__________
Q
UINN’S PHONE VIBRATED
. Since the only people he had any interest in talking to at the moment were on the other end of the radio in his ear, he didn’t pull it out of his pocket.
Surveying the farm again, he noted that the smoker had finished his cigarette, and that the other man was rolling his head over his shoulders, stretching his neck. Neither made any indication they were aware that one of their buildings had been infiltrated.
On the comm, reception was once more a problem, and Quinn was able to hear only about seventy percent of the conversation between Nate, Daeng, and Orlando. It was enough, though, to know that things were progressing as planned.
When all talk ceased, he assumed they had moved back into the hallway, where words would be kept to an absolute minimum in case the guard in the basement could hear them.
It was amazing how slowly time passed when he could only wait for the others to do the work he should be doing himself. Convinced he would have been finished by now, he glanced at his watch and saw that not even a minute had passed.
Just relax and wait for the click
, he told himself.
That would be the signal, a simple on and off click of Orlando’s mic when Nate was about to set off the grenade.
He couldn’t help but look at the windowless building, as if there would be some sort of sign that it was time. Of course there was nothing, just the blank walls and single door. He switched his attention back to the guards. The one at the cars looked as bored as ever. As Quinn panned his binoculars over the patio to check the other one, he heard:
Click
.
__________
T
HEY WALKED SILENTLY
down the hall to the stairwell. Once there, Nate looked at Daeng, who pantomimed how he’d stretched out over the opening earlier.
Nate nodded, removed his backpack, and set it on the floor. As a precaution, Orlando continued to hold the grenade until he was ready to throw it. He lowered himself to his stomach and slinked forward over the steps.
When he was out as far as he wanted to go, he dipped his head, and looked into the basement. The upside-down view was exactly as Daeng described, doors along one wall and the guard sitting in a chair at the far end with a book in his lap.
Nate extended his arm behind him and raised his palm into the air. As soon as he felt the stun grenade touch his skin, he wrapped his fingers around it, and carefully brought it forward over the gap. On the comm he could hear Orlando click her mic, but he barely registered it. All his attention was on the task ahead.
Though he knew the toss was a relatively easy one, he had to account for his inverted perspective or he’d likely throw the grenade into the ceiling. That would alter its trajectory, and could keep it from getting close enough to the guard to be effective.
A nice, simple lob was all that was needed.
He tried a practice swing, adjusted his arm motion, and tried again. Happy with the result, he brought the grenade up so he could see it, and turned the timer to five seconds. He drew his arm back and tossed the grenade into the room, then pulled himself out of the stairwell as quickly as he could.
At the two-and-a-half-second mark, they could hear the sound of metal skidding across the floor. A second later, the wooden chair below creaked as the guard must have started to wake. Then—
Boooom!
__________
Q
UINN CONTINUED TO
monitor the
guards. Though he expected to be the only one outside the detention building to know that anything had happened, he wanted to make sure there was no reaction from the other two.
Unconsciously, he counted off the seconds after the click.
Four seconds. Five. Six. Seven. Ei—
Booom!
The sound had most definitely
not
been contained within the building.
The guards were instantly alert, both turning toward the other building. They exchanged a few words, and one started running in the direction of the sound.
“I don’t know what happened,” Quinn said, “but you’ve got company on the way.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he pulled back. Given his current position—the perfect place for a spotter—
he
was vulnerable, too.
As he was turning away, he heard the front door of the main house open. He took a quick look over his shoulder just in time to see at least half a dozen men rush outside.
__________
Q
UINN’S VOICE. DISTANT.
Something about company.
That’s when Nate realized he was lying on the floor. Which floor and where took him another second to remember. When he did, he scrambled to his feet.
Daeng was sitting against the wall, Nate’s backpack somehow sitting in his lap.
Nate grabbed it from him and said, “Are you all right?”
“Uh…yeah. Fine.”
A hand clamped down on Nate’s back and whirled him around.
“What the hell was that?” Orlando said. “I thought you said it was low power. That was
not
low power.”
Screwed by Giacona again, Nate realized, though he doubted the weapon supplier had any idea his grenades were mislabeled. But now was not the time to worry about it.
He jumped into the stairwell, and raced down to the basement. The guard, his chair, and his book were now all on the floor, and two of the cell doors were hanging open on broken hinges.
Nate ran over to the guard, and checked the man’s pulse. Not exactly strong, but it wasn’t threatening to stop, either. There was blood on the floor, but it appeared to be a result of the man’s nose coming into abrupt contact with the ground.
Keep going!
Nate told himself.
He checked the two cells with the broken doors, but they were empty, so he headed for the last cell. It had been the one closest to the guard, therefore the most likely place a prisoner was being kept. He turned the knob and tried to pull it open, but it didn’t budge. At first he thought it was locked on the outside. Then he saw that the blast had warped it enough to jam it in place.
He stepped back and kicked at the door. It groaned as it moved inward. From the other side he thought he heard a voice. He kicked it again.
The middle portion of the door cleared the jamb, creating a small opening.
“Mila?” Nate called. “Are you in there?”
“Yes!” she yelled.
“Stand back.”
Once more he attacked the door, this time leading with his back and ramming his whole body against it. The door broke free.
“Come on!” he yelled.
“You came to get me,” she said as she rushed out.
“Come on.” He grabbed her hand, pulled her to the stairway, and up to the next floor. When they reached Orlando and Daeng near the front door, Mila put on the brakes, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“They’re with us,” Nate said. “Intros later, if you don’t mind.”
That tempered her a bit, but not completely.
“Have we heard from Quinn?” he asked.
“Been trying to reach him,” Orlando said.
“Has anyone checked the door?”
Orlando looked at him as if he were crazy. Daeng said, “You’re more than welcome to, but I’m pretty sure we aren’t the only ones who heard our little explosion.”
“Understatement of the year,” Orlando said.
“I’m
sorry
,” Nate said.
Orlando shook her head. “Never mind. If we had left right away, maybe we would have made it, but by now there’s got to be at least three or four of them out there.”
The single exit was a choke point. The only thing the men outside would need to do was train their weapons on the doorway, and shoot anything that moved through it.
“I’ll go,” Nate said. “You all hide. I’ll convince them I came in alone. Hopefully, one of them will recognize me as the one who was with Quinn earlier. They probably think he’s dead, or at least laid up. I’ll just say I was trying to finish the job of getting Mila away.”
“They’ll come in and look anyway,” Orlando said. “They’ll want to know what happened to her.”
“Yeah, but they’ll be splitting their forces, not coming at you all at once.”
“…o it…” Quinn’s voice crackled through the comm.
“Quinn?” Orlando said. “Are you all right?”
“… got…ont cov…There…an…way…”
“You’re not coming through clearly. Can you repeat?”
“…ther exit…”
Nate narrowed his eyes. “Exit?
“…es…”
“Quinn?” Nate said.
Silence.
“Quinn?”
He was gone.
“If you want my opinion,” Daeng said, “I think he was suggesting there might be another exit.”
“Did anybody see one?” Nate asked.
They all shook their heads.
“There must be something,” Orlando said. “Places like this always have an emergency exit. So I think before you go off sacrificing yourself, we should at least take a look.”
Nate frowned. “Even if there is, don’t you think they’ll have someone waiting on the other side? Hell, maybe they’re using it right now to get in.”
“We have to try,” Orlando said.
She was right, of course.
He looked at the door. The thing about choke points was that they worked both ways. While they searched, only one of them would have to stay behind to dissuade anyone outside from using the door.
He finally nodded. “Let’s take a look.”
__________
Q
UINN CIRCLED BACK
into the vineyards, then cut across the grass toward the rear of the farmhouse. As he moved closer, he began hearing snippets of conversation over his radio.
He didn’t get everything, but it was clear Nate was planning on sacrificing himself, and hoping that would allow the others a chance to get away. Though it was something Quinn would have probably done, he didn’t want them to give up yet.
“Don’t do it!” he whispered into his mic.
“Quinn? Are you…right?” Orlando asked.
“They’ve got the front covered. There must be another way out.”
“You’re not coming through. We don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
“Look for another exit! Another exit!”
“Exit?” Nate this time.
“Yes! Yes! Look for the emergency exit. There has to be one.”
“Quinn?”
“The emergency exit.”
“Quinn?”
He knew he was no longer getting through. But whatever they decided on, there was one thing he could do to help.
He moved around the side of the farmhouse opposite the detention building. When he reached the front, he peered out across the long porch. It was deserted. Everyone had raced over to the other building. He could see them in the open field about a hundred feet in front of it, their guns trained on the door.
He scanned them, looking for any familiar faces. Whoever was heading up their team would be an experienced operative, and, if this was indeed Peter’s operation, someone Quinn might know.
He picked out a couple men he’d seen before but didn’t know their names. Tangential players on previous gigs. But, wait.
There.
The tall one near the back. His name was Michaels. A decent op who knew his stuff.
The important thing at the moment was that if he was outside, there was little chance anyone was left in the house.
Perfect
.
Quinn crept across the porch and let himself in. Ten seconds later, he found the room he was looking for.
CHAPTER 30
WASHINGTON, DC
H
ELEN CHO CALLED
back
exactly thirty-seven minutes after Peter had hung up with her.
“I don’t know what you were expecting, but I doubt this was it,” she said.
“What did you find?”
“I shouldn’t even tell you. In fact, I probably should be calling the FBI and having you detained somewhere for just asking about this.”
“I told you I’m working for the government.”
“For
former
senator Mygatt,” she said.
“And Green. He still gets his paycheck from the same place you do.”
“Green,” she said, letting his name linger for a moment. “Ironic in either case. If I call the FBI, they’ll check with him first, and what do you want to bet I’d get put in the cell right next to yours?”
“Helen, what did you find?”
There was a long pause. “Have you ever heard of something called Project Cancer?”
“No.”
“Neither had I until fifteen minutes ago, thank you very much. Were you ever involved in any extraordinary rendition cases?”
Everybody in the intelligence world, at least those on the front lines in high-level positions like Peter and Helen, had been involved in the transfer of citizens from one country to a secret prison in another. The post-9/11 years had been a busy time. “A few. Is Project Cancer part of that?”
“First of all, the project is a rumor. It never existed. But hypothetically, if it did, it would be a
variation
on the theme.”
“What kind of variation are we talking about?”
She paused once more, then, as if reading from a book, she told him exactly what kind.
When she finished, he was speechless.
“Hypothetically, of course,” she said into the silence.
“Of course.”
Neither of them said anything for a moment, the full weight of what she had described filling the connection between them.
“And behind it all?” Peter finally asked.
“I did say
ironic
, didn’t I?”
Mygatt and Green
, he thought. “How sure?”
“Let’s just say if it were an election, no one else is running.”
Dear God.
“Listen carefully,” she said, then gave him an email address, followed by a string of letters and numbers. “Do you have it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’m sure I won’t be hearing from you about this again.”
She hung up.
Though the computers in his secret office were extremely secure, he didn’t for a second consider using one of them. To check the email account Helen had given him, he needed complete anonymity.