“Sit down, Scott,” Dima said sharply.
Scott scowled. He flung out his arm. “She is totally exposed in there!”
“We will give Quinn a chance to sort this out for herself,” Dima said. “Frankly, you all underestimate her.”
Scott threw himself back on the end of the sofa with the sound of disgust.
No one looked at Dima. Ren turned her back, to watch the sound of voices spike the audio output dials on the screen in front of her.
The silence was absolute as they all listened for Quinn’s response to Aslan.
[12]
That afternoon
Quinn knew she could not prevaricate for much longer. The silence had stretched on too long and Aslan wouldn’t wait forever. Only, she wasn’t lying. It was difficult to speak about this. She had been trained for weeks, until not speaking about herself had become instinctive.
“A long time ago,” she said, “I was not Quinn Sawyer. Who I was doesn’t matter. What I was…was a thief.” Her throat tried to close up, which made talking difficult. She paused, to measure the responses of the three people staring at her.
Aslan was the calmest of the three. Even Noah, whose face was normally expressionless, was staring at her with narrowed eyes, puzzling it through.
Mitchell grinned. “You stole from the wrong person…” he said, his tone dreamy. He was enjoying her confession.
Toni rolled her eyes. “Petty criminals don’t get new IDs.”
“They do if they see the wrong thing.”
“What did you see?” Mitchell asked. His tone was eager.
“You were sixteen,” Noah said. “What sort of thief could you be at sixteen?”
“What sort of sixteen-year-old thief could steal something which requires a new ID—a government-issued ID,” Aslan added.
“I was good at it,” Quinn said. “My father taught me.” Her throat closed up and her eyes prickled with hard tears. She hadn’t spoken about her father for decades. Not as a hard truth like this.
The silence this time was solid.
“You are in witness protection,” Aslan said. It wasn’t a question. “You saw something at sixteen which required protection.”
“Actually, it was my father who was the witness. We all had to go into the system with him.”
Mitchell made a soft sound with his tongue and rolled his eyes. “He was the thief. It was his organization he ratted on.”
Quinn didn’t like the word “ratted,” although it was accurate enough. “The people he worked for had moved into sex trafficking. He told me he had seen a girl who looked like me and just my age, locked up in the cargo container. It was too much. Only, he couldn’t walk away from the business. They wouldn’t allow it. So he found the only way out which would protect all of us.”
The silence stretched.
Quinn thought she should relax, once the truth was spoken. Only, their judgmental, speculative gazes kept her pinned and writhing on the chair.
“I don’t believe it,” Noah said. “She admits she is hiding something. So she’s a liar. She will tell us anything she thinks we need to hear.” His voice was a growl.
Quinn shivered. Claiming she was telling the truth would be pointless. She had to let these people make up their own minds. There was nothing else she could say. Except…there was one thing.
“You would like proof, I’m guessing.”
“Can you prove any of it?” Aslan said. Oddly, his voice contained a note of hope. She wondered if he was aware of it.
Toni made an impatient sound. “We should kill her now and be done with it.”
“Aslan,” Quinn said. “May I have that picture of Denis you keep your wallet? Just for a moment, please.”
Aslan’s brows came together. He reached into his jacket for his wallet. Then he froze. He patted the front of the jacket, then his pockets.
“Never mind, I can get it for myself,” Quinn said. She lifted her hip and picked up the wallet from the cushion beneath. She opened it and slid the picture of Denis out of it and held it up for Aslan to see.
Mitchell gave a crowing sound and slapped his knee. His laugh was a subterranean chuckle that went on and on.
Quinn slid the picture back into the pocket, folded the wallet and handed it back to Aslan. He shoved it inside his jacket.
“When she was weak-kneed,” Toni said with disgust. Her gun lowered for the first time.
“I missed the grab,” Mitchell said with a tone of regret. He chuckled again.
“It only proves she knows how to lift things,” Noah said.
Aslan nodded. “It does. We don’t have time to grease the wheels needed to dig into closed records.” He considered Quinn. “It seems you may have more in common with us than any of us guessed. There is a fast way which will prove it.”
“A test?” Mitchell said. His voice lifted hopefully.
“A test,” Aslan said, his tone one of the agreement. His gaze settled on Quinn’s face once more. “I understand you have been going straight since you were sixteen, but would you be willing to lift something for me? Think of it as a show of good faith.”
Quinn kept her gaze steady, even though she still trembled. “I don’t have a choice, do I? If I refuse to perform your test, Toni gets to do what she wants with me, right?”
“Yes, please,” Toni breathed.
Aslan smile was grim. “If you do perform the test adequately, I will explain to you why it is critical you do exactly that. For now, we will take each other on trust. That trust extends only so far, though. Do you understand?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,” Quinn lied. “Although I get the critical points. I prove myself. Then you explain yourself. Right?”
Toni made an impatient sound. “There is a quicker way to deal with this…”
“Hacking at the knot doesn’t give us anything useful,” Aslan told her. His gaze shifted back to Quinn. “For now, don’t leave the house.” He walked away, disappearing into the back of the house, where Quinn had never been invited to go.
That left his three minions.
Toni let the gun hang from her fingers, her other hand on her jutting hip. “I’ll be watching you,” she told Quinn. She spun on her heel and moved away, too.
Mitchell grinned at her. “I’d say welcome to the family, but there is a stretch or two yet before I can say that. Although I gotta say, I really like this side of you, Quinn.” He hurried after Toni, catching up with her as they moved through the door.
That left Noah. He studied her under lowered brows. Locks of his thick black hair fell over one eye. “Be careful,” he said.
“Careful of what?”
“Everything.”
“Including you?”
“Especially me.”
He stalked away, heading for the corridor, and walked upstairs. Quinn stayed where she was. A few minutes later she saw Noah climb down the outside of the house once more. He didn’t look at her through the window.
That was fine by her.
Dima relaxed and shoved the Glock back in her coat pocket as Leander ducked under a snow-laden fir branch and crossed over to her position.
“Leela told me you had taken her patrol shift,” Leander said. “Running away?”
“I have nothing to run away from.”
Leander just smiled.
In fact, the tension in the house had driven her outside, but not to run away. She needed to think. Brisk cold would give her a shift of perspective after being contained inside the house for the last twenty-four hours.
“Quinn performed adequately, as you said she would,” Leander said. “How much of what she told them is the truth, do you think?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised to find that nearly everything she said is the truth, looked at a certain way. If she has been in witness protection since she was sixteen years old, she would have learned to lie far more convincingly than any of us. It would be ingrained in her now.”
“Does this test
of Aslan’s worry you?” Leander zipped up his coat and shoved his bare hands into his pockets.
“On the contrary,” Dima replied. “Once she passes—and she will—Aslan will trust her. She will learn much, then.” She considered Leander for a second. “Are you counselling me, Lea?”
Leander lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “Everyone is pretty pissed with you, right now. You’ve always been an independent spirit, Dima, but you must surely feel the disapproval. I wondered how that made you feel.”
“No one moves through life without gathering disapproval like mud on their wheels,” Dima said. “The mission is still within operational parameters. We have to keep our eye on the main goal. Aslan can lead us to Kobra. If Quinn gets answers of her own while she is down the pipe, that would please me, too.”
“And if she fails this test, and Aslan kills her?”
“She will not fail,” Dima said as calmly as she could.
“You know that for certain? Did your friends in Washington give you her early history?”
“Not yet. They have to assess whether the risk is worth exposing her to us. The answer could still be no. The Witsec program is cautious about such things.”
Leander looked off into the trees, his breath flogging the air. His eyes were narrowed. “When we met Quinn, she was a bereaved music librarian with a small life, and a dead boyfriend with an equally small life. You had faith in her even then. Did you suspect this side of her was there all along?”
“I would like to tell you this is a function of womanhood. All women have this capacity for strength lying dormant within them. Some need coaxing to discover it. I could tell you that Quinn was one of those women. The truth is, I looked into her eyes and I saw it for myself. She didn’t need to have it coaxed awake. It has always been there. Since she was sixteen, in fact.” Dima grimaced. “It is likely we will have to find a way to contain her, later. Quinn has been hiding from the world. Now she is about to step out again.”
[13]
Sunday, December 1st
By the afternoon, the ambient air temperature was in the forties, even though the snow was still a foot thick. Quinn pulled on her new coat, took her sunglasses and went outside.
Someone had put out a row of sun lounges alongside the pool, to take advantage of the warm afternoon. The pool was empty of water and the snow at the bottom was gray slush. The sun was warm, though, and no breeze stole the warmth.
Quinn settled back on the lounger and closed her eyes. It was the first time since the confrontation yesterday she had relaxed.
The peace did not last long. She heard peculiar sounds coming from the end of the pool. At that end, the corner hung over the edge of nothing and the land dropped to the bottom of the valley.
It sounded as if someone was working at something, beneath the edge of the pool. Only, nothing was there.
Quinn sat up. The guards didn’t bother patrolling that end of the swimming pool because it was impossible for anyone to climb the sheer cliff face. Only, it sounded as if someone was there, now.
Quinn relaxed when she realized who it was. There was only one person it could be. Noah. He had found himself another challenge.
As the sounds grew louder and more distinct, she heard a human breath amongst them, and a gasp of effort. Then Noah’s head appeared above the negative edge of the pool. He gripped the dry edge, his fingers digging in, then hauled himself up over the edge of the pool, hoisted his foot up beside his hand and drew himself up. He stood on the edge of the pool and brushed off his hands. He glanced down the valley at the town below.
“Did you climb up from the valley itself?” Quinn asked him.
He didn’t react to her question. It was as if he had known she was there all along, even though he had not glanced at her as he climbed over the edge of the pool. “Without rope?” he replied. “I am not suicidal.”
“All appearances to the contrary.”
He moved around the edge of the pool, which was only six inches wide on that side. The narrow edge and the sharp drop below didn’t seem to bother him. He walked as he would across the middle of the room. Then he stepped onto the concrete around the pool. He came up to the foot of her lounger.
Dirt clung to his suede jacket and his fingers. The same dirt caked the toes of his boots.
“Don’t rock climbers use special boots with spikes?” she asked him.
“I’m not a rock climber.”
She glanced at the pool, then at the side of the house he had scaled just yesterday.
He understood. “There is a difference between training and a hobby.”
“Then all this, jumping off mountains, throwing yourself off bridges, it is all preparation?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “You understand.”
Quinn blew out her breath. “Preparation for what? What work involves being prepared to fall from a great height?”
“I suppose you will find out eventually if Aslan has his way. Until then, though…”
“Yeah, I remember. You don’t trust me.”
“It’s nothing personal. I trust no one.”
“That must make your life miserable.”
“Because yours is such a happy, bland bowl of oatmeal, isn’t it?” His tone was dry.
“I liked my life, thank you very much. I didn’t ask to be blown up.”
Noah didn’t respond at once. He tilted his head, which dropped the locks of hair over one eye again. The sharp line of his jaw moved. “Everyone has assumed the bomb was about Denis, which means it’s really about Aslan. No one has stopped to ask if it is about you. Even you have not wondered.”
“My father died five years ago. Even if someone from his past figured out who he had become, once he died there would be no reason to pursue us.”
Noah shook his head. “You told me that way too fast. I told you to be careful, remember?”
Her heart jumped a little. “You challenged me. What was I supposed to say?”
“You lie, of course. You’ve been doing it all your life. You shouldn’t stop now.” His tone was withering.
She shifted the subject. She pointed to the house behind him. “Can anyone do that?”
“Climb a house? Of course they can.”
“Can you teach me?”
Noah considered her. “What is your balance like?”
Something shifted inside her. The question impacted upon ancient memories. “My balance is as perfect as my pitch,” she said truthfully.
Noah rubbed his jaw. “I could teach you, but not without rope. Maybe tomorrow. That is, if we’re still here.”
“Still here? Is someone planning to blow up this place, too?”
“You didn’t think Aslan would set up a little game in the rec room to test you, did you?” Noah shook his head. “Your test will be live, against a real subject, under real circumstances. And as Aslan does not shit where he sleeps, the test will be somewhere else.”
“You mean, another country? I don’t even have a passport!”
“Yes you do. How do you think you got here?”
She paused. “A fake passport…”
“You seem surprised.”
“It’s just… I didn’t think there was such a thing as fake passports. It seems so 007ish.”
“And you never cheated on your taxes, either, did you?”
“Of course I didn’t!”
He tilted his head again. “You are a mass of contradictions, aren’t you?”
Quinn brushed at the thin foam mattress on the lounger, so she wouldn’t have to look at him directly. “I am perfectly straightforward.”
“Or perhaps you would just like to be.”
Quinn flung her leg over to the side of the lounger and got to her feet. Snow crunched under her boots. “Forget about teaching me how to climb. I don’t need the aggravation.”
He caught her elbow, almost hauling her off her feet as she went past him. “You need to forget about your oatmeal life and embrace the duality you’ve been avoi
ding. You will need it now.” His voice was low.
Startled, Quinn looked up at him. “Is that what you did? In which case, no thank you. I prefer to keep hold of my sanity.”
His eyes widened and his fingers loosened.
She pulled her elbow out of his grip and moved back toward the house. She didn’t look back. If she did, he would see the fear in her eyes which he had provoked with his warning.
When she walked into the recreation room, Aslan was standing at a door at the back of the room. He beckoned to her. “Come in for a moment,” he told her.
Quinn had always assumed the door was to Aslan’s personal office. He came and went from the room frequently. This was the first time she had been allowed to step inside.
Curious, she moved into the room. Toni and Mitchell sat on chairs in front of the big desk. A third man stood behind the chairs. She didn’t know his name, although she had seen him moving around the property with other men.
Aslan rounded the desk and sat in the big leather chair. He picked up a sheet of paper and held it toward her. “This is your target.”
The paper was a printout of a personal profile, something which might’ve been a professional resume. A three-inch photo of a woman was stuck to the corner. She looked as though she was in her mid-40s, a professional woman wearing a shirt and jacket. She had coiffed hair, blond and wavy, and professionally primped.
Quinn read the name beneath the photo. Diana Hague. She scanned the rest of the sheet. In particular, she studied the top lines. “Deputy Director of the FBI?” She looked up at Aslan. “You want me to take something from this woman? What on earth would she have on her worth the effort involved in lifting it from her?”
“Can you do it, or not?” Toni said.
Quinn pressed her fingers to her temple. “I can lift anything from anyone, if the circumstances are set up properly. I am not a superhero, though. I don’t have mystical talent. Lifting something requires misdirection and distraction. Someone like her will be surrounded by guard details and professional security people. If there is any distraction at all, their attention will snap straight to their subject. They’re trained to ignore commotions.”
Hunting The Kobra Page 11