Hunting The Kobra

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  Noah returned his attention to Aslan.

  Feeling as though she had only narrowly escaped, Quinn hid her trembling. She gripped the cup in her hand and sipped the last of the wine. She wanted to return to her borrowed bedroom.

  Instead, another steaming flask of wine was brought to the table by a man in an overcoat. The man pocketed the thick wad of Euros Mitchell shoved toward him with a nod and a smile. The smile was directed toward Aslan. Clearly, Aslan was a known figure here. The locals liked him. Or at least, this local wanted to make a good impression. It implied he knew something of Aslan’s reputation.

  Quinn sighed as the second flask appeared. She didn’t understand German and couldn’t speak to anyone not at the table. She didn’t want to, anyway. Instead, she studied the Christmas tree and the mountains which soared into the sky behind it. Even at night they glowed. The snow on their peaks gleamed in the moonlight. The mountains did not seem to care about anything happening below. They were remote and enduring.

  She could learn something from that. Quinn made herself pay attention to the conversation at the table. She could listen without contributing, which she did not have the energy to do. However, the conversation was innocuous, just as it had been for the five days she had been at the house. If Dima had not told her about Aslan’s true nature, Quinn might have supposed she had fallen among a group of hard-working entrepreneurs. In a way, it was what they were. Aslan surrounded himself with talented people.

  Mitchell complained about football scores. Noah talked about the upcoming weather forecast, which would prevent him from jumping off some bridge whose name Quinn did not quite catch, although the others seemed to know which bridge he was speaking of. Even Toni looked impressed, when he said the name.

  They discussed local politics and Austrian national politics, with a lot of names which Quinn did not know. The four of them even spoke about their plans for Christmas, although it seemed that no one planned to leave the house.

  “I bought myself a bottle of Absolut,” Toni said. “I will boil myself red in the hot tub while I drink it, eat truffles and watched Die Hard.”

  Mitchell snorted. “That movie is fifty years old, isn’t it?”

  “It is a classic,” Toni replied. She looked offended. “I suppose you want to watch the man in the iron suit?”

  “And what is wrong with Tony Stark?” Mitchell demanded.

  “The suit does all the work for him,” Toni replied, looking down her nose. “Take the suit away from him, and I could put him on his back and keep him there, all while drinking my vodka.”

  “She has a point,” Aslan said. “There is something more satisfying with doing it yourself.”

  Quinn looked at him, startled. Was he referring to violence? Or was this conversation as innocent as it seemed?

  “I think it is time we took Quinn back to the house,” Noah said. “She is drooping in her chair.”

  Aslan considered her. His pale eyes narrowed. “Noah, would you mind? I have meetings…”

  Over his shoulder, Quinn could see several men standing near the deserted podium, their glances shifting to Aslan every few seconds as they spoke together. They were clearly waiting. They looked like ordinary businessmen.

  Aslan did not mind mixing business with pleasure, then.

  Noah got to his feet without comment. He looked at Quinn, waiting for her.

  She got to her feet, true exhaustion pulling at her muscles. It was an effort to bend and pick up all the bags. She missed catching a few of the handles and reached again. Before she could close her fingers over the twine handles, a bigger hand gripped them and lifted the bag.

  She straightened. It didn’t surprise her to find Noah standing there, the bags in his hand and a mildly impatient look on his face. He didn’t speak.

  Walking took effort. It also reminded her of the cellphone tucked deep in her jeans. Her heart pattered again.

  Noah moved ahead of her instead of beside her. Like Toni, he did not slow down. Quinn did not have the energy to keep up with him. He had even longer legs than Toni. He pulled away from her. Quinn did her best to keep him in sight.

  Then he realized she was not right behind him anymore. Instead of standing and waiting for her to catch up, he turned and came back to her. This time, he walked beside her. He said nothing again.

  His silence made Quinn repress the apology which wanted to form.

  They moved along the short road at the corner of the square into a courtyard where cars were parked. Noah dug in his coat pocket and withdrew a key chain. He pressed the key fob and a black Jaguar beeped and flashed its headlights.

  It would be natural to sit on the passenger side of the front seat. Quinn didn’t want to do that. It felt as though it would be presumptuous. Besides, she didn’t want to get that close to him.

  Instead, she opened the back door, bent and pushed her shopping bags along the seat, then climbed in and shut the door.

  Noah did not seem to care.

  He eased the car out of the cramped courtyard, onto a narrow road which joined up with a larger one. Quickly, the town fell behind. There was just mountains and meadows. Everything was white with snow and the moon made it glow.

  The warmth in the car, the gentle rocking as it traversed the well plowed road, and the mulled wine had their effect. Quinn did not realize she was falling asleep until a hand on her shoulder woke her with a heavy shake. Cold air against her flank told her the car door was open.

  She sat up, startled. The Jaguar was sitting outside the big house. The black-haired man was bent to look at her, where she sagged on the back seat. His eyes in the moonlight were all black and as neutral as his nonexistent conversation.

  “I’m sorry…” Quinn said, still pulling herself together.

  “Don’t be sorry. Be smart.”

  She looked up at him, startled.

  “Do you need help with the bags?” he finished.

  She grasped the bags and leaned through the seats to pick up the two he had placed on the passenger seat beside him. Feeling disoriented and out of sorts, she slid off the seat, dragging the bags behind her. She stepped onto the snow-packed gravel. The cold was doing much to make her wake properly.

  Noah closed the door behind her with a solid thud. “Eat a meal. You need the calories.” Despite the empathetic words and advice, he sounded disinterested.

  He got back in the Jaguar, which was still idling. While Quinn watched, bemused, he drove away from the house, leaving her standing on the gravel clutching her bags.

  Staring indignantly after him would have zero impact on the man. So Quinn returned to the house.

  It felt gratifying to have Greta fuss around her and organize a meal for her, to bring color back to her cheeks. Greta scolded her for tiring herself, as Quinn made herself eat the rich stew. Greta also had someone take all the bags up to her bedroom. It left Quinn to drag her own sorry ass up the stairs, calling upon the last of her energy.

  When she closed the bedroom door behind her, Quinn fished the cellphone out of her jeans and slid it under the pillow on her bed. Then she stripped off her new clothes, put on one of the nightgowns she had purchased and got into bed. She turned off the light. Moonlight streamed through the window to fall on the colorful rug.

  It would have been easy to roll over and go to sleep. Instead, she pulled out the phone and turned it on. She was startled to discover the phone needed her fingerprint to unlock. Quinn swiped her finger, and the screen lit up. The text app was still on top. She closed it down and examined the software. There was nothing but the text message app. Everything else was operating system. Nothing told her who the phone belonged to, or where the text messages went to. No name was attached to the phone number. It was not an American number, nor was it an eleven-digit European number. It was a four-digit number—7937—which told her nothing.

  Quinn opened the text messaging app once more. With her heart beating faster, she thumbed out a text.

  ARE YOU THERE?

  T
he answer was almost instantaneous. It was as if someone was sitting there waiting for her to reach out for them.

  POWER DOWN THE PHONE. YOU CAN’T RECHARGE. 1 AM TONIGHT, POWER UP.

  Then nothing. Not even the little row of bouncing dots which told her someone was typing out another message.

  Quinn powered down the phone. She didn’t want the battery to run out, either.

  Despite how tired she was, she was now wide awake. Quinn sat on the edge of the bed and examined the dark room. Where could she hide the phone? Under the mattress was far too obvious. Anywhere in the bathroom would also be obvious. She couldn’t hide it in the toilet tank because she didn’t have a plastic bag. It didn’t leave many places. She didn’t consider the wardrobe to be an option. It would be the first place someone would look.

  She rested her hand on the soft, downy pillow. It would be nice to keep the phone under her cheek. Only, beneath the pillow wasn’t even a hiding place. Someone made her bed every day.

  If she put the phone anywhere else in the room, Quinn knew she would panic and worry that someone would find it, if it was not right under her hand where she could protect it. However, she could not move around the house all day with it in her pocket. Sitting and walking tonight had been uncomfortable with it buried in her jeans.

  Then she smiled as the obvious hiding place occurred to her. She stripped the cover from the pillow and put the pillow form between her knees. She picked apart the seam holding the casing closed over the stuffing, unravelling enough stitches so two inches sagged open. The white stuffing inside showed. It was just enough space to slide the phone through. First, though she pushed her fingers into the stuffing, separating the fibers. She made a channel and pushed deeper, until her arm was buried up to the elbow in the white, soft fibers. With her hand still buried, she picked up the phone and slid it inside so it slipped down the length of her arm to where her fingers waited. She nestled the phone in the middle of the pillow. She withdrew her hand, picked up the pillow, turned it over and shook it. The phone didn’t move.

  Pleased, she stuffed the pillow inside the case and put it back on the bed. She set the alarm on the clock on her bedside table for 12:58. She turned the volume down so the soft burr would not be heard beyond her room.

  Then she climbed into bed, put her head upon the pillow, pulled the covers up over her shoulder and went back to sleep again. It wasn’t her exhaustion which let her drift so quickly back to sleep. It was the comfort of having the phone beneath her cheek, within reach.

  Noah depended upon rope to preserve his life. This was her version of his lifeline.

  [11]

  Saturday, November 30th

  1.02 a.m.

  The next message was waiting for her when Quinn woke and eased the cellphone out of the pillow.

  We have your back. You must make Aslan trust you enough to TALK.

  Quinn’s heart sank. She thumbed quickly.

  Get me out of here!

  Don’t you want to know who killed Denis?

  “Dammit,” Quinn whispered. She swiped.

  Aslan will never trust me. Too smart.

  Do something to earn it.

  Quinn stared at the screen, flummoxed. A second text message popped up.

  Find a dark pocket inside you. Share that with him.

  Quinn could almost hear Dima saying it, in her well-modulated, smooth voice.

  The answer to who killed Denis is there, where you are. They did not shoot at you until Aslan arrived. Find the connection.

  There were so many things Quinn wanted to say at the screen. Text was such an inadequate form of communication. The risk of draining the battery prevented her from dumping all her fears into a message, arguing that they should haul her out now, while they knew where she was.

  Was Dima counting on the fact that arguing via text was impossible? Finding Denis’s killer was not Dima’s ultimate aim. She wanted Aslan, who would give her the Kobra. She was a leader of men, a strategist. Quinn had learned that much about the woman during their few hours together.

  A final text message appeared.

  1 AM, the night after tomorrow. Report in. Good night.

  And now her opportunity to argue had gone.

  Quinn stuffed the phone back in the pillow and reassembled the pillow and case. She realized she was ramming the pillow around, her anger building. With a soft hiss of frustration, she launched herself to her feet and moved to the window, where the moon was almost directly ahead and just about to go down behind the mountains. She watched and listened to her heart gallop.

  She was angry, because she was afraid. She didn’t like this feeling of helplessness. It had been many, many years since she had felt it. Her quiet little world didn’t put her in situations which made her feel this way. It was part of the reason she and Denis had got along so well. He also liked—had liked—ordinary, dull, routine peace. Now she knew a little about Aslan and his world, Quinn wondered if Denis had lived through enough interesting times to make him never want to live through them again.

  Movement on the vast expanse of lawn below her window drew Quinn’s eye. Someone was making their way across the grass, on an angle from one corner of the house over to the edge of the lawn where the pool began. She watched the figure move quickly across the grass. They were just a black shadow in the last of the moon light.

  At the edge of the pool, the silhouette paused. They turned their head to look toward the house. Was he checking behind to see if anyone followed him? The shift of the man’s head allowed Quinn to see his features, bathed in the moonlight.

  It was Mitchell.

  He wasn’t hunched over, creeping along on tiptoe, the way a cartoon spy would. Yet he was furtive, anxious to avoid discovery. What was he up to? Where would he be going at one in the morning?

  Dima turned the burner phone over and put it down on the coffee table in front of her. She stared at the matte plastic back and the lens of the camera, which glinted in the low light.

  It was late. Only one small side lamp still burned in the main room of the holiday chalet they had rented on the outskirts of Innsbruck.

  Scott snored on the sofa. His musical notes were the only sound in the room.

  Beyond the room, the old timbers of the balcony squeaked as Lochan moved about to keep himself warm and stay alert.

  Dima presumed the three women were asleep in the loft bedroom. She didn’t know for certain. Her team was good at snatching sleep when the chance provided itself, so her guess was a good one.

  She could never sleep when she was in the deep end of a project. The wait for outcomes prevented her from falling asleep or woke her from sleep if she did manage it. She had learned not to bother trying.

  Leander was the only other person awake in the house. He sat in the other armchair, his gaze steady upon her. When Dima’s gaze met his, he said, “Let me guess. She didn’t argue. And it bothers you.”

  Dima shook her head. “The woman has a backbone. She has just forgotten it.” She tucked her feet up on the cushions, under one hip. The chair was comfortable enough that if sleep did come to her, she wouldn’t have to move. The fireplace was gas driven, so no one needed to worry about topping it with wood. “Did Scott run the photos through facial recognition before he went to sleep?”

  Agata had run about the town square in a dirndl that afternoon, with a camera in her hand, just one of dozens of similarly dressed and occupied women. She had taken close shots of everyone with Aslan, and the dark-haired woman with Quinn.

  Ren had taken a second photo of the woman with Quinn as she left the washroom after passing the phone on to Quinn.

  Leander lifted the tablet under his hand. “Just waiting for the recognition results to come in. That’s not why I’m sitting here.” His expression was grave.

  Dima gave him a small smile. “Let me guess. You watched that silly fool tell Barbara Walters he was former CIA and Black Ops and now you want to cut out your heart because everyone believes him.”

 
“At least he wasn’t wearing a tuxedo,” Leander replied, the corner of his mouth lifting.

  “What is it that keeps you up, then?”

  Leander put the tablet back down and pressed his fingers together. His eyes were almost completely colorless. In this light, they glittered sharply. “We only got the secured connection in place this morning, or we might have found it earlier.”

  “Is that an apology?”

  “An explanation.”

  She waited. Peripherally, she realized that Scott had stopped snoring. Either he was awake, or he had shifted into a deeper phase of sleep. It didn’t matter either way.

  “I won’t be able to finish my profile of Quinn,” Leander said.

  Dima lifted her brow.

  Leander smiled, as if he recognized that she was coaxing him to talk by not talking herself. Leander was the least biddable person on her team. He knew all the tricks.

  He relented and answered without her direct request for information. “The trail of Quinn’s life stops when she was sixteen. There is a blank wasteland before her transcript for high school begins.”

  Dima untucked her feet and leaned forward, her hands between her knees. She opened herself up to the world of speculation that single revelation prompted.

  A record which cut off in childhood…

  “A juvenile record…?” she murmured.

  “There would be other documents, if it were that,” Leander said.

  “Witness protection,” Scott said, his voice thick with sleep. His back was still facing the room.

  “The US Marshalls make sure blanks like that are filled in,” Dima said dismissively.

  Scott rolled over onto his back and turned his chin to look at her. “Not when she was sixteen, they didn’t. It would have been…what was it, Leander? Twenty years ago?”