The Silenced Read online

  Nate took a quick look around. “None.”

  Quinn nodded, then opened his door. Chances were they could leave the Toyota there all day and no one would question it.

  “What about the gear?” Nate asked once he joined him outside.

  “We’ll come back for it once we know what’s up,” Quinn said.

  They walked to Main Street, waited for traffic to clear, then crossed to the other side.

  “They can’t want us coming in through the front,” Nate said. “Gotta be a rear entrance.”

  “Check it out,” Quinn said.

  While Quinn examined the menu posted in the window of the café, Nate walked around to the back of the building.

  When he returned, he nodded. “Three doors. Two for the café and one for the empty shop.”

  Quinn looked at his watch. They were ten minutes early.

  “Let’s get a coffee first,” he said.

  “And a sandwich?”

  Quinn frowned. “Fine. But to go.”

  “It would probably draw less attention if you order something, too.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” But the untimely growl from his stomach belied his tone.

  • • •

  The man who greeted them at the back door of Alison’s Boutique was small only in height. Quinn guessed he wasn’t more than five foot five. He wasn’t fat, though. Muscles bulged, large and menacing and almost, but not quite, obscene. Steroids for sure, and about a million hours in the gym. If his muscle mass had been toned down even ten percent, he would have been more intimidating. Small guys could be wiry and unpredictable. But with this guy’s bulk, speed and agility were no longer options.

  “You’re late,” he said as he moved out of the way to let them in.

  Quinn and Nate crossed inside.

  “You Donovan?” Quinn asked, once he and Nate were inside.

  The man shook his head. “He’ll be back in a bit.” He nodded toward a rectangular table in the center of the room surrounded by folding chairs. There was no one else present. “You can make yourself comfortable there.”

  “So who are you?”

  “I’m Mr. Edgar.”

  Quinn cocked his head. “We’ve worked together before, haven’t we?” He stared at the man for a moment. “Not Edgar. It’s …” He thought for a moment. “It’s Mercer, isn’t it?”

  “Not bad,” Mercer said. “And you’re Quinn.”

  Mercer had been a background player on a job three years earlier. A gig for the Office.

  “You were a courier, weren’t you?” Quinn asked.

  “Was. But haven’t been for a long time.”

  Without another word, Mercer turned and walked out of the room, leaving Quinn and Nate alone.

  Nate, who was already sitting down, sandwich in hand, said, “Friend of yours?”

  “Barely know him,” Quinn said as he took a seat across the table from his apprentice.

  “Friendly type.”

  Quinn shrugged. You met all kinds in this business.

  At five minutes after two, the back door to the shop opened again, and four men walked in. They were all somewhere between thirty and forty years old and were casually dressed: jeans, button-down shirts, light jackets.

  “Quinn?” the one with thinning hair asked.

  Quinn stood up and held out his hand. “Are you Donovan?”

  “Yep,” Donovan said. “Shall we get down to it?”

  A moment later everyone was seated around the table looking at a map. It showed property lines and accurate footprints of each structure in the area. There were also circles of various sizes indicating the locations of trees and other vegetation. At the street end of each property was the corresponding address. Donovan pointed to a block of Main Street not in the town center area, but further out in the direction of Mosher Corner.

  “Here’s the target house,” Donovan said.

  He circled an upside-down, reversed L in the center of a parcel on the north side of the street. The home was set back a couple of hundred feet from the road.

  “We’re doing it in the target’s home?” Quinn asked.

  Donovan nodded. “Not ideal, I know. But he lives alone, and seldom goes out. The report I have says the only visitors he gets are the mailman and a weekly delivery of groceries.”

  “Bedridden?” Nate asked.

  “No. Just private,” Donovan replied. “We arrived yesterday morning. Since then I’ve had one of my men keeping an eye on the place using thermal-scanning gear. We’re sure someone is inside, but whoever it is hasn’t stepped through the front door yet.”

  Quinn thought for a moment, then said, “How positive are you that you’ll need me?”

  Donovan paused, then said, “Let’s you and I take a walk.”

  They headed up Main Street, then south along Elm. As soon as it was apparent no one was interested in them, Donovan removed an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Quinn. A file listed Kenneth Moody’s name, his address, and the letter T.

  Terminate.

  “So what does the rest of your team think?” Quinn asked.

  “Per instructions, they know the mission, but not the target’s ID.”

  Quinn nodded. Wills had given him the same instructions. But Quinn had long ago decided that whatever he knew about a job, Nate and Orlando would know also.

  “Any chance this guy realizes what’s coming?” Quinn asked.

  “From what I understand, he’s paranoid, so he probably always thinks something’s coming.”

  “And you’re positive he’s there alone?”

  “My man’s been doing hourly thermal scans since yesterday. So far he’s only logged one person.”

  “What about a basement? I assume this house has one. Your equipment can’t see down.”

  Donovan smiled. “Wills got some satellite time last night. Took ten overhead thermal images at just after two-thirty a.m. local. It confirmed our findings. Only one person.”

  “What if it’s not him?”

  “Then we don’t term.”

  They walked silently for a moment. “So what’s the plan?” Quinn asked.

  “The property is surrounded by a thick layer of trees and enough distance between houses that we shouldn’t run into any problems with neighbors. We’ve ID’d weak points and will be inside the house less than two minutes from mission start.”

  “Tonight?”

  Donovan nodded. “In position at nine p.m., then get things going at ten. Your designation will be team four. When we get back, make sure you get comm gear for you and your assistant.”

  “Will do,” Quinn said.

  “When we’re ready for you, you’ll get a ‘Team four go.’ But if I say ‘Abort,’ get the hell out of there.”

  “Vehicle?” Quinn asked. His rental car was not body-removal-friendly.

  “Parked two blocks away. A black Lincoln MKZ.” He gave Quinn the plate number.

  “Gear?” Quinn asked.

  “Everything on the list we got is in the trunk, less what was waiting for you at the motel.”

  “Okay,” Quinn said. “Then we’re set on my end.”

  It was a straightforward op, the kind that should go off flawlessly. Only the job in L.A. was supposed to have been the same kind of thing.

  Quinn couldn’t help wondering how this one was going to get screwed up, too.

  “IF WE’RE TOO LATE …” PETRA LET THE SENTENCE hang, not wanting to give voice to her biggest fear.

  So much time wasted.

  Bangkok. Hong Kong. New Jersey. And yesterday Los Angeles.

  All a waste of time.

  In each case they’d been too late. The only positive Petra could take from any of it was that they seemed to be getting closer. While McKitrick, Chang, and Thomas had been dead or missing before she had arrived, Winters had at least still been alive. For a while, anyway.

  That left Moody. If they didn’t find him, then the promise she and the others had made to those who had died would go un
fulfilled, the justice they sought rendered permanently unfinished.

  But Moody had proved frustrating in his own way. Mikhail’s search for him had led from Philadelphia to Manhattan to Boston.

  Only Boston wasn’t the end, either. It was just another stop on Moody’s trail. He had been there, but had again moved. It took until early evening before Mikhail was able to pinpoint Portland, Maine, as Moody’s next destination.

  It was a 112-mile drive north to Portland, but traffic made it seem twice as far. They were already past the two-hour mark, but only halfway there. If it was possible, the traffic here was even worse than it had been in Los Angeles.

  “We’ll get him,” Mikhail reassured her.

  Petra glanced at him, surprised that he could read her so well. They were in the back seat of a Nissan Maxima, Mikhail with his laptop propped on his lap and a cell phone in his hand, and Petra holding nothing but her fear that they would fail again. Kolya was up front driving.

  “Hello?” Mikhail said into his phone. “Da … da …” He sandwiched it between his ear and his shoulder, then typed something on his computer. “Spasibo.”

  He hung up the phone and looked at Petra.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Stepka got an address,” Mikhail said.

  “How old?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Not old.” He smiled. “Current.”

  They reached Portland at nine-thirty, and twenty minutes later entered the small town of Gorham.

  “There,” Mikhail said, pointing at a house on the left, set back from the street.

  “I don’t see any lights,” Kolya said. “Maybe he’s not home.”

  They drove past, continuing down the road another hundred yards before Petra told Kolya to pull to the side.

  “What now?” Mikhail asked.

  Petra considered their options. They could get out of the car here and work their way back in the darkness. Take some time to observe the house, make sure nothing was amiss before making a move. That would be the cautious approach.

  But so far the cautious approach hadn’t worked for them.

  “We go knock on the door,” she said.

  While the day had been cool, the night was bordering on damn cold. Quinn was wearing two T-shirts, a thick sweater, and a wool jacket. He’d even put thermals on under his jeans. Still, he swore he could feel his body temperature lowering.

  Nate was similarly attired. But if he was as miserable as Quinn, he wasn’t saying anything. They’d been waiting in the woods for an hour, having worked their way in from a half mile away.

  They’d found a suitable hiding place between some trees and bushes, a small area that had been flattened by either kids or an animal. Not quite the fort Quinn had had in his youth, but it would do.

  They were behind the garage, and from that angle could see only part of the back of the house and none of the front yard. The windows on this side were all dark. Perhaps the target had turned in early.

  Donovan’s voice came over their comm gear. “Position check.”

  “Set,” five voices replied, one after the other in a prearranged order. Quinn and Nate remained silent. Donovan was only interested in his ops team at the moment, not the cleaning crew.

  Quinn checked his watch. Seven minutes until show-time.

  “How long do you think it’ll take them?” Nate whispered.

  Quinn kept his eyes on the dark house. “We’ll get the call at 10:05.”

  “My money’s on 10:07,” Nate said.

  “Hundred bucks?” Quinn asked.

  “Works for me.”

  Quinn flexed his feet to keep his muscles warm as he wondered for the millionth time in the last hour how he could work a “minimum temperature” clause into his job requirements.

  “Car on slow approach,” a voice said over the radio. Not Donovan, one of his men.

  “Which direction?” Donovan asked.

  “From the east. Same car passed by a few minutes ago … still slowing … okay, stopping at the end of the driveway.”

  “Everyone hold position,” Donovan said.

  “Turning onto the driveway,” the voice said.

  “Do you have a visual on who’s inside?” Donovan asked tersely, unable to keep the growing annoyance from his voice.

  “Man up front, man and woman in the back.”

  “We’re moving,” Quinn whispered to Nate.

  His apprentice nodded, then stepped back so Quinn could take the lead. They headed twenty feet deeper into the woods, then west toward the corner of the property. There they hunched down again, this time in a spot with a view of the front yard and the entrance to the house.

  The car slowly rolled up the driveway. The driver had turned off the headlights, but the running lights were still on. As it neared the house, it slowed to a crawl.

  “They’re stopping,” one of Donovan’s men said.

  The car came to rest twenty feet from the house’s front door.

  “I’ve got movement inside the building,” another voice said. It had to be Dailey. He was the one set up across the street, monitoring the thermal readings coming from inside the house. “Subject is descending from second floor … holding at bottom of stairs … okay, moving again, toward the front door.”

  Just then the two back passenger doors of the sedan opened.

  “Subject has stopped again,” Dailey said.

  Must have heard his visitors, Quinn thought.

  “Okay, he’s moving to the window north of the door. Two bodies out of the car. Driver still inside.”

  “Everyone continue to hold,” Donovan instructed. “But be ready to move. If we have to, we take them all. Team four, you guys might have a little more work than planned.”

  Quinn keyed his mic on and off, creating an electronic click indicating he understood.

  Understood, yes. But he hoped to God that Donovan was wrong. The more people involved, the more chances things would go wrong, and getting caught with several bodies in a small town in Maine was kind of hard to talk your way out of.

  The two from the car gathered together near the front of the sedan.

  “Binoculars,” Quinn whispered.

  Nate pulled a set of binoculars out of his backpack and handed them to Quinn. By touch, Quinn flipped the night vision switch, then raised them to his eyes. As he peered through the lenses, he felt his phone vibrate once in his pocket. A text message. It would have to wait.

  He focused in on the car. As reported, the driver had remained behind the wheel. He was young, with short hair. And though Quinn couldn’t really see his face, he could tell the kid was annoyed. Probably doesn’t like being left out.

  Quinn moved his attention to the driver’s two friends. The man had broad shoulders and a hard face and looked to be in his late forties. Short for a guy, maybe five-six tops, but with the vibe of someone who could get things done.

  Quinn tried to get a look at the woman, but she was turned toward the house.

  He followed the duo as they approached the small porch. Then he got what he’d been waiting for. The woman began to turn, unknowingly offering her profile to him. Just as her face came into view, everything went bright white.

  Quinn pulled the binoculars from his eyes and blinked rapidly.

  “Dammit,” he said.

  He tried to look around, but all he could see was the afterimage of the flash.

  “Are you okay?” Nate asked.

  “Someone turned on a light,” Quinn said.

  “On the porch.”

  “I can’t see a goddamn thing.” He held the binoculars out in Nate’s direction. “See what’s going on.”

  The binoculars were good enough for most pedestrian uses, but as a professional tool they didn’t cut it. Quinn would have gone with a model that automatically adjusted as incoming light sources increased. This was what happened when someone else took care of your equipment needs.

  “The door’s still closed,” Nate said. “The two from the car are
standing a few feet away, looking at it. The guy has his hand behind his back under his jacket.”

  “Armed?”

  “Hasn’t pulled anything yet, but I’m guessing he is.”

  Quinn continued to blink. “And they’re just standing there?”

  “Yeah,” Nate said. “Wait. The woman just took a step toward the door. Looks like she’s saying something.”

  The voice of one of Donovan’s men came over the radio again. “They’ve made contact.”

  “Continue holding,” Donovan said. “He may turn them away.”

  Quinn blinked again, then shut his eyes and concentrated on the split second he saw the woman’s profile before the flash.

  The moment he reopened his eyes, he keyed his mic. “Donovan. They’re not friendlies. The woman showed up at the last assignment I had for Wills. They also appear to be armed. I repeat, they’re armed.”

  FROM THE CORNER OF HER EYE, PETRA SAW MIKHAIL reach for his gun when the light came on.

  “No,” she whispered, not moving her lips. “Not yet.”

  Mikhail left his hand behind his back, empty, but ready to grab his weapon if needed.

  “Motion sensor?” he asked.

  Petra shook her head. If there was a sensor, the light would have come on as they walked up, not after they’d stopped. Someone inside had flipped a switch.

  A muffled voice called out from behind the door. “Go away!”

  Petra took a step forward. “Mr. Moody?”

  “Go away! Leave me alone!”

  She arched an eyebrow at Mikhail. Not a denial.

  “Mr. Moody, we just want to talk to you.”

  “Get the hell out of here or I’m calling the police.”

  His accent was not strong, no doubt tempered by years in the States, but there was still a trace of British roots. Just like Moody would have. It had to be him. Moody was alive. For the first time, she could sense a glimmer of hope. They had gotten to him first. Finally, someone would be able to point them to the Ghost.

  “We’re here to help you, not hurt you. We just want to talk. Can we come in, please?”

  “No.”

  “Mr. Moody. Did you know a man named Ryan Winters?”

  A slight hesitation. “I don’t know anyone by that name. Now leave.”