The Aggrieved
Page 18
“A doctor’s appointment.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“I don’t recall you saying anything about an appointment.”
“It just came up.”
“We have procedures, Misty. You know you need to—”
“Mr. Ferris, I’m at least a week ahead on my work. And we both know no one else here is even close to that. If, for some reason, I’m unable to come back today, then that means tomorrow I’ll only be six days ahead instead of seven.”
She turned for the door.
“You’ll need to take sick time,” he called after her.
Without looking back, she said, “No. I won’t.”
If he said anything else, she didn’t hear it. Maybe this would be the straw that forced him to request she be transferred elsewhere, but she doubted it. The productivity of his department would plummet.
She was outside, walking toward the DC Metro when her phone rang again.
“Can we talk now?” Orlando asked.
“We can. What can I help you with?”
“Have you ever heard of the Jude Iris Hotel?”
FOR THE FIRST time in a long while, Misty felt like her old self again. For years she’d been Peter’s assistant when he was in charge of the Office. It had been the most exciting time of her life, and the most devastating when Peter was killed and she was shuffled off to the first in a series of mindless government jobs.
After hanging up with Orlando, she’d hurried home and retrieved the special portable disc drive she kept in a hollowed-out space along the floorboard in her kitchen.
On it were copies of all the Office’s operation files—old mission reports, agent assessments, and even blackmail information she could have used to improve her employment situation but her morals would not let her touch. The item she was interested in at the moment was the asset database. On it were thousands of contacts located throughout the world.
Unfortunately, Peter’s contact at the Jude Iris had retired only a few months before Peter’s death, and while a replacement was listed, Misty would have no pull with him. But there were more ways than the direct route to obtain the cooperation of the head of the hotel.
Her search returned a list of eleven people who should be able to bridge the gap. She perused each record, and finally picked the one she thought would work best.
From another hidey-hole she retrieved one of several disposable phones she kept on hand out of habit. None had ever been used.
Sitting at the dining room table, a single sheet of paper and a pen before her, she made the call.
A ring, a double click, and then, “Guten tag.”
“Guten tag, Herr Krause.”
The man on the other end switched to English. “Who is this?”
“Misty. From the Office.”
Another pause. “The Office is dead.”
“Consider this your notification that the reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.”
Pretending that the Office was still in operation was more than empowering. It made her wonder, why just pretend?
Food for thought.
“Now,” she said, “if we could get down to business, I believe you owe us a favor.”
ZURICH
ORLANDO, QUINN, NATE, and Jar rotated watching the hotel entrance. While not on duty, they kept warm in a coffee shop a block away. So far, there had been no sign of Reiser.
Nate was on the street when Misty finally returned Orlando’s call.
“Any luck?” Orlando asked.
“I have something, but I’m not exactly sure what it is,” Misty said. “I was unable to talk to the hotel directly, but I did find a contact who could do it for me. He was told that the answer to your question could be found at seven p.m. tonight on Gessneralle, south of Usteristrasse, outside a smaller building which can be found behind a larger yellow one. It’s a little vague, I know.”
Orlando checked the time. It was already 6:35 p.m. “That’s it?”
“No, one last thing. Whoever goes is to watch from a distance. I’m sorry. I wish it was clearer.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s way better than what we had. Thank you, Misty.”
“No problem. If you need anything else, call me.”
“I think we’re good for now.”
“I mean, um, anytime. Not just this job.”
Orlando raised an eyebrow. “Getting a little nostalgic?”
“Perhaps.”
“All right. We’ll keep that in mind. Thanks again.”
Orlando hung up and shared the information with the others—Nate via the comm. She located Gessneralle on her map.
“That’s almost three big blocks from the hotel,” Quinn said. “Maybe they’re trying to divert our attention so Reiser can get away.”
“Maybe,” Orlando said. “But then again, we don’t all need to go check.”
THE YELLOW BUILDING was on the east side of the road, not far south of the intersection with Usteristrasse. At the north end was a parking area, lined at the back by a row of barren trees and a pile of the snow that had been pushed out of the way.
“I don’t see any watchers, do you?” Quinn asked.
“I’m not even seeing any cameras,” Orlando replied.
They had left Nate watching the hotel and Jar at the café, in case he needed assistance.
“This feels like a setup,” Quinn said.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s see if there really is another building in back.”
He led Orlando across the open lot to the trees. The parking area tucked around the back of the yellow building, forming a smaller lot that could hold maybe half a dozen additional cars, and where the lot ended sat the structure they’d been directed to. The only vehicle present was a black panel van backed up near the building’s open double doors.
Quinn and Orlando moved behind the snow pile, and snuck along it until they were abreast of the van. From their covered position, they could see the cabin was empty and its back doors, like those of the building, were open.
Quinn checked the time again. Seven o’clock on the dot.
He shared a glance with Orlando, who looked as confused as he felt.
A repetitive squeak drifted out from inside the building. Faint at first, it quickly grew louder until it reached a crescendo at the same moment a gurney-like cart carrying a long duffel bag rolled outside. The two men pushing it maneuvered the cart right up to the back of the van, and transferred the bag into the vehicle.
When they finished, the older of the two said, “Take it back down.”
With a nod, his colleague guided the cart back into the building.
Then the most curious thing happened. The older guy looked right toward Quinn and Orlando’s hiding place, held up three fingers, and disappeared inside.
Quinn shot a glance over his shoulder, to make sure the man wasn’t signaling someone else. But no one was there.
“You stay. I’ll go,” Quinn said.
He crawled over a low spot in the pile and made his way to the van. Seldom had he ever felt so exposed, but he reached the vehicle without incident.
He glanced into the building and saw it was a single, open room, with what looked like the entrance to a wide elevator at the other end. There was no one in sight.
Again, feeling like he had an X on his back, he stepped around the rear of the van.
The bag lay just inside. He unzipped it and parted the two sides.
The contents were anticlimactic. He worked in the body-removal business after all, and from the moment he’d seen the bag, he’d had a pretty good idea what was inside.
It was Reiser, all right, gone to a place where Quinn would never be able to reach him.
Dehler’s doing, no doubt. Reiser was a flaw in her personal security, his removal apparently one of the services the Jude Iris provided certain clients.
He zipped up the bag.
Son of a bitch.
Chapter Nineteen
For nineteen days, they chased every lead they came by, no matter how flimsy, traveling to such places as Estonia and Portugal and Morocco. Not once did anything pan out.
After Daeng had recovered enough to travel, Orlando flew with him and Jar back to San Francisco, where doctors she and Quinn trusted took over their friend’s medical needs. Quinn and Nate stayed in Europe, hoping something would turn up.
They spent a week and a half in Munich, hunting down Dehler’s and Reiser’s known associates, but the pitiful amount of information they gleaned was basically useless. The time in Munich, though, did reveal one nugget.
Someone else was looking for the woman, and it wasn’t Helen’s people. Orlando had ascertained that Helen had pulled her watchers, under the belief Dehler had left the city. So it was a pretty easy guess these new people had been hired by Hammad Kassab. A troubling development, to say the least.
When Quinn heard a rumor Dehler had been seen at a restaurant in Amsterdam, he and Nate rushed north to the Netherlands. But it took only a few discreet questions to determine the supposed witness had not seen Liz’s killer.
Since they were in the city, they decided to run down another vague lead. In the past, Dehler had apparently stayed several times at a hostel called the Flying Pig, just off Vondelpark. Why she’d bunk at a hostel, Quinn had no idea. Perhaps she liked to hide in plain sight sometimes. Or perhaps it was a place where she could unwind. Operatives could be peculiar in their methods. Whatever the case, perhaps she’d stopped by there again at some point.
But when they were still half a block away, Nate grabbed the back of Quinn’s jacket. “Wait.”
Standing on the sidewalk in front of the hostel were two men who looked like they were waiting for someone.
“Those are the guys I dealt with outside Dehler’s safe house in Munich,” Nate said.
Which meant they were Helen’s people. Though she had turned her attention from Munich, she had apparently not given up on finding Dehler. And apparently she knew about the Flying Pig, too.
The last thing they wanted was for word to get back to her that they were there, so Quinn and Nate scrambled over to a shady nook between buildings, from where they could watch the others unobserved.
After a few minutes, a man exited the hostel and joined the other two.
“Isn’t that Terrance Long?” Nate asked.
“It sure is.”
Long was a tracker. Finder of the impossible to find, was how he referred to himself. And though that made him even more of an arrogant prick than he already was, it was also true. He was damn good at his job. He also wasn’t cheap. Helen must have been getting desperate.
Long and the other two talked for a moment before they walked down the block and climbed into a car.
As the vehicle drove out of sight, Nate said, “Skip the Pig?”
“Skip the Pig.”
The likelihood of the hostel having any information about Dehler had been low in the first place. And to go in now would only raise questions about why a second group was interested in a former guest so soon after the first group had left.
Quinn and Nate grabbed a taxi and headed for the airport. They had other leads to follow.
From Amsterdam they traveled to Brussels, then Paris, Lyon, Milan, Zagreb, Sarajevo, and back to Munich.
No sign of Dehler anywhere. Not even a whisper on the wind.
While Nate wasn’t ready to suspend the search, Quinn finally gave in to the fact they were spinning their wheels and it was time to go home.
Chapter Twenty
SAN FRANCISCO
APRIL 13
FIVE AND A HALF WEEKS LATER
A STORM MOVED into the Bay Area in the hours before dawn. The rain pelting the windows would have woken Quinn if he’d been asleep, but that wasn’t something he did much these days. A few hours here and there was the best he could manage.
On the nights it became obvious he wouldn’t fall back to sleep, he’d slip out of bed and sneak downstairs, where he’d turn on the TV and find some mindless piece of garbage he could stare at and try not to think.
Of course, he could never not think.
Though he hadn’t been present when Dehler shot his sister, his mind had done an excellent job of recreating the scene. Over and over he’d see her fall, see the blood spread across her shirt, see the inability in her eyes to fully understand what was happening to her.
See the last of her life seep out.
He knew revenge was a poor way to ease the pain of his sister’s death, but to do nothing would be worse. And right now, he was doing nothing at all.
Every day Orlando would say, “We’ll find her.”
And every day, he would reply, “I know.”
But was it true? Even the network of operatives and contacts Orlando had strung together had turned up nothing. It was as if Dehler had boarded a spaceship and left the planet entirely.
Orlando had suggested they take on a job. “Something to give you a chance to clear your head,” she’d said.
But the last thing he wanted was to be obligated to a client when Dehler turned up again. He didn’t care if that meant he never worked another day for anyone else in his life.
He had a job. The client was his sister, and the mission was finding her killer.
The TV flickered, a change of scene, the color and brightness intensifying.
He didn’t notice.
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
“I DON’T KNOW what else to tell you. I haven’t seen her in over a year.” The man picked up his glass and downed the last of his beer. As he set it back on the table, he said, “I do appreciate the drink, though.”
Nate smiled weakly. “Thanks for your time.”
They shook hands, and then the man—a surveillance specialist named Dugan—left.
The meeting was one more disappointing interview.
Nate set some cash next to his untouched pint and returned to his hotel.
The place was nothing special, just a box with a bed and a tiny bathroom. Another in what felt like an infinite series of rooms.
Within a day of returning to California with Quinn, Nate had begun to go stir crazy. He needed to be out looking for Dehler, not sitting on his ass in San Francisco.
“We don’t have anything to go on,” Quinn had said when Nate told him he wanted to continue searching. “It’s better if we all lie low until we do.”
“You lie low. I can’t.”
“You can and you will. What happens if Dehler sees you?”
Nate snorted. “Oh, I see. You think I’m going to blow it again.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“That’s what it sounded like to me.”
“You’re not going to find anything. It’s better if you wait.”
“Your advice is noted. But I’m still going.”
As Nate stepped toward the door, Quinn had moved in front of him. “Don’t be an ass. We both want to find Dehler, but we need to be smart about it.”
“Out of my way.”
“You’re not going to accomplish anything out there. When we know something, we can—”
“Get out of my way!”
If Quinn had said anything else, Nate knew they would have come to blows, but after a second’s hesitation, his former mentor stepped aside.
“Thank you,” Nate said, trying not to sound too sarcastic.
As he grabbed the door handle, Quinn said, “I’m asking you, Nate, please don’t be stupid.”
Nate almost turned on him then, almost released all the guilt and anger and frustration that had been building inside him since Liz’s death. But that would only prolong the conversation, and he was done talking. He yanked the door open and marched out.
Quinn had been right about one thing. Nate had found absolutely nothing.
He propped the
hotel room’s only chair under the door handle, stretched out on the bed, and stared at the paint peeling off the ceiling.
He tried to lie to himself and say at least he was doing something. But the only thing he was doing was wasting time.
SAN FRANCISCO
ORLANDO WAS WELL aware of Quinn’s current nighttime habits. He may have thought he was leaving the bedroom without her realizing it, but he wasn’t.
Every time he got up, she’d wanted to take him into her arms and tell him he wasn’t alone, that this would all pass one day. But she knew it wouldn’t help. The only thing that would break through his pain was to find Dehler, which was why Orlando was doing absolutely everything she could to do just that.
She’d taken a two-pronged approach. The first was passive—waiting for dozens of people she knew throughout the world to let her know of anything that pointed toward someone in hiding.
The second prong was active. Depending on the day, she had anywhere from seven to thirteen operatives following up on the information those in the first prong provided. This second group was made up of people Orlando trusted completely. People like Steve Howard and Greta Sorenson and Makoto Takahashi.
The one person she did not include in this group was Nate. He was not in the right frame of mind. It was better for him to follow his own path than stumble through her leads. She did, however, stay in almost daily contact with him, and encouraged him to make him feel like what he was doing was helpful. It wasn’t, but so far nothing he’d done had harmed the bigger picture, either. Besides, someone needed to keep in touch with him, because God knew Quinn wasn’t doing it.
If she’d been there when Nate had announced he was leaving, maybe things would have been different. Then again, maybe it would have only put off the inevitable. He and Quinn had been on a knife’s edge since Jakarta.
She knew Quinn blamed himself for what had happened to Liz as much as he blamed Nate, probably even more. As for Nate, it was clear he believed it all fell squarely on his shoulders, and he didn’t need anyone else to point that out.