The Buried

by Brett Battles

  Quinn calculated the odds, but he couldn’t take out all five men on his own without Dani getting hurt. He shot a look toward the front room. The door was closed, Nate remaining hidden as ordered.

  The men loaded the gurney into the vehicle, and then two of them climbed in with Dani and the man who was already inside. One of the remaining two took the driver’s seat while his companion walked over to the wall and started pulling the chain to open the rolling door.

  The ambulance began moving forward.

  Wonderful, Quinn thought sarcastically.

  The second he was clear of the rear bumper, he hopped into a crouch and moved with the vehicle, staying tight to the back and below the rear windows. Though this kept him out of sight while the vehicle headed for the exit, his makeshift plan had one glaring problem—when the ambulance passed the rolling door, the man holding the chain would see him.

  Quinn moved as close as he could to the passenger side, and the moment the man came into view, he flew at him.

  The chain ripped from the guy’s hands as he sailed backward. Grazing the outer wall, he twisted around, hit the floor shoulder first, and tumbled onto his chest, his forehead bouncing off the concrete. Quinn jammed a knee into his back and raised his palm, intending to hit the man in the head, but realized the guy had been knocked out.

  Quinn pulled out his gun and jumped to his feet, knowing what would come next.

  __________

  A LOUD METALLIC rattle filled the air as the ambulance pulled outside.

  Orbits turned toward the back window just in time to see the rolling door sail downward, barely missing the ambulance.

  The driver, Stafford, hit the brakes and looked back at Orbits. “That asshole nearly took us out. What was he thinking?”

  “Must have lost his grip,” Parnell, another member of the team, said.

  Orbits was tempted to tell Stafford to drive on and leave Conway here, but given what was about to go down, he might need all the help he could get.

  They watched the pedestrian door. When Conway didn’t come out, Branson said, “Maybe he’s hurt.”

  “Shit,” Orbits said under his breath. “Someone go get him.”

  “On it,” Branson said.

  __________

  QUINN MOVED BEHIND the pedestrian door and waited. It wasn’t long before he heard steps heading his way.

  When the door opened, the new arrival’s focus was in the other direction, toward the rolling door. As soon as the man saw his colleague on the floor, he hurried over.

  Quinn followed, and placed his suppressor against the man’s neck as the guy knelt down next to his friend.

  A moment of frozen time—the man motionless as he assessed his options, Quinn steady as he watched for the first sign of resistance.

  There.

  The man twisted around to grab Quinn’s weapon, only the gun wasn’t there anymore.

  Thup.

  The bullet ripped through the guy’s calf. As he yelled out in pain, Quinn whacked the hot barrel against the base of the man’s skull. He was dazed, but not out. Quinn hit him again and sent him to the ground with his buddy.

  He rushed back to the door to await the next one.

  __________

  ORBITS STARTED GETTING antsy after twenty seconds. When forty had passed, he became downright anxious.

  “Should I go see if they need help?” Parnell asked

  Orbits stared at the building. Something was wrong.

  “If he needed help, he would have come back and asked for it by now,” he said. He turned toward Stafford. “Go. Get us out of here.”

  Stafford didn’t need to be told twice.

  As they raced away, the door to the building opened.

  For half a second, Orbits thought it was Branson, but whoever it was never stepped outside.

  The hunter fumed. Somehow their location had been discovered.

  __________

  QUINN WATCHED THE ambulance race away. It had been too much to hope they’d keep coming in one by one. But he had taken out two of them, reducing their manpower by forty percent.

  He yelled for Nate to join him. When his partner appeared, he was holding Quinn’s phone up to his ear.

  “Is it working?”

  “Yeah, but they’re not talking much.”

  “Have they at least said where they’re going?”

  “Not yet.”

  Quinn looked over at the two unconscious men on the floor. One or both of them might know where the ambulance was headed. But with Dani’s chip and now Nate’s phone, he and Nate didn’t need to waste time questioning them.

  They left the men where they lay and headed back to their car.

  CHAPTER 31

  AT 4:23 P.M., Central time, an auction appeared on the darknet. The item being offered was a Caucasian female in her mid-twenties. A list of her physical traits was included, as were several photographs and the name she was currently using: Danielle Chad.

  The reserve opening bid price was $1.5 million.

  Because the identities of most interested parties were unknown, e-mail alerts were sent to several people and organizations who might or might not care, in hopes that word would get to those who did.

  WASHINGTON, DC

  AN E-MAIL ARRIVED in Scott Bennett’s inbox, marked urgent.

  This wasn’t unusual. Almost everyone who e-mailed Bennett marked their messages urgent. What made this one stand out, though, was that it had come from one of his superiors in the ultra-secret, America-first organization known as Valor. The first line read:

  Handle this.

  The second line was a link. And the third a random-looking string of letters, numbers, and symbols.

  Bennett copied the last line and clicked on the link. His screen went black for four seconds before an empty text box appeared. After inputting the copied string of characters, he hit RETURN.

  The new page was some kind of auction that was already twelve minutes into a two-hour time limit.

  His confusion as to why Valor would be interested vanished when he saw the item on the block.

  His first move was to send Ricky Orbits a text telling him his services were no longer needed. His second was to put in a bid.

  BERLIN

  FOR A TEN-minute period, Assistant Trade Attaché Komarov felt like he was nothing more than a glorified switchboard operator. First Schwartz with a message for Moscow, then Moscow with an immediate reply, then Schwartz again, and Moscow, and Schwartz, and finally Moscow.

  Whatever was going on was big enough to ignore normal protocols. Komarov had no idea what it could be and was glad for that.

  When he passed the last message on, Schwartz told him to stay close for the next hour and a half in case he was needed again.

  Komarov didn’t like the sound of that.

  NEW YORK CITY

  MORSE STARED AT the monitor. On it was an auction page, the item for sale one Danielle Chad.

  “Can we figure out who sent this?” he asked the tech.

  “We’re attempting to trace, but unlikely.”

  “What about a location off the photographs?”

  “They don’t have any geo-tags and the background’s just a wall, sir. It could be anywhere.”

  “There’s nothing that can help us?”

  “Nothing yet. We should be able to trace the money once the winning bid is paid. That would give us—”

  “That’ll be too late.”

  There was one thing they could do, Morse knew, but authorization for that would have to come from above.

  “Keep working at it,” he told the tech, and then returned to his office and called Clark.

  After Morse laid everything out, the older man said, “It seems we’ve been handed a second chance.”

  After red team had been all but wiped out early that morning, the agency had had no choice but to remove itself from the physical chase for the Hayes girl until another team could be freed up.

  “It could be a trick,” Morse said.
“They might not have her at all.”

  “Have you been able to verify her identity in the pictures?”

  “Preliminarily, yes. But—”

  “Then I say we have no choice.”

  “So that’s a green light?”

  “Yes.”

  “How high can I go?”

  “As high as needed.”

  LOCATION UNKNOWN

  THE WOLF PUSHED the button again, and immediately Director Cho arched on the table from the electricity coursing through her body. At the preset time, the shock cut off and Helen dropped back down.

  “Another, I think,” The Wolf said, and tapped the button once more.

  Cho had just started to arch again when the door opened. Braun stuck his head into the room and motioned to his boss. She acknowledged him with a nod, and then watched Helen finish the latest round.

  When the cycle was done, she said, “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

  She found Braun in the hallway, holding a laptop.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Someone found the girl.”

  She tensed. “Who?”

  “It’s not that easy. Look.”

  He opened the computer and showed her the screen for the Danielle Chad auction.

  After reading through it and studying the pictures, she said, “It looks like her, but are we sure?”

  “It’s her,” he said. “The fingerprints are a match.”

  The Wolf finally allowed herself to smile. So her dead partner’s daughter had finally been found. Now all she had to do was find out who was behind the auctioning, because there was no way she would let anyone else have the girl. She’d been waiting so long for Danielle Hayes to reappear, and had already borrowed heavily to fund the hunt for her. The secret the girl held rightfully belonged to The Wolf. Not only would it pay off her debts, it would allow her to finally regain the life she’d once had.

  She glanced back at the door to the playroom. “I fear Ms. Cho has just become obsolete. Hold her until you hear from me in case this is some kind of scam. If they really do have the girl, eliminate her and thank our host for his hospitality.”

  CHAPTER 32

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  ONCE WINSTON started talking, he hadn’t held back. He’d told Orlando and the others that he and Terry Kuhner had taken Helen Cho to a private airfield in Marin County, where they caught a waiting Gulfstream jet south to the Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles. From there, they transported her to a construction site in Koreatown.

  “The night guard waved us right through,” he’d said. “There was a Suburban waiting for us in the underground garage. You know, a black one with tinted windows. Like you see in all the spy movies. Two guys get out and take the woman from us. While they’re putting her in the back of their car, another guy gets out. I was surprised because it was Mr. Rachett.”

  “Thomas Rachett?” Orlando said, an eyebrow raised.

  Winston nodded. “His people have hired me a few times, but I had never seen him in person before. He quizzed us on how things went down, and then told us our money would be in our accounts within the hour. After that we went our way and they went theirs.”

  “So he’ll know where she is.”

  “Uh-huh. Yeah, he should know. Can I have the antidote now?”

  “Does he still work out of that old theater?”

  “I, uh, think so. Last I heard, he did.”

  The Imperial Theater was one of the old downtown Los Angeles movie palaces. For decades most of them had sat unused and decaying, sad reminders of the area’s sparkling past. In recent years, many had been restored to their previous splendor and reopened to the public. Rumors were that the Imperial, too, had been redone, though no one but the invited was allowed inside.

  Rachett’s public face was that of a successful businessman who had his hands in a lot of different things—construction, restaurants, real estate, and parking lots. His other face, the one the public doesn’t see, was that of a big-time fixer who meddled in politics, torpedoed rivals, and used whatever means necessary to exert influence on whomever he chose.

  Orlando, Daeng, and Ananke were still thirty minutes from downtown when Orlando’s phone rang. On the screen was a single letter: M—Orlando’s shorthand for the Mole.

  She hit ACCEPT. “To what do I owe this honor?”

  “Have you…seen the auction?” he said.

  “Auction? What are you talking about?”

  “Open…your e-mail.”

  She logged on to her laptop and opened the e-mail that had just come in from the Mole. It contained only a link.

  After clicking it and reading the page that appeared, she said, “Holy crap.”

  ILLINOIS

  ORBITS COULDN’T STOP thinking about the fact that someone had known where he’d taken the girl.

  He went over it and over it as they headed south. If someone had found out about his flight from Spokane, the person might have been able to have people in position to follow him when he landed. But he couldn’t see how that was possible. No one had seen him pick up the woman, so how could they have known he’d even gone to Spokane? Maybe they would have eventually figured it out, but he’d have landed and been long gone by then.

  After several minutes of mulling it over, his gaze turned to Danielle. There was only one possibility.

  Leaning over her, he checked pockets and hems, and patted down her legs and arms. Nothing. He rolled her onto her side and had Parnell hold her there while he searched her back. Still no bug.

  He almost gave up, thinking he must have been wrong, when he glanced at her feet. He yanked her shoes off. The tracking chip was underneath the insole of her right shoe. A square hole had been cut into the rubber so it would fit nice and snug.

  “Got you,” he said.

  He moved up front to the empty passenger seat, rolled down the window, and tossed the chip and both shoes onto the side of the road.

  With a laugh, he said, “Whoever you are, you’re out of luck now.”

  __________

  WITH DANI’S TRACKING chip as their guide, Quinn and Nate were able to stay half a mile back as they followed the ambulance.

  Quinn had plugged a set of earbuds into his phone to better hear the open line coming from the other vehicle. Unfortunately, what little conversation there had been came from the back of the ambulance, and he could barely make out every third or fourth word.

  He leaned forward, concentrating, as a new noise came over the line. It sounded like someone moving around. He closed his eyes and tried to picture what was happening.

  Definite movement. Perhaps—

  A loud beep in his ear signaled an incoming call.

  It was Orlando, so he put the connection with the ambulance on hold, clicked over, and turned off MUTE. “Did you find Winston?”

  “We did,” she said. “Did you find Dani?”

  “Kind of. They had her in this building but left a little while ago. We’re following.”

  “Did you know her new friends just put her on auction?”

  Quinn disconnected the earbuds from his phone and switched to speaker so Nate could hear. “Say that again.”

  “An auction to buy Dani went live about ten minutes ago.” She filled in what details she knew.

  “Any bids yet?” Quinn asked.

  “Two were just posted. One for two-point-five million, and the next for four.”

  “Does it say anything about how the winner will receive her?”

  “No,” she said. “Whoa. First bidder just re-bid. Five million.”

  “The ambulance stopped,” Nate said.

  “Stopped?” Quinn asked, surprised.

  He had pulled a dedicated tracking device out of their kit and propped it in the cup holder. He looked at it. Sure enough, the chip was now stationary. But that didn’t make any sense. They were on the interstate and Quinn and Nate had encountered no sign of slowing traffic.

  “I’ve got to go,” he told O
rlando, and hung up.

  A few seconds later, Nate said, “It’s coming up. Right…about…”

  Before he could say “now,” Quinn saw them.

  “They found the chip.”

  Dani’s shoes were lying on the side of the road, right where the tracking dot had stopped on the display. Though the chip’s loss was unfortunate, it wasn’t the end of the world.

  Nate’s phone was still in the ambulance; they could track its location. But because the dedicated tracking device was able to only recognize the signal from homing chips and not from phones, they couldn’t listen in and track the phone at the same time. Still, as long as the others continued to use the ambulance, it would be okay.

  Quinn was tempted to have Nate move within visual range, but held off. It turned out to be a smart move when a minute later, the ambulance exited the interstate and randomly worked its way through the local neighborhood before rejoining the main road. Clearly the men had assumed that after ridding themselves of the chip, their pursuers would close in and therefore had attempted to lose them.

  Once they were back on the interstate, Quinn had Nate close the gap.

  LOS ANGELES

  THE IMPERIAL THEATER was on South Spring, in an area of parking garages, recently converted lofts, and trendy restaurants. It hadn’t always been that way. For decades, most of downtown had played host to only office workers during the day while serving the homeless around the clock. The turn of the century saw the start of a gentrification movement that spit and sputtered for several years before finally beginning to take hold.

  The marquee of the Imperial stuck out over the sidewalk like a giant spike. It had been refurbished not long ago but carried no message. The front entrance of the theater was hidden from the street by a wooden wall painted black. Elsewhere such a wall would be covered with posters and graffiti, but this one was not. Orlando knew this had everything to do with who owned the place. No one—not even a wannabe gang member with a spray can—wanted to mess with Thomas Rachett.