Brett Battles - The Silenced

“You’re not?” He gave Orlando a quick glance, and she shoved the barrel of her faux gun hard into Annabel’s ribs. “Next time I tell her to pull the trigger.”

“What?” Annabel said, a nervous smile on her lips. “You wouldn’t.”

He stared at her, his face completely blank. “Try me.”

Her smile faded quickly.

“I suggest you keep quiet and do exactly what we say,” Quinn told her. “Understood?”

Annabel started to speak, but Quinn shook his head and raised his finger back to his mouth. So she stopped, then nodded.

“Good,” he said. “My associate is going to stay right next to you like she’s your best friend. Okay?”

Another nod.

“See? Not so bad.”

As the train pulled in to Holborn, Annabel tensed.

“Hold tight,” Orlando said. “You won’t be getting off here today.”

“What do you want? I don’t know-” Annabel grimaced as Orlando jabbed her abdomen again.

Quinn leaned close, his mouth an inch from her ear. “Don’t test me.”

“Sorry,” she whispered.

They rode in silence all the way to Green Park. There, with Orlando tight to Annabel’s side, they navigated the warrens of the station until they reached the southbound platform for the Victoria Line.

“I could make a scene right now. There are cameras everywhere. You’d never be able to get away.”

“Perhaps,” Quinn said. “But you’d be on the ground bleeding out, so you’d never know if we did or we didn’t, would you?”

She bit her lower lip. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

“Who said anything about hurt?”

Orlando snickered. “Give me your phone.”

Annabel hesitated, then pulled a cell phone out of the pocket of her overcoat and handed it to Orlando. Unlike the cell she’d been carrying in New York, this was a sophisticated model that must have cost someone a bundle. Orlando turned it off and dropped it into the trash.

When the train arrived, Annabel boarded without protest. This time they rode only two stops, exiting at Pimlico, then rode the escalators up from deep below the city. As they did, Quinn’s phone vibrated, indicating a voicemail. He pulled it out, but had to wait until they reached the top before the signal strength was strong enough to check it.

“Quinn, it’s Nate. First, Liz is fine. Second, we’ll be in London at nine-thirty. I know you told me to use a less direct route, but something happened this morning and I felt the sooner we got there, the better. We’re on the Eurostar and have already passed through the Chunnel. And before you ask, yes, I got the papers Orlando arranged, so no one knows we’re on the train.” He paused. “Quinn, Julien’s dead. I’ll give you the details later. What I need to know now is what you want me to do once we arrive.”

The message ended.

“What’s wrong?” Orlando asked.

Quinn had stopped near the entrance to the station.

“Quinn?” she asked.

He glanced at Annabel, then turned to Orlando. “There’s been… a complication.”

Orlando looked concerned. “Did something happen to…?”

“They’re both fine.”

“Then, what?”

“Julien.”

She raised an eyebrow in question.

He knew he didn’t have to say anything. His expression was answer enough.

“Where are they?” she asked.

Quinn looked at his watch. It was just after nine. “They’ll be here in thirty. We’ll need to split up.”

She nodded. “Don’t worry. I can take care of our friend here.”

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Wait. You might want to show me where I’m supposed to take her first,” Orlando said.

“Right.” God, where was his head? “It’s not far.” He led them out of the station and down Lupus Street to the corner of Belgrave Road. “There. Two blocks up on the left. The Silvain Hotel.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the plastic keycard he’d been carrying for two days now, and handed it to her.

Quinn locked eyes with Annabel. “You’re going to go with my friend. Despite her size, she’s a hell of a lot meaner than I am. If you’re even thinking you might be able to make a break, you should reconsider. She’ll kill you without hesitating. Understand?”

“Yes.” Annabel’s voice was a dry croak.

“Good. She’s going to ask you some questions. Do yourself a favor and answer them. If you don’t, you’re going to have to deal with me.”

Annabel nodded.

“I won’t be long,” he told Orlando, then he ran back toward the Underground station.

It was a Saturday afternoon when everything changed forever.

Quinn was seventeen, and for as long as he could remember he wanted to see more than the farms and the woods of northern Minnesota. He wanted to be someplace where there were people, lots and lots of people. There was a whole world out there, a world he could reach only through the books he read. And as interesting as reading about everywhere else was, it wasn’t enough. He wanted to experience it all with his own senses.

His closest friend was probably Liz, only nine at the time. Sure, there were a couple of kids he hung out with sometimes, but their dreams weren’t the same as his. They thought about taking over their parents’ farms, or hitting it rich at the Indian casino, or playing hockey all winter long. It wasn’t that he thought his dreams were better, just different.

Liz was the only one who would listen to him without giving him that funny, you’re-crazy look. He would tell her about Istanbul and Tokyo and Mecca and Prague. He would describe as best he could the mountains in Nepal, the caste system of India, the carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona. He would show her the world atlas that he’d let no one else see, a cheap, cardboard-covered booklet with continental maps and ones of a few of the larger countries. On each he had marked in blue the places he wanted to go, circling in red those that were first priority.

Liz would listen intently, her face often reflecting his own excitement. But the place that she had fallen in love with just from his descriptions was Paris. That last summer before he left home, he read to her the whole of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Liz had cried when Eponine was shot, then cried again when Jean Valjean died.

“I don’t ever want to see anyone I love die,” she had said. “Not Mom or Dad. Not you.”

“Everyone dies someday, Liz.”

“I don’t want to see it. I never want to see it.”

The end of one life and the start of another began with an argument Jake had with his father about something he could no longer remember. His relationship with his father was strained, often formal, and most times nonexistent. At least, that’s how the teenage Jake perceived it. Looking back… well, looking back, who knew? They didn’t fight often, but when they did, Jake would be so agitated it sometimes took days for him to calm down. One of the things he did to help was take a long hike in the woods. He was about to do just that when Liz had found him and reminded him about his promise to take her fishing.

So he did. And that had been the mistake.

They’d borrowed the boat from a friend in town, and gone out on the Lake of the Woods. It was a vast body of water, the kind where if you were in the middle, you’d lose sight of shore. On a map it was easy to find. It filled most of the little bump at the top of Minnesota that jutted into Canada.

The boat was a twelve-foot aluminum V-hull with a 9.9-horsepower outboard motor, more than enough power for the lightweight vessel.

Liz tried to engage him several times, but Jake just wasn’t interested in talking. So after a while she gave up, and the only sounds came from the lapping of the water against the hull, and the whiz of their reels as they cast out their lines.