The Destroyed

by Brett Battles

  Spotted? How? Of course there was no way he could ask the team leader, so Quinn had gotten off the call and headed straight for the Strip.

  At the moment, he was on the wrong side of the street, but that would be rectified when he reached the pedestrian bridge that stretched from the Lux to the second-floor entrance of the Manhattan.

  “Hey, watch it!” a man said.

  “Sorry,” Quinn replied, knowing his apology had probably been lost in the hum of the crowd.

  Foot traffic thickened as he neared the Lux, his pace dropping to what could best be described as a quick walk. The pedestrian overpass was maybe a block away, but damn if he couldn’t buy a break in the crowd.

  “Excuse me,” he said, pushing forward. “Excuse me, excuse me.”

  “Hey, we’re all going somewhere, buddy. Why don’t you cool it a bit?”

  Quinn looked at the man, his face hardening into an expression that had made violent men back down. The other man’s eyes widened, then looked away as if he’d never seen Quinn.

  The quick encounter only heightened Quinn’s self-anger. The civilian crowd was not fair game. His response to the man had shown weakness, not strength.

  He didn’t let it stop him, though. He couldn’t afford to do that.

  Finally, he reached the escalators that led up to the elevated walkway. It, too, was crowded with people, so he could only stand there as it slowly rose to the top. The inaction momentarily allowed him to wonder once more what had gone wrong.

  The assassin and his spotter should have been at the Planet Hollywood Hotel waiting for Quinn’s confirmation from the hospital, not at the Manhattan. But instead, Kovacs and his man had found her. How?

  As he reached the top of the escalator, he pushed the question aside and made his way across the bridge. He slowed to a walk just before he reached the hotel door, and entered right behind a group of guys barely old enough to buy a drink. Now that he was inside, running would only draw attention, and not just from those he was coming to stop. Casino personnel would not be keen on someone turning their establishment into a racecourse.

  He walked past the pretzel stand and straight over to another escalator. This one took him down to the casino floor. Spread out before him were dozens of tables where guests were playing blackjack and mini baccarat and roulette and craps and Let It Ride, apparently enjoying handing over their money to the dealers.

  Once he reached the bottom, he made his way past the central bar, and the faux Manhattan streets with their full restaurants and shops. Finally, he reached an unmarked door tucked away where most visitors would never see it.

  He tried the handle.

  Locked.

  That wasn’t a good sign. He’d manipulated the lock himself so that it would only seem to be engaged, but if pushed and turned the right way, the door was supposed to open. Unfortunately, no matter how much he pushed and turned, it wasn’t budging.

  He glanced around, made sure no one could see what he was doing, then pulled out his lock picks. It still didn’t open. Someone had jammed it closed from the inside.

  There were two other ways to the area beyond that door; neither was convenient. The least inconvenient was via a service elevator and a maintenance-access hallway located over fifty yards from his current position.

  Seeing no other options, he headed in that direction. The elevator was beyond a set of doors that could only be opened via a security card issued to hotel staffers. That wasn’t a problem. He had his own copy.

  The problem turned out to be waiting for him on the other side of the door. It came in the form of a big beefy security guard with a wry smile and superior look in his eyes.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the man said.

  “Maintenance elevator?” Quinn asked, not missing a beat.

  “And why would you need that?”

  Quinn looked at him like he was an idiot. “To do some maintenance.”

  The left side of the guy’s mouth rose even higher. “Perhaps you should come with me first.”

  Even though he knew there was little chance of it working, the maintenance ploy had been worth a try. Quinn acted like he would cooperate. As he came abreast of the guard, the man said, “Keep going. There’s a door at the end of the hall. We’ll—”

  Whatever else he was going to say was lost in the expulsion of air that rushed from his lungs due to Quinn’s unexpected gut punch. Even before the guard’s wind was completely knocked out, Quinn had twisted the man’s arms behind his back, and quick-walked him down the hall to the maintenance elevator. Using his foot, Quinn pushed the call button.

  The doors opened just as the security man started to get his breath back. Thankfully, the car was empty. Quinn forced the man inside, and did the same toe trick on the button for the lower basement.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the guy sputtered.

  “Kicking your ass.”

  Quinn shoved the man’s arms upward.

  The man screamed and moved forward, trying to alleviate the pain. That was exactly what Quinn was waiting for. He pushed hard on the guy’s back, ramming the guard’s face into the side of the car with a loud smack.

  “Fuck!” the guy yelled.

  “Want me to do it again?”

  “No, man. No.”

  Something dripped on the floor. Blood, probably, but Quinn saw no need to check. There was a soft bong, and the doors opened again.

  The lower basement was not a place most people went. Maintenance only, mainly pipes and electrical systems and the kind of things no one ever thought about. Quinn pushed his companion out of the car and took a look around. Off to the right were two large storage rooms he had checked out on his initial recon. He used his free hand to open one of the doors then shoved the guard inside.

  “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you’re in a shitload of trouble,” the man said.

  “You couldn’t be more right about that.”

  He shoved the guy’s arms up even higher, then rammed the man’s head into the wall. The security guard dropped to the ground, unconscious.

  “I’m sorry,” Quinn said. “You should have just pointed me to the elevator and kept walking.”

  He jammed the lock as he went out and shut the door. Even if the guy did wake up soon, he’d have a hard time getting it open.

  Without giving the guard another thought, Quinn took off, sure that he was already too late. He worked his way through the labyrinth of the lower basement until he reached the small, closed-off hallway.

  Like the door he’d tried on the main floor, this one was locked, but this time he was able to pick it open. The dark hallway beyond had mainly been used when the hotel was being built. Now its only real purpose was as an unintentional shortcut to a group of storage rooms that had a separate stairwell and elevator.

  Quinn used the light on his phone to navigate to the other end where a second door—this one unlocked—led into the back of one of the storage rooms. Whoever had packed the place had the foresight not to put any of the wooden crates that took up a majority of the space all the way against the walls. What had been left was a two-foot gap. Quinn had to shimmy sideways down it until he reached the slightly less narrow walkway running through the middle of the room.

  When he reached the storage room door, he withdrew his SIG Sauer P226 and attached a sound suppressor to the end of the barrel.

  He stepped into the corridor.

  There were seventeen separate rooms down here. The one Mila should be in was marked 21AY. It was six down and on the other side.

  Quinn padded quietly along the cement floor, his head cocked, listening for any noise ahead.

  Reaching the door to 21AY, he slowly opened it, and stared in surprise at what he saw inside.

  CHAPTER 11

  SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

  ORLANDO LOVED QUINN. There was almost nothing he could do that would change her feelings. She even understood his self-imposed exile. Hell, she’d helped him set
it up, putting him in touch with Christina in Bangkok in the first place.

  He had been so damaged when he left, she wondered if he would ever recover. She wished she could do more for him, but Quinn wasn’t wired that way. Maybe in time she could help, but this first part, this finding himself again, had to be all him.

  Why she’d acted annoyed with him when he called, she didn’t know. Perhaps it was just the way she thought most people would act in a similar situation, and she’d just fallen into it naturally. Perhaps, subconsciously, she’d wanted him to know his recovery wasn’t just about him. She was here, too, waiting for him, hurting for him.

  Whatever he would discover at the end, she didn’t care. If he wanted to get out of the business entirely, and leave the world of secrets behind, she was fine with that. If he wanted to stay, take on some more work, she could handle that, too. She just wanted him to get to a point where he could decide which it was going to be.

  Now this business with Mila had forced itself into his recovery. What his role in it was, she didn’t know. But she was worried it would prevent him from finding his peace again.

  Her biggest concern at the moment was the fact he hadn’t worked in nearly nine months. Sure, he was good, the best probably, but was he sharp enough at the moment to return to the field? What if this business with Mila got him killed?

  That was the one outcome Orlando dreaded over all others.

  There was no question in her mind she would do everything she could to help Quinn, to give him what he needed, to hopefully keep him safe.

  She had watched the video Peter had uploaded more times than she probably needed to. The raw, stark security footage was devoid of emotion, and, because of that, oddly riveting. Empty concrete one moment, distorted bag of guts and bones the next. Even seeing the man in the baseball hat check the body—knowing it was actually Mila—was fascinating.

  The whole thing was a mix of the surreal and the hyper-real.

  When she finally forced herself to quit watching, she turned her attention to identifying the dead man. The news reports were useless. In the initial articles she found, the police were quoted as saying the name of the victim was as yet unknown. Follow-up reports yielded the same. The only things the police would say were that the man was Caucasian, had no ID, and had jumped.

  The first part, yes. The second, perhaps. The last, she didn’t believe at all.

  After three days, there were no additional reports. The world had moved on to other, more pressing news. A foreigner committing suicide off a new high-rise hotel might be bad for business, but it didn’t hold the public’s attention for long.

  The killer would know his name, of course, but she was willing to bet that someone in official authority knew who he was, too.

  To see if she was right, she hacked into the Dar es Salaam police network, and scrounged around for any information concerning the incident. The problem was, Swahili was not one of the languages she knew, so she had to rely on the date and the phrase “Majestic Hotel” to guide her.

  Still, it didn’t take long to uncover the report. Scanning through it, she looked for any names that she could use as touch points for further searches. None stood out. The only thing she could find were three references to another number that had a similar pattern to the incident’s case number. Some other event that might be tied to this one?

  She dug deeper into the system, looking for a case that matched this new number. At first, she came up with nothing. Not willing to give up so easily, she opened a program she’d written herself. She called it the burrower. It was a worm that could dig its way through an entire system, looking for whatever specific word or phrase or pattern she instructed. While it was fast, because of the size of the police network, it could take several minutes to complete its task.

  Orlando input the number she’d found, started the program, then got up to refresh her cup of tea.

  The water on the stove was still warm enough that she didn’t need to heat it again. As she poured it into her cup, she wondered about the assignment to eliminate Mila. Had Quinn known she was the target? Why was she still alive? Surely the gunman hired for the job had been more than a match for an unsuspecting courier.

  Unless she was more than a simple courier.

  Orlando realized she didn’t know much about Mila. She hadn’t lied when she told Quinn she’d met her before, and she had liked her, but after that she had only heard the girl’s name in passing and had never seen her again. As far as she could remember, Quinn had never once mentioned Mila Voss.

  She was carrying her cup back to her computer when she suddenly stopped mid-stride. What if Quinn and Mila had been more than just coworkers? Mila had certainly been a beautiful woman, and probably could have attracted any man she wanted.

  Orlando shook her head. No, not possible. He would have said something.

  But, as she returned to her desk, she wondered if he really would have said anything. He was the master of walling things off, and any relationship with Mila would have occurred in those years Orlando and Quinn hadn’t been talking to each other.

  It certainly would explain why he might have covered up her death. Of course, that opened up a whole other mess of problems. What about the shooter? Wouldn’t he have known that the woman he’d been sent to kill was still breathing? Was he in on it, too? And if Quinn were having a relationship with Mila, why would he have even been included on the job to take her out?

  Orlando decided she needed to find out more about the events surrounding the not-so-well-executed death of Mila Voss.

  She sat back down and checked the burrower. Not only was it done, it had found what she was hoping for. The number was indeed another case file. Its prefix, though, was apparently only used for a special set of cases that could be accessed solely by the very top level of the force’s administration. The files for these cases were kept behind an additional password-protected firewall. The people who set up the system were good, just not as good as Orlando. Using another of her self-written programs, she was soon through the wall.

  The file was interesting. The majority of it was written in Swahili, but there was a name listed that was most definitely not Tanzanian: Martin Langenberg. Was it the name of the dead man on the sidewalk? She looked for other information that might be useful, and turned up two additional names that sounded Tanzanian—perhaps witnesses or the officers who had worked the case—and one phone number in Dar es Salaam.

  She checked the time. It was after midnight. Doing a quick calculation, she determined it would be late afternoon in Dar es Salaam. She picked up her phone and dialed the number.

  The person who answered did not speak in Swahili, or even in English, but in Dutch. “Martin Langenberg’s office. May I help you?”

  While Dutch was one of the languages Orlando knew, speaking it was not one of her favorite things in the world. It was full of hard sounds that made her feel like she was doing permanent damage to her mouth and throat. Which was the main reason she couldn’t speak it with a native flair like she could French or Vietnamese or Korean.

  “May I speak to Mr. Langenberg, please?” she said.

  “He is in a meeting. May I ask who’s calling?”

  “I’ll just call back.”

  She hung up before the woman could say anything more.

  A Dutch-speaking office in Dar es Salaam. Interesting. The obvious guess was something oil-related.

  She pulled up one of her favorite search engines and typed the phone number into it.

  No listing.

  There were a couple other legitimate places she could try, but she decided to go right to the source. She found a proven hack posted on one of the specialized message boards she belonged to, and used it to enter the Dar es Salaam phone company’s database. The number was listed to a Karas Holdings.

  That didn’t tell her anything.

  With an annoyed grunt, she dove in further.

  An hour and a half later, she stood up and stretched. She’d found
what she was looking for, only it was more than she expected, in a very troubling way.

  Karas Holdings was a front for an organization known as REJ, who, in turn, worked almost exclusively for the CIA. She had dealt with REJ before—both she and Quinn had done jobs for them. Martin Langenberg, according to her sources, was the REJ agent overseeing operations in Africa.

  Using this info, she did a surgical hack into the REJ server, looking only for anything dealing with the dead man in front of the Majestic Hotel.

  She found a single document for the transfer of a body. According to the description, the body had fallen from a great height, and it was recommended that the casket remain closed.

  There was a name, too.

  Lawrence Rosen.

  It didn’t take much work after that to compile a partial bio for Rosen, more than enough to know there was absolutely no way he had jumped. Rosen was a security operative. Freelance now, though a few years earlier he’d been a civilian employee within military intelligence. He was a connected man living in Dubai who undoubtedly had many enemies.

  In Orlando’s line of work, believing in coincidences was a quick way to an early death. Rosen and Mila had both worked in the intelligence world. The fact that he died and she’d been the first to his side could not be put down to chance. There was a connection.

  What, Orlando didn’t know.

  CHAPTER 12

  BANGKOK, THAILAND

  THAILAND WAS NOT where they needed to be. There was no question in Quinn’s mind that by the end of the day they’d be on a plane heading out of the country. The only thing holding up their departure was that he had no idea where they should go. Hopefully, whatever Orlando found out would point the way. While they waited to hear back from her, there was something he needed to do, a thank you that was best delivered in person.

  The first time he met with Christina had been in her large apartment in the center of the city. This time, though, Daeng took them via the SkyTrain to a restaurant just off of Sukhumvit.

  Christina was sitting at a table in the far back corner of the patio. A tall, blonde, Caucasian woman, she had been in Bangkok since near the end of the Vietnam War. Why and how she had come to Thailand as a young adult, Quinn didn’t know, and never asked. It wasn’t his business. He was also unsure hold old she was now—late fifties, early sixties. Someone who didn’t know anything about her background might guess her age to be anywhere between fifty and seventy.