“I…I was in Lisbon.”
“That explains it. So what? Did one of your men tell you they thought I needed to be looked into?”
“It wasn’t like that. I had to report it to my superiors. What they decided to do wasn’t my call. It came from the top.”
She removed a newspaper photo from her pocket and set it on the desk. Tapping it, she said, “From the Lion?”
Though his agent instincts were undoubtedly rusty, Evans was almost able to pull off keeping his face blank. But she saw it, just for a second, an instant of shock in his eyes that confirmed she was right. The Lion was indeed the same man in the picture, the one behind it all.
She
had
been right to come out of hiding.
Evans leaned back in his chair, his hands falling to his sides.
Mila had been so focused on what she had just learned that it took a second to register that Evans had moved. She jumped up, her gun in front of her. Evans was already twisting to the side, bringing up a gun hidden within the back of his chair.
His pistol cracked once, the bullet flying past her head and lodging in the wall behind her. Two spits through her suppressor kept him from pulling his trigger again, both her shots catching him high in the chest.
“You asshole!” she said.
She wasn’t an assassin. No matter how dangerous it would have been to leave him alive, she hadn’t wanted to kill him. The information was all she came for. If the Lion found out from Evans that she was alive, so be it. She’d still have the upper hand.
She eased over to the window that overlooked the walking street. While her shots had been muffled, his single one had not. But there was no one rushing toward the building, and no one standing by the front door pushing the intercom button. The books, she realized, had probably absorbed much of the noise.
She looked back at Evans. “Asshole,” she repeated. “Why did you do that?”
Three minutes later, a girl in jeans and a dark green tank top descended the back stairs of Johnston’s Rare Books Finding Service, and turned down Darby Drive. Her mousy blonde hair was pulled back in a single ponytail that went halfway down her back. She knew those who saw her would think she was just a teenager enjoying the sunny day.
If only.
CHAPTER 9
THAILAND
F
OR MONTHS, QUINN’S
daily routine had been up before dawn, breakfast, meditation, three classes in the morning, lunch, two classes in the afternoon, work on the temple—Quinn was paying for the renovations himself—dinner, read, then sleep. Any deviations, such as helping Ton and his family with the farm, were only extensions of the other things he was doing. In the half year since he’d arrived at Wat Doi Thong, he had never traveled more than a few miles away.
Prior to leaving that morning, Quinn had apologized to the head monk for his abrupt departure, and promised he would be back as soon as possible. The money for the restorations, he assured the man, would continue to be available. His only request was that someone be sent every day to help Ton in the fields. The monk assured him that would happen.
Now he sat in the back of a speedboat with Nate on one side and Daeng on the other, heading for the chaos of Bangkok and the rest of the world. He had known he would have to reemerge one day, but in his mind it had been in the distant future.
Mila had forced the issue. The question was, why? Why had she come out of hiding?
No
, he corrected himself. His only question should be: What would he have to do to get her to disappear again?
Mila
,
what the hell is going on?
__________
D
URING THE VOYAGE,
Daeng made a call and arranged for them to be picked up at Thewes Pier, just north of the Rama VIII Bridge in Bangkok. When they arrived, they found a black sedan with tinted windows waiting for them.
The driver was on the large size for a Thai man. He was bald like the monks back at Wat Doi Thong, though Nate doubted he’d ever donned the orange robes. By the deference he displayed, it was clear Daeng was his boss.
“Someplace with a secured Internet connection,” Quinn said to Daeng as he climbed into the backseat with Nate.
“No problem,” Daeng said, getting into the front passenger seat. “I’ll take you to my place.”
They drove through Bangkok for twenty-five minutes before stopping in front of a high metal gate in the middle of a dirty white wall. The driver pulled out a phone and made a quick call. Seconds later, the gate was pulled open from inside.
The world within the walls felt like it had been transported from somewhere outside the city. The vibrant greens and reds and yellows and purples of the vegetation looked almost unnatural. It was a jungle, controlled, well taken care of, but a jungle nonetheless.
The house was located near the very center. It, too, was different from anything else Nate had seen in the city, a beautiful two-story home constructed of glass and metal that would have fit in nicely next door to Quinn’s place in the Hollywood Hills.
The driver parked in a designated area not too far beyond the gate, and they all climbed out.
“While I’m getting some lunch together,” Daeng said as he led them inside, “you can use one of my laptops. There’s one on the kitchen bar.”
“Thanks,” Quinn said. “Will it track what I’m doing?”
Daeng bowed slightly. “There’s tracking software on all of my computers, but it can be easily turned off.”
“Good. I’d like you to do that.”
The interior of the house was surprisingly spartan, given how the outside looked. Utilitarian furniture that was nice but not expensive, a few photographs and a handful of paintings on the white walls and that was about it. There were none of the touches a designer might have added, and nothing beyond the paintings and photographs that could be considered decorative. The only lavish item was a waterfall built into the wall in the foyer. It would have probably been beautiful but it wasn’t running, and there was no water in the small pool at its base. Through the windows of the living room, Nate could see a grass area in back where at least a dozen kids were playing while four or five women watched.
The kitchen was off to the left and opened into a dining room with a simple wooden table long enough to seat twenty people. Between the two rooms was a raised bar with a closed computer on top.
Daeng tapped away at several keys then took a step back. “All set.”
Quinn immediately got on, and Nate moved in behind him.
ADR-3 was one of dozens of remote servers Quinn, Nate, and Orlando used when necessary. They were all owned by companies that had no idea part of their computer storage space had been usurped for private use.
Using the appropriate login and password, Quinn quickly found the file Peter had uploaded and copied it onto Daeng’s machine.
While they waited for the transfer, Nate said, “You want to tell me who this Mila Voss is now?” He’d tried asking a few times on the boat, but Quinn had said nothing.
Nate thought he would get the same non-response as before, but Quinn said, “She was a courier.”
“A courier? Was she supposed to have been killed in action?” While the majority of the time a courier’s job was a piece of cake, it could also be extremely dangerous. Mostly they traveled alone, and there was always the danger of someone wanting the packages they carried.
But Quinn said, “She wasn’t on an assignment at the time. Well, I guess technically she was, but…”
Nate frowned. “So…someone ordered her killed. That’s why you were there. To get rid of her body?”
A pause. “Yes.”
“And yet she’s alive.”
Quinn made no reply.
A few seconds later, the download finished. Quinn opened the file and hit
PLAY
.
The first part started with a man falling to his death in front of a building. This was soon followed by the arrival of another man wearing a baseball cap. Both Nate and Quinn watched with trained eyes as the second man checked the body for any signs of life, then got up and disappeared into the crowd.
The second part of the video was a split screen showing the man in the cap on both sides, then one side morphed into an image of a woman while the other remained unchanged.
Quinn hit
PAUSE
.
“That’s her?” Nate asked, surprised by the transformation.
Quinn nodded.
“So she
is
alive.”
Quinn closed the computer. “That was never an issue.”
“You mean you
knew
?”
“Of course I knew.”
“But you told Peter she was dead.”
“I told Peter I got rid of a body.”
“You made it pretty clear you thought it was her.”
Quinn remained silent for several seconds, then said, “If I’d told him the truth, Mila wouldn’t have lasted another twenty-four hours.”
“Wait. I just want to get something straight. Did you know she was alive
before
you disposed of the body? Or was it something you realized after?”
Though Quinn said nothing, the look on his face was answer enough.
“Are you kidding me?” Nate said. “How many times have you hammered into me the importance of integrity? Of maintaining an excellent reputation? You were hired for a job that you lied about. Not just today, but back then, too.”
“Life isn’t always so black and white.”
Nate stared at his mentor. “That’s not how you trained me.”
“Training’s what gets you by until you have enough experience to know where you can bend the rules.”
“So this is one of those rule-bending situations? That’s a pretty damn big bend.”
Quinn stood up and glanced at Daeng. “Where’s the toilet?”
“Through the living room, and down that hall,” Daeng said. “Second door on the right.”
Without looking at Nate, Quinn left.
Nate chastised himself. He had no idea what the extenuating circumstances were with this woman, and knew he was in no position to judge Quinn’s actions. Chances were, he would have done the same thing. He was just surprised, that’s all.
“How about a beer?” Daeng asked, holding out an opened bottle of Chang.
“Thanks,” Nate said, taking it from him. He drank deeply then set the bottle on the counter.
Daeng nodded in the direction Quinn had gone. “Your friend—he’s searching.”
Nate picked up the beer again. “Searching?”
“When a soul gets unhinged, it is very difficult to return it to where it should be.”
“His soul is unhinged?”
“What would you call it?”
Nate shrugged, but said nothing. The truth was, it was a pretty accurate description. Having his family threatened had obviously sent Quinn reeling. But his mother was fine, as was his sister. Nate knew that firsthand. He’d been with Liz a few weeks earlier.
Outside, one of the kids screamed, then laughed. Nate turned to see a small boy running across the lawn with three other chasing him. “Are any of those kids yours?”
Daeng shook his head. “No. I don’t have any.”
“Oh. I just thought…” He trailed off, unsure what to say next.
“They’re Burmese,” Daeng said.
“I’m sorry?”
“The children. The women, too. They’re Burmese.”
“Refugees?”
“Yes.”
“I thought the situation in Burma was getting better.”
“Yes, but it still has a long way to go.” He looked out the window. “They’ve been in camps in Thailand for years. Most of those kids have never even been in Burma.”
“They live here with you now?”
Daeng shook his head. “Only visit. When I can, I have some of them smuggled down here, so they can have a little time away from the camps. They’ll have to go back soon.”
Nate looked out at the kids again, wondering, not for the first time, exactly who Daeng was.
Before he could ask anything more, Quinn returned.
“Thank you for delivering the message, Nate, but it probably would be best if you went home now,” Quinn said. “What I need to do next will be best handled on my own.”
“Look,” Nate said. “If I sounded disrespectful, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“That’s not it at all. You said what you needed to say. The questions you asked were ones
I
would have asked in your place. But this is something you shouldn’t be involved in. It happened before you were around so you’re untainted. Go. Get out of here. I don’t need you.”
“Damn,” Nate said, a mischievous grin on his face. “Sounds like you’re breaking up with me.”
From the look in Quinn’s eyes, it was obvious he didn’t see the humor in the situation. As he was about to say something, Nate held up a hand, stopping him.
“I don’t care when this thing happened. I’m pretty sure you’re going to need some help, so I’m not going anywhere.”
“This isn’t your—”
“You can kick me out, but I’ll just follow you. And I’m good now, too.
Real
good. You know you won’t be able to lose me.”
“I can’t ask you to get involved.”
“You’re right. But I can volunteer. And I do.”
Quinn looked at him for a moment longer, then his gaze strayed to the bottle of Chang on the bar. He turned to Daeng. “Please tell me you have more of those.”
__________
T
HE PROBLEM WAS,
Nate was right. Integrity
was
the backbone of being a good cleaner.
A cleaner’s job was to make bodies disappear, or, at the very least, make it appear as though the victim died by some other means than the real one. With full access to the scene of the event, a cleaner was entrusted with evidence that would not only put the actual killers in jail for the rest of their lives, but the clients, too. A sloppy cleaner could accidentally leave some of this behind, whether at the scene or the place they got rid of the body or someplace else entirely. An unscrupulous cleaner could purposely do the same. Soon word would get out about those types, and work would dry up if the cleaners in question weren’t killed outright. Integrity, performing to a higher standard, playing straight with clients—these were the things that kept work coming in.