[Quinn 02] - The Deceived - Страница 6

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“Nothing that important,” Quinn said, keeping his voice light and unassuming. “I was just going to be in Washington, and thought maybe we could get together for dinner.”

“You’re a friend, then.”

“Yeah. We went to college together. She told me to call any time I was in town.” Quinn paused. “Is everything all right?”

The man hesitated a moment, then said, “She’s not in the office this week.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, do you know if she’ll be back next week?”

“That I couldn’t tell you. She’s... away for a few weeks. A personal matter, I believe. I’m not sure when she’s due back.”

“Personal? Is she okay?”

The man hesitated. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I’ll try calling her at home, then,” Quinn said.

“Yes. Why don’t you do that? Sorry I couldn’t have been more help.”

The line went dead.

The back of Quinn’s neck tingled as he disconnected the call. What the hell was that all about?

He set the phone on the counter next to his laptop and replayed the conversation in his mind. Jenny out on a leave of absence? At the same time Markoff turns up dead? Granted, there was no direct connection between her personal leave and the end of Markoff ’s life, but Quinn didn’t like the timing.

He heard a car pulling up in front of his house. It had to be Nate. No one else could get through the security gate without being buzzed in. A few moments later, the front door opened. Quinn walked over to where the kitchen transitioned into the living room as Nate entered from the foyer.

“Come in here,” Quinn said. “I need you.”

“Good morning,” Nate said.

Quinn gave his apprentice a half smile. “Morning. Now, come in here.”

He turned and walked back into the kitchen. Once Nate had joined him, Quinn explained what he wanted, then handed over his cell phone. He had already punched in the number for Guerrero’s Houston office, so all Nate had to do was hit Send.

There was a brief delay while the call connected and someone answered. After a moment, Nate said, “Yes, good morning. This is Dan Riley from Overnight Advantage Delivery. I’m not sure if I have the right number or not, but I’m hoping you can help me.” Nate listened, then smiled. As he spoke, his voice took on the tone of a confiding friend. “Here’s my problem. Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to fill out shipping information by hand. I tell ya, the packing slip I’m looking at right now is a mess. About the only thing I can make out is the name of the addressee and most of the phone number. You’re the third person I’ve tried.” Again he waited while the person on the other end spoke. “Let me see. The name on the package is...Jennifer Funtes or Fentes.” Pause. “Fuentes? Yes. That’s it. So I do have the right number. Great. The most annoying part is it’s person-to-person. I had no idea what I was going to do if I didn’t find her. Is she in today?” This time, the person spoke for several seconds. Nate let out a few grunts of subdued surprise, then understanding. “That’s too bad. Do you know when she’ll be back?” The look on Nate’s face foreshadowed his words. “So you have no idea, then.” A pause. “I wish I could. But she’s got to be the one to sign. I guess we’ll try to track down the sender and see what he wants to do.”

Quinn looked at Nate, waiting. His apprentice set the phone on the counter. “The lady said Jennifer Fuentes mainly works out of the

D.C. office, but that according to the staff schedule, she’s on a leave of absence. The lady wasn’t sure when she was coming back. I guess I could have pushed more.”

“No,” Quinn said. “You did fine. Pressing more could have drawn attention.”

“Is Jennifer the girl in the photo?” Nate asked.

Quinn had started to turn away, but paused, the question taking him by surprise. “What?”

“The photo you took off the body yesterday. Was it Jennifer Fuentes?”

Quinn stared at his apprentice for a moment. It wasn’t like what Nate was asking was such a mental stretch. Still, it wasn’t something Quinn was eager to discuss.

“You knew the guy, too, didn’t you?” Nate asked. “Markoff, right?”

“Drop it.”

“I’m just trying to understand what we’re doing.”

“This isn’t a job,” Quinn said.

Nate shrugged, then opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of orange juice. “Seems a little like a job.”

“We don’t have any clients right now.”

Nate retrieved a glass from the cabinet, then filled it with juice. “Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve taken on a job without a client.” He lifted the glass and took a drink.

Quinn drew in a slow breath, checking his emotions. “First, we don’t take jobs,” he said. “I take them.” He started to say something more, then stopped.

After a moment of silence, Nate said, “And second?”

Quinn looked away. He had planned on saying that second, he decided what information Nate got and what he didn’t. But Nate didn’t deserve that. Quinn knew sometimes he kicked into harsh instructor mode too readily.

“Second,” he said, “yes. She’s the girl in the picture. She goes by Jenny, not Jennifer. And you’re right about the body, too. It belonged to... someone I knew. A guy named Steven Markoff.”

Quinn expected Nate to probe more, but his apprentice just smiled and downed the rest of his OJ. When he was through, he asked, “What next?”

Quinn shook his head and started walking toward the living room. Then, more to himself than to Nate, he said, “I wish I knew.”

CHAPTER

QUINN KNEW HE SHOULD JUST FORGET ABOUT HIS DEAD

friend, buried now in the desert. Forget about finding Jenny and telling her. She could live in her ignorance. In time, she would realize something had happened anyway. Quinn didn’t need to be the messenger.

So easy. So simple.

But not possible.

“We’re only part of the big plan,” his old mentor, Durrie, had said in one form or another on nearly every project they worked on together. “A small part. We’ll never see everything. We’ll never know everything. And it’s better that way. When you’re done, you’re done. Walk away and forget. You won’t last long if you don’t.”

Quinn couldn’t help hearing Durrie’s voice in his head. The son of a bitch’s teachings had been solid. He’d given Quinn all the knowledge needed to get a good start in the business. So it was only natural that Quinn, even all these years later, measured much of what he did against what he’d been taught.

But Durrie himself had been a troubled man who had spiraled into a dark place he was never able to pull himself out of, a place that eventually led him into a direct confrontation with Quinn. When Quinn had been forced to kill him in Berlin the previous winter, it had silenced Durrie’s voice for a time. But the advice, both good and bad, was back now, and Quinn was oddly comforted by it.

This particular piece of advice fell into the bad category. At least with Quinn’s current problem.

Quinn had to find Jenny. He owed Markoff that much.

In truth, he owed Markoff so much more.

Finland. A decade before.

“Are you still with us, Mr. Quinn?” It was the voice of Andrei Kranz—flat, uninterested, and speaking English with a heavy accent. The rumor was he’d been born in Warsaw, but to Quinn his accent seemed more German than Polish.

Quinn opened his eyes and looked up at his tormentor. Kranz stood in front of him, his face only a foot away from Quinn’s own. What passed for a smile grew on Kranz’s thin-lipped mouth.

“Good,” Kranz said. He reached over and patted Quinn on the cheek. “Have a good night, okay? We’ll see you in the morning.”

Kranz stood up and laughed. Behind him, two other men, no more than shadows, laughed also.

A moment later, Quinn was alone.

For a while, he could hear them walking away through the forest. Then their steps grew faint until there was only the sound of the breeze passing through the trees, gusting above him one moment, then slowing to nothing the next.

The post–midnight air was bone chilling. A few degrees colder and it would have been numbing. But numbing would have been a relief.

The night sky, what he could see of it through the trees, was cloudless. The stars that packed the void seemed to be piled one on top of the other, unhindered by any interference from nearby civilization. It reminded him of the sky of his youth, where millions of stars filled the northern Minnesota night. Looking around, he also realized there was little difference between the land he’d grown up in and the Finnish countryside he would apparently die in.

The closest real city was Helsinki, but it was over a hundred kilometers away. It could have been a thousand kilometers away or even a thousand miles for all it mattered to Quinn. He knew no help would come from that direction. And though he tried not to think about it, the truth was no help would come from any direction.

If he had any doubt, he just needed to look down at the lifeless body of Pete Paras—Double-P to his friends. But Double-P would have a hard time answering to that nickname anymore. His head lay on a dark stain in the sand, the only remnant of the pool of blood that had flowed out of the gash in his neck.

Kranz had made sure Quinn watched as he sliced Paras’s throat himself, having one of his men hold Quinn down while another held Quinn’s head still and eyes open.

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