Brett Battles - The Destroyed

Though he’d been to Giacona’s place only the one time, he remembered the route well. He led Quinn to the end of the block, through a narrow alley, then half a block down the next street before stopping in front of an unmarked door next to a butcher shop. On the wall near the jamb was an intercom. Nate pushed the button.

“ Si?” a male voice said through the box.

“ Buon giorno,” Nate said. “I have an appointment.”

“ Signor Quinn?”

“ Si,” Nate said quickly, fighting the urge to look at his mentor.

The door buzzed and he pulled it open. On the other side was a scuffed-up hallway that ran the length of the building. There were several doors along it, all closed.

As they neared the back, Quinn said, “Are you going to explain that, or-”

The door at the very end opened, and a fiftysomething Italian guy with a goatee and salt-and-pepper hair looked out. “Quinn. Good to see you again.”

Nate picked up his pace, and extended his hand. “I appreciate you getting up so early, Nicholas.”

As they started to shake, Giacona noticed Quinn for the first time. “Your friend, who is he?”

“This is Jonathan. We’re working together.”

Giacona eyed Quinn for a moment. “If you say he’s okay, fine.”

“He’s okay,” Nate said.

The arms dealer nodded. “Then come in, come in.” He waved for them to follow him and disappeared inside.

Before they could step through the doorway, Quinn grabbed Nate’s arm and pulled him back a few feet. “Why’s he calling you Quinn?”

“Later,” Nate said.

“Does he think you’re me?”

“I said later.” Nate had known this was something that would eventually come up, but he couldn’t worry about it. He’d done what he had to do.

They passed through the doorway into a workshop that took up half the space of the ground floor. There were lathes and drill presses and hydraulic metal cutters and several other machines Nate didn’t even try to figure out. To most of the world, Giacona ran a small but efficient machine shop that specialized in repairs and customized metal work. To those in Nate’s and Quinn’s world, he was a local supplier who was building a reputation as an expert in all things hard to get.

“Your call surprised me,” Giacona said. “I didn’t realize you were in town.”

“A last-minute thing,” Nate told him.

“Something I should know about?”

“Is it ever?”

That elicited a laugh from the Italian. “I always like to ask. So, what is it you need today?”

Fifteen minutes later, they left with three SIG Sauer P226 pistols-Quinn’s weapon of choice and one Nate was growing fonder of-extra clips and ammunition, a couple miniature remote video cameras with built-in wireless connectivity, a compact set of short-range bugs and tracking devices, six sets of communication gear, and, as a last-second request from Nate, a set of lock picks. Everything fit nicely into a single, medium-sized duffel bag.

“Okay, it’s later,” Quinn said once they were on the street.

Nate looked around to make sure no one was nearby, then focused on his old boss. “He called me Quinn because I am Quinn to him, and to several others, too.”

“Others? What are you talking about?”

“After you left, we still had calls coming in, jobs that wanted only Quinn.”

Quinn’s eyes widened. “You…pretended to be me?”

“I had to keep things going. I didn’t know if you were coming back or not, but if you were, I thought it would be better if your reputation didn’t tank completely while you were gone. So, yeah, I told people I was Quinn, not Jonathan Quinn, just Quinn. And you know what? I took jobs, did them, and never once had a complaint or problem.”

“What if I don’t return? You’ll just go on being Quinn?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’ve been doing this for you. Holding things together for you. If you can’t see that, it’s not my problem.”

Nate started walking again. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. His anger was unfair, he knew, but he couldn’t rid himself of it. No matter how much he knew that Quinn’s disappearance had been necessary, he was having a hard time forgiving his mentor for basically abandoning him.

A few seconds later, he heard steps behind him, but didn’t turn to look. Then Quinn drew abreast of him, and they walked in silence to the end of the block where several taxis were parked.

“Nate,” Quinn said before they climbed into one of the cabs.

Nate turned.

“I…” Quinn paused, his head twisting to the side as if frustrated. Finally he looked back. “I’m not sure what to say. It seems every time I…I open my mouth, I…” He stopped again. “I wanted to forget about the world, isolate myself and clear my head. The thing is, I didn’t think about the world continuing on without me.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens.”

“I have no right to be angry about any of it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t react without thinking again.”

“So are you apologizing for now or the future?”

“Both, I guess.”

“I’m not going to let you off that easy,” Nate said as he opened the cab’s door. “We’ll take it on a case-by-case basis.”

“Sure. I can live with that…Quinn.”

Nate rolled his eyes. “Oh, is that an attempt at humor? You know what? Maybe you should call me Quinn from now on.”

“Don’t press your luck,” Quinn said as he climbed into the car.

Using papers that identified her as a German elementary school teacher, Mila crossed the English Channel on a ferry, then took a train from Belgium across France and finally to Milan, Italy. For a brief time, she considered taking the train all the way to Rome, but when she read in the International Herald that a Mr. Johnston, a book dealer outside London, had been discovered murdered in his office, she decided that a less public entrance to the Italian capital would be prudent.

She knew the police would not be after her. There was no way they would ever figure out that the former spy’s death had come at her hands, but those she was actually tracking down might be able to figure it out. Best to do everything she could to avoid detection. So she appropriated a car and drove south to the Italian capital.

Of course, going to Rome was in itself a risk, but not going had never been a choice.

She knew Julien was dead. The fact that he’d stopped checking in with her every few weeks had been the first indication something was wrong. Even in the assumed life she had been living in Canada, she had secure ways of checking in on her old world. That’s how she learned that he’d been murdered on the streets of Paris. It had almost been enough to push her out of exile and go in pursuit of his killers, but the more she looked into things, the more she’d realized that there was a very good chance his killers had already been dealt with. That was enough for her to crawl back into her hole and pretend to be someone she’d never wanted to be.

It was a story in a magazine that made her realize her time in exile was at an end. She knew if the Lion was indeed behind the incidents in 2006-something now confirmed by the late John Evans-she had to do something.

Once Evans had given her the answer she’d been looking for, she knew it was time to go to Rome and retrieve what was waiting for her in Julien’s apartment. Another part of her also saw the Rome trip as a too-long delayed pilgrimage, a chance for her own private memorial service for the man who had loved her unconditionally, despite the fact that as a couple they could never make it work.

Thinking about him again-his big meaty hands, his always-smiling face, and that mane of hair she kept trying to get him to cut-made her catch her breath, and see the road through tear-filtered eyes.