She let out a breath which shook. “It is as bad as I imagined.”
There was enough light in the room for her to see Noah staring at his hands, turning them over and over, as if he weighed something in his mind.
Then he drew a deep breath and blew it out heavily. “It is easy to imagine murder, only you do not properly understand how ruthless he can be. Murder is just snuffing out a life. It’s terrible, yes, but it is not the worst thing you can do to a person.”
“There is worse?” Her heart worked hard.
“There is what he did to you.”
She flinched. “What did he do to me?”
Noah shifted on the bed so he was facing her directly. “In your gut, you’ve known all along. It’s why you fear him.” He hesitated. “He set you up in Washington, Quinn. I saw him do it. He had Toni arrange with Diana Hague’s guard to blow the whistle on you and make you run. My job was to push you toward the building Aslan was in. He intended to turn you into a fugitive, because it would cut you off from everything and everyone, then he could have you to himself.”
Quinn barely breathed. She felt sick. At the same time, though, she acknowledged Noah was right. She had suspected something like this. She had known all along Aslan was capable of it.
“He took a bullet…he took two bullets in the shoulder, to save me.”
“Would you have trusted him, if he had not? Would you be living in his house, being polite to him, if he had not made himself look like a hero to you?” Noah spread his hands. “That is how ruthless he is.”
Quinn pulled her knees up against her chest, the thick quilt over the top of them. She put her chin on her knee. “Why are you working for a man like that? You know what he is like. I don’t think you are like that, so why are you here?”
“People put aside their morals and work for people like Aslan because they’re either in love with money or power, or both.”
Which one did Noah love? Quinn didn’t ask the question aloud because she was afraid of the answer. She didn’t want to know. “How did you start with Aslan? It’s not like they have a job board for people like you.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word criminal, either. Not in association with Noah.
“He poached me.” Noah leaned his hands together. “There are not many people like me, with my skills, in Aslan’s world.”
“It is your world, too, isn’t it? You were working for someone else.”
“Aslan gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse. The money…” He gave a small shrug. “When I feel like indulging in foolish pipedreams, I think about the house I will build on the Costa del Sol, one of these days.” His tone was bitter.
Did he believe it would never happen? Was he addicted to the money and couldn’t make himself get out? Exactly how did someone like Noah retire?
Or was there no such thing as retirement in this world? It would explain the bitterness.
Quinn was almost overwhelmed by the need to tell him the truth. To offer him a way out if he came with her. The only thing which stopped her from opening her mouth and letting it all slide out was the kernel of doubt she had about Noah. He seemed to be a good man when he wasn’t scowling. He was good company when he was on his own, and no one could see him. He had been genuinely moved by music, which gave them one more thing in common.
Only she could not get around the fact that he worked for Aslan. He knew what Aslan was, yet he still chose to do Aslan’s dirty work—literally.
It was that smudge which stopped her from speaking, even though her heart ached with the need to offer him a glimmer of hope.
Instead, she said softly, “When we first got into Witsec and I was going out of my mind trying to remember who I was, and not break down every day because I couldn’t dance, there were things I used to tell myself to get myself through it.”
He tilted his head. “Such as?”
“You haven’t failed until you quit. And you never know what is around the corner.” She shrugged. “It got me through the day. Then I would get up the next day and do it over again.”
Noah resettled the covers and laid on his side. He pulled her closer. “It’s tomorrow. Let’s find out what is around the corner.”
Noah woke Quinn the next morning. He was wearing a suit and tie and his hair was slicked back, still damp from the shower. “I’d let you sleep, only Aslan wants everyone on deck—including you. One of the bidders is coming to sample the shipment.”
Quinn felt sick. The shipment. She clutched the pillow. How bland the word was! “I need to be there for that?”
“I’m just passing the message along. Toni used to supply the glamor and dazzle, but…” Noah shrugged.
Quinn drew in a deep breath. “Well, now I know what my role is, at least.”
While Noah waited and watched with heated interest, Quinn hurried through a fast shower and dressed in something she hoped would say glamor and business at the same time.
The black pinstripe suit had a tight skirt and a jacket which looked normal down to the nipped-in waist. The peplum was full and turned into waves at the back. It lengthened at the back, too, so the hem brushed under her butt. The sleeves were also full circle ruffles. The insides of the ruffles and peplum were bright red.
A white camisole was all that was needed beneath. To avoid competing with the over the top peplum, Quinn wore only the simple gold chain and soprano graf. All the other jewelry she had bought—all of it high quality costume jewelry—was too dazzling and glittery.
She was getting faster with her makeup. She finished it with red lipstick which matched the lining of her suit.
She pushed her feet into Louboutin ankle boots. The black suede boots had solid square two-inch heels. With this outfit, she should wear the finest of stiletto heels. Only, walking on ice and snow with stilettos would be impossible. The boots had good, solid grips on the soles and heels, so she wouldn’t slip and slide.
She grabbed the red merino coat with the black fur collar. The red matched the lining of her suit, too. She shoved her wallet into a black leather clutch and raised her brow at Noah.
“Yes, I think Aslan will be happy with that,” Noah said, getting to his feet. He glanced at his watch. “Five minutes to spare. Let’s go.”
The black SUV waited outside the house and Johnson was at the wheel once more. Had Noah been promoted?
Aslan pushed Mitchell toward the front passenger seat and waved to the open back door, indicating Quinn should get in. Like Noah, Aslan was dressed in the finest of business suits, with an expensive camel overcoat. Mitchell wore a basic black suit and seemed ill at ease in it. He was a jeans and tee shirt guy at heart.
Noah slid onto the back seat from the street side of the car, which meant she was seated between Aslan and Noah—both big men. The car was roomy, although there was little room left with the three of them on the seat.
Quinn felt like holding her breath all the way to the factory.
Giorgio stood at the front doors under the portico, waiting for them.
“Hello…” Noah said. “He’s bleeding.”
Aslan peered through the windows as the car eased around the curve and stopped at the front door. “Johnson, find out what’s going on. The client will arrive at the top of the hour. I don’t want them wondering about the quality of our security when they get here.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnson said crisply. He turned off the engine and pocketed the key, then hurried over to where Giorgio stood mopping his bloody temple with a white handkerchief.
Aslan moved straight past the pair of them and into the building.
Quinn eased herself down to the ground and moved over to the front doors to follow Aslan.
“Mitchell, a moment, if you don’t mind,” Johnson said.
Mitchell was just ahead of Quinn. He turned back to look at Johnson with a touch of impatience.
Noah caught Quinn’s arm. “Keep moving,” he murmured. “No need to get involved.”
“Wait up, Noah,” Mitchell said. “Aslan will need to deal
with this.”
Noah barely paused. “We’ll be in the main board room. You can talk to him there.” He hurried ahead to where Aslan moved through the interior doors into the primary administration area. Noah quickened his pace to catch up with Aslan, who paused with his head down to hear what Noah said. Then he nodded.
Noah pointed to the left.
“Board room it is,” Johnston said. He gave Quinn a stiff smile. “Go ahead. If you follow them, you’ll find your way there. We’ll catch up. We have something to pick up first.”
Mitchell moved toward the glass doors, which slid aside for him. “I know the way,” he told Quinn. “Come on. Boss man won’t put up with too many delays, today.”
Quinn nodded and matched Mitchell’s pace through the corridors inside. A quiet hum of industry sounded behind the corridor walls. It was a week day and technically not a holiday, although as in North America, many of the German workers took the intervening week between Christmas and New Year off. There would be a skeleton staff here today. Perhaps it was why Aslan’s guests were visiting today and not a day when everyone would be in the office.
Perhaps it was why Aslan wanted an entourage with him, to bolster the appearance of a successful operation.
They climbed a broad flight of stairs which Quinn remembered from the last time she had been here. It led to the second floor, where the enclosed catwalk to the laboratories and warehouse crossed between the two buildings.
The top floor of this building was the executive wing of the administration building. The carpet grew thicker and muffled more sound. The walls were painted an interesting teal color. Artwork dotted the walls.
They turned left instead of heading to the right, which was the way they had come when Aslan had toured her about the building.
A pair of heavy double doors were just ahead. One of them stood open. Inside was a curving table with leather executive chairs around it. The far windows were floor to ceiling, giving a spectacular view of the river, the busy wharves which lined it, plus container ships and other cargo carriers drifting along the waterway.
Mitchell pushed open the other door. Quinn stepped into the board room.
Aslan stood in the big, open space between the oval-shaped wings of the table. He had his hands on his hips. Impatience radiated from every angle. He didn’t look at Quinn or Mitchell. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
“I got the gist of it,” Mitchell replied. “Enough to know Johnson called it right. You need to deal with this directly.”
Noah rested his hips on the curved table and crossed his arms. He looked bored.
Sound whispered in the corridor beyond the board room. Mitchell turned to look out. “They’re coming.”
They—Giorgio and Johnston, Quinn assumed—had to be making a lot of noise to be heard from here. The thick carpet had deadened any sound she and Mitchell had made on their way up the stairs.
Mitchell gripped the door handle as if he intended to close it as soon as the two men stepped into the room.
Then Quinn saw Johnson and knew why.
He dragged a woman by the arm. She had lost her footing and was being hauled. She kicked and struggled, making grunts and noises which were muffled to soft mono sounds because she was gagged. Her hands were tied and her face was bloody and bruised.
Johnson tossed her so she rolled onto the floor at Aslan’s feet.
She groaned as she flipped herself onto her back to take the pressure off her bound hands.
It was Leela.
[24]
Friday, December 27th
Dima watched Scott murmur to Lochan, keeping his voice low.
Lochan nodded miserably in response.
Scott patted his shoulder and moved to where Dima sat behind the range of monitors Ashtad had acquired for them.
The empty warehouse was another find Ashtad had supplied—it was between leases. The owners kept the heat running so the building didn’t fall into disrepair. Ashtad had paid them money under the table for a short-term, no-questions-asked rental.
“How is he doing?” Dima asked Scott when he reached her.
Scott straddled the office chair he had been using and picked up his headphones. “Suffering, but not distracted.” He grimaced. “Not now, anyway.”
Scott had noticed Lochan’s attention slipping. He was an excellent 2IC and had taken a moment to talk to Lochan and bring him back to focus upon the priorities.
“Summary, please,” Dima said.
“Leela failed to report in for the last three hourly checks. Her tracker has gone dark. It could have been a deciding factor, except for something else. The three no-shows on their own are not suggestive enough to respond.” He pointed out the window, where, half-a-mile down the road, the factory/warehouse/administration facility was located. “There’s no sirens. No alarms.”
“And the something else?” Dima asked.
Scott spun the chair to face her. His smile was grim. “That’s where it gets interesting. Fifteen minutes ago, Quinn’s tracker was heading for the same spot. Ten minutes ago, it went dark, too.”
Dima peered through the long windows at the other warehouse. “She’s in there, too.” She drummed her fingers on the table, feeling an old, familiar itch. “Scott, I think we need to get closer. Much closer.”
“Feet crawling, boss?” Scott asked, halting his gentle swing on the chair.
Dima drew in a breath. “So itchy, I can’t keep still. Let’s take everything with us, just in case.”
“I’ll stir the others.”
“Leave Ashtad with Ren to monitor and coordinate,” Dima told him. “We can always back off if Leela is still in play, but…”
“Got it,” Scott said. He bounced to his feet. “Yo! Eyes on me!” he bellowed, moving toward the center of the big room. “We move out in five minutes! Full weapons compliment, body armor, everything you can carry and still look street-worthy! This is a live—”
Dima stopped paying attention to Scott’s directions. He wouldn’t miss anything.
Instead, she turned to preparing her own personal arms store and realized she was shifting on her feet, twitching to leave.
Yes, very itchy indeed.
“What the hell, Johnson?” Aslan growled. He no longer looked impatient.
Johnson nudged Leela’s hip with his toe. “Giorgio saw her eating breakfast in the staff cafeteria this morning. New hire, local admin support. Only she cut up her eggs with her knife and fork, then put the knife down and switched the fork over to her other hand to eat it.”
“American style,” Mitchell breathed.
“That’s not enough to warrant this,” Noah pointed out, jerking his chin at Leela.
Quinn couldn’t tear her gaze away from the woman on the floor. Leela wasn’t wearing her glasses and her hair was pinned on the back of her head. She wore simple, well-fitting clothes which a million other Austrian women wore to work each day. Flat, sensible heels and a sweater over a shirt with a rounded collar.
The collar had soaked up blood which had run down her neck. The collar was a dull pink, now.
Someone had fastened Leela’s wrists with zip ties. Now they were bloody and chaffed from the teeth on the ties, for the ties were turned inside out, so the jagged zip was against her flesh.
Leela didn’t seem to understand anything said over her. They were speaking English, yet she lay unmoving, breathing hard, her eyes glazed. She hadn’t looked at Quinn. Not even once.
“I agree it wouldn’t have been enough to warrant this,” Johnson said. “Only, when Giorgio had her brought to the manager’s office to question her, he didn’t like her answers or her German and pulled his gun. She clipped him with a stapler and took off.”
“That makes a difference,” Noah said, studying Leela.
Horror curled through Quinn’s middle.
Aslan moved closer to Leela and looked down at her. “ID?”
“Just local documentation,” Giorgio said. “Says she is Hannah Juchnow. No o
ne with that name shows up on the social networks—not a single one of them. We’re still running the official documents, but they take time.”
Mitchell, who had closed both of the board room doors, stood with his arms crossed and his legs spread, guarding it. He said gruffly, “Doesn’t matter who the fuck she is. She’s not Hannah Juchnow. Take her out the back and shoot her. Problem solved. Boss, we got bigger fish to fry. This will just trip us up. Let’s clean it up fast.”
Aslan nodded. “I agree. First, a couple of questions. Take the gag off her. If she makes too much noise, shoot her through the temple. If she understands English, then she’ll cooperate.”
Giorgio bent and pulled the rag out of Leela’s mouth. She spat and wiped at her bloody lips with the back of one hand, which did nothing but spread more blood around.
“Do you speak English?” Aslan asked her.
She looked up at him and said nothing.
Aslan said something in another language. Quinn was startled, for it was familiar. It was a Slavic language. She suspected it was Russian.
Leela just laid there.
“You profess to know German,” Aslan said, in German. “If you do not answer this time, I will have one of my men shoot you in the temple where you lie. I am short on time and you are a complication I would dispose of quickly. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Leela said, her tone sullen.
“Who are you?”
“Hannah Juchnow.”
“Hannah Juchnow, if she existed, would be screaming about personal rights by now. She would have melted into hysterics at the sight of Giorgio’s gun and not flung a stapler at his head. You are not who you say you are. What are you? Interpol? MI6?”
Leela smiled. It was a ghastly expression, for her teeth were covered in blood, too. “If I am, then aren’t you worried my backup will come busting in here at any second?” She spoke with a German accent.
“CIA,” Aslan said softly. “English people don’t speak about busting in anywhere.” He spun away from Leela with a hiss of frustration.
Quinn gripped her clutch, her fingers making the metal frame bow. She could do nothing at all. There were five men in the room and she didn’t doubt for a second every one of them was armed, probably with more than one gun.
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