The Silenced jqt-4

by Brett Battles

“A guy named Mercer.”

  There was just the slightest of pauses before Wills spoke again. “Well, I’m just glad somebody got it. What did you find?”

  “Hold on.” Quinn held out his hand. “Wallet.”

  Keeping his eyes on the road, Nate dug the wallet out of his pocket and handed it over. Quinn flipped it open and found a driver’s license tucked behind a clear plastic cover.

  “According to this his name is William Burke. B-U-R-K-E. Address in Manhattan.”

  “Burke?” Wills questioned to himself.

  Quinn looked through the rest of the wallet. “He’s got a credit card and an ATM card. Wait, here’s something interesting.”

  “What is it?”

  “Several business cards. They all have the same name, but the companies are different. Comcast Cable, Faye Construction, Triple A. There’s one here that says he’s with the FBI. They all have the same address. Some place in Manhattan.” Quinn paused. “No chance William Burke is this guy’s real name.” Quinn looked at the guy’s picture again. “Something else.”

  “What?”

  “Hold on.” Quinn held the driver’s license out on the dashboard so Nate could see it. “This is the dead guy, right?”

  Nate glanced quickly at the picture. “Yeah. That’s him.”

  Quinn put the phone back to his ear. “I’ll check this guy’s ID against the pictures I took in L.A., but I’m pretty sure he was behind the wheel of the car at the warehouse the other night, too.”

  Wills said nothing for a moment, then, “The client isn’t going to like this.”

  That wasn’t Quinn’s problem. Even if the job was canceled, Quinn had already been paid, and per his standard arrangement, the money would stay with him.

  “Given all that’s been going on,” Wills said, “I want to meet with you in person. Today. Well, tomorrow for you. It’s not even midnight there yet, is it?”

  “Not quite yet,” Quinn said.

  “I’ll fly over. Not Portland, but maybe Boston.”

  “New York,” Quinn said. “The Grand Hyatt. There’s a bar beyond the elevators on the main floor. Text me what time you’ll be there.”

  “Bar at the Grand Hyatt,” Wills said. “Okay. I should be over there in time for lunch. And Quinn. Thanks again. You haven’t disappointed me yet.”

  “You say ‘yet’ like you’re expecting me to.”

  “Actually, I’m not.”

  “Good.” Quinn disconnected the call.

  He was about to slip the phone back into his pocket when he remembered he needed to call Orlando.

  She answered after only one ring. “Finally done?” she asked.

  “That’s one way of phrasing it,” Quinn said. He filled her in on what had happened.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.

  “Wish I was.”

  “You know you took a chance with the ID.”

  “Not a big one,” he said.

  “Bigger than you should have.”

  “I made Nate do it.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring,” she said.

  Quinn smiled. “So what’s up?”

  When she spoke again, all the playfulness that had been in her voice was gone. “Somebody tripped one of my flags.”

  Orlando knew her way around computers better than most people knew how to walk. One of the things she had done was set up electronic tripwires throughout cyberspace that would notify her when someone looked at whatever it was she’d flagged.

  “Okay,” he said. “Is this something we need to worry about?”

  “It got me to check some of the other related flags I’d set up,” she went on, ignoring his question. “There are at least five that should have sent me a message, but didn’t. Someone bypassed them.”

  Quinn started to feel uneasy. “What does that mean?”

  “It means someone’s been poking around where they shouldn’t. It’s been going on for over a week. The only reason I found out is that there was a dual flag set up this time. They got around the first, but missed the second.”

  “What exactly are we talking about?”

  “You, Quinn,” she said. “Someone’s been trying to find out all they can about you.”

  Chapter 12

  The past.

  It was something Quinn had tried to cover up and, in many ways, tried to convince himself had never happened in the first place, convince himself he’d been born Jonathan Quinn.

  The awkwardness with his father — his stepfather — his estrangement from his sister, and then, of course, his brother.

  From early on, Harold Oliver had shown no more than an uneasy tolerance toward him. It had confused him. Especially so after his brother was born, and then his sister, neither of whom received the same disdain from their father as young Jake did. And now that his father was dead, it was too late to try and mend that wound.

  Liz was still around, of course, but the wall that had grown between them when he’d left home had become as wide and as insurmountable as the Himalayas. Even if he did try to explain, she wouldn’t even listen.

  And then there was Davey …

  “I just want to see it,” Davey said. He was five, strapped in his child’s seat in the back, behind their father.

  “No,” Jake told him. “You should have brought your own.”

  “Just for a minute. Please, Jakey.”

  He leaned over in front of their one-year-old sister, Liz, who was asleep in her car seat between the brothers. Jake flipped the page of the comic book, and turned so Davey couldn’t see.

  “Mom, Jake’s not sharing!”

  “It’s mine,” Jake pleaded. “I don’t have to share with him.”

  “Jake, just let him look with you,” their mother said. “He doesn’t have to touch it.”

  Jake looked pained. “Do I have to? He’s got plenty at home. He should have brought one of them.”

  “I’ve looked at all those!” Davey said.

  “Boys, you’re going to wake your sister. Just share, okay?”

  “Fine,” Jake said, then turned just enough so that at the right angle his brother could see half a page.

  “Mom!” Davey cried.

  “What?” she asked, sounding weary.

  “He’s not really doing it.”

  “Jake, honey. I told you, you need to—”

  “Right now,” Harold Oliver’s voice cut through from the driver’s seat. “Give it to him.”

  “What?” Jake asked. “Why?”

  Davey reached toward Jake, but Jake leaned away from him.

  “Give your brother the comic,” his father ordered.

  “But it’s mine.”

  “I said give it to him!”

  Jake glanced at his mother. She looked for a moment at her husband, then turned to her oldest son. The expression on her face told him all he needed to know. “Just do it,” she mouthed.

  Jake narrowed his eyes, and grunted in frustration. “Whatever,” he said. He flapped out his hand and tossed the comic in Davey’s general direction.

  But the comic hit the front seat instead and ricocheted into the side of Liz’s face.

  Liz stared wailing as Davey grabbed for the book. She pushed at the comic, knocking it from Davey’s hands and onto the floor.

  “Mom!” Davey screamed. “He did that on purpose!”

  Liz’s cries grew louder.

  “I did not!” Jake said.

  More crying.

  “Liz, honey, it’s okay,” their mother said, turning to the back seat.

  “He threw it at me!”

  “I was holding it out to you, not my fault you can’t catch.”

  “Liz, sweetie, it’s okay,” their mother said. She slipped her shoulder strap off, leaned between the seats, then rubbed her daughter’s cheek as Liz continued to sob.

  “I can’t reach it!” Davey wailed louder than Liz. He was stretched out as far as he could go, but the comic book was still beyond his grasp.

  “Jake, p
lease pick it up and hand it to your brother.”

  “He’s the one who dropped it,” Jake said. “He should—”

  “Enough!” Harold Oliver roared. Jake looked up. The side of their father’s face was red with anger.

  “I’ll get it,” Davey said quietly. He unbuckled his car seat and leaned down to the floor.

  “I tried to give it—” Jake muttered.

  “I said enough!” Harold yelled. Only this time he turned and looked back.

  The police later said that it could have been a rock in the road. But the more Jake thought about it, the more he suspected his father accidentally turned the steering wheel a few degrees to the left as he looked back at his kids.

  Whatever the reason, the car changed direction just enough so that when Harold looked back, there was no chance of avoiding the deep drainage ditch that paralleled the opposite side of the highway. The best he could do was to keep the car from going straight in. It slammed down on the driver’s side before coming to rest against the slope of the ditch, flipped partially on its roof.

  A broken leg, a broken clavicle, a gash on the side of a head.

  And one dead son.

  That was the tally.

  The only one to come out of it basically unscathed was Jake. Bruises from the impact, a few cuts and abrasions, that was all. If only he’d been hurt worse …

  Though his father had never openly placed the blame on him, Jake was sure that’s how he felt. Because, deep down, that’s how Jake felt, too.

  They laid Davey to rest five days later, Harold on crutches and Jake’s mother with her left arm strapped across her chest. Liz sported a bald patch on the side of her head covered with a bandage. Beneath was the gash that would form a scar that would be with her the rest of her life.

  The scar Jake bore — that Quinn bore — was invisible, but just as permanent.

  Chapter 13

  Petra and Mikhail found a Motel 6 outside of Lowell, Massachusetts. Petra dragged herself to her room, then tried to sleep, but it just wasn’t happening. At 4:30 a.m. she gave up.

  Kolya, like Luka, was dead.

  She had known at the start of their mission that death was always a possibility. But she had expected any bullet would have hit her, not one of her team members. But twice now, it had happened. At least, unlike with Luka, she wouldn’t have to tell Kolya’s family. They had all died when he’d been just a child. It was why Kolya had joined the search for the Ghost in the first place. If he had any family at all, she and Mikhail and the others in their group were it.

  She tried to push him from her mind, but what filled the void was just as devastating. All of them, every person on her list, was dead. Chang, McKitrick, Thomas, Winters, the others before them. And now Moody.

  His death was the hardest to take. They had found him alive. They had even talked to him. He knew people in the photograph. But the final step, identifying the two strikingly similar young men standing at opposite ends of the bar, had not been completed.

  With Moody dead, the trail to the Ghost had disappeared. That was unless Stepka could pinpoint who the Ghost had hired to do the killings. If he failed, the Ghost would live up to his nickname and fade away. Forever lost, and forever unaccountable.

  She knew she should wait for Stepka to get back to her, but doing so would make her crazy. She turned on her side and grabbed her phone.

  “What?” Stepka said as he picked up.

  “It’s Petra.”

  “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

  “I want to know what you’ve learned.”

  “I told you I’d call as soon as I had something,” he said.

  “And when do you think that might be?”

  “Twenty-four hours. Maybe forty-eight. Or it’s possible I won’t find out at all.”

  “Twenty-four hours is too long,” she said, ignoring his other possibilities. “We can’t lose this opportunity. If you don’t figure out who’s been blocking our way, we’re done. We have no other options.”

  “As I said before, I’m doing everything I can.”

  “You must have something. At least a hint of information.”

  Stepka remained silent for several seconds. “I’ve been able to narrow those potentially involved down to six groups.”

  Petra straightened up. Six was a lot, but it was better than the dead end she was staring at.

  “Who are they?”

  “Petra, please. One more day and the information will be considerably more solid.”

  “Mikhail and I are sitting here with nothing. No information. No idea where to go or who to talk to. If you don’t give me something, then the time we spend until you do will be completely wasted.”

  “But what I have might be wrong. If so, your time would be wasted anyway.”

  “But it’s a chance,” she said. “If you’re right, it may give us the edge we need. And if you’re wrong, we’re no worse off.”

  There was a pause, then, “I don’t have individual names, yet. But there is a pattern.”

  “What pattern?”

  “Of the six potential groups, one operates out of Prague, and one out of Paris. But the other four all work out of London.”

  She let the new information sink in. “And you’re sure it’s one of these groups?”

  “I’m not sure about anything,” he said, irritated. “I told you I have nothing solid.”

  “Thank you. This helps. Let me know as soon as you have something more.”

  “It won’t be for a while, so go back to sleep.”

  But she didn’t go back to sleep. Instead she called Mikhail in his room, waking him up.

  “Take a shower and get dressed,” she said.

  “We’re leaving?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “London.”

  * * *

  The text from Wills said he’d arrive at the Grand Hyatt Hotel between twelve and twelve-thirty. So Quinn and Nate arrived a few minutes before eleven.

  The hotel was at the corner of Forty-second Street and Lexington Avenue, midtown Manhattan, its black glass tower standing in stark contrast to the stone edifice of Grand Central Terminal next door.

  Quinn and Nate entered through the revolving doors, staggering their entrance so that it didn’t seem like they were together. An escalator took them up to the large open lobby. There, Nate headed toward check-in, while Quinn turned right toward the elevators at the rear of the room.

  Though there were many people in the lobby, the size of the room made it seem almost empty. Here and there couples and small groups clustered together, while others sat on the couches and chairs reading or talking or just passing the time.

  Each person in the room received either an X or a check in Quinn’s mind. An X meant they could be ignored. A check meant follow-up might be required. By the time he reached the far end of the elevators, he had accumulated twenty-one Xs and two checks.

  One of the checks was a woman standing alone off to the left. She was Caucasian, mid-thirties, and had dirty-blonde hair. She was dressed in a gray pantsuit and was holding a briefcase in her left hand. She also seemed to be trying very hard not to look at Quinn.

  The second check was for a man seated on a chair near the elevators. He appeared to be around the same age as the woman, but was dressed more casually: dark green polo shirt and blue jeans. What earned him the extra attention was that he had a look that screamed operative. Good shape, hair not too long and not too short, and eyes that took in everything without seeming to do so.

  Quinn moved into the seating area and leaned against one of the circular pillars that held up the second-floor atrium. From this position, he could see both the man and the woman. After a few moments, the man picked up a newspaper and started to read. The woman held her position, still not looking at Quinn.

  Wills’s people?

  It would make sense. If he were Wills, Quinn would have had people scouting the meet by now. Only with everything tha
t had been going down, Quinn couldn’t dismiss the possibility that one or both of them might be with the people who’d shown up at the Moody operation.

  He pulled out his phone and brought up the text he’d received from Wills. He selected Reply, then wrote:

  U send advance team to Hyatt? If yes, how many?

  He touched Send, then glanced toward the far end of the lobby. He expected to see Nate, but there was no sign of his apprentice. As Quinn scanned the large room, his phone vibrated. He thought it would be a reply from Wills, but the text was from Nate.

  Look up

  Quinn glanced up at the atrium that ringed the lobby, and spotted Nate a second later standing a few feet back from the railing that stretched between the columns.

  It was a good position. Great, considering that Quinn was stationed at the opposite corner, one floor down. Together they had the whole lobby covered.

  Quinn texted Nate back:

  Anything?

  Nate’s reply came twenty seconds later.

  Man sitting near elevators w/paper. Woman at stairs south of you.

  Nate had seen them, too. Good.

  Quinn’s phone buzzed again. Wills this time.

  Leaving airport now. One person at hotel.

  Quinn replied:

  M/F?

  Wills’s answer came only a few seconds later:

  M

  The man reading the newspaper, then. So that meant the woman was an unknown.

  Quinn strolled over to one of the empty seats, putting a little more distance between himself and the woman. As he sat he called Nate.

  “Hey,” Nate said.

  “The man is with our friend.”

  “And the woman?”

  “Unknown. Perhaps not even interested in us.” Quinn paused for a moment. “Stay on the line. I’m going to walk back to the bar. Let’s see what she does.”

  Quinn stood up, his phone still held against his ear. He smiled as if the person on the other end had said something amusing.

  “Perhaps next time I’m in town,” he said, his voice loud enough for the woman to hear.

  “I don’t have to play this game, too, do I?” Nate asked. “She can’t hear me.”