The Damaged Page 3

  “I can’t afford what might happen if I put him on another job,” Peter said.

  “Please, just one more chance. You owe him that much.”

  “I don’t know if I owe him a damn thing anymore.”

  “Please, Peter. Then do it for me. One more time. If he botches that one up, I’ll never ask again.”

  Peter was silent for several seconds. “If I give him another job, there will be conditions.”

  “Of course. Whatever you want.”

  More silence. “There is something coming up next week that I might be able to put him on. But, Orlando, he won’t be lead. He’ll be number two.”

  “Who-who would be lead?”

  “Quinn.”

  “Quinn?” She paused. “Actually, that’s a great idea. It would be good for them to work together again. It’s been a while. And Quinn could…keep him on the right track.”

  “That’s what I would be hoping. But I can’t imagine Durrie playing second to his own apprentice.”

  “Please, ask him. He’ll probably say no at first, but I’ll work on him from my end. I’ll convince him. I promise.”

  She heard Peter take a deep breath. “I know I’m going to regret this.”

  “You won’t. Please, Peter.”

  Another pause. “Tell him to call me when he gets home.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. If he pisses me off during the call, he’s out.”

  “He won’t.”

  Peter snorted. “Text me when he gets there, so I can be…mentally prepared for when he calls.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  She sliced up a zucchini, three bell peppers, and an onion, and removed the fat from two deboned chicken breasts.

  On the stove, the water was boiling, so she dumped in the penne and began sautéing the vegetables and meat.

  While she may have staved off—at least temporarily—Durrie losing his main source of income, she knew his problems with Peter were symptoms of something else.

  Whether mental or physical, something was definitely wrong with Durrie. There was no ignoring the fact the man she had fallen for was not the same one taking a shower right now. Sure, Durrie had always had rough edges, but there had also been a tenderness that was surprisingly deep. She was one of the few who’d ever witnessed that side of him, but she had witnessed it. She wasn’t seeing any of it now. It was as if the only person Durrie cared about now was himself.

  She wasn’t sure when the change had occurred. It had been a gradual thing she hadn’t realized was happening until far later than she should have. When she did, she’d suggested they go in for couples counseling, thinking his moodiness had something to do with their relationship. He assured her they were fine, that everything was fine.

  But whatever was troubling him had only worsened.

  The bedroom door opened, and a few seconds later Durrie appeared at the end of the hall, wearing a T-shirt and his favorite sweatpants, his hair tousled from drying.

  “It’s almost ready,” she said. “Grab another beer if you want. Get me one, too.”

  He entered the kitchen, but instead of opening the refrigerator, he moved in behind her and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I don’t deserve you,” he said.

  She hesitated only a second before responding the way she always did. “No, you don’t.”

  “Then why do you hang around?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Probably because I love you.”

  He turned her around and pressed her against the stove.

  “Careful. You’ll catch us both on fire,” she said.

  He kissed her, hard and deep, in a way he hadn’t in a long, long time. It caught her off guard, but soon enough she responded in kind.

  He flipped off the burners and lifted her into his arms, an easy task given her five-foot, ninety-nine-pound frame.

  As he carried her out of the kitchen, she said, “What about dinner?”

  “It can wait.”

  In the bedroom, they made love for the first time in months.

  And for the last time ever.

  Chapter Four

  “I’m sorry, you’ve tied my hands,” Peter said over the phone.

  “Only because you’re believing that bastard and not me,” Durrie said.

  He’d waited until the next morning to return Peter’s call, after Orlando had gone on a run. He’d prepped himself for Peter letting him go, but that had not happened. What Peter was offering, though, was almost worse.

  “Jacko’s not the only one who’s voiced concerns and you know it,” Peter said. “You need to earn back my confidence. You do this and everything goes well, we’ll do another one.”

  “With me still as number two?”

  “You prove to me that you can handle that, and that you’re not a risk, and we can talk about moving you back to being lead. Eventually.”

  Durrie scoffed.

  “I’m offering you a way out here. So, what’s it going to be? Yes or no?”

  “You’re offering me crap.”

  “Is that a no?”

  Durrie closed his eyes. Being demoted to the number-two position was humiliating enough. Putting his former apprentice, his protégé, in the lead position was soul crushing. If not for Orlando and her belief in him, he would have told Peter to go to hell.

  “No, it’s not a no. I’ll…I’ll do it.”

  “Wow. Can’t say that I’m not surprised, but all right. I’ll be in touch.”

  Durrie put his phone in his pocket and looked out the window.

  This world was really starting to suck.

  Chapter Five

  ONE DAY LATER

  MUNICH, GERMANY

  “Truant for Quinn.”

  “Go for Quinn.”

  “Phase one complete.”

  “Copy, phase one complete,” Jonathan Quinn said.

  “I’m out. Good luck.”

  “Pleasure doing business with you.”

  A double click over the comm from Andreas Truant, echoing the sentiment.

  Quinn glanced at Steve Howard, his number two on this mission. “Ready?”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  Quinn led the way out of the basement machine room, past the laundry room, and into the residential stairwell. The muffled sounds of televisions and conversations drifted down the second-floor hallway as they passed the landing and continued up. On the third, they stopped.

  More sounds here, though only about half as much as below. Perhaps those who lived on this level were of the early-to-bed variety.

  Quinn made sure no one was out in the hall before heading down to apartment 307. As expected, Truant had left the front door unlocked.

  Quinn and Howard found the target slumped over the glass dining room table, head lying on an open newspaper. On the floor next to the man sat an expensive-looking briefcase, the target’s initials engraved on the metal plate beneath the handle.

  The method of execution had been the introduction of a small-caliber bullet to the back of the target’s head, the projectile powerful enough to enter the brain cavity but not escape the skull after it rattled around inside. Because of the way the man had slumped, most of his blood remained inside his body. This was not by accident but a testament to Truant’s assassin skills.

  Quinn examined the scene, identifying every spot of blood and pointing each out to Howard. After the assessment was completed, he and his number two set to work.

  First up: placing a gauze-lined beanie over the man’s head and securing it with a roll of self-adherent compression bandage so that no additional blood would leak out. They then laid out the body bag and transferred the target into it.

  Next, using a specially crafted solvent, they cleaned up the blood that had made it onto the table and the area around it. The mixture had been developed years earlier by Quinn’s mentor, Durrie, and was designed to remove not only visible signs of blood, but also nearly ninety percent of the
residue that could be revealed by a UV light. In this particular instance, with such a small amount of splatter, it was unlikely there would be hints of blood left.

  Of course it would be weeks, at least, before the target’s associates conducted a detailed search of the place. This was the target’s private little getaway, an apartment not even his wife knew about. A place where he could unwind and secretly enjoy the teenage boys he liked to pick up. Not a great look for the leader of the Southern Germany Aryan Resurgence.

  Well, not a great look for anyone.

  By the time the apartment would finally be linked to him, his regularly scheduled maid service would have cleaned the place at least twice, further obscuring any potential evidence Quinn might have missed. Not that he ever missed anything.

  This was only the third time Quinn had worked with Howard, and like on the other two jobs, he was pleased with what he saw. Howard was smart, efficient, and reliable. He also wasn’t a big talker. Quinn had worked with operatives who would go on and on about nothing at all. Howard’s economy of language was appreciated.

  Another bonus was that Howard didn’t have a problem working for a cleaner, unlike many other operatives who considered what Quinn did beneath them. They preferred jobs that “got more action.”

  It was a lame excuse. While body removal didn’t sound glamorous, it was surprising how much action Quinn had been involved in, first during his time as an apprentice, and then over the last few years when working on his own.

  While Howard wiped off the other surfaces in the room to remove any stray smudges and markings, Quinn searched the rest of the apartment. The mission brief had doubted anything of value was there, but it had requested a look around nonetheless.

  Turned out there was something, after all. Beneath false flooring in the bedroom, Quinn found a safe. Inside were not only files containing information on the target’s Aryan brothers, but also a thick manila envelope filled with pictures of some of the boys to whom he had played host.

  Quinn flipped through the pictures to make sure nothing was hidden among them. Nothing was, but in addition to shots of the teens, Quinn discovered dozens of photos of other adult males taking part in the…activities.

  Though Quinn’s mission was being run through the Office, Peter was playing middle man for the job’s true client, the BfV, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. Quinn had no doubt the ministry in Cologne would be eager to identify all of the target’s friends.

  He put the safe’s contents into a thick plastic bag and shoved it inside the body bag for easy transport.

  He and Howard did a final sweep of the flat, and last but not least, Quinn ran a handheld vacuum over the area where the assassination had taken place, to remove any remaining DNA evidence.

  He checked his watch. It was just after eleven p.m. They could probably make it out of the building now without being seen, but there was no reason to risk it. They weren’t in a hurry.

  “Shall we see what’s on TV?” Quinn asked.

  At 1:45 a.m., Quinn and Howard carried the body down to the ground level, where Quinn eased open a ground-floor door and peeked into the hallway that led from the building’s front lobby.

  The corridor was empty.

  Quinn motioned for Howard to remain with the body, and then slipped through the opening. This was the most dangerous portion of the mission. The building had a two-man night security team. As long as both remained at the lobby desk, everything would be fine. Quinn needed to make sure they were there.

  As he neared the front, he heard voices and music coming from a TV. He stopped just shy of the end of the hall, lowered himself onto his hands and knees, and edged his head out far enough to see the guard desk.

  It faced the front of the building, away from him. Behind it were both guards, their attention on a movie playing on one of several monitors.

  Perfect.

  Quinn hurried back to the stairwell, then he and Howard carried their burden toward the back end of the hall, to a door labeled ZUTRITT FÜR UNBEFUGTE VERBOTEN—entry prohibited to unauthorized persons. The door was locked, but Quinn had procured a key in the lead-up to the evening’s activities.

  Holding on to his end of the body bag with one hand and balancing the target’s shoulder on his knee, Quinn unlocked the door and slowly pushed it inward. Before it was all the way open, the sound of a chair moving in the lobby drifted down the hall.

  Quickly, Quinn and Howard moved the body through the doorway. The room they entered was a large, mostly open space, with shelves to the right containing maintenance products and gear. Besides the door they’d used, there were three others—one to a storage room that, according to the building plans, held mail and packages; one to a bathroom; and one to the outside. If Quinn had already turned off the alarm on the back door, that exit would have been the obvious choice. But the process required free hands and a minute on his laptop, and there was no time for that.

  Instead, they hurried to the package room. Quinn tried the maintenance-door key, but though it slipped into the lock, it wouldn’t turn. He pulled out his lockpicks, inserted the instruments into the keyhole, and coaxed the tumblers into place. As the last one complied, he heard a key slide into the lock on the hallway door. Quinn opened the package room and they rushed inside, getting the door closed again a second before the other one opened.

  After carefully setting the body down, Quinn pressed an ear against the door.

  Footsteps moved through the room, clicking across the cement floor. A door opened with a subtle whine. Not a heavy door like the one to the outside, but lighter. The bathroom door. When it shut again, the room fell silent.

  Figuring they had a few minutes, Quinn removed his laptop and disarmed the rear exit. Then he pressed his ear against the door again.

  The silence continued until the sound of a flushing toilet drifted across the room. Half a minute later, the bathroom door opened and the steps crossed back to the hallway door. As soon as the man was gone, Quinn and Howard carried the body bag out of the package room and exited the building.

  Soon they were in their car, headed out of town, toward the grave site they’d prepped the day before.

  All things considered, a textbook job.

  Chapter Six

  WASHINGTON, DC

  “You can go in now,” the man behind the desk said.

  Quinn set down the copy of Wired magazine he’d been flipping through, rose, and walked to the door on the man’s right.

  The office beyond was surprisingly small given the responsibilities of its occupant. Approximately fifteen feet square, the space was crammed with bookcases and filing cabinets and a beat-up-looking metal desk, behind which sat the balding, height-challenged Peter, director of the Office.

  “Sit,” Peter said, not looking up from the file he was reading.

  Quinn lowered into the guest chair and crossed his legs.

  Peter’s attention stayed on the file for another full minute before he looked up. “Thanks for coming in.” While Quinn knew the sentiment was genuine, the tone, as always, was gruff and rushed.

  “It was on my way home.”

  “So, Munich?”

  “In, out. Done.”

  “No problems?”

  “None.”

  “How was working with Truant?”

  This was the first time Quinn had been paired with the assassin. “Easy. Professional. No complaints.”

  Peter grunted. “He said the same about you.”

  Quinn didn’t reply, though he was pleased. He’d been a full-fledged, independent cleaner for only a few years and was still building his reputation. Endorsements like Truant’s would go a long way to helping that.

  “And your assistant?” Peter asked.

  “Howard? Efficient as always.” Quinn frowned. “It’s, um, all in my report.’”

  “Yeah, I read it. But sometimes people write one thing and say another.”

  “So…you just called me in to check if my report was accurate?�
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  “What? No. That job’s done. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about it anymore.”

  The response did nothing to quell Quinn’s growing confusion. “Then what can I do for you?”

  Peter grabbed a file off a pile in the corner of his desk and opened it. “Dammit.” He closed it and picked up the next one down the stack. “What the hell?” He looked past Quinn toward the door. “Benjamin! Get in here!”

  The man from the other room entered. “Yes, sir?”

  “Where’s the MC-17 file?”

  “Sir?”

  “The MC-17 file!” Peter gestured at the stack on his desk. “It was right here before I went to lunch!”

  “You told me to put the ones from this morning away and bring you the group for this afternoon.”

  “I did, didn’t I? But what else did I tell you?”

  A thought brought a cringe to Benjamin’s face. “Leave the file that was on top. I’m sorry, sir. I’ll retrieve it right away.”

  Benjamin hurried out the door.

  “He’s new, right?” Quinn said.

  Peter frowned as he nodded.

  Quinn could not remember ever seeing one of Peter’s assistants on more than one visit. Clearly, it wasn’t an easy job to hold. Not exactly the warm and fuzzy type, Peter demanded a lot from those who worked for him. Too much for some.

  He made similar demands on Quinn, too, but that didn’t bother Quinn. He liked to work hard.

  Given that Benjamin couldn’t even remember a small detail in a simple set of instructions, Quinn had no doubt another new face would be sitting at the desk the next time he came around.

  The door opened and Benjamin rushed back in and set a file on Peter’s desk. “I’m sorry, sir. Completely my mistake. Won’t happen again.”

  Peter stared at him, his face blank.

  Benjamin took a backward step toward the door. “Again, I’m very sorry.” Another step. “Really.”

  Peter kept his gaze on his assistant until Benjamin moved across the threshold and shut the door. Peter then opened the file and pulled out a photo.