The Destroyed

by Brett Battles

  “What?”

  “Kidding! All right? Kidding.” He started to walk away, then looked back. “Half-kidding, anyway.”

  When Quinn pulled Daeng aside, instead of telling him the plan, he said, “When we get to Geneva, we’ll put you on a flight back to Bangkok. You’ve been a huge help, and I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated it.”

  “Is that a good idea?” Daeng asked. “It seems to me you’re not through here.” He looked over at Nate on the phone, then at Orlando huddled over her computer.

  “It’s going to get dangerous,” Quinn said. “I can’t ask you to risk your life. People back in Thailand are counting on you.”

  “You mean risk my life again.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Out of the four of you, only two are at full strength. You’re far from it, and the girl is, well, under a lot of stress. So you’re telling me you can’t use a third, healthy person?”

  “I can’t ask for your help again.”

  “Perhaps this isn’t just your decision. Nate?”

  Nate looked up, his phone still held to his ear.

  “May I ask a quick question?” Daeng said.

  “Hold on,” Nate said into the cell, then put his hand over it. “What’s up?”

  “Have I proven useful?”

  “Definitely.”

  “And could you use my help moving forward, or would you rather I return home now?”

  “That’s up to you, but we could absolutely use your help.”

  “I agree,” Orlando called out, her gaze not leaving her computer screen.

  “I guess I’ll be staying,” Daeng told Quinn. “Now, what is it you have in mind?”

  __________

  THE LAST PERSON Quinn pulled aside was Mila.

  “Don’t even attempt to talk me out of it,” she said.

  “I’m not,” he said.

  She looked surprised. “Oh…okay. Just so we’re clear.”

  “We are.”

  “I’ll take off when we get to Geneva.”

  He gave it a beat, then said, “There is another way.” He laid it all out for her.

  When he was through, she stared at him, slack-jawed. “Is that even possible?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  For the first time since they had reconnected, Mila smiled. “It’s a lot better than what I had in mind. Thank you.”

  “Quinn?” Orlando called out, waving at him to join her.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Mila. He sat in the chair next to Orlando. “What is it?”

  “I was thinking we could use a little more ammunition.”

  “Definitely,” he said. “What did you find?”

  She hesitated. “Something that might change the plan a bit.”

  “For the better?”

  “You tell me.” She turned her laptop so he could see the screen. On it was a low-resolution image that had obviously been pulled from a video. The person in the shot had the look of a homeless man—hair and beard long and matted, face thin and dirty.

  Quinn shot Orlando a questioning glance.

  “The footage this was pulled from is about six months old.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But who is it?”

  “If I’m not mistaken, that’s Thomas Gorman.”

  CHAPTER 39

  WASHINGTON, DC

  IT WAS JUST after eight a.m. when Olsen walked into the townhouse.

  The moment he entered their shared office, Peter jumped up. “I’m glad you’re here. I was just about to call you.”

  Olsen laid his briefcase on his desk. “Did something happen?”

  “They have her.”

  Olsen froze. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. One of my teams tracked her down in Switzerland about four hours ago.”

  “Four hours?”

  “I didn’t know myself until just before you arrived. Apparently there was a bit of a dustup, and they weren’t able to contact me right away. The good news is, in the middle of it all, they were able to sneak her on a plane. She’s on her way here now.”

  “Wait, what? Here? No. We don’t want her here.”

  “I already okayed the order to do that in the event she was caught.”

  “I never gave you permission for that!”

  “Your instructions, Mr. Olsen, were to make sure we had her this time, that there were to be no ‘fuckups.’ ”

  “That has nothing to do with bringing—”

  “That has everything to do with bringing her here. I want to see her right in front of me. I want to take a sample of her DNA and her prints, and I want to prove beyond a doubt that the woman we have in custody is Mila Voss. I thought you wanted the same thing.”

  “We can’t have her here,” Olsen insisted.

  “It won’t be for long. I’ve routed the plane to a private strip about thirty miles northeast of here in Virginia. No one is even going to know she’s in the country. We’ll put her on a second plane that’ll be standing by, and process her. You just tell me where you want her flown after we’ve got what we need, and that’s where she’ll go.”

  Olsen mulled over the plan, then said, “All right, all right. We can make that work. It’s actually not a bad idea.”

  “Thanks,” Peter said, not hiding his annoyance.

  “I’ll have to run it by the senator and Mr. Green, but unless you hear from me otherwise, it’s a go.”

  “If it is, I assume you’ll want to be there, too.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The neutral look on Peter’s face remained unchanged, but inside he cracked a smile.

  CHAPTER 40

  VIRGINIA

  THIRTY-FOUR MILES NORTHEAST OF WASHINGTON, DC

  THE PRIVATE JET descended toward the airport. As instructed, the flight crew had remained behind the locked cockpit door. There were no other crew members on board.

  “Last chance if anyone wants out,” Quinn said.

  There were no takers.

  He, Nate, and Orlando were dressed in forest camouflage outfits, with dark brown ski masks resting on their heads. Daeng was wearing a dark suit and holding a pair of tinted glasses. Mila was the only one still wearing the clothes she’d been in earlier.

  Quinn touched her arm and said, “It’s time.”

  “Okay,” she replied, nodding.

  “It’s going to be fine.”

  “I know.”

  “Shall I?” Nate asked. He was in the seat next to her.

  “Thanks,” she said. She gave him the pair of handcuffs she’d been holding, and then raised her hands in front of her. Once the cuffs were secured, she took a deep breath.

  “Daeng will be with you the whole time,” Nate said.

  Another nod.

  From the angle of their descent, Quinn knew they were almost there. “Shades,” he said.

  They moved quickly through the cabin, closing all the window shades so no one could see in after they land.

  After they were all seated, Quinn thought through the revised plan one more time. They had taken every precaution possible, but there were still at least a million ways it could go wrong. The number one being if Peter decided his interests were better served elsewhere and screwed them over. They’d know the answer to that soon enough.

  The plane bounced as its rear wheels hit the runway, then stayed down. Once the front gear settled on the ground, the engines wailed as they worked hard to kill the momentum that had carried them across the Atlantic Ocean. Once their speed slowed enough so that the plane could safely turn off the runway, everyone but Mila jumped out of their seats.

  As soon as Orlando turned off the interior lights, Quinn raised one of the shades a few inches and peeked out.

  There were two medium-sized hangars, and a long, one-story building that fit with the description of the terminal Peter had given him. On the tarmac near the terminal was a plane not much different than the one they were in, and in front of it was a single car.

  So far, so good. />
  “All right,” he said. “Looks like we’re a go.”

  __________

  PETER POINTED AT the distant white dot moving toward them in the afternoon sky. “There she is.”

  As soon as Olsen spotted it, he nodded. “I want this transfer to go as quickly as possible.”

  “That’s the plan. Once she’s transferred to the other plane, we’ll proceed with identification. That should take no more than fifteen minutes. After that, she’ll be back in the air.” Peter had hired Steven Howard and Rickey Larson at Quinn’s request to serve as “protection” for Olsen and the former Office chief, and to handle the identification process.

  Peter’s explanation seemed to satisfy Olsen. He touched his hands-free earpiece, waited a moment, then said, “It’s Olsen, sir…Yes, almost here…How’s the visual there?…Good, good… Call me if there’s anything you want to ask her.”

  Tucked half a mile away in the woods was a trailer, but not the kind someone would take camping to Yosemite or the Rockies. It was a high-tech surveillance station, complete with monitors; recording equipments; microwave, satellite, and radio receivers; several comfortable chairs; and a stocked refrigerator.

  The trailer had been moved into position three hours prior to the scheduled landing time, ready for its guests to arrive.

  This had been the hardest part of Peter’s end of Quinn’s plan. Hardest, that was, next to agreeing to help in the first place. If anything went wrong, they were all doomed, but knowing what Mygatt and the others had done, there was no way Peter could just stand around and do nothing. The secret world was not always the most moral of places, but there were lines that should never be crossed. Mygatt and Green and Olsen hadn’t just stepped over one of the lines, they had rocketed miles onto the other side.

  After convincing Olsen that bringing Mila to Virginia was the right thing, Peter had waited thirty minutes, then offered up another idea.

  “If you’d like, I could have cameras set up, and the senator and Mr. Green could watch the identification remotely.”

  As Peter knew would be the case, Olsen loved the idea.

  In a hesitant voice, he added, “We could do a satellite feed or even route it through the Internet. It all depends on how worried you might be about someone hacking the signal.”

  Again, Olsen’s reaction was predictable. “That is something that cannot happen.”

  “Chances are, everything will be fine, but if you’re asking for an absolute guarantee, I can’t give you that.”

  Olsen frowned. “We’ll just record it, then. They can watch it later.”

  “Sure, that makes sense.” Peter paused the appropriate amount of time, then said, “There is another option, if you’re interested.”

  “What would that be?”

  “I can get access to a remote surveillance trailer that we can set up close to the airport, and use a microwave link to relay the feeds. No one will be able to tap in. It’s the most secure way if they’d like to watch live.”

  Olsen said he’d ask, and when he came back ten minutes later and said both Mygatt and Green would like to utilize the trailer option, Peter wasn’t surprised. When presented with an opportunity to micromanage an important event, he had found that people in power seldom said no.

  The plane landed with a squeal of rubber. The roar of the engines took over, and finally the aircraft settled down to a pedestrian pace as it headed over to where Peter and Olsen were waiting.

  The jet made a large circle just before it reached the terminal. When it stopped, it was beside the second plane, facing in the opposite direction. This would make it easier to move the prisoner from one craft to the other.

  As the engines wound down, the door opened. Standing at the top was a tanned man in a suit and tinted glasses. Peter had never seen him before, but that was probably good. It meant Olsen was unlikely to know him.

  The man lowered the built-in staircase and disappeared back into the plane for a moment. When he reemerged, Mila Voss was with him.

  A low, satisfied grunt reverberated from Olsen’s throat. “It’s definitely her.”

  “Just to be safe, I think we should still do the checks.”

  “Fine,” Olsen said, though it was a halfhearted assent.

  Only the suited man and Mila exited the plane. Peter had explained to Olsen that the idea was to keep things low-key on the off chance someone might be watching. Mila even had a coat draped over her hands, covering the cuffs around her wrists.

  As she and the suited man crossed the tarmac, Peter folded his arms, right over left. Mila walked with her head drooped, as if defeated, while the man with her kept a steady hand on her back. When they were within five feet of Peter and Olsen, the man told her to stop.

  To Peter, he said, “I was instructed to see her all the way onto the plane.”

  “Correct,” Peter said. “Proceed.”

  “Let’s go,” the man said, guiding Mila toward the stairs.

  Just before they reached the first step, Peter called out, “Hold on.”

  The man turned back around. “Yes, sir?”

  Peter walked over, his back now to the other craft. As he’d hoped, Olsen did the same.

  “I just want to take a look,” Peter said.

  He put a hand under Mila’s chin and lifted up her face. Her eyes seemed unfocused, as if she hardly knew he was there.

  “What are you doing?” Olsen asked.

  Ignoring him, Peter asked the man, “Is she drugged?”

  “No, sir. She’s been like that since she boarded the plane.”

  “What about when you captured her?”

  “That was a different part of the team, sir. I was waiting at the airfield so I can’t say.”

  Peter moved Mila’s face side to side as if checking for cuts and bruises.

  After a few seconds, the tanned man said, “She was asleep right before we landed.”

  That was the cue.

  “All right,” Peter said. He took a step back. “Go ahead. Take her on.”

  __________

  QUINN WATCHED THROUGH a narrow slit at the bottom of one of the window shades as Daeng walked Mila toward the other plane. They stopped in front of Peter and the other man, shared a few words, then continued toward the stairs.

  This was another point where Peter could blow things for them, but Daeng stopped and turned, Peter and the man with him walked over, their backs now to the newly arrived aircraft, just as discussed.

  “Now,” Quinn said.

  In silent succession, Nate, Orlando, and Quinn exited the plane, slipped under the fuselage, and made for the trees fifty yards on the other side. As soon as they were safely under cover, Quinn took a look back. Though his view was limited, it looked like the others had boarded the second plane.

  “This way,” Orlando whispered. She was looking at the map on her phone that showed their current location in relation to the trailer.

  They made their way through the woods, careful to make as little noise as possible.

  “I don’t know, Quinn,” Peter had said after Quinn laid out everything for him before boarding the plane in Venice.

  “You have a choice to make. It’s not a small one, I know, but let’s be honest. Is there really any answer but yes?”

  “You’ve got to give me a little time to think.”

  “You have until we get to Geneva.”

  Peter’s response would come in one of two ways: either Quinn and the others would be taken into custody in Geneva upon disembarking the flight from Venice, or they wouldn’t. That would mean the plane and the equipment Quinn had requested would be waiting for them.

  Option two turned out to be the winner.

  Somewhere in the woods ahead they would find three guards. They knew this because of the way Peter had been holding his arms when Daeng approached him—folded, right over left.

  When Quinn, Orlando, and Nate were within one hundred and fifty feet of the trailer, they pulled down their ski masks, circled to the l
eft, and quickly came to the dirt road where two cars were parked.

  One of the three guards was sitting behind the wheel of the car in back, but the other two were nowhere in sight.

  Quinn pointed at Nate, who nodded, then headed along the edge of the trees toward the car. When he came level with the vehicle, he dropped down so as not to be seen, and moved around the rear over to the driver’s side.

  Quinn could no longer see him at this point, but what he could see was the man inside. For a few seconds, everything was as it had been, then the man looked over, surprised, as his door was jerked open. Before he could do anything, he slumped forward as the shot of Beta-Somnol Nate had jabbed into him took effect.

  The crown of Nate’s head appeared for a second as he arranged the man back into a sitting position so it would look like nothing was wrong. He then shut the door and returned to the others.

  It took them two precious minutes to find the next guard. He was wandering the woods, beyond where the cars were parked. Once more, Nate did the honors, shoving the needle into the man before the guy even knew he was there.

  Quinn knew the third guard would be positioned close to the trailer, most likely on the side with the door, so they came at the surveillance vehicle from the back. When they reached it, Nate went one way, Quinn and Orlando the other.

  As he and Orlando turned the corner, they came face to face with the third man. The guard pulled back in surprise, his hand automatically going for his gun, but before he could free it, Quinn had an arm wrapped around him, and a hand over the man’s mouth. Orlando quickly injected enough of the drug into the man’s arm to keep him out until morning.

  With her help, Quinn laid him on the ground. He grimaced as he straightened back up.

  “You okay?” she whispered.

  “Fine,” he lied.

  They reconnected with Nate around front, and gave him the sign that told him the third man was taken care of.

  Quinn checked his watch. Nearly five minutes had passed since they’d left the plane. They needed to speed this up. Without wasting another second, Quinn wrenched the door open and the three of them rushed inside.