They’d work it out in time, she told herself. She couldn’t imagine them not doing so. And yet…
She sighed and grabbed her phone off the nightstand—3:47 a.m. Quinn had probably been up a few hours already, and she was pretty sure she was done for the night, too.
She pushed up, rolled her neck over her shoulders, crawled out of bed, and shuffled into the bathroom. She left her phone on the nightstand, so she didn’t hear the soft bong announcing the arrival of a message.
She’d discover the text soon enough.
LONDON, UK
DEHLER CHECKED THE monitor again. The street outside her building was busy with morning traffic, but not unusually so. Pedestrians walked this way and that on both sides of the road, headed for their rinse-and-repeat jobs. No one suspicious, not even a little bit. Still, she hesitated.
She didn’t like going out. In the three weeks she’d been using the basement flat, she’d left only five times. Everything she needed to survive, she had delivered. It was only to check for messages that she ventured out.
The sole electronic device she had with her was a disposable phone just for extreme emergencies, and had yet to be turned on. She’d had no computer when she fled Munich, but even if she had, she would have ditched it by now. Maintaining zero digital visibility was as vital to her survival as leaving no physical signs of her presence.
As for those physical signs, Dehler had been utilizing one of the skills she’d developed over years of being a fixer. There had been times when it was necessary for her to disguise herself to gain access to places without anyone realizing who she really was.
Clothes were only the beginning. The real art of hiding in plain sight was her use of high-quality wigs and makeup tools that completely changed her facial features.
In those initial days after the debacle at the Austrian farmhouse, she had collected supplies and soon was traveling as an old Polish lady, a tanned Finnish executive, a tired American tourist, and half a dozen other personas.
Today, she was a middle-aged British man. She wore a suit, a grayish-brown hairpiece partially covered by a cap, a matching moustache and goatee, and wide wire-framed glasses. She’d altered her nose so that it humped in the middle, but the last of her cheek prosthetics had ripped when she removed them and she hadn’t been able to replenish her supply. Since it was a blustery spring day, however, she could get away with wrapping a scarf across her face. Not the perfect solution, but one that would have to do. It had been four days since she last checked for any messages from Esa. She couldn’t afford to wait any longer.
After a deep breath, she stepped outside.
Her destination was the Paskota Hotel next to St. Pancras station. Like the other places she’d used to retrieve communications, the hotel was several kilometers from her flat in Paddington.
She could have taken the Underground straight to St. Pancras station—it was only five stops away on the Circle line—but direct routes were dangerous. Instead, she took the Circle in the opposite direction, all the way to Westminster. There, she transferred to the Jubilee line north for two stops, and then rode the Central line to Holborn. Again, she could have continued on via the Piccadilly line to her final destination, but caution dictated a change-up. She covered the remaining distance by returning to street level and taking a bus.
A breeze swirled around her as she climbed off at St. Pancras. She caught her scarf as it started to slip and walked to the hotel, still limping slightly from the injury she’d received back in Munich when she jumped from the train. Though she had never been in this particular Paskota before, the luxury chain had similar layouts. She navigated it like she’d designed the place herself, finding the business center exactly where she expected it.
“How may I help you?” an eager attendant asked.
Altering her voice to sell her male identity, Dehler said, “I need to use one of your computers.”
“May I have your room number, please?”
This was the moment when Dehler always tensed, but as long as Esa did his job—and so far he had—everything would be fine.
“Twelve twenty-three,” Dehler said.
The attendant consulted her tablet computer and smiled. “Mr. Arnold?”
“That’s correct.”
“This way.”
Once she was alone, Dehler used the computer to check the Goodreads reviews of Lee Child’s latest Reacher novel, looking for one by a user whose screen name included an emotion, a number, and a color in French—this time jaune, for yellow.
And there it was, twelve reviews down. HappyJaune014.
She read the post.
Esa gave the book a rave. It sounded like he’d actually read it. The important part was coded throughout. Inquiries were still popping up about her whereabouts, but were occurring less often than the last time she checked in. Even better news, there was no sign of anyone suspecting she was in London or even the UK.
She knew she would eventually have to move on, but it would be great if she could stretch out her time here a little longer. Another week or maybe ten days would be perfect. By then, her leg should be back to normal, and that would make her feel a whole lot better about being on the run.
She erased her browser history, thanked the attendant, and made her way back to Paddington.
SAN FRANCISCO
QUINN ONLY BECAME aware of the clack-clack-clack when the drone of the TV dipped momentarily as the station transitioned to a new program.
He followed the familiar sound up the stairs and into the office at the front of the house, where he found Orlando sitting in front of her computer, her fingers flying over her keyboard.
He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a gentle rub. “The TV woke you, didn’t it?”
“You not being there woke me.”
“Oh. I’m…I’m sorry. We could go back to bed if you’d like.”
She glanced at him then back at the screen. “Too late for that.”
“Something wrong?”
“Not wrong. I got a message.”
Suddenly alert, he said, “From who?”
“Greta.”
He leaned down and looked at her computer screen, but the only window she had open was filled with code. “What did it say?”
“Let me finish this first.”
After working on the code for several seconds, a window containing a camera feed opened.
“Where is that?” Quinn asked.
“Wait.”
She consulted her phone, brought forward the code on her computer again, and changed a few numbers. When she reselected the camera feed, the sidewalk and the partial view of a street remained unchanged, but the angle of the sun was different.
Pedestrians on the sidewalk and vehicles on the road passed by in not-quite-random waves. A few moments in, a bus pulled up to a stop and dropped off several commuters.
Orlando slowed the feed to a crawl as the three final riders disembarked and turned in the general direction of the lens. The two women in front seemed to be together. At first, Quinn thought the man was with them, too, but the guy had barely stepped outside when a gust of wind whipped by the bus and forced him to stop and tighten the scarf he was wearing around his face. The women kept walking without looking back. The man took a few more seconds to get his bearings before walking out of frame.
“Okay, I give up. Who am I supposed to be looking at?”
Orlando grinned but said nothing as she backed up the footage and let it play again.
Once more, Quinn watched, but was just as perplexed as he was the first time. Neither of the women was Dehler.
“Is one of these people a friend of Dehler’s or something?” he asked.
Orlando played the footage a third time, pausing it at the point when the women started walking off and the man’s scarf was blown partially from his face. “You’re sure you don’t recognize anyone?”
He shrugged, not in the mood for games. “Do you?”
“No,” she admit
ted. She tapped the image of the man. “But Greta says that according to facial recognition software, there’s a ninety-two-percent chance this is Dehler.”
Quinn leaned in for a better look. The guy was wearing a dark gray suit, a newsboy cap of the same color, and glasses. He had a graying moustache and goatee. The quality of the paused image was not good enough for Quinn to make out any other distinctive facial features. The guy’s size was right, but was he Dehler?
“Play it again,” he said.
This time Quinn noticed something distinctive about the man as he walked out of frame. He favored his left leg. Nate had said Dehler had hurt her left leg. Had the injury been bad enough that it hadn’t fully healed by now?
“Are you going to tell me where this is?”
“Near St. Pancras station.”
“London?”
She nodded.
“That’s great. There’s got to be more footage.” London was covered by an extensive CCTV system.
“Greta’s checking on nearby cameras right now.”
“When was this recorded?”
“Forty-five minutes ago.”
Quinn leaned back and took a deep breath.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said without turning. “And if it is her, I promise you, we’ll be on the first flight to Heathrow. But we need to make sure first. It’s just one angle, and the recognition software might be wrong. We don’t want to have taken off and find out it isn’t her.”
She was right. He had been thinking about going, but he’d also come to the same conclusion. It was a ten-hour flight to the UK. Better those hours be spent traveling toward a sure thing than a mistake. Acknowledging that, though, didn’t make him any less antsy to be on his way.
“How long?” he asked.
“Give me an hour. If you want, go pack a bag, or go for a run. Do something to keep yourself busy. I promise, as soon as I’m sure, I’ll let you know.”
Quinn took a deep breath, nodded, and headed out of the office.
There was no need for him to pack a bag. It had been ready since the day after he returned home in early March.
But a run? That wasn’t a bad idea.
THE WATCHER, A man designated Mr. Baker, watched Subject A jog down the road and disappear from sight. He set his binoculars on the passenger seat and opened his laptop.
On a log sheet that lived in the cloud, allowing his boss—Mr. Cooper—real-time access to his notes, he typed:
4:29 AM: SUB A exits house, wearing workout-type clothing.
4:30 AM: SUB A stretching on sidewalk in front of house.
4:34 AM: SUB A jogs north, moving out of view.
Subject A went on a run every day and always headed in the same direction, so it had been decided by Mr. Cooper there was no need for the man to be followed. Granted, today’s run was earlier than the others, but not drastically so. And as Mr. Baker expected, the man returned right after the fifty-two-minute mark.
5:26 AM: SUB A returns from south.
5:29 AM: SUB A stretches.
5:33 AM: SUB A reenters house.
He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. In thirty more minutes, Mr. Cooper himself would take over, and Mr. Baker could head back to his bed at the hotel. As long as Mr. Smith, the third member of their watcher team, cooperated and didn’t blast his TV at full volume in the room next door, Mr. Baker planned on sleeping well into the afternoon.
He checked the house again. Lights on, but no activity outside.
5:35 AM: No change.
ORLANDO HEARD QUINN walk into the office behind her. Without looking back, she said, “Are our friends still out there?”
“Yep.”
“Which one this morning?”
“Beady eyes.”
A trio of men had been surveilling the house for the last two weeks, each taking a different shift around the clock. Sometimes they were in a car, sometimes on the roof of a neighboring house. They were decent enough watchers but no match for Quinn and Orlando, who always knew where the men were stationed.
Within twenty-four hours, Orlando had found enough information to indicate they were working for Dima’s uncle and her jilted husband.
She and Quinn could have easily scared them off, but Orlando had come up with a much better idea. If they manipulated things well, the watchers’ presence would fit perfectly into the plan she and Quinn had been developing.
“Well?” Quinn asked.
When Orlando caught sight of his sweat-drenched running clothes, she scrunched up her face in disgust. “You need a shower.”
“Is it her?” he persisted.
“It’s her.”
Chapter Twenty-One
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
QUINN AND ORLANDO were not ready for their follower—Crew Cut having taken over for Beady Eyes—to know they were about to leave San Francisco, so they got creative.
A ride via Lyft took them to the Hertz rental location on Mason Street, where they picked up a dark gray Infiniti Q50 with tinted windows. This they drove to the underground parking garage of the Embarcadero Center shopping mall. Waiting for them were their friends Gregory and Monique. Quinn and Orlando removed their outer garments, and Gregory and Monique donned them.
Quinn handed Gregory the car keys and an envelope of cash. “Have fun.”
Not realizing there had been a switch, Crew Cut followed the decoys as they left the shopping mall for a daytrip to Napa Valley.
Meanwhile, Quinn and Orlando took Gregory’s Range Rover to the airport, where they caught the 12:55 p.m. direct flight to Heathrow and arrived in London on the morning of April 14.
Before they reached the terminal, Orlando checked her email.
“She lost him,” she said after a few moments of reading.
Before their flight, they had tasked Greta with figuring out where Dehler was staying. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t the Paskota Hotel. Security footage from inside showed Dehler using a computer in the business center, and then leaving. Greta attempted to follow the woman to where Dehler was staying, but lost the trail after Dehler exited the Underground at Bond Street station. Even in a city crawling with cameras, there were areas not covered and others where the cameras had malfunctioned.
As disheartening as not knowing where Dehler had gone might have been, it couldn’t dampen Quinn and Orlando’s sense that things were finally moving in the right direction. Even if Liz’s killer had been in London for only a quick stop and was already on her way somewhere else, she had been here.
They had her scent now.
A large apartment had been secured near the Oxford Circus underground station to serve as their base of operation. It was more or less in the center of the city, and with three different Tube lines to choose from within easy walking distance, they could get across town in a hurry.
Quinn’s phone dinged with a message as he was carrying their bags into the bedroom. He read the text on the way back to the main living area. “Andrews says he’ll see me at eleven thirty.” He checked the time. It was ten forty-five. “I need to run.”
“Don’t have too much fun,” Orlando said as she set her laptop on the table.
He walked over and kissed her on the cheek. “I won’t be long.”
THE SHEPHERD’S REST occupied the ground floor of a small building in Brixton, south of the Thames. Above the faded red door hung the same old sign—a boy asleep against a tree, a crook in his lap and sheep grazing all around him.
Even at half past eleven in the morning, loud voices and laughter leaked out of the pub onto the street. Like the sign outside, the interior hadn’t changed. The same horseshoe bar. The same seven tables. And the same old Macker rooted behind the bar, pouring pints like he’d never gone home.
Quinn approached him.
“What’re you having?” Macker asked.
“A pint of the Longboat please, and a cider.”
“Which cider?”
“Your best, of course.”
Quinn carrie
d the drinks over to the table closest to the dartboards, where a bald, pear-shaped man sat with a goth woman half his size and a decade or two his senior.
Quinn took the empty seat and set the cider in front of the woman. “Good to see you, Margery.”
“What? Nothing for me?” the man—Andrews—asked.
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Off the wagon?”
Frowning, Andrews muttered, “No, but—”
“I could get you another glass of water, if you’d like,” Quinn said, gesturing to the one the man already had.
“It’s a principle thing. You buy a drink for Margery, you buy one for me. Don’t you learn manners in the States?”
“My apologies.” Quinn scooted his beer across the table. “Please, have mine.”
Andrews waved him off with. “Keep it. I appreciate the offer, though. Thank you.” He smiled. “See, that wasn’t hard, was it?”
Sometimes it wasn’t the job itself that was hard. It was the personalities one had to deal with.
“Cheers, then,” Margery said, holding up her cider.
They all clinked glasses and drank a bit.
“I’m curious what brings ya here,” she asked. “We haven’t heard about anything going on.”
“That’s the way it should be, isn’t it?” Quinn said.
“For you, maybe,” Andrews said. “But we like to stay informed.”
“It’s a…personal matter.”
Margery’s eyes lit up. “Personal? Is that so?”
Andrews didn’t look nearly as happy as his partner. “I’m guessing that means you’ll be wanting the friends-and-family discount.”
“I’ll take whatever discount you want to give me, but I’m not pushing.”
That earned Quinn a look of surprised appreciation.
“Well, then,” Andrews said, “what is it we can do for you?”
“For now, a few personal protection items, some lookie-loo stuff, and a few trackers if you have any on hand. Nothing too strenuous.”
“For now, you say? You’ll be wanting more later?”
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