The Destroyed Page 6

  Julien frowned for a second, then suddenly brightened. “Maybe the target ordered room service and didn’t finish. Can’t let that go to waste, huh?”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “If no room service, he must have bought some Swiss chocolate, don’t you think?”

  By the time they reached the door to the stairwell, Henrik had administered the Beta-Somnol, and the five-minute clock had begun. Based on their trial runs, it would take Quinn and Julien exactly four and a half minutes to get from their current position to the subject’s door, providing them with a thirty-second cushion in case anything slowed them down.

  Nothing did.

  Quinn tapped the door twice, paused, then once more. He expected to see Henrik and the three men working with him standing nearby, ready to leave, when the door opened. Instead, all but the one who opened the door were still searching the room.

  “Twenty seconds,” Quinn said.

  “We can’t find it,” Henrik explained.

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re out by the deadline or you’re moving the body yourself.”

  “I realize that,” Henrik said. He pointed at the desk next to the subject’s laptop. “They should have been right there.”

  “Maybe it’s on the computer.”

  “No. Hard copies only. I was told they were concerned about having any of it in digital form.”

  “Did anyone lay eyes on it to be sure he had it?”

  “Peter confirmed the handoff occurred, but he couldn’t tell us exactly what the information was contained in,” he said. The Office was the client on this job. “Both he and I assumed it would be in an envelope or file folder.”

  Quinn looked at his watch. “Five seconds. Are you staying or am I?”

  Henrik frowned, then scooped the laptop off the desk and looked over at his men. “Grab his suitcase and shoulder bag. We’ll search them again off-site.”

  Quinn grimaced. The bags were part of his disposal responsibility. He didn’t like having pieces floating out there that could cause problems later. “You’ll need to burn them.”

  “Don’t worry. We will.”

  “You do it yourself.”

  “I’ll see to it personally,” Henrik assured him.

  Reluctantly, Quinn nodded.

  Henrik headed for the door. “Let’s go. Let’s go.”

  Before the team was even out of the room, Quinn and Julien began preparing the body for transport. Soon they were also leaving, carrying an aluminum-reinforced cardboard box that contained the subject. If asked, Quinn would simply say they were carrying a replacement duct for the heating system. But they made it through the hotel without any fuss.

  They put the box into the dark green van parked downstairs, then leisurely drove off. As soon as they were out of sight of the hotel, Quinn moved into the back, opened the box, and began removing the clothes and all identifying items from the body. These, like the now-dead target, would be going up in flames. He had just pulled off the guy’s undershirt and was reaching for the waistband of the pajama pants when he noticed a flesh-colored bandage on the man’s torso, just below his ribs.

  He pulled it off in case there was some sort of tattoo underneath that he hadn’t been told about. No tattoo, but that didn’t suppress his surprise. There was a bump under the skin, one-centimeter square. It was red with a fresh scab at one end that looked very much like it was covering an incision.

  Quinn swore to himself, and for a second considered slapping the bandage back on. This wasn’t his responsibility. The only thing he’d been hired to do was get rid of the body. Except, much to the disapproval of his old mentor Durrie, he’d never been one who focused solely on his job and ignored everything else. On this particular operation, he was fully aware that the main focus, beyond the subject’s death, was to obtain a set of documents.

  He grabbed a knife out of his kit, and cut around three sides of the square, turning the skin into a flap. Underneath was exactly what he’d been worried he’d find, a small container holding a stack of microphotographs.

  The documents. Had to be. Old-school spy craft at its best.

  Son of a bitch.

  With extreme reluctance, he called Peter.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve already finished,” Peter said.

  “Still in progress.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Has Henrik given you an update?”

  “Yes. Very disappointing.”

  “Maybe not.”

  After he finished explaining what he’d found, Peter sounded almost jubilant. “Oh, thank God! Good work. Really, really good work.”

  “I don’t want to hold on to this. That’s not my responsibility.”

  “Of course not. Stay on the line. Let me see if I can reach Henrik and arrange a handoff.”

  Henrik, it turned out, had followed protocol and gone to ground. It would be at least another twenty-four hours before he checked in again.

  “Don’t worry,” Peter said. “I’ll arrange an alternative. Tell me where and when.”

  __________

  DECIDING THAT THE photos were less a problem to be driving around with than the body in the back of the van, Quinn set a rendezvous time for after the disposal of his primary cargo.

  Once that was done, Quinn and Julien took the van to the location Quinn had given Peter for the handoff—a darkened street a few blocks behind St. Leodegar’s Church. As Quinn had planned, they arrived fifteen minutes early to do a quick reconnaissance on foot to make sure the area was clean.

  “Five minutes,” he said. “Then we’re out of here.” He’d already done more than his due diligence by reporting what he’d found and agreeing to the handoff. He wasn’t about to risk his and Julien’s lives by spending any more time in Lucerne than they had to.

  Two minutes before his self-imposed deadline, they heard the whine of a scooter growing louder and louder as it neared their street, then stopping just around the corner.

  The silence that descended was soon broken by the sound of footsteps echoing softly off the old stone buildings. A silhouette appeared at the end of the block, walking toward them. The person was no more than five foot three or four, and had a matching small frame. Despite the helmet, Quinn knew it was a woman. It wasn’t just her size that gave her away; it was how she walked in the confident yet natural way only a woman could achieve.

  “Beautiful night for a stroll,” she said as she neared, her voice distorted somewhat by the helmet.

  “Could be warmer,” Quinn replied, completing the on-the-fly recognition code Peter had come up with.

  She reached up and pulled her helmet off, releasing a torrent of thick, shoulder-length hair. Even in the darkness, Quinn could make out her face well enough. His first thought was that she was probably Eastern European. She had the slightly Asiatic eyes and high cheekbones that graced the faces of many Slavic models. If it weren’t for her height, she probably could have been one, too.

  “Mila,” Julien said, surprised. He smiled and threw his arms open wide.

  The woman grinned and let the big Frenchman envelop her in a bear hug. When he finally pulled back, he held her in front of him, a hand on each of her shoulders as he looked her over.

  “How have you been?”

  “Good,” she said.

  “Keeping busy?”

  “Yes. Thank you for passing my name around.” Not Eastern European. American. Unless she’d worked her ass off getting rid of any trace of an accent.

  Julien scoffed. “Please. It’s what we do, huh? Help each other out?”

  “Not everyone thinks like you. I mean it—thank you.”

  “Are you guys finished?” Quinn asked.

  Julien threw an arm around the woman’s shoulder, and turned her to face Quinn.

  “Have you met Mila Voss yet?” he asked.

  “Uh, no. But apparently you have.”

  Julien laughed more loudly than Quinn would have liked, given the supposed secrecy of their meeting
.

  “Of course, I know her,” Julien said. “I got her into the business.” He leaned forward, his volume dropping only a few decibels. “We were together for a while. You know—young woman, Paris, a handsome man like me. It was only natural.”

  The woman looked embarrassed. Quinn couldn’t tell whether it was because she regretted her relationship with Julien, or because she didn’t want that to color Quinn’s professional opinion of her.

  “Julien, please,” she said. She patted him a few times on his ribs, and pulled out from under his arm. “We talked about this, remember?”

  “What?” he asked, then his smile faltered a bit. “Quinn’s different. He’s not going to care.”

  She sighed.

  “Okay, okay,” Julien said. “Je suis désolé.” He looked at Quinn. “Some things are apparently better left unsaid.”

  “I’m going to have to agree with you on that,” Quinn said.

  “Let’s start again, d’accord? Jonathan, this is Mila Voss. Courier extraordinaire. Mila, this is the legendary Jonathan Quinn.”

  She held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “You, too,” Quinn said. “Now, if you guys don’t mind, maybe we can get this handoff taken care of and get the hell out of here.”

  “Of course,” Mila said.

  “I have a great idea,” Julien said. “Quinn and I are going to grab a late dinner after this. Maybe you can join us?”

  Quinn was about to tell Julien that was a bad idea when Mila said, “Thank you, but I’ve been instructed to deliver this without delay. Maybe some other time.”

  The Frenchman looked disappointed.

  “Sure,” Quinn said quickly. “Some other time.” From his pocket, he pulled out the envelope he had put the microfilm into, and gave it to her. “That’s it.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll, uh, just be on my way. It was good to meet you, Mr. Quinn.”

  “Just Quinn is fine. Good to meet you, too, Mila.”

  She gave Julien another hug. “Be safe, okay?” She hesitated before adding, “I still worry about you.”

  “No need to ever worry about me. I will live forever. I worry about you.”

  She hit him on the arm as she pulled away. “Find a good woman and settle down. That’s what you need to do.”

  “Is that an offer?”

  She shook her head and laughed to herself as she walked away.

  Once she disappeared around the corner, Quinn said, “You’re still in love with her.”

  “I’ll always be in love with her,” Julien replied wistfully. Then, in a tone of recharged energy, said, “I will always be in love with any woman who shares my bed. Why would I invite them there otherwise?”

  Quinn saw right through the lie of the second part, but he could tell the first was one hundred percent true.

  CHAPTER 8

  LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

  MILA’S HAIR WAS now black. Technically, it was the wig that was black, but she’d learned many years ago that to really sell a disguise, you had to make it your own—be a woman with black hair, in this case.

  She was dressed in a conservative gray business suit, and carried over her shoulder a brown leather briefcase. Tinted glasses helped hide her still youthful face, and high heels made her seem taller than she was.

  She had taken the Victoria line of London’s Underground from Oxford Circus all the way out to Tottenham Hale. From there she transferred to a regular passenger train out to Waltham Cross Station, and then grabbed a cab into neighboring Waltham Abbey.

  It was early yet, only ten thirty, and while many of the shops were already open on Sun Street near the old church, the shoppers had yet to show up in any kind of numbers.

  As she walked down the middle of the walking street, she could feel the eyes of those in the stores looking out at her, wondering who she might be. That was fine. It didn’t matter if they remembered the black-haired businesswoman who looked like a lawyer or stockbroker or some other high-powered type. She wouldn’t be that person for long.

  Her destination was a half block before the end of the street, a small suite of offices on the upper floor of a building, above a pub called Sir David. The door to the offices was off to the side, allowing the pub to have as much front real estate as possible. There was no sign next to the door, nothing to indicate what kind of business was beyond. There was only a cream-colored plastic box with a speaker on top and a button on the bottom that Mila pushed.

  The speaker crackled to life.

  “Yes?” a male voice said.

  “I have an appointment,” Mila replied, her voice low so that it wouldn’t carry down the street.

  “Ms. Carter?”

  “Yes.”

  “One moment.”

  As the speaker went dead, the front door lock clicked. She grabbed the handle and pulled it open. Carpeted stairs rose through a narrow, dingy passageway to another door at the top. Just before she reached it, it opened.

  “Come in,” the man standing on the other side said.

  She covered her hesitation with a smile. The information she’d uncovered in Stockholm had been right. It was him.

  The six years since she’d last seen him had not been particularly kind to the man. He looked older, much older, and favored a hip as he backed out of the way so she could enter. She had expected some change, of course. According to what she’d learned, he’d been forced out of the business because he’d contracted lung cancer, and while surgery and chemotherapy treatments had put it into remission, it was obvious his illness had taken a huge toll on him.

  “I assume you’re Mr. Johnston,” she said.

  “I am. Please, this way.”

  She sensed no recognition in his eyes, but given her disguise and the fact that she supposedly died just hours after the only time they had ever met, it wasn’t surprising.

  He led her through two rooms, stuffed with old books in boxes and on shelves, to an office at the back.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” he said, motioning to the guest chair in front of the desk. “Would you like some tea?”

  His English accent amused her. It was good, but she knew he was as American as she was.

  “Not right now, thank you,” she said as she sat.

  “You won’t mind if I have some, I hope.”

  “Not at all.”

  Johnston walked over to a hot plate on a cabinet in the corner, and picked up the teakettle. Once he’d filled a cup, he carried it back to the desk, stirring constantly, and sat down in his stuffed leather desk chair.

  “You’re right on time, Ms. Carter. I appreciate that.”

  “Time is not something to be wasted.”

  “Very true.” He smiled and took a tentative sip of tea.

  “In the interest of time, perhaps we can get right to business? You said you had one of the books on my list.”

  “I do.”

  He stood again, and used a key to unlock a nearby cabinet.

  If he’d actually figured out who she was, this was the moment he’d make his move, and retrieve not a book but something more lethal. She slipped her hand into her shoulder bag, encircling the grip of the pistol inside, and pointed it at the retired spy.

  Since his body blocked her view, she couldn’t tell what was in his hand until he turned around. At the sight of the book, she released her gun.

  He set the Steinbeck on the desk in front of her. On the worn dust jacket was printed The Grapes of Wrath and the author’s name. Below this was a faded illustration of a man in overalls looking down into a valley at several trucks heading, presumably, to California.

  “Viking Press first US edition, 1939. I’m lucky enough to have two copies, but this is the one in the best condition.”

  “Good.” She pretended to examine the book. “And the others on the list?”

  “I have leads on the Maugham and two of the Greenes. Perhaps next week. The Hemingway is proving to be more difficult than I expected.”

  Sh
e shrugged. “No matter. It’s not the books that are important.”

  The man looked at her for a moment. “Pardon? I must have misunderstood you.”

  She reached into her bag once more, and this time pulled out the suppressor-enhanced pistol, aiming it at the man’s chest. “I don’t think you misunderstood me at all, Agent Evans.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Who sent you?” he asked, all traces of his English accent gone.

  “No one sent me.”

  “No one?”

  “I came on my own.”

  He examined her face, confused. “I don’t know you.”

  “Actually, you do.” She removed the glasses and pulled off the black wig. From his continued look of bewilderment, she could see he still had no clue. “How about this? Las Vegas in May of 2006? You weren’t there, but you were the one who hired me to take a package there. Surely you haven’t forgotten that.”

  For several seconds he just stared at her. Finally he said, “Not possible. Mila Voss is dead.”

  “Come now. You handed me the package yourself. In a hotel room in Arlington, remember? The ugly orange bedspreads, and the lime-green carpet? You rushed me out. I thought at the time it was because the room was too disgusting to remain in, even for you. But I think you just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss my flight.”

  The blood drained from his face. “Dear God. We…we were told you were dead.” He paused. “I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Really? How did they come to think I was going to be a problem that had to be dealt with? It was because of the Portugal trip a month earlier, wasn’t it? Turns out you were the agent in charge of that. I don’t remember you. I’m sure you weren’t on the plane.”

  “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.