The Silenced jqt-4 Read online

  “Grand Hyatt Hotel, how may I direct your call?”

  “I’m in 2465, and there’s a terrible smell coming from next door, room 2467. Can you send someone up to check it out?”

  “Absolutely, sir. We’ll get someone up there right away.”

  Quinn clicked off, then called Wills. “There’s a restaurant on Columbus,” he said, randomly choosing a place on the opposite side of the street. “It’s called Crêpes on Columbus, just south of 109th. Be there in thirty minutes.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply.

  * * *

  As Quinn and Nate entered the restaurant, a tall man with dark hair lightly sprinkled with gray greeted them with a warm welcome and a large smile.

  “Just the two of you?” he asked.

  “Three,” Quinn said. “A friend will be here in a bit.”

  The man started to lead them toward a table near the front, but Quinn stopped him.

  “How about that one,” he said, pointing at one near the rear wall.

  “Sure,” the man said. “Wherever you’d like.”

  “Thanks.”

  The man showed Quinn and Nate to the table, then handed them menus. “Can I bring you anything to drink?”

  “Water,” Quinn said.

  “Me too,” Nate said.

  “You got it,” the man said. “My name’s Steve. If you need anything, just let me know.”

  “Thanks,” Quinn said.

  Twenty minutes later, as Quinn was working his way through a tiger shrimp and spinach crêpe, the restaurant door opened.

  “Is it him?” Nate asked, his eyes on his own plate.

  “Yes,” Quinn said.

  Quinn had met David Wills in person twice in the past, once in London for a meet-and-greet five months earlier, and a second time in Chicago on a brief for another project. The Englishman was almost six feet tall and thin. His hair was a short but shaggy, fifty-fifty mix of gray and dark blond. Like on the two previous occasions, Wills was wearing his uniform — a dark suit, colored shirt, and expensive tie.

  The Englishman scanned the dining area, then raised his hand a few inches when he saw Quinn.

  “Welcome,” Steve said from behind the counter. “I’ll be right with you.”

  “He’s with us,” Quinn said.

  “Great,” Steve said. “I’ll bring over a menu in a moment.”

  Wills walked over and sat down across from Quinn, in the chair next to Nate.

  “Nothing like a little excitement to get the day going, is there?” he said.

  “I prefer dull,” Quinn said.

  Wills looked at Nate.

  “My colleague,” Quinn said.

  “I assumed as much. Does he have a name?”

  “Yes,” Quinn said.

  When Quinn offered no more, Wills frowned, but said, “The number you gave me went straight to voicemail. A beep and that was it.”

  “Could you trace it?”

  “Still working on that,” Wills said. “But I was able to confirm that a woman by the name of Annabel Taplin, fitting the description you gave me, does indeed work for Wright Bains.”

  “And therefore MI6,” Quinn said.

  “That would be the assumption.”

  Quinn reached for the folder he’d taken from Annabel so he could show Wills the picture of the third man, but stopped as Steve approached the table and started to put a menu in front of Quinn’s client.

  Wills waved him off and pointed at Nate’s plate. “I’ll just have what he’s having.”

  “You got it.”

  After they were alone again, Quinn pulled the picture out. “Do you know who this is?”

  “No. Should I?” the Englishman asked. The look on his face seemed to back up his words.

  “It was in Ms. Taplin’s briefcase along with pictures of you and me. She was told he might be joining us for our meeting.”

  Wills’s brow furrowed. “Joining us? I have no idea who he is. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Give it to me. I’ll check it out.”

  Quinn handed him the printed photo. “Do you at least know why MI6 would be interested in our meeting?”

  Wills hesitated a moment before answering. “I’m dealing with that. Don’t concern yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t be concerning myself if I hadn’t had to get involved,” Quinn said.

  “It was a miscommunication. They won’t be bothering us anymore.”

  “A miscommunication?”

  Wills frowned. “I won’t go into it more than that.”

  “All right. Fine,” Quinn said, sitting back.

  “Tell me again about Maine,” Wills said.

  Quinn gave him the same story he had on the phone. He paused for a moment when he was done, then said, “Anything new about the shooter from your end?”

  “Nothing.”

  A possibility had been floating around Quinn’s mind since the drive to New York. “Any chance it might have been a member of the ops team?”

  “The team was cleared personally by me.”

  “I did see Mercer there toward the end, though. He was out of position.”

  Wills looked uncomfortable, but said, “Mercer’s clean, too. He’s working for me directly.”

  “Directly?”

  “My eyes on the ground. He did the same in Los Angeles.”

  “I never saw him there,” Quinn said. Of course, he hadn’t seen anyone on the L.A. ops team.

  “The Russian woman,” Wills said, changing the subject, “you’re sure she was in both L.A. and Maine?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  The look in Wills’s eyes became guarded.

  Quinn asked, “She’s been seen before, hasn’t she?”

  Wills reluctantly nodded. “In the vicinity of liquidations in Hong Kong and Bangkok.”

  “All part of this same project?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn,” Nate said. “How long is your list?”

  Quinn looked at his apprentice, surprised. He’d been thinking the same thing, but knew to keep his mouth shut. Still …

  “I’m sorry,” Nate said. “None of our business.”

  “That’s right,” Wills said. “It’s not.”

  The silence lasted only a second before Quinn decided it was time to push. “I’m not so sure it’s not becoming our business,” he said. He could feel the other two look at him. “You obviously came here for a reason. We could have just talked on the phone.”

  Wills looked toward the kitchen as if wondering where his food was. When he looked back, he said, “I wanted to speak with you about Maine because you were an independent observer last night. I wanted to be sure the story Donovan told me was completely accurate. You blow a mission, you really want to play that down. And then there’s L.A. You were there for both. So I felt a face-to-face would be best.”

  “And?” Quinn said, knowing there was more.

  Wills looked around the restaurant. “You’re sure this place is clean?”

  “I haven’t done a sweep,” Quinn said. “But I never knew it existed until I spotted it less than an hour ago, and I know we weren’t followed. If someone’s listening in, it’s because they followed you.”

  Wills looked around the dining room again, then glanced at Nate.

  “What?” Nate asked.

  “Don’t insult us,” Quinn said to Wills, knowing full well what the man was thinking.

  Before the Englishman could respond, Steve arrived with his meal.

  “Here you go,” he said as he set the plate in front of Wills. “Roasted chicken crêpe with mango red pepper sauce.”

  “Thank you,” Wills said.

  “Anything else, gentlemen?”

  Quinn shook his head. “Think we’re all good. Thanks.”

  “Just give me a yell if you want anything.” He headed back to the counter.

  “So what’s it going to be?” Quinn asked. “You going to trust us? Or do we walk?”

  Wills looked
at his plate and said nothing.

  “Let’s go,” Quinn said to Nate. They both started to rise.

  “Wait,” Wills said. “I trust you. It’s not that. It’s … it’s the terms of the job.”

  Quinn scowled. “Fine. Nate, find another table.”

  Nate paused, a fork full of crêpe halfway to his mouth. “Sure,” he said. He picked up his plate and headed toward a table near the front of the restaurant.

  “Better?” Quinn said.

  Wills relaxed. “Yes. Thank you. I’m sorry I had to do that, but … well, you understand.”

  After several seconds of awkward silence, Wills went on, “The project I hired you for came through a small group at MI6.”

  “Wait,” Quinn said. “If you were working for MI6, why would they send someone to spy on our meeting?”

  “First, like I said before, it was a miscommunication. My people in London have already straightened it out. Second, the job’s not for MI6. Occasionally there are projects that come to them from someone outside the organization that would be problematic if they got involved. When that happens, one of the people they like to call is me. MI6 makes the introduction, then steps back into the shadows.”

  Quinn nodded. It was a standard tactic. “Then, who’s your client?”

  Wills paused for a half second, then said, “They’re not a big player in our world. Actually, I’ve never had dealings with them before, so as far as I’m concerned, they are not a player at all.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “Remember, though they would deny it, this is MI6 approved.”

  “So who is this client?” Quinn asked, knowing he was crossing way over the line with the question.

  “A corporation, actually. My understanding is that they help out MI6 every now and again.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the best you’re going to get.”

  Quinn shrugged. It had been worth a try. “What exactly is the gig, then?”

  “This corporation deals with several classified technologies that the government deems necessary to keep both secret and under British control. I’ve been told a lot of money has been spent to ensure this. Unfortunately, two months ago, someone with access downloaded some extremely sensitive blueprints and technical specs to several flash memory cards. By the time alarms went off, the person had disappeared.”

  “What kind of information?” Quinn asked.

  “The kind of information North Korea would want to buy.”

  What North Korea needed was food and help for its people. But what it wanted was weapons and power to annoy the West.

  “Nuclear,” Quinn said. It was the only real answer.

  Wills nodded. “It was the design for a bomb. Portable. Lightweight. Easy to produce even with Pyongyang’s limited resources. They would have paid millions for the information.”

  “Would have?” Nate said. “They didn’t get the cards?”

  “No. That’s what we’ve been doing.” Wills checked again to make sure no one was near. On the table in front of him, his untouched crêpe was growing cold. “The head of security—”

  “Does he have a name?” Quinn asked.

  Wills thought for a moment. “Call him Mr. B.”

  “I assume there’s a Mr. A.”

  “There is.”

  “Okay,” Quinn said. “Just wondering.”

  “Mr. B knew that finding the cards might involve methods his corporation was not capable of performing.”

  “Why not?”

  “They are a publicly traded organization. Shareholders frown on wet work. Mr. B talked to one of the company’s contacts at MI6. The contact was concerned, but also smart enough to realize that knowledge of the leak needed to be kept to a small circle of people. That meant mounting an operation outside normal governmental channels.”

  “You.”

  “Yes, me,” Wills said. “We were told that this was to be a terminate operation from the start, and that all members of the thief’s network needed to be eliminated to prevent the potential release of the information. There was no telling which of them had copies. Our job was to isolate and eliminate. MI6 would then go in, do a search, and recover the cards and any copies that might have been made.”

  “You weren’t doing the search?” Quinn asked.

  “We were hired to question each target, and only search their person before removing them. MI6 would do the rest.”

  It wasn’t a particularly unusual arrangement. A private group does the dirty work so that another agency can keep its hands clean. Quinn had been on similar projects in the past. The only unusual aspect was the involvement of a third organization, this corporation whose information had been stolen. Still, Quinn couldn’t help thinking that the story was almost too pat. The feeling wasn’t a strong one, just something that tickled at the back of his mind.

  “Then who are these Russians?” he asked.

  “We think they’re part of a Georgian group fighting to rejoin Russia. In other words, terrorists who want to get their hands on a bomb. The big problem now is that they’ve been able to take one of the targets before we could get to them. If he had one of the disks on him, the information could be anywhere by now.”

  “I can’t imagine MI6 is happy about that.”

  Wills paused. “MI6 doesn’t know yet.”

  “You haven’t told them?”

  Wills shook his head.

  “Could they suspect something went wrong? Maybe that’s why they sent the watcher.”

  “I told you, it was a miscommunication.” Wills’s tone was less convincing than his words.

  “So what are you doing about Moody?” Quinn asked.

  “I have a team trying to track the Russians down. Find them and we find Moody.”

  “Donovan?”

  “No. Donovan and his team have split and gone to ground. I haven’t talked to him since thirty minutes after the operation. If Moody’s found, the new team will take care of him.”

  “How many more names are on the list?” Quinn asked.

  “Moody was the last,” Wills said.

  Quinn raised his eyebrows. “Last? Are you saying you came all the way over here to let me go? Or do you want me on standby for once they’ve taken care of Moody?”

  “No,” Wills said. “There’s something else I need you to do. A related job.”

  “What do you mean ‘related’?”

  “Mr. B asked if we could do a special project for the corporation on the side.”

  Quinn’s eyes narrowed with concern. If it was a project that involved him, it would mean someone was going to be killed. A few deaths of amoral thieves selling bomb plans to terrorists was one thing, but corporate murder? That would be going somewhere Quinn wasn’t comfortable with.

  Wills seemed to sense Quinn’s reluctance. “It’s not what you think.”

  “If it’s not what I think, then you don’t need a cleaner.”

  “There is a body. It’s in London. Hidden in a building that’s about to be demolished.”

  “Wait, what? Are you saying it’s already there?”

  Wills said nothing for a moment, then nodded. “It’s been there over twenty years.”

  Chapter 16

  “I guess this isn’t a surprise,” Nate said.

  “Not really,” Quinn agreed.

  They were still in Manhattan, standing across the street from a place called Molly Dryer’s Delicatessen.

  At the end of the meeting at the restaurant, Wills had asked Quinn to check out the address found on the dead man in the car outside Moody’s house. The name on the license had been William Burke, but the address listed belonged to the deli.

  “Hard sell, soft sell,” Quinn said, pointing to Nate first, then himself.

  “Fine by me.”

  Inside, a long buffet table served up everything from chow mein to Salisbury steak. Next to it another table specialized in salads. There were also shelves with chips and coo
kies and snacks next to glass-door cabinets filled with drinks. Beyond the buffet were dining tables and chairs ready for the next influx of customers.

  A typical New York deli.

  The employees manning the kitchen all looked Latin, while the two women at the registers looked Middle Eastern.

  He grabbed a bottle of water and a bag of chips and headed for the checkout.

  “Are you Molly?” he asked the woman who rang him up.

  She gave him an odd look.

  “Molly,” he repeated. “The name on the sign?”

  “Ah, right,” she said. She leaned toward him a few inches. “There is no Molly. It’s just a name my father picked out of a book. He said it sounded more American.”

  Quinn laughed. “He’s right.”

  At a signal from Quinn, Nate walked up.

  “Excuse me,” Nate said.

  The woman stopped herself in the middle of counting out Quinn’s change and looked at him.

  Nate smiled. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. Says he comes here all time, so I thought you might know him. Bill Burke. Sometimes goes by William.”

  The look on her face didn’t change. “Sorry. Don’t know him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Again, she gave him the silent stare.

  He raised a hand in the air. “Okay, thanks anyway.”

  As Nate walked away, Quinn said, “Nate was a bit of a jerk, wasn’t he?”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  * * *

  Quinn and Nate regrouped a block away.

  “Like we thought, fake ID,” Nate said.

  “You want these?” Quinn asked, holding up the chips.

  “Are you kidding?” Nate said. “Of course.” He snatched the bag from Quinn.

  “Is there anything you won’t eat?”

  Nate smiled, but kept munching. When he was ready to pop another chip in his mouth, he paused long enough to ask, “This new assignment, have you ever been asked to do anything like it before?”

  “I had to remove a corpse from a cemetery once. It had been in the ground about two years.”

  Nate gave him an odd look. “Why would you have to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Quinn said. “Client never told me.”

  “But why do you think … Never mind,” Nate said. “The thing Mr. Wills wants us to do, doesn’t it seem a little odd?”