Most Wanted (The Red Sky Conspiracy, Book 1)

by Sam Sisavath

  “Black, no sugar?”

  “Maybe just a little bit this time.”

  The girl made a face. “I don’t know how you drink that stuff.”

  “You get used to it.”

  “Not me; I like lots of sugar and milk in my coffee,” the waitress said. She smiled again and headed back to the counter across the room, past all the empty tables, where in about an hour customers would pack the place and bury their faces in either their devices or the all-in-one computers that the café provided free of charge as long as you ordered something.

  Quinn looked after the young girl, jealous of the energy in her footsteps, and wishing she still had half of that. Of course, maybe the kid wouldn’t have been so peppy if she had just gone through the week Quinn had—

  No, no, no, no.

  There was a second waitress behind the counter, and she was staring at a TV screen in the corner of the room. It was tuned to a cable news channel, but the volume was turned too low for Quinn to hear anything. But she didn’t need sound to know what the anchorwoman was talking about.

  There, in its own box just over one of the anchorwoman’s shoulders, was Quinn’s official FBI photo. Underneath her picture was a caption, but Quinn was too far to read what it said.

  She got up and moved closer…and wished she hadn’t.

  The caption read: ROGUE FBI AGENT WANTED FOR FIVE MURDERS.

  Sonofabitch.

  Chapter 7

  She knew the Bureau could work fast when they wanted to, but she had expected at least a day’s head start. Instead she’d only gotten hours, and she’d wasted most of that trying to catch sleep that wouldn’t be caught and trolling the Internet looking for clues that wouldn’t be found—if they ever existed in the first place. After all, the FBI had been searching for Porter for almost forty-eight hours now, and it was stupid of her to think she could outdo the legion of special agents, not to mention all the other agents from the other agencies combined.

  Quinn had risked returning to her table and turning off the computer she had been using, knowing that it would also wipe out all traces of her search history so the next person who used it would have a clean slate. It was how all Internet cafés worked.

  She couldn’t be sure if the waitresses recognized her, but neither one said a word when she paid her bill with Pender’s money and left. She didn’t wait to find out if the two girls reached for a phone as soon as she stepped outside; she got into her stolen car and found the closest highway on-ramp and disappeared into the night.

  It was four fifty in the morning and it would be at least another hour, maybe two, before the news media really grabbed onto her story. Right now it was just the cable news networks that needed to fill as much time as possible twenty-four seven, even if there weren’t a lot of people out there to watch them. There was a risk of being spotted on the highway, but it would be nothing compared to mid-morning.

  She drove in a stupor for the next hour or so, and by the time the sun had risen in the horizon and the traffic began thickening around her, she was so tired all she could think about was parking somewhere and getting as much shut-eye as possible. But that wasn’t going to happen, because sunlight meant local morning news and that meant alert eyeballs. By now, the Bureau would have sent out descriptions of the stolen car to local law enforcement.

  Quinn finally parked at a corner convenience store and bought a baseball cap and cheap sunglasses off a rack, then left the Chevy in the parking lot. She jogged across the street and took the first bus that came through and didn’t get off until she had gone five blocks, then repeated the process until, eventually, she was a block from her apartment on the northwest section of Houston.

  She walked along the sidewalk and dodged morning pedestrians—teenagers hurrying to school, adults to work—and didn’t stop until she was five buildings down from her destination. She ordered black coffee with a side of eggs and a sausage burrito from the Mexican food truck she had seen show up and park at the same spot every morning for the last six weeks since she moved into her new place but had never bought from.

  She stood back as other customers got in line and sipped her hot coffee on the sidewalk and filled up her stomach while occasionally looking over at her building. There was nothing about it that she hadn’t seen before—more kids coming out of the lobby, some with their parents in tow—but no signs of anyone that looked like a federal agent in civilian garb.

  Quinn didn’t believe for a second that the Bureau hadn’t already sent someone to watch her place, and it didn’t take long before she saw the curtains behind one of the apartments on the third floor moving ever so slightly. Not enough to draw attention unless you were watching for it, which she was. A pair of eyes, too well hidden for her to glimpse the full face, peeked out at the street below for a few seconds before disappearing again.

  They were already inside her apartment.

  Not a surprise. They were probably combing through every inch of her life at the moment—online and offline. Every cent she had ever put into the bank or hidden under a mattress was being unearthed, and every person she had ever talked to in the building and at work were being questioned. That would include Ben Foster and… Who else? Pete Ringo, after last night, and maybe Anna Miller and Kyle Danford, too. That was it for her acquaintances in the city. For once Quinn was glad she’d never spent any real time looking for a social life after relocating to Houston.

  Ben would be their primary target. He was, after all, the man who had gotten her into Quantico in the first place. He was also the one who had asked for and gotten her assigned to his unit. She didn’t know how much trouble Ben was in, but she wasn’t too worried about him. Ben could take care of himself, and he was just old and stubborn enough not to give a damn if the Bureau booted him for this, which she hoped to God didn’t happen.

  I hope your career can survive me, Ben. You deserve better.

  She tossed her empty coffee cup into the nearest bin and headed back in the direction she’d come.

  She’d had no illusions the apartment would be empty this morning when she made her way here. She’d always known she was on her own after she fled the hospital, after she made that irreversible decision, but the confirmation was still a blow.

  She stopped at a crosswalk and waited for the light to change. She might have spaced out, staring across the street at nothing in particular, when a black sedan pulled up to the curb in front of her.

  Quinn glimpsed her own reflection in the tinted window and thought, And this day just keeps getting better and better, and was reaching for her holstered sidearm when the window powered down and a familiar face looked out at her and said, “Get in.”

  She stared at the driver and didn’t move. She also didn’t take her hand away from the Glock.

  “Quinn, goddammit, get in,” Pete Ringo said, injecting just enough urgency into his voice to be heard over the sound of a school bus rushing by in the next lane over.

  Maybe it was the sound of his voice or the pleading look on his face, but she softened her grip on the pistol even if she didn’t remove her hand completely from it. “What are you doing here, Pete?”

  “Trying to save your ass,” Pete said. “Now move it, before they see you.”

  She glanced around at the streets, expecting a swarm of SUVs to appear out of nowhere and block off any escape points. But there was nothing out there that she hadn’t seen since moving into the neighborhood—more school buses, pedestrians on the streets, and food vendors looking for customers.

  Quinn looked back at Pete, leaning slightly out of the open driver-side window, before taking her hand away from her weapon and hurrying around the black vehicle and slipping into the front passenger side.

  Pete drove up to the light, then made a right turn and kept going.

  “How did you know I’d be here?” she asked.

  “Where else would a newly-minted fugitive go the first chance they get?” Pete said. “You shouldn’t have come here. It’s too predictable.
”

  “I had to make sure.”

  “Are you sure now?”

  “Yeah. Pretty sure.”

  They rode in silence for a moment, with Pete taking a couple more turns and spying the rearview and side mirrors every thirty seconds or so. She couldn’t be sure which one of them was more paranoid about being followed, though that question did make her feel better about letting someone drive her around. She knew and liked Pete, but at the end of the day he was still a special agent of the FBI, wasn’t he?

  “Did you talk to Ben?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I went to him last night after I called the office.”

  “You reported me?”

  “I had to. Security cameras captured us together when you got into the elevator.”

  “They already had my picture on the news this morning…”

  “Yeah, they’re working fast.”

  “They said I killed five agents, Pete. Five.”

  He sighed. “I know.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “I know that, too.”

  She looked over at him, genuinely surprised by the quick response. “How?”

  “Because I know you, Quinn. You’re not a killer.”

  “I killed Brown and Sterling…”

  “I thought you said you don’t remember doing it?”

  “I don’t, but all the evidence…”

  He took three more turns, even though after the second one she had lost track of where they were even though this was her neighborhood. But she’d only been here for three months and she’d never really strayed from the same routes that took her to the highway from her apartment, then to the aptly named Justice Park Street downtown where the Houston field office was located. In a lot of ways, she might as well be a tourist to the area.

  “But you’re still not sure if you did it or not,” Pete was saying.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Maybe you’re still suffering from the concussions. It doesn’t just go away overnight, you know.”

  Or maybe it’s because three faceless men drugged me with something that even the FBI lab couldn’t detect, she thought, but said instead, “Maybe.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Pete said. “You, me, and Ben.”

  “How’s he taking last night?”

  “How do you think?”

  “Did you tell him I was sorry?”

  “He knows.” Pete paused, then, “Ben believes you’re innocent. But I guess that goes without saying. You’re his protégé, after all.”

  I’m more than that to him, Pete. And he’s more than a mentor to me.

  “What happened to Pender and the other two at the hospital?” she asked.

  “Gavin and Clyde,” Pete said.

  “Right. I didn’t kill them, Pete. I mean, I did what I had to, to get out of there, but I didn’t kill them. When I last saw them, they were still alive.” Bruised, battered, and bleeding, but alive, she thought, but didn’t add.

  “I believe you,” Pete said. “You’d need a gun with a suppressor for the nurses not to have heard you last night, and they didn’t hear anything. Though both of them remembered seeing you walk past them to the elevator.”

  “So the agents were shot?”

  Pete nodded. “They were found dead in your room with gunshot wounds. They had bruises, and Clyde had a broken nose. They’re going under the theory that you surprised Pender somehow, then lured the other two agents into the room and assaulted them, then murdered them before stripping Pender of her clothes and escaping.”

  “Jesus…”

  “But you didn’t do it.”

  “No,” she said reflexively, almost angrily.

  “I had to ask,” Pete said. “Sorry.”

  “They’re setting me up.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. But someone out there is going through a hell of a lot of trouble to put me in this position. First Brown and Sterling, and now last night.”

  “What happened last night? How did you get out of there?”

  “I had to choke out Pender.”

  “Jesus.”

  “She was still alive when I left the room.”

  “Then what? How did you get past Clyde and Gavin?”

  “I had help.”

  “From who?”

  A woman with a barely noticeable accent and a penchant for telling very bad jokes, she thought, but said, “I don’t know.” She took the phone out of her pocket. “They called me through Clyde’s phone after it went down.”

  “Who, Quinn? Who called you?”

  “I don’t know, Pete, and the not knowing is pissing me off.” A flash of anger bubbled to the surface, and she didn’t bother trying to tamp it down. “The more I think about it—about everything that’s happened since Gary Ross’s nightclub—the more convoluted it becomes. None of it makes any sense. I’m three months removed from the academy, for God’s sake. I’m nobody.”

  “Don’t tell Ben that,” Pete said, and smiled at her.

  She couldn’t help herself and smiled back. “Is he really doing okay?”

  Pete seemed to think about it for a moment. “It’s not the best time to be a part of the unit, I’ll tell you that. Miller, Danford…me. We’ve all been questioned. The division’s essentially split into two camps right now—the ones hunting you and the ones hunting Porter. One guess which one they have us doing.”

  “Porter?”

  “Bingo. I guess they don’t trust us to join in on the fun of looking for you. Suits me.”

  “What about Ben? I’m sure he was questioned, too.”

  “His time with the suits was the longest. But you probably already knew that.”

  She nodded. Pete wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already expected would happen after what she pulled last night.

  I hope you have enough friends to survive this, Ben. To survive me.

  “I’ll be seeing him again later today,” Pete was saying. “I’m assuming you won’t be?”

  “I can’t risk it, for his sake.”

  “I figured.”

  “How’s it coming? The hunt for Porter?”

  “Slow. We don’t even know if he’s still in the city. The profilers don’t think his target is in Houston. They think he just used the port as a way in, that he must have already moved on to his intended target, wherever and whatever that is. You got any ideas yet? New memories that might put us on the right path? If we can catch Porter, maybe he knows something that might help you out of this jam.”

  “That’s assuming something can still get me out of this, after last night…”

  “You never know, Quinn.”

  She nodded and thought about the hours of fruitless Internet searching, all the questions she asked herself last night as she tried unsuccessfully to sleep. None of it had brought her any closer to finding Porter then and it still didn’t now, in the light of day.

  She finally shook her head. “Nothing that’ll help find him.”

  “Too bad,” Pete said. “What about Ben? Any messages you want me to pass along to him?”

  What did she want to tell Ben? What could she tell him that wouldn’t just drag him deeper into the mess she was in?

  “Tell him that I’m doing my best to try to figure it all out,” Quinn said. “And I might not be in touch for a while.”

  “He’s not going to like that. The last part.”

  “He’ll understand.”

  “He still won’t like it.”

  “I know.”

  “So you don’t have any clues about what’s going on?” Pete asked.

  She held up Clyde’s phone again. “Just this. The one who helped me escape from the hospital called me on Clyde’s number.”

  “How’d they know Clyde’s number?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the same way they figured out where the Bureau was keeping me at Southern Methodist.”

  “Did you try calling them back?”

  “The caller ID doesn
’t work. Unknown number.”

  “There are ways around that.”

  “I know, but they all involve taking the phone into a Bureau cyber lab, and that’s not going to be happening anytime soon. At least, not by me.”

  Pete smiled. “Ah. That’s where I come in.”

  He slowed down and pulled into a Burger King parking lot, then found an empty space near the back with cars lining up behind them at the twin drive-thru lanes. He put the car in park and turned off the engine.

  “They’ll ask you where it came from,” Quinn said.

  “And I’ll tell them I found it in the hospital parking garage after doing a second search this morning.”

  She thought about it, then nodded. “That could work.”

  “I’ll make sure the report goes to our unit first. That way no one will get a look at it until we do. It’ll give us at least a few hours’ head start on the manhunt.”

  Manhunt, Quinn thought, the word grinding at the back of her head because it was a manhunt for her.

  “It’s risky,” she said.

  “It’s not as risky as you running around out here all by yourself with half of the division looking for you.”

  Quinn handed him the phone. “I turned it off to keep it from being tracked.”

  He pocketed it. “Hey, keep your head up. It’s not all bad.”

  “It’s pretty goddamn bad, Pete.”

  “You got me and Ben on your side. So there’s that.”

  That made her smile. “Yeah, there’s that.”

  “And don’t count out Miller and Danford.”

  “I think maybe it’s better to keep this small. I’m already feeling guilty enough about dragging you and Ben into this. I don’t need to add two extra careers to my list of ever-growing crimes.”

  Pete reached over and put his hand over hers. Quinn might have been startled by the physical contact if she wasn’t so lost in her own mind, but even so it took everything she had not to let the surprise show on her face.

  “You’re being way too hard on yourself,” Pete said. “Ben knows what he’s doing. And so do I. No one forced me to drive around your apartment waiting for you to show up.”

  She pursed a smile and couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t taken his hand away yet, and that she hadn’t asked him to. After the week she was having, a little (almost) handholding with someone she’d always looked at from afar as a potential romantic partner was very welcome. More than anything, it made her feel less alone out here, against the world.