piece of chicken, and some rice, then held them in the air. “You sure?”
“Be my guest.”
She slipped the food into her mouth, then smiled. “This isn’t bad.” She sat on the edge of his bed.
“I thought you were leaving?” he said.
“In a few minutes.”
He shrugged.
She filled up the spoon again, but this time held it out to him.
“I’m not hungry,” he told her.
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