Brett Battles - The Collected

“That’s because there weren’t any jobs the three of us worked on together.”

“You wouldn’t have known.”

He hesitated a moment. “A blind job?” Blind jobs were the kind where most of the players didn’t come in contact with each other. Quinn had tried to avoid those as much as possible.

“Not a blind job.”

“Then I’m not following you, because we were never on the same job. I would remember that.”

“You don’t remember because you didn’t actually work the job.”

He frowned. “Now you’ve lost me completely.”

“This particular job, you were originally assigned to it, but the date was pushed and ended up conflicting with something else Peter needed you for.”

That made more sense. Though it didn’t happen often, Peter had moved his schedule around sometimes. “So what job are we talking about?”

“Does Isla de Cervantes ring a bell?”

He thought for a moment, then nodded.

Four years earlier, Peter had called him with an assignment. The only thing he told Quinn at the time was the location: Isla de Cervantes. “Straightforward,” Peter had said. “You’ll get the details next week.” Only the details never came. A few days later, Peter called back, reassigning him to a job in Oslo.

But the memory wasn’t why the nape of Quinn’s neck was tingling. It was because Isla de Cervantes was in the same zone Nate’s beacon was in.

“I remember,” he said. “So if I hadn’t been removed, all three of us would have been on this job?”

“Yes. It’s the only time your names overlap on anything Peter was running.”

“Who else was on it?”

“Three others. Four, if you count the man who replaced you. Geoffrey Saban was team leader, and Oren Karper and Zach Lanier were ops.”

“And the new me?”

“Michael Stallard.”

A competent cleaner, not quite Quinn’s level, but…

He looked over at Orlando. While Stallard and the first two names Misty had mentioned weren’t on their potential-missing list, Lanier’s was.

Orlando immediately understood what he wanted her to do. She walked several feet away, pulling out her phone.

“What was the job?” Quinn asked Misty.

“Termination of a man named Javier Romero.”

Romero? Quinn ran the name through his mind a few times, but came up blank.

“Any mention of why he was important?”

“No. The file only contains what was necessary for the job. There are a few notes at the end in Peter’s personal code. They indicate that there was some kind of problem. No mention of what that might have been, though.”

“Do you think it’s somewhere else in the files? Was there a photo of this Romero?”

“I, um, took pictures of the entire file.”

“You did? Can you send them to me?”

Her face tensed. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Misty, all I care about is finding out what’s going on, and bringing our friends home. Once I’m done with the file, I’ll trash it. No one will ever see it.”

Looking unsure, she said, “You promise?”

“Of course I do. You know me. You know you can trust me.”

She turned to the side in thought, then looked back and nodded. “Okay, but you have to destroy it later. And don’t say anything to Peter. I’ll tell him I gave it to you.”

“Whatever you want to do,” he said. “Thanks. I’ll call you if we need anything else.”

“And when you find him, too.”

“Yeah. When we find him, too.”

As soon as he hung up, he looked over at Orlando. She had moved into the bathroom entrance and was talking into her phone in a low tone.

“Could that be where Nate is?” Liz asked.

He turned to her. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Isla de Cervantes. Could that be where he is?”

“No way to know yet.”

“But…but…” She stepped over to the desk and turned the screen on Orlando’s laptop so Quinn could see it. “Look. Isla de Cervantes is right along this track.” She pointed at a spot between Cuba and Puerto Rico, a bit south of the red line representing the possible flight path of the cargo plane. “It’s right here.”

“I know. But-” He stopped as his phone vibrated multiple times. Not a call, but messages. He watched them come in. There were twenty-nine when they finally stopped, all from Misty, the images of pages from the report.

Across the room, Orlando ended her call and made another. Quinn held up his hands, silently asking her what was going on.

She covered her phone and mouthed, “One minute.”

While he waited, Quinn brought up the first image from the report, scanned quickly through it, and opened the second. When he neared the bottom of the page, he stopped on a photograph and enlarged it. The picture was of a vigorous man who looked to be in his early sixties, speaking to an unseen crowd. His body language oozed determination and conviction. Someone had written in pen just above the man: ROMERO.

So this was the target.

Though Romero was the main focus, there were others in the picture, gathered in a group behind the man, watching him. Some had names written above their heads, too. He scanned each face, stopped suddenly, and used his fingers to zoom in.

Well, well, well.

Not wanting to completely believe his eyes just yet, Quinn went to his saved photos and retrieved the one of the bald man in Bangkok. He switched back and forth between it and the group shot.

Neither image was perfect, but they didn’t need to be. There was no doubt that the bald guy was also the man in the other shot, with the name HARRIS written over his head.

“I appreciate it,” Orlando said.

Quinn turned around in time to see her hang up her phone.

“The reason Saban and Karper weren’t on our list is because they’re both dead,” she said. Quinn raised an eyebrow, but before he could ask the obvious question, she added, “Job-related. Eighteen months apart. No apparent connection.”

“Lanier?” he asked.

“While no one’s reported him missing, he hasn’t been seen in a couple weeks.”

“That sounds like missing to me,” Daeng said.

“Me, too,” Quinn agreed. “What about Stallard?”

“He’s sitting at home. Has an assignment starting next Tuesday, but says if we need him for anything before then, he’s available.”

“Replace Stallard’s name with yours,” Daeng said, “and that accounts for everyone.”

Yes. It did. Nice and neat.

“Here’s something else you’re going to like,” Quinn said. He showed them the photo he found.

“That cinches it,” Orlando said. “No question.”

“None at all.”

“So does that mean Nate is on this Isla de Cervantes?” Daeng asked.

With a quick look to his sister, acknowledging she’d been right, Quinn said, “He’s in that direction somewhere, so that’s where we need to go.”

“I’ll get us some tickets out of here,” Orlando said.

She took a step toward her computer, but Quinn stopped her.

“Liz can do that.” He looked over at his sister. “You can, right?”

“Sure,” she said, surprised. “Of course.”

His eyes back on Orlando, he said, “You and I need to find out what we can about this Harris guy.”

They sent out copies of the new picture of the man to several of their trusted contacts, this time with the name David Harris attached.

“There’s a flight to Mexico City leaving in an hour and a half,” Liz announced after a few minutes. “It’ll arrive in time to connect with a flight to Puerto Rico. There are dozens of ways from there to get to Isla de Cervantes.”

“Book it,” Quinn told her.

She glanced nervously at him. “Three tickets? Or four?”