Shadow of Betrayal

Quinn raced forward, his SIG in his right hand. In seconds, he saw the path the car had taken into the brush. It was another old rutted road that probably hadn’t been used in years.

“It just passed me,” Nate said. “Delivery van. One guy up front. Didn’t see anyone else.”

Quinn could hear the van on the road behind him approaching. And ahead, he could also hear the assassin’s car. Its engine was only marginally louder than the van’s.

Almost at once there was light in front and behind him. The van was cresting a small hill and soon would be completely visible to Quinn. And on the rutted path ahead of him, reverse lights, bright in the dark night, and warning all that the assassin was about to back out.

Quinn slipped behind a tree five feet from where the dirt road met the highway. He glanced to the south. The van had come into view and was traveling down the blacktop, showing no signs of having noticed the lights from the assassin’s car.

And on the dirt road just ahead of him, Quinn could hear the tires of the assassin’s car begin to move along the ruts toward the highway.

The timing was horrible. If they didn’t run into each other, then it would be damn close. And any kind of incident would bring out the local officials. Quinn couldn’t have that.

He moved around the tree and pushed through a couple of bushes until he was standing at the edge of the rutted road. The highway was fifteen feet to his left, and the assassin’s car was only five to his right.

Quinn raised the SIG and pulled the trigger without any further thought.

There was the all too familiar thup as his bullet passed through the suppressor, followed instantaneously by the crunch of the rear window safety glass as it was ripped from its frame. Red lights flashed as the assassin stomped on the brakes.

On the highway behind them, there was the double tap of a horn, a friendly “Hey, I’m out here” from the van, then a second later the sound of the larger vehicle as it passed by and continued on in the night.

Quinn stayed focused on the assassin’s car. It was a four-door hatchback that could have been picked up at any rental place on the island. Only the good people at Hertz weren’t going to be too happy with the blown-out window and whatever other damage Quinn’s shot had caused.

The assassin had ducked out of sight below seat level. Going for his gun, Quinn knew. But he had no idea how many people he was facing, or where they were positioned. Any defense he would put up would be a guess.

Quinn took four quick silent steps through the brush parallel to the car. This being Ireland, the driver’s seat was on the right, the side nearest him. As he drew level with the driver’s side door, he could see the assassin hunched low. The man was checking his gun to make sure there was a round in the chamber.

Quinn squeezed the trigger of his SIG again, a warning shot through the driver’s side window. It ripped the air only inches above the assassin, then exited through the window on the other side.

The man froze.

Quinn motioned for him to put the gun down.

Though they killed for a living, he knew of no assassin who had a death wish. When pushed into a corner, they would bide their time, and wait for an opportunity to use their skills in an attempt to extract themselves from a bad situation.

Quinn’s new friend, though, seemed to be working from a different handbook.

At first he pretended to set the gun down, but as he did, the barrel turned toward Quinn.

Before the man could get a shot off, Quinn pulled his SIG’s trigger for a third time. This time it was no warning. The bullet smashed through the man’s palm and grazed the bottom edge of the pistol’s grip, sending it spinning to the floor, out of the man’s reach.

“I’ve gone almost a mile and haven’t found anything,” Nate said in Quinn’s ear. “I don’t think he’s out this way. I mean, I would have seen him by now, right?”

CHAPTER

4

QUINN WAITED UNTIL NATE GOT THERE BEFORE doing anything about the wounded man’s hand. He had Nate search the trunk for something that might work as a bandage.

“He’s got an overnight bag in here,” Nate said.

There was the sound of a zipper, then a few moments later Nate held up an expensive-looking black shirt.

“Hugo Boss,” he said. “That work?”

“Perfect,” Quinn said.

Nate tossed the shirt through the window at the assassin.

“Wrap that around your palm,” Quinn said. “Probably should make it tight. You’re quite a bleeder.”

The man did as Quinn suggested. It wasn’t easy, and he had to start over more than once, but no one was about to give him any help.

Quinn glanced at Nate, then looked back into the car. “You all right?” he asked.

Nate’s face was sweaty, and even in the low light Quinn thought he could see red splotches on his apprentice’s neck.

“I’m fine,” Nate said.

Quinn looked over again, this time his gaze moving momentarily down toward Nate’s legs.

“It’s fine,” Nate said, noticing Quinn’s line of sight. “No problems. I just ran over a mile to get back here, for God’s sake. You’d be sweating, too.”

Maybe, Quinn thought. But he said nothing. He’d only allowed Nate to accompany him this time because he was tired of saying no. That, and Orlando had argued it was time.

“If you keep putting it off,” she had said, “you’ll never know what he can do. And after a while, you’re going to start hurting his confidence.”

A cleaner without confidence was either working in some other field or more likely dead. So Quinn had reluctantly agreed to let Nate come along, all the time wondering if his missing lower leg, replaced now by a man-made prosthesis—albeit state-of-the-art—would be a hindrance or just an annoyance. So far, much to Quinn’s surprise, it had been neither.

“Clear his weapons,” Quinn said, nodding toward the bleeding man in the car.

Nate nodded, then walked around to the other side of the vehicle. Within a few seconds, he’d removed both the man’s pistol and the sniper rifle, and had patted the man down in case he was carrying anything else.

“Clear,” Nate said. He then pulled himself out of the car and brought the weapons back around, setting them against a tree ten feet away.

“You should let me go,” the assassin said. They were the first words he had spoken. His accent was American. Midwest. Not Chicago, more like Kansas. Of course, it could have been just a put-on. “My client won’t be pleased.”

“I don’t really care,” Quinn said.

“You should.”

“But I don’t.”

The man grew quiet.

“You bring your phone?” Quinn asked Nate.

“Yes.”

“Call in. Get an ETA.”

“My employer’s men will be here before yours,” the assassin said.

Quinn ignored him. That, he knew, was a bluff. There was no reason for anyone to come after the assassin. He either did his job or he didn’t. There would be no backup or cleanup team. In this case, leaving the bodies would have been desired. They’d be a message. Don’t mess with us.

Nate pulled out his phone and walked toward the road beyond the rear of the car.

The assassin shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I did what I was hired to do. So whatever operation you’re running is screwed.”

“The only operation I’m running is catching you. And right now I’m trying to decide if you died as you tried to get away or you shot yourself to keep from being taken.”

“My employer wouldn’t like that.”

“I don’t give a damn what your employer likes or doesn’t like,” Quinn said.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “That would be a mistake.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Quinn said.

The transfer went smoothly. Peter had sent three men. Two left in the SUV they’d arrived in with the assassin restrained in the back, while the third drove the gunman’s sedan away.

“Let’s get to it,” Quinn said to Nate once the others were gone.

They started walking back up the road toward the church. Even though there was a lot of night left, they still had a considerable amount of work to do before the sun came up.

The bodies were first on the list. Not surprisingly, pocket checks of the dead men revealed very little. Peter’s men each carried forged IDs on the off chance they got pulled over by the police. The other two men had none. The only thing the guy outside the church was carrying was a spare mag for his gun. But his partner, the one who had been inside doing the talking, was carrying a little something extra.

It was a tiny manila envelope, an inch wide by about an inch and a half long, and bulging a bit in the center. Whatever was inside, Quinn guessed it must contain the information that was supposed to have been passed on. Peter’s precious haul, no doubt. The reason he’d been so adamant about keeping the assassin away from the bodies.

Quinn was tempted to leave it in the man’s pocket and tell Peter he hadn’t found anything. But as satisfying as that was to consider, Quinn didn’t operate that way. He slipped the envelope into his own pocket, then looked at Nate. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” his apprentice said.

One by one, they placed the bodies on top of a large piece of plastic sheeting with whatever weapons they had been carrying, then wrapped them individually, securing them with a healthy amount of duct tape. They then stacked them in the back of the van where Quinn’s and Nate’s chairs had been.

While Nate searched for casings beneath the tree where the assassin had been positioned, Quinn worked the blood-soaked ground, covering it with mud and loose bushes. By the time night came again, no one would notice the stains on the soil.

The body removal was the easy part. It was dealing with the vehicles that was trickier. There were three of them for only two people— the van, and the two sedans the meeting’s participants had arrived in.

Quinn didn’t want to take a chance driving around with a van full of dead men more than he had to, so they started with the cars first. They each took a sedan and drove south for twenty minutes before turning down a narrow back road.

After another ten minutes, Quinn spotted an opening between the trees. Not another road, nor even a cart path. Just a break in the vegetation wide enough for the sedan to navigate through. He was able to work his way almost a hundred feet into the brush before he could go no farther. It was enough. There was no way the car could be seen from the road. With any luck, it might be days or even weeks before someone stumbled upon it. By then, it wouldn’t matter.

He retraced his steps to the road, where Nate waited in the other car, and soon they were heading back north.

“Kind of fitting, I guess,” Nate said after a while. “Dying in a church.”

“Dying in church is a common thing, is it?” Quinn asked.

“Not the dying so much,” Nate said. “But being dead in church. You know, funerals. Memorials.”

Quinn looked at Nate, all but rolling his eyes. He then pulled out his cell phone and located a number in his contact list. The line rang twice.

“Hello?”

“We’re on,” Quinn said.

“When should we expect you?” the voice asked.

“Before dawn.”

“We’ll be ready.”

Quinn and Nate separated again at the church, Nate staying in the sedan while Quinn got behind the wheel in the van. This time they headed north toward Dublin. They kept their speed steady, not too fast, not too slow, so as not to draw undue attention. But they needn’t have worried. There were few other vehicles on the road. When they reached the Irish capital, they skirted around the south edge, and made their way to Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

The boat was ready and waiting. It was a private yacht, a forty-six footer that could be run by one person if necessary. A Meridian 411 Sedan. Luxurious yet practical.

The name painted near the bow read The Princess Anne.

The crew of two was waiting just inside the access gate to the private dock where The Princess Anne was moored. The men, David Baulder and Steven Howard, were people Quinn had worked with in the past and had come to trust. He had hired them and rented the yacht as a safety precaution just in case the need arose. That was part of being a cleaner, always being ready for any contingency, but not always having to activate your plans.

Dawn would arrive in less than two hours, so at best they had thirty minutes before activity at the marina picked up. The dock they were using had been chosen with care. Security in this part of the marina was lax. No cameras, no guard station, and only two motion-activated lights in the vicinity—one at the gate and a second on the dock. Both had been disabled.

Not wasting a second, they moved the plastic-wrapped bodies out of the van and onto the boat. There was no blaring of sirens in the distance, no sudden arrival of the police.

Fifteen minutes later, they motored through the marina and out into the Irish Sea.

Quinn helped Nate and Howard remove the bodies from the plastic, while Baulder piloted the boat. Once free of the wrapping, each of the dead men’s torsos was bound with a steel cable attached to a set of metal weights. The pieces of plastic that had enclosed the corpses were then folded and piled in the corner. Once all the bodies had been removed, the pile of plastic was wrapped with its own cable and weights.

After they were finished, Quinn went inside the cabin and pulled out his phone.

“Hello?” a female voice said. It was Misty, Peter’s assistant.

“It’s Quinn for Peter.” Though it was the middle of the night in Washington, D.C., Quinn was pretty sure Peter would still be there.

“Quinn,” Misty said, her voice mellowing. “We were wondering when you’d call. Hold on, he’s expecting you.”