Becoming Quinn (20 page)

“Driving from Chicago. He knows we can’t watch all the roads.”

“When did he leave?”

“At least twenty-four hours ago.”

Twenty-four hours? Larson could be here already. “Is he alone?”

“We’re not sure.”

Durrie swore to himself again.
“What are the chances of my having backup on standby?”

“So you
are
in Colorado?”

“Peter, answer the question.”

“It could be arranged.”

“Then arrange it.”

27

Jake lay on his bed, thinking about everything Durrie had laid out for him. Truth? A lie? What? It was unbelievable, yet plausible, like a whole different world lying beneath the one Jake knew.

At some point his stomach began to growl and he realized Durrie was late with his lunch. Another hour passed, then two. Soon he wasn’t thinking about the morning discussion, but wondering if Durrie had maybe left him there to die.

Finally, the door opened, and Durrie stepped inside.

“Hungry?” he asked, then tossed Jake a couple of apples and an orange.

“This is it?” Jake asked.

“Sorry. Didn’t have time to make anything.”

Jake frowned, then took a bite of one of the apples.

“Things have changed,” Durrie said,

“What do you mean?”

“I told you about the shooter on the op in Phoenix.”

The shooter, Jake now knew, was the dark-haired man from the Lawrence Hotel who’d gone by the name Mr. Walters. By Durrie’s account, he was a loose cannon who was the root of most of the problems on the mission. “What about him?”

“He’s discovered some information that would have been better kept from him.”

“What information?”

“He found out his name was put on the termination list, and he thinks I’m mainly responsible for that.”

“So he’s not happy,” Jake said.

“No. He’s not. He has also always considered
you
a problem.”

“Me?”

Durrie then told Jake about how they had been tracking him since he’d found the matchbook, how they’d known where he’d gone and who he’d talked to.

“If he’d had his way,” Durrie said, “you would have been dead before you went to your superiors. You’re the one who uncovered things, you’re ultimately the one who put the X on his back.”

“That’s not true. I don’t even know his name.”

“Larson,” Durrie said, without hesitation. “That’s what he goes by. And like it or not, you and I are the cause of his problems. Now he’s looking for us. Unfortunately, I have a feeling he might know where we are.”

Jake felt a sudden chill. “So what are you going to do?”

“Not me. We.”

Jake paused for a moment. “All right. What are
we
going to do?”

“Three choices. One, we sit and wait and deal with what comes. Two, we prepare for his arrival. Or three, I wish you luck, and we split up.” He paused only a second. “Before you go jumping on option three, I should warn you that’s the most guaranteed way of getting yourself killed. You may not want to believe me, but you know I’m right. My vote is option two, but I’ll leave it up to you. Which do you—”

“Number three.”

“Were you not just listening to me?”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“And you’ll die.”

“So
you
say.”

Durrie’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Jake. “I guess you’re not exactly who I thought you were.”

Jake stared back. “Is that your way of telling me number three wasn’t really an option? That you were just throwing it out to see how I would respond?”

Shaking his head, Durrie said, “No. If you choose option three, then you’re free to go.”

“Right now?”

“If that’s what you’d like.”

“That’s what I’d like.”

Durrie stood there for a moment longer, then turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door open.

•    •    •

This has to be some kind of trap.Probably a way of killing me so it looks like an accident.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Jake paused. Look like an accident? Since when did he think like that?

Cautiously, he approached the open door, then peeked out into the hallway. Durrie was gone, but on the floor next to the door were Jake’s shoes and a pair of socks. He dropped down against the wall, and quickly pulled them on.

The door at the end of the hallway was open, and beyond it he could see a set of stairs. He started walking toward them, but soon found himself running, his freedom so close. When he hit the bottom step, he slowed again so as not to trip on the steps.

The staircase was longer and steeper than he expected. It was almost as if there was a missing floor between the level Jake had been held on and the one he was headed toward, making him think that the basement he’d been in was deeper than most. Though there were light fixtures lining the stairway, the majority of illumination was streaming down from the open door at the top.

Daylight. The first Jake had seen since the parking lot near the airport.

He paused when he reached the top step, worried once more about a trap. The space beyond was not large. A small foyer with a window directly across from the door. Off to the left of the opening he could hear the sound of movement and things being set down on some sort of surface.

“You’re wasting time,” Durrie called out.

Jake stood on the step a moment longer, then he curled his hands into fists, tensed the muscles in this arms and shoulders, and stepped out.

Immediately to the right was a large room with windows on three sides. There were kitchen, dining, and living room areas undivided by walls.

Durrie was standing next to a long wooden table in the kitchen. Laid out in front of him were several firearms. By Jake’s quick count there were eleven pistols and four rifles. Jake’s knowledge of weaponry was not vast enough to know all the makes and models, but he could pick out the Smith & Wesson, the Colt, and the SIG SAUER. Three of the rifles were identical compact semi-automatics, while the other was a long intricate-looking weapon with a very high-tech scope attached. Next to all these was a stack of boxed ammunition.

As much as Jake would have liked to grab one of the pistols, Durrie would be able to easily pick one up and put a couple bullets through Jake’s chest before he’d even get close.

“That’s for you.” Durrie pointed at a worn leather chair in the living area. Sitting on it was an olive green canvas satchel. “There’s food inside, and a map and compass. I won’t be able to drive you out. You’ll have to walk.”

Jake stepped over to the chair, and opened the top of the bag. Inside was exactly what Durrie had promised. “Walk out of where?” he asked.

To answer, Durrie merely nodded at the window.

Jake pulled the bag over his shoulders, then took a look outside. There was forest in all directions, and in the distance, tall rugged mountain peaks.

“Where the hell are we?” he asked. He had thought they were still somewhere in Arizona, but this was
not
Arizona.

“Colorado,” Durrie told him.

Jake looked out the window again. “We’re in the Rockies?”

“Glad to know you’re familiar with geography,” Durrie said. “My suggestion? Don’t stick to the roads. You’ll stay alive longer that way.”

“How far away is the closest town?”

“Fifty, sixty miles. But don’t worry about it. He’ll catch you before you get there.”

Jake looked at him. “This is some sort of game you’re playing, isn’t it? Maybe you’re just letting me out so you can hunt me. Am I right?”

The look Durrie gave him was almost one of pity, then the man focused on the guns arrayed on the table, carefully moving his eyes over them until he finally stopped on one. He picked it up. Jake saw it was the SIG SAUER, the model number he wasn’t so sure about, but that didn’t seem important since he thought he was about to be shot.

Then Durrie did the last thing Jake expected. He turned the gun around so that he was holding onto the barrel, then he tossed it across the room at Jake.

Jake, surprised, reacted late, and nearly dropped it on the ground.

“Chamber’s empty, but the mag’s full,” Durrie said. “But in case that’s not enough…”

He picked up a box of bullets, quickly whipped a rubber band around it to hold the top down, and lobbed it on the same trajectory he’d sent the gun. This time, Jake had no problem catching it.

“Blanks, right?” Jake said, not willing to believe Durrie would actually arm him.

“Try it,” Durrie told him, his face impassive.

“Right. The moment I raise the gun, you shoot me and it looks like self-defense.”

“You watch too much TV. But I’ll tell you what…” Durrie took a large backward step away from the weapons-strewn table. “Better?”

Now there was no way he could reach one of the guns before Jake got a shot off.

Without hesitation, Jake chambered a round, and pointed the SIG at his captor.

“Go ahead,” Durrie said. “You want to know if those are blanks or not? Pull the trigger.”

Jake held the gun on Durrie a moment longer, then moved his aim just to the left and pulled the trigger.

The report was deafening in the room. But Jake wasn’t paying attention to the sound. His eyes were on the wall behind Durrie, the wall that had most definitely just been hit by a bullet.

“Satisfied?” Durrie asked. He stepped back to the table. “Now go if you’re going. He could be here anytime.”

Jake wasn’t ready to leave quite yet, though. Taking the pack off his back, he removed two bullets out of the box of ammunition, popped the mag out of the SIG, and added the rounds to it so that it was filled to capacity. As he inserted the mag back into the gun, he could see that Durrie was closely watching him.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Durrie replied.

Jake pulled the bag back over his shoulders. “Thanks for the hospitality, but I hope you understand if I don’t recommend this place to any of my friends.”

“You use humor to cover up your nervousness, you do realize that, right?” Durrie said. “It’s a tell. Immediately lets me know what you’re really feeling.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Nervousness is not what I’m covering up. It’s a growing sense of regret that maybe I shouldn’t have moved my gun before I pulled the trigger.”

Without taking his eyes off Jake, Durrie pointed off to his left and behind him a little. “The town is that way. Good luck.”

Jake walked quickly to the main door. “Yeah,” he said, hesitating. “You, too.”

He left.

28

Jake made a beeline through the clearing that surrounded the cabin, into the woods on the other side. He wasn’t about to take Durrie’s word on where the town was. In fact, he doubted it was even fifty or sixty miles away, but it seemed prudent to at least give the appearance that he was following directions. If this
was
a trap, Jake wanted Durrie to think that he was heading where he’d been told to go. But as soon as he was deep enough in the trees, he circled around until he found the road leading away from the cabin.

Durrie had specifically suggested he not use it. In one sense, this was sound advice. Walking on the road would make it very easy for Jake to be spotted. But that didn’t mean the road wouldn’t be helpful. He could travel close to it, in the cover of the woods, and use it as a guide. He was sure there was a much better chance it would lead him to civilization than striking out through the forest.

After about half an hour, he spotted a small rise a little further away from the road, with only a smattering of trees on the top. It would be a good place to get his bearings, and see if he could actually find where he was on that map Durrie had given him.

When he reached the top, he took a moment to eat some of the food Durrie had given him. As he chewed on a piece of cold chicken, he looked around. What he saw did not exactly give him hope.

The forest went on in all directions, broken only here and there by ridges and other high points like the one he was on, except in the West, where the spine of the Rockies rose high above everything else. Nowhere could he see a town or village.

He spread the map on the ground. There was a small X that he assumed Durrie had marked to represent the position of the cabin, but Jake thought it could very easily be misdirection. It took him several minutes, but by using the landmarks he could see, he was able to make a pretty fair guess of where he was. Surprisingly, this also meant the X of the cabin was in the right spot.

He tried not to think what that might mean as he scanned the map for where he should go. He saw that Durrie had also been truthful when he’d pointed Jake in the direction of the town, and while Jake could get there going the way he was going, Durrie’s path would have been at least ten miles shorter.

Double back and try it? Or stick with the road?

If Durrie had been truthful about all this, what else was he truthful about? The dark-haired man who was supposedly coming after them?

He looked at the map again, and decided to stick to the path he’d chosen. By staying near the road, he might come upon other homes hidden in the woods, which could mean shelter or,
please God
, a phone.

He returned the map to the bag, took a few sips from a bottle of water, then headed back down the hill.

•    •    •

As Durrie was coming back upstairs from the basement earlier, he’d been content to let Oliver go. It
was
the option the kid had chosen. Granted, it was the wrong one, but there was nothing he could do about that. Oliver would strike out on his own, and before morning came, he would be dead.

But then the kid had come up the stairs and twice surprised Durrie.

The first surprise had been when he’d actually pulled the SIG’s trigger, and sent a bullet flying just past Durrie’s head. That showed not only nerve, but confidence. Confidence that he could fire a shot that passed that close to another person without hitting them, and confidence that Durrie wasn’t going to retaliate.