Be­cause St. Amand was still com­ing out of the shock of his fall, it took a few mo­ments be­fore he real­ized the man had called him by name. St. Amand had never seen this guy be­fore. Even if the guy had seen him, he shouldn’t have known what St. Amand looked like.

  His pulse quickened. That wasn’t good. He could still get out of this, but only if he main­tained con­trol.

  Us­ing a tone even weaker than he felt, he asked, “May I get up?”

  The man nod­ded. “Nice and easy.”

  St. Amand pushed him­self into a sit­ting po­s­i­tion, then slowly rose to his feet and straightened his jacket. As he did, his hand found the emer­gency beacon.

  Snap.

  *

  Nate put the driver into the SUV’s rear cargo area, stripped off the guy’s jacket and shirt, and used the lat­ter to tie the man’s hands to­gether.

  As he closed the hatch, he turned his mic back on. “I’ve got the SUV se­cured. Where are you?”

  “Great. Bring it here. We’re at the corner to the north.”

  He hopped into the driver’s seat, cranked the key. “On my way.”

  “Great,” Quinn replied. “We’re to the right, just around the corner ahead of you.”

  “Copy.”

  When Nate turned the corner, Jar signaled him to pull to the curb. As soon as he stopped, she opened the back pas­sen­ger door.

  Her ex­pres­sion sour, she reached in and pushed the dead body­guard into a sit­ting po­s­i­tion. “There is blood on the seat. Could you have not killed him, per­haps?”

  “Hey, talk to Quinn. That one’s not on me.”

  She went over to where Quinn was stand­ing with St. Amand, and the two of them es­cor­ted the arms dealer to the vehicle.

  “Get in,” Quinn said.

  St. Amand star­ted to crawl into the back­seat, but stopped at the sight of his dead em­ployee.

  “Get in,” Quinn re­peated.

  St. Amand did as in­struc­ted. Quinn moved in be­side him and closed the door, while Jar took the pas­sen­ger seat in front.

  “Let’s go,” Quinn said to Nate.

  Nate punched the gas. “Where are we go­ing?”

  “North,” Quinn said. “Re­mem­ber that private air­field off the high­way to Florence?”

  Nate re­membered. The job had been about six years earlier, and in­volved the elim­in­a­tion of a double agent. The air­field was about a hun­dred kilo­met­ers north of Rome, near the vil­lage of At­tigli­ano about two hours away, given the half hour of Rome traffic they still had to drive through.

  Nate ad­jus­ted their course.

  “Jar,” Quinn said, “could you keep an eye on our friend here a mo­ment? You can shoot him in the knee if he makes a move.”

  Jar twis­ted in her seat and poin­ted her gun into the back.

  “Best if you stay still,” Quinn said to St. Amand.

  Glan­cing back and forth between the rear­view mir­ror and the road ahead, Nate watched Quinn rip the cheek pros­thet­ics off the arms dealer’s face.

  Once fin­ished, Quinn said to Nate, “Well?”

  Nate looked at the pris­oner again. Now there was no miss­ing the comma-shaped scar touch­ing the corner of his eye.

  “It’s him, all right. Can I go now?”

  “Funny.”

  St. Amand stared at Nate in the mir­ror, his eyes nar­row­ing. “I know you.”

  “I wouldn’t say you know me, but we have crossed paths.”

  “When?”

  “I’ll just let you fig­ure that out on your own.”

  The man’s eye­lids squeezed to­gether un­til he was look­ing through slits, but he said noth­ing.

  Quinn pulled his phone out of his pocket. “It’s Or­lando. Jar, are you okay with keep­ing an eye on Mr. St. Amand?”

  “Ab­so­lutely.”

  Quinn ac­cep­ted the call.

  *

  Or­lando, Daeng, and Howard moved Sand­strom and a bag con­tain­ing his laptop and false pass­port into the room his men had been us­ing, so they could deal with all three of them in one place. Or­lando then in­struc­ted Howard to ob­tain a vehicle, and Daeng to scout the best way out and find a laun­dry cart or some­thing sim­ilar to trans­port their un­con­scious pris­on­ers.

  While she waited for them to re­turn, she called Quinn.

  “Any luck yet?” she asked.

  “You can re­lay to the boss, St. Amand and his driver are safely in our pos­ses­sion.”

  “I am the boss, re­mem­ber?”

  “I meant the other boss.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Any prob­lems?”

  “One cas­u­alty. A body­guard who thought he was Su­per­man. We’ll have to dis­pose of him at some point. How are things on your end?”

  “Tar­gets ob­tained. Just wait­ing for trans­port­a­tion. We didn’t have to kill any­one.”

  “I’m happy for you. Re­mem­ber that air­field north of Rome we used on the Ossani case?”

  “I do,” she said.

  “We’re head­ing there. Thought it would be a good place for Misty to send in someone to pick us up.”

  “I agree. I’ll check with her and let you know the ar­range­ments.”

  “Thanks. Don’t—”

  A loud jumble of noise over the phone.

  “Quinn? Quinn!”

  She real­ized the con­nec­tion had been lost. She called again but was im­me­di­ately sent to voice­mail. She hung up and tried again. Voice­mail again.

  When a third at­tempt achieved the same res­ult, she left a mes­sage. “What the hell happened? Call me back.”

  She opened her tracker app. Quinn’s and Jar’s phones were re­gis­ter­ing at the same spot, to­ward the north end of Rome. Neither was mov­ing. She yanked her laptop out of her bag and searched for se­cur­ity cam­eras in that area, but the closest was a block and a half away.

  “Dam­mit.”

  She took a deep breath. She could do noth­ing for them at the mo­ment, so she needed to stay on task.

  She texted Misty.

  Sub­jects ap­pre­hen­ded. Ex­trac­tion needed.

  Sug­gest air­field used on Ossani mis­sion.

  I be­lieve des­ig­na­tion is KA14. We should be able

  to get there within ap­prox­im­ately two hours.

  Misty’s reply came four minutes later.

  Ex­cel­lent! Co­ordin­at­ing ex­trac­tion

  with ACORT. Likely soon­est six hours.

  Will up­date you when con­firmed.

  Un­able to help her­self, she checked the tracker again. Quinn and Jar were now sev­eral blocks apart, Quinn’s dot mov­ing at a much slower speed than Jar’s.

  Or­lando thought maybe now she could find a cam­era they would be on, but as she hunted for one, someone rapped on the hotel room door twice, and twice again.

  “It’s me,” Daeng said from the hall­way.

  She hur­ried over and opened the door.

  In­stead of a laun­dry cart, he had brought a bell­man’s lug­gage cart. On the plat­form sat a large card­board box.

  “This is the best you can do?” she asked.

  “You’re more than wel­come to go look your­self,” he said.

  She stepped to the side. “Bring it in.”

  Daeng wheeled the cart through the door­way and over to the nearest bed.

  “Did you loc­ate the load­ing dock?” she asked.

  “The dock won’t work. Too many people around there. I did find a ser­vice en­trance in the back that opens on an al­ley. Steve should be able to pull right up to it.”

  “Is there enough room for his vehicle to stay there without draw­ing at­ten­tion? We’re go­ing to have to take these guys down one at a time.”

  “There is, but I don’t think we need to worry about that. I loc­ated a stor­age room half filled with tables and chairs, not far from the exit. We trans­fer every­one down there, and when Steve ar­rives, trans­fer them straight out. It’ll get us on the road a lot faster.”

  “What if someone from the hotel needs a table or a chair?”

  “Everything’s dusty. I bet it will be an­other week be­fore someone goes in there. And nobody should walk in at this time of night. But if you’d feel more com­fort­able, we can just make the trips once Steve is here.”

  She glanced at Sand­strom and the oth­ers. “All right. We’ll try your plan.”

  They star­ted with one of Sand­strom’s com­pan­ions, and quickly learned the best method was to set the box on its side. That way it was easier to get the bod­ies in an out. Plus, they could turn the box so that the flaps that opened could be held closed by the bars on the lug­gage cart.

  They wheeled the cart into the hall­way and over to the ser­vice el­ev­ator. Or­lando checked to make sure there was no cam­era in­side be­fore they headed down. While Daeng pushed the cart through the ground-floor hall­ways, Or­lando de­ac­tiv­ated the cam­eras, and re­act­iv­ated them again once she and Daeng had passed the cov­er­age area.

  Soon, they reached the stor­age room. Or­lando scanned it and de­term­ined it was as Daeng had prom­ised. They trans­ferred their un­con­scious cargo onto the floor be­hind a stack of tables. Or­lando was temp­ted to stay there to de­ter any­one who might need to use the room, but things would go a lot faster if they both did the load­ing and un­load­ing. They went back to the room to­gether.

  They took the other as­so­ci­ate on trip two and de­pos­ited him on the stor­age room floor with his friend. When Or­lando and Daeng were re­turn­ing for Sand­strom, Or­lando’s phone vi­brated. The caller ID read: HOWARD.

  “I’m three blocks away,” he said after she answered. “Should be there in a couple minutes.”

  She re­layed the info about the al­ley. “Wait there un­til we come out.”

  “Got it.”

  Once they had Sand­strom trans­ferred into the box, they loaded in all the men’s com­puters and iden­ti­fic­a­tions. Daeng used a hotel towel to wipe down all the sur­faces he and his team may have touched, while Or­lando did the same thing in Sand­strom’s room.

  The clean­ing com­pleted, they pulled on their back­packs and began their fi­nal trip. When they reached the ground floor, Or­lando pressed the but­ton that held the door open and Daeng pushed the cart out.

  From some­where out of sight, a voice in Italian said, “Ex­cuse me!”

  Daeng glanced over his shoulder, whispered, “Prob­lem,” and star­ted push­ing the cart to­ward the back hall­way at double speed.

  Or­lando stayed in the el­ev­ator, pressed against the front wall so she wouldn’t be seen.

  “Sir, sir. Ex­cuse me.”

  She heard steps hurry by the el­ev­ator. Only one per­son.

  She pulled a Beta-Som­nol-filled syr­inge from her back­pack and slipped into the hall­way.

  Ahead, Daeng was about to pass through a door lead­ing into the cor­ridor that par­alleled the rear of the build­ing. Five meters be­hind him was a man in the suit worn by hotel man­age­ment.

  As Daeng used the cart to push the door open, the hotel man said, “Sir, you can’t go in there.” Daeng didn’t stop.

  As the door star­ted swinging shut, the hotel em­ployee broke into a jog. He caught the door be­fore it closed all the way. Us­ing the sound of his heavy steps as cover, Or­lando closed the gap between them and passed through the door­way a few seconds after he did.

  Fi­nally, he seemed to sense someone was be­hind him. As he star­ted to turn, Or­lando stuck the needle into an ex­posed por­tion of skin between his shoulder and neck.

  “What? What is…”

  He swooned, a hand go­ing to his head.

  “What did…what did…”

  Or­lando caught him be­fore he col­lapsed to the floor, and ac­tiv­ated her mic. “You’re clear, Daeng, but I could use a little help.”

  Daeng was back in seconds. He threw the man over his shoulder and car­ried him around the corner into the back hall, past the wait­ing cart to the stor­age room.

  Tak­ing over push­ing du­ties, Or­lando guided the cart all the way to the ser­vice exit.

  “Steve, do you read me?” she said.

  “Loud and clear.”

  “Are you in po­s­i­tion?”

  “Yeah. Right out­side.”

  “First pas­sen­ger com­ing out to you now.”

  By the time she’d man­euvered the box so Sand­strom could be pulled out, Daeng had re­joined her. To­gether, they lugged the would-be ter­ror­ist out­side.

  Howard had com­mand­eered a Mer­cedes de­liv­ery van that had a seven-di­git num­ber painted on the back but no other mark­ings. Ex­cept for a few sealed boxes, the in­side was empty, so Sand­strom—and his as­so­ci­ates a few minutes later—fit in nicely.

  Or­lando made a fi­nal trip into the hotel and stuffed three hun­dred euros into the un­con­scious man­ager’s pocket. As she headed back to the van, she pulled out her phone, in­tend­ing to give Quinn an­other try, but saw a text from Misty.

  Ex­trac­tion set for Air­field KA14 2:00 a.m.

  Let me know if that’ll work for you.

  The ren­dez­vous time was a little less than four hours away. Just enough time, with a little pad­ding, to get there. She tapped a reply.

  We’ll be there.

  She climbed into the van and tried Quinn’s cell again. Voice­mail.

  “Where to?” Howard asked as he drove away from the hotel.

  Or­lando opened her tracker. Quinn and Jar were even farther apart now. “Do you know where Piazza Eu­c­lide is?”

  “North, right?”

  She nod­ded. “Head that way. Fast.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Quinn was about to tell Or­lando not to for­get to have Misty send someone to the apart­ment Jar and Daeng had been us­ing to give the place a good clean­ing, when a sedan sped out of a side street and smashed into the rear of the SUV.

  The crunch of metal and whoosh of in­flat­ing airbags. A side bag smacked into Quinn and knocked the phone out of his hand.

  A pair of bags plastered Nate in the driver’s seat, pre­vent­ing him from cor­rect­ing the spin they’d been sent in.

  As the front end swung around, it crashed into a car parked at the side of the road. The SUV vaul­ted into the air. It hit the ground and rolled onto its roof be­fore it fi­nally stopped mov­ing.

  If not for the dead body­guard act­ing as a cush­ion, both Quinn and St. Amand would have slammed dir­ectly against the ceil­ing that was now be­low them.

  As it was, they were piled on top of each other—dead man, then St. Amand, then Quinn.

  Quinn reached un­der his jacket, pulled out his gun, and looked around. “Nate. Jar. Are you okay?”

  They were both hanging up­side down, held in place by their seat­belts.

  Nate blinked a couple of times and mumbled, “I’m okay.”

  Jar looked un­con­scious.

  The win­dows along the driver’s side were all crunched down to half their nor­mal height. No chance Quinn and the oth­ers were get­ting out that way. Thank­fully the other side, with the ex­cep­tion of the glass, was in­tact.

  “We’ve got to go,” Quinn said. “Now!” He poked St. Amand in the ribs with his gun. “Fol­low me.”

  He crawled out of the SUV and scanned the street. Since he couldn’t see the car that hit them, he guessed it was on the other side of the wreck. He peeked over the top—or rather, bot­tom—of the vehicle.

  A BMW sedan sat di­ag­on­ally across the road twenty meters away, the front end a snarled mess. The rem­nants of ex­pen­ded airbags hung in the win­dow, and the two men they had pro­tec­ted were now mov­ing fast to­ward the SUV. One was hold­ing a gun, while the other was pulling his out. If Quinn had been har­bor­ing even a re­mote pos­sib­il­ity that this had been a ran­dom col­li­sion, that thought was gone now.

  He placed the sup­pressor end of his pis­tol un­der the SUV. When the men raised their weapons, Quinn pulled his trig­ger twice.

  The first bul­let dropped the guy on the left. The second was slightly off its mark and caught the other guy in the shoulder. The guy yelled out and rushed to­ward the cars at the curb for cover.

  Quinn got an­other shot off be­fore the guy dis­ap­peared from sight, but he couldn’t tell whether or not he hit the guy.

  He ducked and looked in­side the SUV. Nate had freed him­self and was try­ing to do the same for Jar. St. Amand had barely changed his po­s­i­tion.

  Quinn yanked on his foot. “Hey, as­shole, I’m only in­ter­ested in keep­ing you alive if you come with us. If you’d rather stay, I’ll kill you now. Your choice.”

  St. Amand hes­it­ated no more than a second be­fore he star­ted back­ing out of the car.

  Quinn spot­ted his phone ly­ing against the dead body­guard’s leg. “Hold on. Grab that phone first.”

  St. Amand grabbed the device and crawled the rest of the way out.

  “Hand it over,” Quinn said.

  As St. Amand handed him the phone, a bul­let hit the front of the SUV.

  “Hey, idiot,” Quinn yelled. “You shoot again and the next bul­let goes into your boss’s head.” When a fol­low-up shot failed to ap­pear, Quinn looked at St. Amand again. “How did they find us?”

  The man shrugged. “Lucky, I guess.”

  “Give me your phone.”

  “I don’t have—”

  “Give me your god­damn phone.”

  St. Amand reached into his jacket and re­trieved his mo­bile. Quinn snatched it out of his hands, re­moved the bat­tery, and broke the SIM card.

  “Any­thing else?”

  “What else could I—”

  “On the ground, face­down. Hands above your head.”

  St. Amand com­plied. Quinn placed a knee above the pris­oner’s kid­ney and the gun on the back of his head, then pat­ted the man down.

  When he felt the disk in the man’s jacket, he said noth­ing and con­tin­ued the search, re­mov­ing St. Amand’s wal­let, a wad of cash, and the as­shole’s shoes be­fore let­ting him sit up again.

 

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