“What are you talking about?”
Quinn tapped the gun against Michaels’s ear. “Say hi.”
Michaels remained silent.
Quinn tapped again. “Do it.”
“Peter, it’s Michaels.”
Silence from the other end of the line. When Peter finally spoke, his voice was guarded. “What exactly is going on there?”
“At the moment, not much of anything,” Quinn said. “I’ve got a gun to the back of your man’s head here, and most of his people spread out on the ground around us.”
“Dead?”
“No,” Quinn scoffed. “Who do you think I am?”
“I’m beginning to wonder. So why are you pointing a gun at Michaels?”
“Because he and his men were shooting at my friends.”
“I had no idea that’s who was in there,” Michaels said.
“In where?” Peter asked.
“They have this nifty building full of detention cells,” Quinn told him. “My friends just happened to be taking a look inside.”
“Quinn, what are you and your
friends
even doing there?”
“I believe I already told you the answer to that.”
“Son of a bitch! This is a disaster. Why couldn’t you have—”
“Drop it!” a voice called out from behind Quinn, drowning out whatever else Peter had to say.
Quinn glanced over his shoulder. The two missing men were standing a couple dozen feet away, their guns trained on him.
“I said, drop it,” the one on the left said.
But they weren’t the only ones back there.
“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, gentlemen,” Nate said.
He, Daeng, and Orlando were another ten feet behind the men, also holding guns. A little farther back and off to the side was Mila.
After a brief hesitation, Michaels’s men dropped their guns and raised their hands.
“Five paces to your right, then on the ground like everyone else,” Nate said.
The men walked off the paces, and lay down.
“Everyone all right?” Quinn asked.
“We’re all good,” Nate told him.
“Could have sworn you were supposed to get in and out without, you know, any of these people knowing.”
“Yeah, well, uh…yeah,” Nate said. “We’ll do better next time.”
As Nate and the others walked over, Quinn lowered his gun, turned Michaels around, and motioned for him to lean against the car.
Quinn glanced at Mila. “You okay?”
She nodded.
“They treat you all right?”
Another nod.
“No rough stuff?”
“No.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Peter asked.
“Just gathering everyone together,” Quinn told him. “More cozy that way.”
“By everyone, do you mean…?”
“I mean
everyone
, Peter.”
“You and I need to talk,” Peter said. “Can you take me off this damn speaker?”
“Tell your friend Michaels and his team to behave, and I might be able to do that.”
“No one shoots anybody,” Peter’s voice boomed. “No knives. No fighting. No sucker punches. No violence at all. That goes for
both
sides. Am I clear?”
“Clear by me,” Quinn said.
“Of course,” Michaels replied, his tone not nearly as upbeat as Quinn’s.
“Happy now?” Peter asked.
__________
Q
UINN WALKED TOWARD
the trees at the base of the hill. Once he was out of earshot of the others, he said, “All right, we’re alone.”
“This could not be a bigger mess,” Peter said.
“I beg to differ. So far I’m the only one who’s been shot.”
“I’m not just talking about what’s going on there. I’m talking about
everything
! Starting way back in Las Vegas in 2006.
That
assignment should have been a no-brainer. You want to tell me why it wasn’t? And why Mila Voss didn’t end up buried in the desert somewhere?”
“It’s complicated.”
“You can say that again.” There was a long pause, then Peter went on. “I’ve got some pretty powerful players breathing down my neck to close this as quickly and quietly as possible. The only thing they know about your involvement is what you told me initially. That you disposed of a body you thought was hers at the time.”
“I said I disposed of the body I was given.”
“Word games, Quinn. You led me to believe it was Mila.”
Quinn made no reply, well aware of the misdirection he’d perpetrated.
“When you started popping up, I knew there was more to this than what I was told back then. I didn’t want to, but I started digging. My God, what she stumbled into.”
“I don’t know what she stumbled into,” Quinn said. “I never asked.”
“You don’t know? Then why did you help her get away?”
Quinn thought about saying nothing again, knowing that the truth would, rightly or wrongly, bring into question every job he’d ever worked on. But it didn’t seem to matter. His future in the business was cloudy at best anyway. And if they were practicing no bullshit…
“She was a friend,” he said. “I couldn’t be a part of her death.”
“A friend?”
Friendships were few and far between in the business, because of the potential for exactly the kind of conflict of interest Quinn had found himself in with Mila.
When it became obvious Quinn wasn’t going to add anything, Peter said, “Well, your
friend
unintentionally came across some knowledge she would have been much better off not knowing. Hell, I’m more than a little worried about what
I
now know.”
Quinn didn’t want to ask, but he had no choice. “What knowledge?”
After Peter told him, Quinn felt numb. “That’s not possible.”
“I thought the same thing, but apparently it is.”
“And you’re sure who’s behind it?”
“I wish I wasn’t.”
Quinn looked up at the sky, his eyes not even registering the stars. Calling this a mess was the very definition of understatement. “They’re not going to stop until they find her.”
“No, they’re not.”
“I need to get her safe.”
“Good luck with that.”
“You’re working with them, Peter. You could provide some misdirection for us.”
Peter snorted. “I could, but it’s not likely to be very effective. I’m sure they’re already close to replacing me as it is. I won’t be able to hide what happened there in Italy for very long. Once they find out, I’ll be lucky if they don’t put a bullet in
my
head.”
“Then you need to make sure they don’t find out.”
“What I
should
be doing is sending in a backup team for the job Michaels is apparently incapable of completing.”
“But you won’t. You know this whole thing stinks of rot.”
“Doesn’t matter. Our job’s not about right or wrong. Hell, there
is
no right or wrong.”
“There’s always right or wrong, Peter, and pretending there isn’t doesn’t change that.”
Peter said nothing.
A dozen possible scenarios spun through Quinn’s mind. Safe. Was that even possible?
“We’re going to need your help,” he said.
“You mean beside covering up what’s happened there?” Peter asked.
“Yes.”
__________
“P
ETER WANTS TO
talk to you,” Quinn said to Michaels as he returned to where everyone was waiting.
“Hello?” Michaels said once he had the phone.
Quinn waited patiently as Peter and Michaels talked. Mostly, the team leader was just listening, his expression at first angry, then confused. Every few seconds, his gaze would dart over to Quinn.
Finally, he held the phone back out. “Here.”
Quinn took it and raised it to his ear. “Goodbye, Peter.”
“Can you at least tell me what you’re going to do?” Peter asked.
“Once I know, you’ll get your instructions.” Quinn hung up, and looked over at the vehicles parked in front of the burning house. “That SUV,” he said to Michaels.
“What about it?”
“Who’s got the keys?”
Michaels did not look happy as he reached into his pocket and extracted a set of keys. He peeled the largest one off the ring and tossed it to Quinn.
“Have a good day,” Quinn said. He turned to his friends. “Let’s go.”
As they walked away from Michaels, several of the men on the ground scrambled for their guns and started to rise.
“Stand down!” Michaels ordered. “This project’s been terminated.”
CHAPTER 34
FRIDAY, MAY 12
th
, 2006
8:31 PM
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Q
UINN DROVE TO
Valley Hospital
as
fast as traffic would allow. There, he used a forged FBI badge to get beyond the waiting area and into the main part of the facility.
Finding an empty office at this time on a Friday night wasn’t difficult. Once inside, he located a computer. Then, using a little of what he’d paid good money to learn, he bypassed the standard security and gained access to the hospital’s system. Once he was in, he created a record for one Naomi Reese, noting that she had been dead on arrival at the ER. He listed the preliminary cause of death as heart failure, and used a line of code from his own private server to schedule the record to appear in the system the follow morning. When it did show up, it would be buried so deeply that it’d only be found if someone was looking for it specifically. There was at least a ninety-five-percent chance no one at the hospital would ever even set eyes on it.
As soon as he was done and the computer was back in its original condition, he called Jergins.
“I’m sta—”
“She’s just been spotted,” Jergins cut him off. “Over at the Manhattan Hotel.”
The blood drained from Quinn’s face. “What are you talking about?”
“Kovacs’s man found her. They’re converging there now.”
“That’s…not possible. I’m standing next to the body right now. She’s dead.” There was a big part of him that knew he should have kept his mouth shut. These were words that could easily come back and haunt him, but he was already committed so he couldn’t back down now.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m looking at her now,” Quinn said, his gaze fixed on nothing. “I’ll have her out before daybreak, and dispose of her as planned.”
“Then who the hell did they see?”
“I have no idea, but I guarantee you it’s
not
the target.”
Jergins swore under his breath. “I’ll send them a message, but if they’re chasing this other person, it’ll probably be awhile before they get it. Hopefully they’ll back off when they realize it’s not her.” He paused. “You’ve got her. I’m declaring end of mission and bugging out.”
“See you next time,” Quinn said.
“Hope it goes smoother for you than it has for the rest of us.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
__________
Q
UINN LEFT THE
hospital, and drove to the Strip.
How in the world had they seen Mila? She should have been in the sub-basement safe room where no one would find her.
No one
.
He tried to reach Julien, but the call went straight to voice mail.
“Where are you?” he yelled, then hung up.
He knew for a fact that he and Mila had reached the Manhattan unobserved. From there it should have been simple. In through the garage, downstairs, hide. Even if, God forbid, she had shown her face in the casino for a reason Quinn couldn’t possibly imagine, who would have seen her? The spotter should have been driving around lost while Kovacs was at Planet Hollywood.
He tried Julien again. Voice mail.
The only thing more frustrating than not being able to get through to his friend was the traffic, which had gone from bad to horrible.
He made a snap decision and pulled into the entrance for Caesar’s Palace. Twenty feet in, he stopped along the side of the road and jumped out, leaving the engine still running. Horns blared at him, but he ignored them as he weaved through the cars trying to get to the hotel, and made his way to the sidewalk.
There, he turned south toward the Manhattan and ran.
CHAPTER 35
ITALY
T
HE QUICKEST WAY
out of the country would have been to head straight back to Rome and catch the first flight available. It was also the most obvious choice, and therefore the first place someone trying to find out where they’d gone would check.
Perhaps Peter would keep a lid on things, but Quinn knew he’d be a fool to count on it. Not that Peter wasn’t trustworthy. It was just that in this business, trust wasn’t always a constant. Peter was obviously under considerable pressure, something he’d handled well in the past, but no matter how cool he remained as things pressed down on him, without the power and influence he used to have shielding him, his breaking point could be much easier to reach. There was just no way to tell, so it was best to be cautious.
As they neared the outskirts of Rome, Quinn leaned forward from the back where he was sitting with Orlando and Mila. “Go northeast,” he said to Nate. “We’re skipping Rome.”
“Venice?” Nate asked.
Quinn nodded, pleased they were on the same wavelength.
“You’re not going to Rome?” Mila asked as he settled back in the seat.
“No. Not safe.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I appreciate you setting me free, but you can let me out anywhere around here.”
“No one’s getting out.”
“I have something I need to do!”
Quinn stared at her for a second, then looked forward without saying anything.
“I said, let me out!”
He didn’t move.
“Dammit, Quinn! Let me the hell out!”
She tried to reach across him for the door. He pushed her back without looking. She then tried the same thing on Orlando’s side, but Orlando’s response was even rougher than Quinn’s.
Mila fell back against the seat, panting heavily. “So, what? I go from one group holding me hostage to another? Is this because you’re afraid that me showing up might get you killed?”
“Can I hit her?” Orlando asked.