by Sam Sisavath
All of that had been reduced to…this.
She could almost believe he was in a state of pure bliss, but of course she knew better. Gary would never be the same, even if he lived through the day. How close was she to meeting the same fate?
“Tell me, Quinn, what do you know about your parents?” Hofheinz was asking.
She didn’t know how long she stood there looking at what remained of Gary, but it seemed much longer than a few minutes—
Wait, what? What did he say?
She faced Hofheinz. “What did you say?”
“Your parents,” Hofheinz said. He was still watching her closely, scrutinizing every reaction and every twitch that she made. “What do you know about them?”
“I know enough.”
“Are you sure?”
What the hell does that mean?
“Don’t talk about my parents,” she said instead.
“It’s a simple question.”
Not for me, she thought, but said, “Don’t bring them up again.”
“When was the last time you saw them? Are they still alive?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just curious.”
“Shove your curiosity.”
“Aren’t you?”
Every day, she thought, but said, “No.”
“I think you’re lying.”
“Do I look like I care what you think?”
“I would be, in your shoes.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“When you were growing up, didn’t you always feel out of place? Like you didn’t belong?”
“Which part of shut up are you having a hard time grasping?”
“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” he continued as if she hadn’t said anything. “Maybe your parents knew but never told you.”
“They told me enough.”
“Are you sure? Did you ask the right questions? Were you even old enough to ask any questions at all?”
She tightened her grip on the scalpel for what seemed like the fiftieth time in as many seconds. “I said, don’t bring them up again.”
“You should think about it,” he said, either because he couldn’t detect the warning in her voice or he just didn’t care. She was leaning toward the latter.
“You have a death wish, don’t you?” she asked.
“I’m a scientist. I search for the truth.”
“You’re going to be a scientist with a scalpel in your throat in the next few seconds.”
“I don’t think you’d harm me.”
She almost smiled. “No?”
“That would be cold-blooded murder.” He paused for a moment before narrowing his eyes at her. “Or would you?”
“You wanna find out? Keep talking about my parents.”
“Are they still around?”
“You sonofabitch,” she said and moved toward him, raising the knife at the same time.
Maybe it was the speed with which she had moved or the intensity in her eyes, but suddenly the fear was back on his face as he took a quick but clumsy step backward. “No, Quinn, wait—”
She was reaching for him when there was a click from behind her, and Quinn stopped and looked over her shoulder.
The driver, the one who had brought her here with Pete Ringo, was stepping through the door. “Doctor, where’s the woman—”
He saw her two seconds too late, because by then Quinn had already jammed the scalpel into the side of Hofheinz’s neck. The man’s eyes seemed to explode and she expected him to scream, but the only thing that came out of his comically O-shaped mouth was a shocked gasp. Apparently he hadn’t lied when he said he didn’t think she had it in her.
You were wrong! she thought as she maneuvered behind Hofheinz even as the driver brushed back his blazer and drew his sidearm and took aim at her from across the room.
The driver’s eyes shifted between her hiding behind Hofheinz and to the shiny steel of the scalpel jutting out of the side of Hofheinz’s neck with her right hand gripping tightly onto the handle. She couldn’t see Hofheinz’s face at the moment, but by his hesitant movements and suddenly ragged breathing, she guessed that she had his full attention.
“Let him go!” the driver shouted.
Quinn almost laughed. Wasn’t that what Pete Ringo had said to Porter when he took her hostage back at Gary’s nightclub?
But like Porter had done that night, she didn’t let Hofheinz go. She spent the next few seconds watching the driver trying to outflank her, the two of them using Gary’s seated body as a point of center. When the gunman realized that she wouldn’t let him get a better position, he stopped at a spot where there was only open space between them, giving him a clear shot. Mostly, anyway.
“You know what’s happening here?” Quinn asked.
She was surprised at how steady her voice came out, how calm she was from head to toe. Even the lingering effects of the drugs were starting to dissipate enough that she didn’t have any trouble thinking. She hadn’t even thought about punching the knife through Hofheinz’s neck until it had happened.
“No,” the driver said as his eyes snapped from her face to Hofheinz and back again. She saw the way he stood, the way his gun never wavered, and knew she was dealing with a professional. She should have been discouraged because of that, but she wasn’t. If anything she was reassured, because a professional would have priorities and she had a feeling she wasn’t it.
“As far as I can tell, I’m pretty close to his carotid artery,” Quinn said. “When I pull this knife out, he’s going to bleed to death. Fast. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” the driver said.
“So it’s your choice. Me or him. Which one is more important to you? I have a feeling it’s not me.”
God, I hope it’s not me.
Please, please don’t be me.
She looked for hints in the driver’s face that all of this wasn’t going to work, but all she saw were brown eyes that darted back between her and Hofheinz. She could almost picture the gears in his head crunching the odds. Quinn wished she could see the doctor’s expression, but she had to be satisfied with how absolutely still he was while standing in front of her, as if afraid one tiny movement would end his life once and for all.
He was probably not wrong.
“I guess we’re going to find out how important the good doctor is to you,” Quinn said, and began walking Hofheinz backward toward the door on the other side of the room.
Gary faded into the background until she only had eyes for the driver. He stared back at her while moving in short clips to follow, but didn’t make any overt moves to attack.
So far, so good.
When she finally reached the door, Quinn held her breath and cocked her head slightly to listen for sounds of people on the other side, but she couldn’t hear anything except the quiet hum of the lights and what sounded like a generator in the background.
She refocused on the driver. “Me or him. Make your choice. You ready?”
The driver’s eyes told her he wasn’t.
She smiled. “Remember, he’s going to bleed like a stuck pig when I pull out this scalpel. You can’t catch me and save him at the same time. Oh, you can try, I suppose, but I think we both know it’s not going to happen.”
The driver seemed to flinch, as did Hofheinz in front of her.
Quinn tightened her grip on the piece of sharp metal embedded in Hofheinz’s neck. “Three, two, one!”
The word one hadn’t completely left her lips when she jerked the scalpel out of Hofheinz’s neck—heard him gasp with alarm—and pushed him forward and away from her with as much force as she could muster. She was turning when a long spray of crimson red splashed the wall next to her and she thought, I guess I got it in the right spot after all!
Hofheinz was falling behind her, but she had forgotten all about him and spun and grabbed the lever and lunged out through the open door in the next heartbeat.
She almost lost her balance,
but managed to regain it as she raced through the hallway. Thick blocks of concrete flashed to both sides of her, and the lights seemed much brighter out here for some reason.
She shot a quick look back, saw the driver rushing forward, gun in hand, but instead of moving to the door that was closing in on both of them, he instead went for the falling doctor.
Good choice!
She turned and, knife in hand, ran as fast as she could down the corridor.
There was nothing about this one that distinguished it from the last. The entire place gave her an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, like she was running around in circles with absolutely no idea of where she was going.
The corner came up quicker than she had anticipated and she attacked it at a full run, grabbing at the edge to slingshot around it.
Another door at the end, and she hurried toward it.
Faster, faster, faster!
Hours? Has it been hours?
The question raced through her mind as she slid to a stop, and unforgiving rays of sunlight turned her vision into a wall of white.
Jesus. How long have I been in there?
Because it was broad daylight when she emerged out of the door and grabbed at the closest object to steady herself, even as a new wave of pain swept through her. She pulled her hand away from a dusty tarp, her palm covered in grease and dirt even as she tried to blink her way through the sudden blindness.
She was in some kind of warehouse, surrounded by bulky machinery covered underneath thick plastic. The place was cavernous, but except for her own gasping breath there were no other voices or faces peering at her, or a Pete Ringo running to intercept her.
Where the hell am I?
Old chemical spills on the floor stung her eyes and assaulted her nostrils. There wasn’t another living human being around, which was all that mattered at the moment.
“You’ll never get past the guards,” Hofheinz had said. “There’s too many of them.”
She didn’t know why she was so surprised the man had lied. There had been a guard, but no guards.
Lying sack of shit, she thought even as she tried to calm her breathing.
Slowing down her heartbeat as much as possible, Quinn turned around, the bloody scalpel at the ready next to her. She waited for the driver to run out of the same door she had just come through, gun in one hand, and was ready to cleave him from head to toe when he did.
Except the door remained closed and the lever unmoving.
Quinn stumbled backward—one step, two, a half dozen—before spinning around and racing up the aisle toward the front of the building.
The only sounds continued to come from her, including the thunderous bang-bang-bang of her shoes against the oil-slicked concrete floor. She risked glances over her shoulder and back down the aisle every three steps she took, still waiting for the driver to come bursting out after her while covered in Hofheinz’s blood. It would have been like something out of a horror movie, except the killer would be wearing a black blazer.
But it didn’t matter how many times she looked back; the door remained closed.
Stay that way. Stay that way!
She faced forward, her legs pumping and lungs burning, and barely felt the small drops of blood flitting from the cut in her forehead. Hofheinz had put that there with the scalpel she was gripping in her hand.
Die, you bastard. I hope you die!
And then she was at the door—a side door, and not the big massive one that opened by sliding up into the ceiling. Was it the same door Pete Ringo had brought her through last night? It was last night, wasn’t it? God, how long had she been in this place?
She grabbed the lever and twisted it, but it wouldn’t budge. Not that she let that stop her. Quinn took a step back and sent a foot into the spot just below the lever where she knew the construction was weakest. They had taught her that at Quantico, among other things. The first kick made the door wobble, but it didn’t break.
She kicked it again, and again, and on the fourth strike it finally buckled and swung open, and she practically threw herself outside—and bowled over a couple of women in pencil skirts and blouses. They let out a surprised shout as they fell, but Quinn caught her balance and righted herself before taking in her surroundings.
Where the hell was she?
“Oh my God, you’re bleeding,” one of the women said as she picked herself up. The second one was too busy snatching tubes of lipstick off the pavement.
Quinn ignored the woman and took off running up the sidewalk.
She hadn’t gone more than half a block when she glimpsed a police car coming down the street. Quinn darted left into an alley and pressed up against the dirty brick wall and waited.
Five seconds, then ten before the squad car—and the two men in the front seats—passed her by, picking up speed as they went. A few seconds later the sirens blared just once, and Quinn pictured the two women on the sidewalk flagging the black and white down. That meant it wouldn’t be long before one of them pointed in her direction.
Quinn peeled off the wall and jogged up the alley.
She went for five seconds before deciding she had put enough distance between herself and the street to wipe at the blood dripping from her forehead. There was still some nagging pain, but nothing she couldn’t ignore.
Where the hell had Pete Ringo taken her?
What were those metal rods Hofheinz had stuck into Gary’s forehead?
But the one question that kept pushing itself to the forefront of her mind, over and over again, was: Who the hell were her parents?
Chapter 13
Porter.
He was at the center of everything that had gone wrong for her. Ever since that night when she turned around and saw him across the nightclub dance floor. If she had only turned one second later, or one second earlier, she might have missed him and she wouldn’t be on the run now.
From her job. From her friends…
From people she didn’t even know existed a few days ago, but seemed to have committed themselves to making her life difficult.
And it all led right back to Porter.
The man had become the bane of her existence, but he was also her way out. (Maybe.) All she had to do was find him.
That’s the trick, isn’t it?
It was more than a trick. It was downright impossible. If the FBI and the other government agencies that had sent people down here to assist them (and whoever the hell Pete Ringo and Hofheinz were working for) couldn’t find Porter, what chance did she have?
She had nothing and no resources and little clues. She didn’t even have a place to lick her wounds and bruises, and just sit still for a second and think without having to worry about being captured.
So Quinn spent the rest of the morning looking for a safe haven, eventually settling for an old derelict building somewhere on the outskirts of downtown, within viewing distance of the towering skyscrapers. The place had been abandoned a while back, and there was a FOR SALE sign up front.
She ignored the sounds of rats scurrying under and through abandoned furniture and blocked out the smell and the curtains of dust flitting across bright sunlight piercing through gaping holes along the walls. She thought about Porter—and only Porter—and tried again to remember everything from that night at the nightclub. All the running and fresh air had helped to clear the haze from whatever drugs Pete and Hofheinz had given her, and she could think again.
Porter.
On the phone, telling someone to “proceed” without him because “things didn’t go as planned.” Who had he been talking to? What was so important he would risk making a phone call during a hostage situation? What was so vital he had returned to the States after a five-year-long absence?
She recalled the headlines she had read in the Internet café, then the ones from Ringo’s apartment. The useless local news, their mundane international counterparts, and everything in between. Random stabbings in Asia, politics in Europe, new cell phones, the upcoming presi
dential primaries, corporate mergers…
What would bring someone like Porter back home? What was so crucial that he had to do it himself? The man was supposed to be a lone wolf, but that was obviously untrue because there was someone else on the other side of that phone call.
Who was he working with? And what were they doing back in the country?
The Bureau didn’t know because they couldn’t find him, because if they had it would have been all over the news by now. You didn’t hide the capture of a terrorist like Porter and not parade him in front of the media.
Porter was still out there. Somewhere.
Plotting…
She lost track of how long she sat in the filth and dust and tried to come up with some idea of how to find Porter when the U.S. government had failed. She ignored her growling stomach, the cramp in her bent legs, and the growing pain in her joints from lack of movement.
Morning turned into midday, then afternoon.
In her mind, she kept going back to the same place: That night at Gary’s nightclub and what Porter had said to her before making his escape:
“They’re going to come after you. They’re going to want to find out everything I said and did in this room. And when they’re done with you, they’re going to kill you. I’m sorry, but you’ll be on your own. Good luck. Now, this is the part where you get down on the floor and don’t look up.”
“Good luck,” he had said.
Why the hell would a man like Porter tell her “good luck” at all? Was it a joke? His idea of having a laugh at her expense?
“Good luck,” he had said just after telling her that people were going to “want to find out everything” about that night. And he had been right about that.
Ringo, Hofheinz, and whoever they were working for—they all wanted to know about what had happened that night. From her, from Gary…
Gary.
The image of him in that chair flashed across her mind’s eye and made her shiver involuntarily. It wasn’t the fact that Gary was dead—or might as well be dead—but rather the strange smile seemingly frozen on his face that stayed with her.