The Deceived (46 page)

“Sorry. I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Jenny said.

“At LP, who do you report to?” Tasha asked.

That only garnered a laugh.

“Are there others like you planted out there?” Tasha said.

Still no response.

Tasha took a step forward. From the corner of Quinn’s eye, he could see blood on her face. “The only thing that’s going to help you now is if you talk to us.”

“Hmm, really? I guess I’m not going to get any help, then, am I?”

“Don’t think any of your
friends
are going to be able to get you out of this. You’ll talk to us eventually.”

But the smile on Jenny’s face led Quinn to believe Tasha was mistaken.

He asked, “If you wanted to kill Guerrero, why did you leave D.C. early instead of traveling with him to Singapore?”

She took a step toward him.

“No,” he said, taking a step back. “You’re fine where you are.”

She laughed to herself, then looked at Tasha. “Ask her.”

“We were getting too close,” Tasha said. “You knew we’d get you before you had a chance. So running was your best option.”

“Something like that,” Jenny said.

“And Markoff?” Quinn asked.

“My wonderful boyfriend was beginning to suspect me. Not at first. At first he believed my story. The same one I told you, remember? You believed it, too.” She smiled. “He never said anything to me. Tried to act all calm and cool. But I knew. I always know. That’s why I’m good at what I do. No one ever deceives me. My only mistake was waiting too long before I disposed of him. I should have taken care of him before I left Washington.”

“You think that’s the only mistake you’ve made?” Quinn said. He could feel every micrometer of the trigger’s surface. A simple twitch would move it. Just a twitch.

Jenny didn’t answer.

“Who is your contact?” Tasha asked for the third time. “Give us names and we can work a deal.”

“You mean because you think you’ve caught me?” she asked. “So I do a little jail time, that was always a risk. But I bet you’ll be surprised how little time I actually end up spending there.”

“Not really. I know exactly how much time you’ll spend in jail,” Quinn said. There was only one way this could play out, but he had to wait until Tasha realized it, too.

“What? You’re going to kill me, Quinn? I don’t believe that.”

Tasha took a step forward. “Who. Is. Your. Contact?”

For over a minute, no one spoke, then Quinn slowly shook his head. “Whatever information she has, you will never get it.”

Tasha’s shoulders rose and then fell again as she took a deep breath.

“You already must realize it,” he went on. “The minute it gets reported that you have her in custody, her friends in the LP will know.”

She hesitated a moment, then nodded.

“And I’m guessing they’ll have the power to get her out.”

No nod this time, but she didn’t argue the point.

“She killed Markoff,” he said. “He was one of yours once.”

Finally she looked at Quinn. “Eye for an eye?”

“I owe him.”

Tasha looked back at Jenny, saying nothing.

“So?” he asked.

“Give us a name,” Tasha said to Jenny. “Something to go on.”

Jenny looked at Quinn, then back at Tasha. “Did you guys work this routine out ahead of time? Think it might scare something out of me? Take me in, and let’s get this over with. I’m getting hungry.”

“Give us a name,” Tasha repeated.

“Mother Teresa,” Jenny replied, smiling.

“Okay,” Tasha said. She looked at Quinn. “I’m done.”

Without another word, she turned and started walking back toward the compound.

Quinn raised the gun another inch. His mind flashed on a memory of a fishing trip out of Cabo San Lucas. He and Markoff downing Coronas and paying very little attention to their lines. Jenny kissing her boyfriend before stretching out on the cabin roof to get a little sun.

Jenny laughed. “You’re not going to kill me, so just arrest me and take me in.”

Athens, where separate jobs had brought Markoff and Quinn to the city at the same time. A bottle of nasty ouzo, a night that went later than either had planned, and a conversation about dreams and desires that could only happen under the combination of the liquor and the hour.

“You’re just a cleaner. A janitor,” Jenny said. “You know how to remove the bodies. You don’t know how to kill them. Quit playing around.”

San Diego, on the sailboat later in the day. Quinn watching Markoff as Markoff watched Jenny. The care and growing love in the older man’s eyes genuine. But for what?

“I’m not playing,” Quinn said.

Jenny was still smiling when the bullet hit her in her chest.

It hadn’t been a perfect shot, but it was more than adequate.

Quinn walked over to where she had fallen backward on the sand. He could hear her sucking in the last bits of air her lungs would ever absorb. The look on her face was one of surprise and shock.

“Your last mistake was underestimating me.”

CHAPTER

QUINN STOOD OVER JENNY, WAITING UNTIL HE WAS

sure she was dead. He then picked her up, put her over his good shoul

der, and began walking back toward the compound.

Tasha was waiting for him at the edge of the bushes.

“You would have never gotten anything out of her,” he said.

“I know.”

“And what I said about her friends being able to get her out, that was the truth, wasn’t it?”

“I can’t know for sure, but my guess would be yes.”

“Who are they?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

Quinn nodded. This was no longer his fight. Markoff ’s killer was dead. That’s all that mattered for the moment.

“My boss isn’t going to be happy,” Tasha said as they trudged through the brush. “But he’ll understand. I’m ...uh...I’m going to tell him she was killed during a pursuit.”

Quinn shrugged. “Whatever works.”

As he neared the chain-link fence, Lian jumped down from the top of the container on the other side.

“Let me,” Lian said, motioning to Jenny’s lifeless body.

“I’ll do it,” Quinn said.

Lian nodded, then by a silent agreement Ne Win’s man led Quinn and Tasha around the outside of the compound. When they reached the opening in the fence, Lian held it open while Quinn carried the body through.

Ne Win was waiting for him on the other side. “The congressman and my friend?” Quinn asked. “In the car,” Ne Win said. “They are fine.” “What about the man I knocked out?” Ne Win shrugged. “What man?” “Thanks,” Quinn said. He turned to Tasha. “I assume you don’t

need the body.” “No.” Without another word, he turned and started walking silently be

tween the stacks of containers. This time only Ne Win and Lian followed. It took Quinn nearly ten minutes before he found what he wanted. The container was dark blue, and on the side in large white letters were

the words baron & baron ltd. He looked at Lian, then pointed at it. “That one,” he said. After Lian opened the container door, Quinn carried the body in

side, then dropped it on the floor. He didn’t pause or even look back as

he exited. Once Quinn was back outside, Lian closed the doors. “It would be good if that one went out to sea soon,” Quinn said to

Ne Win. “And it’ll be a shame when it falls off the deck in the middle of nowhere.” “Yes,” Ne Win said. “A shame.”

“Exactly when did you tell me there was a chance I might be

killed?” Murray demanded as Quinn opened the door of Ne Win’s car. “Not now, Kenneth,” Quinn said. Quinn and Tasha climbed into the back with Murray and the con

gressman. It was a tight squeeze, but they made it work. Murray was obviously agitated, but the congressman was quiet, staring down at the floor, not looking at anyone.

In front, Lian switched places with Ne Win’s other man in the driver’s seat, while Ne Win climbed into his customary spot. There wasn’t room for everyone, so the other man had to wait for someone to come back and pick him up.

As they started to drive away, Guerrero finally looked up. “She worked for me for a year,” he said like he couldn’t believe his own words. “I had her to my house for parties and meetings. I saw her at the office almost every day.” He turned to Tasha. “When you told me she was there to kill me, I...I couldn’t believe it. Why? Why would she do that?”

Quinn looked out the side window. “Because that was what she was told to do.”

The congressman sat quietly for a moment, his breaths deep and even. Finally he looked from Tasha to Quinn. “Perhaps you should tell me everything. And Mr. Drake, you can start by giving me your real name.”

Quinn thought for a moment. There was no way they were going to tell the congressman everything, but they could tell him enough.

“I’m Jonathan Quinn,” he said, starting off with a lie.

Like Richard Drake, Jonathan Quinn wasn’t his real name, either.

Nate was in surgery until almost midnight. He was in a small private hospital west of downtown. Dr. Han—not a surgeon himself— had seen to it that Nate got the best help possible. And Quinn, through Ne Win, had promised substantial reimbursement for every-one’s silence.

Quinn and Orlando waited in a small windowless room. Ne Win was there, too. But he kept getting phone calls, so he’d excuse himself and walk outside to take them.

“Lots of stuff on news tonight,” Ne Win said during one of his lulls between interruptions. “Everyone talking about gunfight at Maxwell. Think there are some dangerous people in town.”

“There were,” Quinn said.

“Congressman go on CNN International, too. He say he in wrong place at wrong time. He say some helpful locals get him to safety. No one mentioned assassination attempt.”

Quinn grunted. That was good. But in truth, he didn’t really care what happened at this point. He didn’t care much about anything except Nate and Orlando.

He had left Los Angeles because he was worried his dead friend’s girlfriend was in trouble. Now she was dead, and he was the one who had pulled the trigger. He tried not to think about it, but he was doing a lousy job of it.

Orlando seemed to sense what he was going through. She put a hand on his back and slowly rubbed the base of his neck. She said nothing, which was just another testament to how well she knew him. If he needed to talk, she’d be there. He knew that.

It was another thirty minutes before Dr. Han came into the waiting room.

“He’s in his room now,” the doctor said. “He’s a tough one. That was a lot of blood he lost, but he never stopped fighting to stay alive. He’ll be okay. Well... considering...”

The doctor led them to Nate’s room.

“He won’t stir until the morning,” Dr. Han said.

“We won’t stay long,” Quinn said.

The doctor looked at Quinn, then at Orlando, and finally at Ne Win. “I think you could all use some sleep also,” he said, then left.

Quinn stood next to his apprentice’s bed. There were wires and tubes everywhere, making Nate look like an unused marionette waiting for his puppet master to wake him up.

His face looked serene and unscathed. Quinn could almost believe that Nate was fine, that all would be back to normal soon. But then he allowed his gaze to move away from Nate’s face, first to the shoulder that was covered in bandages, then toward the end of the bed.

There was a little bump jutting up from the sheets where Nate’s left foot was. But where his right should have been, there was nothing. The amputation was from just above where the break had occurred near the midpoint of his shin.

The foot could have stayed, but it would have never been useful. Nate would have been forever crippled. Of course, he was forever crippled now, Quinn knew, but at least he had the chance at the appearance of normality.

Prosthetics had come a long way. At least that’s what Orlando had said when Quinn had been forced to make the decision of whether to keep Nate’s foot or not.

Quinn saw Tasha one more time. They met at one of the shop-house restaurants along Clarke Quay. Tasha had gotten there first and was sitting at an outside table next to the river.

“We found the patsy,” she said, once the waitress had taken their drink order. “His name was Ahmad Kamarudin. We found him tied up and unconscious in a government flat east of downtown. Well, we didn’t find him. Your friend did.”

She was talking about Ne Win. By mutual consent, he had continued his search for Jenny’s red herring.

“The hair at the Quayside apartment was his. Just like you said.”

Quinn nodded. There was nothing for him to say.

“We’ve also been able to backtrack Jenny’s movements. There might be some stuff there we can use to find out more about...the people she worked for.”

“You may want to check the wife,” Quinn said.

“Guerrero’s wife? Do you think she’s one of them?”

“No,” he said. “But I’m just wondering if maybe she’s been targeted for recruitment, perhaps with the intention of bringing her in after her husband was killed. They could have been planning to use her just the way Jenny said they would. My guess is if that was the case, she’s probably already had some casual contact with the LP and doesn’t even know it. Perhaps even someone in the policy think tank she belongs to.”