The jonathan quinn enrag.., p.27
The Jonathan Quinn Enraged Box Set, page 27
part #5 of Jonathan Quinn Series
She shook her head as if she still couldn’t believe it. “If he was the guy who wanted me dead, the guy who’d been behind the kidnapping of an American citizen, I couldn’t just stand by and let him gain power again.” She drifted off for a moment, then said, “My mother came to the US as a teenager. She and my grandparents escaped from Poland. When she became an American citizen, she was so proud. That’s why I went into the work I did, my own little way of giving back to the country that welcomed my family, I guess. What Mygatt did…that’s not the country my mother believed in. I knew I had no choice, have no choice. I have to stop him.
“The first thing I had to do was make sure I wasn’t blaming the wrong guy. It took me a while, but I was able to identify one of the men who’d been watching the prisoner on the flight. I was hoping he would confirm the Lion’s identity, or at least point me in the direction of someone who could. I was supposed to meet him in Dar es Salaam. He showed up at the hotel, but he didn’t make it to the rendezvous point. I got nervous, so I bugged out, then…”
“We’ve seen the footage,” Quinn said.
“Footage?”
“Hotel security camera. Lawrence Rosen crashing into the sidewalk, you running up to him. That’s how they found out you were still alive.”
She closed her eyes. “Camera. Right. I knew it was there, but I didn’t think I’d be noticed.” She opened her eyes again. “After that, I was desperate. The only names I had were Rosen and another guy named Olsen. I found out Olsen is pretty entrenched in DC, so getting to him would be a last-resort option only. I needed another name, someone I could talk to.” She told them about Stockholm, and finding out about an agent named Evans who’d had a part in both the prisoner flight and her attempted termination. “I saw it on his face, and knew that the Lion and Mygatt were the same, but he tried to kill me before I could make him talk. I had to shoot back.” Her jaw clenched in anger, and she looked at Quinn. “You found out for sure, though. Now I know.”
Quinn looked out the window, lost in thought.
He understood that those fighting terrorism would, at times, need to employ extreme measures. Sometimes he agreed with the method, sometimes he didn’t. But abducting a US citizen and sending him to a secret foreign prison to die?
What Mygatt had done was unimaginable. He had violated Gorman’s fundamental rights as a US citizen, in a way worthy of a place like North Korea. Furthermore, he had covered it up so thoroughly no one suspected the truth. There was no doubt in Quinn’s mind that the senator would use all his resources to find Mila and eliminate her. Permanently. And if he succeeded in becoming director of the CIA, those resources would be unstoppable.
He had told Peter he needed to get her someplace safe, but the only way Mila would ever be safe was if they accomplished what she’d set out to do.
By the time they reached Marco Polo Airport, Quinn had come up with a very loose framework for a plan. At his suggestion, they purchased tickets for Geneva and made their way to the gate.
Once there, Quinn pulled Orlando to the side and sketched out his idea. Once he finished, she stared at him, her face stone. If he didn’t know her so well, it would look like she thought he was crazy. But that wasn’t it at all. Her mind was spinning, playing out all the possible scenarios, considering details he hadn’t even thought of yet.
A full thirty seconds passed before she moved again. When she did, all she said was, “I need to get to work.” She then pulled her computer out of her bag, and found an empty seat near their gate.
Nate was next.
“Whoa,” he said, once Quinn had finished. “That’s a bit…risky, don’t you think?”
“Beyond risky,” Quinn said. “If you don’t feel comfortable with it, you can walk away. No judgment.”
“Not an issue. I’m not going anywhere. I was just pointing it out.”
“It might be our last job.”
“Well, something has to be. But, just to go on the record, I’d prefer that it’s not.” Nate seemed to lose focus for a moment, then pulled out his phone. “I should…I should call Liz.”
Quinn was momentarily caught off guard by the mention of his sister’s name. “Don’t tell her.”
“Seriously? You think I’m that stupid?”
“No. Sorry.”
“I just want to see how she’s doing.” Nate paused. “Maybe have a little phone sex.”
“What?”
“Kidding! All right? Kidding.” He started to walk away, then looked back. “Half-kidding, anyway.”
When Quinn pulled Daeng aside, instead of telling him the plan, he said, “When we get to Geneva, we’ll put you on a flight back to Bangkok. You’ve been a huge help, and I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated it.”
“Is that a good idea?” Daeng asked. “It seems to me you’re not through here.” He looked over at Nate on the phone, then at Orlando huddled over her computer.
“It’s going to get dangerous,” Quinn said. “I can’t ask you to risk your life. People back in Thailand are counting on you.”
“You mean risk my life again.”
“Yeah.”
“Out of the four of you, only two are at full strength. You’re far from it, and the girl is, well, under a lot of stress. So you’re telling me you can’t use a third, healthy person?”
“I can’t ask for your help again.”
“Perhaps this isn’t just your decision. Nate?”
Nate looked up, his phone still held to his ear.
“May I ask a quick question?” Daeng said.
“Hold on,” Nate said into the cell, then put his hand over it. “What’s up?”
“Have I proven useful?”
“Definitely.”
“And could you use my help moving forward, or would you rather I return home now?”
“That’s up to you, but we could absolutely use your help.”
“I agree,” Orlando called out, her gaze not leaving her computer screen.
“I guess I’ll be staying,” Daeng told Quinn. “Now, what is it you have in mind?”
THE LAST PERSON Quinn pulled aside was Mila.
“Don’t even attempt to talk me out of it,” she said.
“I’m not,” he said.
She looked surprised. “Oh…okay. Just so we’re clear.”
“We are.”
“I’ll take off when we get to Geneva.”
He gave it a beat, then said, “There is another way.” He laid it all out for her.
When he was through, she stared at him, slack-jawed. “Is that even possible?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
For the first time since they had reconnected, Mila smiled. “It’s a lot better than what I had in mind. Thank you.”
“Quinn?” Orlando called out, waving at him to join her.
“Excuse me,” he said to Mila. He sat in the chair next to Orlando. “What is it?”
“I was thinking we could use a little more ammunition.”
“Definitely,” he said. “What did you find?”
She hesitated. “Something that might change the plan a bit.”
“For the better?”
“You tell me.” She turned her laptop so he could see the screen. On it was a low-resolution image that had obviously been pulled from a video. The person in the shot had the look of a homeless man—hair and beard long and matted, face thin and dirty.
Quinn shot Orlando a questioning glance.
“The footage this was pulled from is about six months old.”
“Okay,” he said. “But who is it?”
“If I’m not mistaken, that’s Thomas Gorman.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
WASHINGTON, DC
IT WAS JUST after eight a.m. when Olsen walked into the townhouse.
The moment he entered their shared office, Peter jumped up. “I’m glad you’re here. I was just about to call you.”
Olsen laid his briefcase on his desk. “Did something happen?”
“They have her.”
Olsen froze. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. One of my teams tracked her down in Switzerland about four hours ago.”
“Four hours?”
“I didn’t know myself until just before you arrived. Apparently there was a bit of a dustup, and they weren’t able to contact me right away. The good news is, in the middle of it all, they were able to sneak her on a plane. She’s on her way here now.”
“Wait, what? Here? No. We don’t want her here.”
“I already okayed the order to do that in the event she was caught.”
“I never gave you permission for that!”
“Your instructions, Mr. Olsen, were to make sure we had her this time, that there were to be no ‘fuckups.’ ”
“That has nothing to do with bringing—”
“That has everything to do with bringing her here. I want to see her right in front of me. I want to take a sample of her DNA and her prints, and I want to prove beyond a doubt that the woman we have in custody is Mila Voss. I thought you wanted the same thing.”
“We can’t have her here,” Olsen insisted.
“It won’t be for long. I’ve routed the plane to a private strip about thirty miles northeast of here in Virginia. No one is even going to know she’s in the country. We’ll put her on a second plane that’ll be standing by, and process her. You just tell me where you want her flown after we’ve got what we need, and that’s where she’ll go.”
Olsen mulled over the plan, then said, “All right, all right. We can make that work. It’s actually not a bad idea.”
“Thanks,” Peter said, not hiding his annoyance.
“I’ll have to run it by the senator and Mr. Green, but unless you hear from me otherwise, it’s a go.”
“If it is, I assume you’ll want to be there, too.”
“Absolutely.”
The neutral look on Peter’s face remained unchanged, but inside he cracked a smile.
Chapter Forty
VIRGINIA
THIRTY-FOUR MILES NORTHEAST OF WASHINGTON, DC
THE PRIVATE JET descended toward the airport. As instructed, the flight crew had remained behind the locked cockpit door. There were no other crew members on board.
“Last chance if anyone wants out,” Quinn said.
There were no takers.
He, Nate, and Orlando were dressed in forest camouflage outfits, with dark brown ski masks resting on their heads. Daeng was wearing a dark suit and holding a pair of tinted glasses. Mila was the only one still wearing the clothes she’d been in earlier.
Quinn touched her arm and said, “It’s time.”
“Okay,” she replied, nodding.
“It’s going to be fine.”
“I know.”
“Shall I?” Nate asked. He was in the seat next to her.
“Thanks,” she said. She gave him the pair of handcuffs she’d been holding, and then raised her hands in front of her. Once the cuffs were secured, she took a deep breath.
“Daeng will be with you the whole time,” Nate said.
Another nod.
From the angle of their descent, Quinn knew they were almost there. “Shades,” he said.
They moved quickly through the cabin, closing all the window shades so no one could see in after they land.
After they were all seated, Quinn thought through the revised plan one more time. They had taken every precaution possible, but there were still at least a million ways it could go wrong. The number one being if Peter decided his interests were better served elsewhere and screwed them over. They’d know the answer to that soon enough.
The plane bounced as its rear wheels hit the runway, then stayed down. Once the front gear settled on the ground, the engines wailed as they worked hard to kill the momentum that had carried them across the Atlantic Ocean. Once their speed slowed enough so that the plane could safely turn off the runway, everyone but Mila jumped out of their seats.
As soon as Orlando turned off the interior lights, Quinn raised one of the shades a few inches and peeked out.
There were two medium-sized hangars, and a long, one-story building that fit with the description of the terminal Peter had given him. On the tarmac near the terminal was a plane not much different than the one they were in, and in front of it was a single car.
So far, so good.
“All right,” he said. “Looks like we’re a go.”
PETER POINTED AT the distant white dot moving toward them in the afternoon sky. “There she is.”
As soon as Olsen spotted it, he nodded. “I want this transfer to go as quickly as possible.”
“That’s the plan. Once she’s transferred to the other plane, we’ll proceed with identification. That should take no more than fifteen minutes. After that, she’ll be back in the air.” Peter had hired Steven Howard and Rickey Larson at Quinn’s request to serve as “protection” for Olsen and the former Office chief, and to handle the identification process.
Peter’s explanation seemed to satisfy Olsen. He touched his hands-free earpiece, waited a moment, then said, “It’s Olsen, sir…Yes, almost here…How’s the visual there?…Good, good… Call me if there’s anything you want to ask her.”
Tucked half a mile away in the woods was a trailer, but not the kind someone would take camping to Yosemite or the Rockies. It was a high-tech surveillance station, complete with monitors; recording equipments; microwave, satellite, and radio receivers; several comfortable chairs; and a stocked refrigerator.
The trailer had been moved into position three hours prior to the scheduled landing time, ready for its guests to arrive.
This had been the hardest part of Peter’s end of Quinn’s plan. Hardest, that was, next to agreeing to help in the first place. If anything went wrong, they were all doomed, but knowing what Mygatt and the others had done, there was no way Peter could just stand around and do nothing. The secret world was not always the most moral of places, but there were lines that should never be crossed. Mygatt and Green and Olsen hadn’t just stepped over one of the lines, they had rocketed miles onto the other side.
After convincing Olsen that bringing Mila to Virginia was the right thing, Peter had waited thirty minutes, then offered up another idea.
“If you’d like, I could have cameras set up, and the senator and Mr. Green could watch the identification remotely.”
As Peter knew would be the case, Olsen loved the idea.
In a hesitant voice, he added, “We could do a satellite feed or even route it through the Internet. It all depends on how worried you might be about someone hacking the signal.”
Again, Olsen’s reaction was predictable. “That is something that cannot happen.”
“Chances are, everything will be fine, but if you’re asking for an absolute guarantee, I can’t give you that.”
Olsen frowned. “We’ll just record it, then. They can watch it later.”
“Sure, that makes sense.” Peter paused the appropriate amount of time, then said, “There is another option, if you’re interested.”
“What would that be?”
“I can get access to a remote surveillance trailer that we can set up close to the airport, and use a microwave link to relay the feeds. No one will be able to tap in. It’s the most secure way if they’d like to watch live.”
Olsen said he’d ask, and when he came back ten minutes later and said both Mygatt and Green would like to utilize the trailer option, Peter wasn’t surprised. When presented with an opportunity to micromanage an important event, he had found that people in power seldom said no.
The plane landed with a squeal of rubber. The roar of the engines took over, and finally the aircraft settled down to a pedestrian pace as it headed over to where Peter and Olsen were waiting.
The jet made a large circle just before it reached the terminal. When it stopped, it was beside the second plane, facing in the opposite direction. This would make it easier to move the prisoner from one craft to the other.
As the engines wound down, the door opened. Standing at the top was a tanned man in a suit and tinted glasses. Peter had never seen him before, but that was probably good. It meant Olsen was unlikely to know him.
The man lowered the built-in staircase and disappeared back into the plane for a moment. When he reemerged, Mila Voss was with him.
A low, satisfied grunt reverberated from Olsen’s throat. “It’s definitely her.”
“Just to be safe, I think we should still do the checks.”
“Fine,” Olsen said, though it was a halfhearted assent.
Only the suited man and Mila exited the plane. Peter had explained to Olsen that the idea was to keep things low-key on the off chance someone might be watching. Mila even had a coat draped over her hands, covering the cuffs around her wrists.
As she and the suited man crossed the tarmac, Peter folded his arms, right over left. Mila walked with her head drooped, as if defeated, while the man with her kept a steady hand on her back. When they were within five feet of Peter and Olsen, the man told her to stop.
To Peter, he said, “I was instructed to see her all the way onto the plane.”
“Correct,” Peter said. “Proceed.”
“Let’s go,” the man said, guiding Mila toward the stairs.
Just before they reached the first step, Peter called out, “Hold on.”
The man turned back around. “Yes, sir?”
Peter walked over, his back now to the other craft. As he’d hoped, Olsen did the same.
