Brett Battles - The Silenced

“Tell them I’m not in Paris. That way you won’t be lying.”

Julien grinned under his mountain man beard. “And when they ask about your sister?”

“Tell them she didn’t come home all night. Suggest that perhaps she has a boyfriend, and you’d be happy to track him down if they want. If they say yes, raise your rate.”

A deep laugh. “You’re good at this, my friend. Don’t worry. I’ll sell them the story.”

“Thank you. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”

Julien raised his glass in the air. “To old friends, yes?”

Quinn raised his own. “Yes.”

“And to screwing over those who try to do the same to us.”

Quinn smiled. “I’ll drink to that, too.”

Anton Nova was a surprisingly small man given his reputation. Petra had expected someone closer to six foot three than five-four. And fat, not thin.

His real name was Kirill Nikitov. Once part of the Moscow underworld, he’d been forced to leave the Russian capital seven years earlier due to a problem with someone higher in the organization. Since his exile to England, Nova had developed into the person you went to if you needed something from the ever-growing Russian community. His knowledge of the city, and of both the Russian emigrant population and the native English, was unparalleled. He was the kind of person most people made a point of avoiding unless absolutely necessary.

It had been Dombrovski who had told her that if she found herself in London, Nova could be trusted. There were other contacts in other places, too. They, like Nova, all had the same thing in common. They had all had their lives touched by the Ghost.

When she and Mikhail arrived at the pub in Piccadilly, they were directed to a large, silent man standing near a door at the back of the room. He ran a metal detecting wand over them, then performed a quick physical search. Satisfied, he opened the door and motioned for them to go through.

Inside they found Nova sitting at an otherwise empty round table. The only other person in the room was an unsmiling man standing along the wall by the door.

“Please. Sit,” Nova said, pointing at the two empty chairs at the table.

They did so.

“I had heard we had a couple of interesting visitors in town,” Nova said. “What is it I can do for you?”

“We’re looking for two people,” Petra said. “Englishmen. We were hoping you could help us find them.”

“Have you tried the phone book?”

“These two are special,” she said. “They wouldn’t be in any phone book.”

Nova put a spoon into the bowl of soup that sat in front of him, then looked at Petra. “I can guarantee you one thing. If you don’t tell me their names, I can’t help you.”

“One is named Leon Currie.”

Nova slurped the soup, then asked, “And the other?”

“David Wills.”

Nova dropped the spoon onto the table, dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin, then rested his arms on the edge of the table. “I don’t know if ‘special’ is the right word. ‘Unusual,’ perhaps.”

“Then, you know them?” she asked.

“Why would you be looking for these two men?”

“We have things we need to discuss with them.”

“What things?”

“Private things.”

Nova leaned back. “If you want my help, then nothing is private from me.”

Mikhail touched Petra’s arm. “Tell him,” he whispered.

“Yes, please. Tell me,” Nova said.

Petra hesitated. Dombrovski had said Nova could be trusted. “We need to talk to them because we think they can lead us to someone else,” she said.

Nova let out a little laugh and shook his head. “Rurik, show our new friends out.”

The guard stepped out from the wall.

“The Ghost,” Petra said quickly. “We’re looking for the Ghost.”

Nova stared at her, his relaxed, superior attitude gone. “The Ghost?”

“Yes.”

“Who sent you to me? Dombrovski?”

Petra nodded. “We worked for him.”

“But no longer?”

She paused, then said, “He’s dead.”

“When?” Nova asked, surprised.

“Three weeks ago.”

“How did it happen?”

“The Ghost tracked him down,” she said, seeing no need to explain further.

Nova seemed lost in thought, then he shook his head incredulously. “He tried to convince me when I was still in Moscow to help him, did he tell you that?”

Yes, she thought, but she remained silent.

“I told him what he was trying to do was impossible. No one would find the Ghost. No one knew who he was, or what he looked liked. I told him for all we knew the Ghost was probably dead. That those he silenced were the only ones who could do anything now.” He locked eyes with Petra. “Are you telling me I was wrong?”

She stared right back at him. “How am I supposed to answer that?”

“Tell me the truth.”

“We don’t know the truth yet,” she said. “But we are close.”

“You know who the Ghost is?”

“We know his Russian name. Nikolai Palavin.”

“His Russian name? What do you mean?”

“We believe he fled Russia not long before Gorbachev gave up power.”

“So you think this Palavin is in London?” Nova asked. “I have never heard of him.”

“We don’t know where he is, but we think a person who does is here.”

“The men you asked about.”

“Yes,” Petra said.

Nova shook his head. “If they do, why would they tell you?”

Petra thought of Dombrovski, and of Kolya, and of Luka, and of all those lost. “Because we will make them.” She paused. “Will you help us?”

Nova was silent for several seconds, then he smiled. “I can tell you where they are, but you’ll have to figure out how to get them to talk.”

“That’s all we want.”

“There is a matter of payment,” Nova said.

“We were hoping you’d do this as a favor.”

The small man grunted a laugh. “I don’t even do favors for my family.”

“We don’t have very much,” Petra said.

“I don’t want your money.”

Petra was confused. “Then, what?”

He leaned forward, the look on his face deadly serious. “If you catch the Ghost, I want you to come back here, and I want you to tell me.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s enough.”

Nova had provided addresses and descriptions for both Currie and Wills. Mikhail went off to check out Wills, while Petra concentrated on Currie.

She had located the flat in Chelsea where Currie was supposed to be working, but after several hours she had not caught a glimpse of the man. It didn’t help that dark clouds had moved over the city and let loose a steady, cold rain.

Mikhail wasn’t having any better luck with Wills.

“There are lights on inside,” he said, “but no one has come out. How long do we wait?”

“As long as we need to.”

But by ten-thirty that evening there had still been no sign of either man, and, reluctantly, Petra decided they should return to the apartment.

“Tomorrow we’ll switch targets,” she said as she lay down on her mattress. “That way we will both be familiar with the neighborhoods they live in.”

For a moment there was no response. Petra thought that Mikhail must already be asleep, but then he said in a low voice, “Perhaps it will change our luck.”

She nodded in the dark. Perhaps.

The Eurostar left Paris Nord at 8:13 P.M. ON its three-hour trip to London. As it emerged from the Chunnel-the tunnel under the English Channel-Quinn’s phone vibrated. He had two text messages. Both coming while he’d been under the sea. The first was from Nate:

In for the night. All clear here.

Good, Quinn thought. One less thing for him to worry about at the moment. The second was Orlando: