Brett Battles - The Silenced

“Our government has more than its share of old KGB still in it,” she scoffed. “His old comrades would block any attempt to bring him home. Even if they didn’t, the government would not want him back, because of the embarrassment he could cause. Many in our country have moved on. They’d rather forget the past than deal with it. Mikhail and I and the others who have helped us knew long ago if we wanted justice we would have to obtain it on our own.”

Quinn frowned to himself. “Give us a moment,” he told Petra, then motioned for Orlando to follow him to the edge of the entryway.

“I think she’s telling the truth,” Orlando said.

“Yeah, I think so, too,” he said, then glanced at the bathroom. “Keep an eye on things out here for a few minutes.”

She smiled. “Be my pleasure.”

As Quinn stepped over to the bathroom door, Petra spoke up again. “Do you know how to reach the Ghost? Are you going to help us? Please, tell me.”

He grabbed the handle of the door. “I’ll let you know in a minute.”

Annabel’s eyes grew wide as Quinn stepped into the bathroom. He flipped on the light and pulled the door closed behind him.

She was sitting on the toilet, her mouth gagged, her hands and feet tied.

“Hope you didn’t think we forgot about you,” he said.

He turned on the water and filled one of the glasses on the counter. When he was done, he set it down and stepped over to the MI6 agent.

“I’m going to take the gag off,” he said. “If you utter one syllable that is not an answer to one of my questions, I guarantee you will regret it. Is that clear?”

She nodded.

“I’m deadly serious. Any slip and you will never see the outside of this room again.” She nodded again.

He reached behind her head and untied the gag. She coughed as it fell from her mouth. Quinn picked up the glass of water and held it in front of her.

“Take a sip.”

Her first attempt ended in another fit of coughing. The second time, she managed to get some down.

“Better?” he asked after a moment.

“Yes,” she said, her voice strained. “People are going to be looking for me. You should let me go now.”

“That’s a slip, Annabel. I’ll let this first one go, but that’s it. Are we clear?”

She took a breath. “Yes.”

He set the glass down on the sink and crouched in front of her. “I believe you played me.”

Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

He pulled out his phone and accessed the picture of him at the Grand Hyatt. “Recognize it? It’s from the last time we met.”

She looked at the phone, then back at Quinn, confused.

“Didn’t expect me to see this, did you?” He smiled. “You took it, then sent it to someone who is trying to harm someone I love.”

“I didn’t… I… I…”

Quinn raised the gag so she could see it. “You’re very close to that second offense.”

She fell silent.

“You took this photo.”

“Yes.”

“Who did you send it to?”

“My office.”

“Okay, we can go with that for a moment. Who did they send it to?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Quinn moved the gag toward her mouth.

“I’m telling the truth,” she said quickly. “I don’t know. I didn’t realize they’d sent it to anyone.”

Quinn pulled the photo Petra had showed him out of his pocket, unfolded it, then held it out so Annabel could see.

Her reaction was uncensored surprise.

“I take it you’ve seen this before,” he said. He then accessed the headshot of Palavin on his phone and held it up for her to see. “And I know you remember this photo. If I remember correctly, you said you were told this man might show up at the meeting I was having with Wills, but you didn’t know who he was.” He paused, but she remained silent. “That was a lie, wasn’t it? You did know him.” He paused. “He looks a hell of a lot like an older version of this kid, don’t you think?” He used the phone to point to the young Palavin in the group shot.

Her gaze moved from one image to the other, then to Quinn’s face.

“You’re not a low-level analyst, are you?” he said.

“Why would I have lied about that?” she asked.

“Because you wanted me to think you didn’t know what was going on. You wanted me to figure out the connections myself, and leave MI6 out of it.” The pieces had fallen together for him as Petra had told her story. “You planted that picture in your briefcase. That’s why you were at the Hyatt in the first place, to somehow get me that folder. You hoped once I had it I’d try to find out who the man was. And then maybe I’d dig a little deeper to see why he was so important.”

“I don’t know what you’re-”

“Palavin,” Quinn said. “That’s the man’s name. He’s also known as the Ghost. Or did you not know that either?”

She did know it. He could see it in her eyes.

“You were trying to push me in a direction,” he went on. “And it worked. Only better than you thought, because I also figured out what you were doing. Now, Annabel, this is what I need from you. First, I know Wills’s client was Palavin, but I want you to confirm that for me.”

A slight hesitation, then an even-slighter nod.

“Good. Second, David told me the job was passed to him through MI6. It was through your division at Wright Bains, correct?”

Another nod, this time with a sense of resignation.

“Through you directly?”

She stared at Quinn for several seconds. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Mighty important task for a low-level analyst.”

“I’m a case officer.”

“Field cases?”

She shook her head. “My department is tasked with handling defectors and other sensitive foreign nationals living in the U.K.”

“Like Palavin,” he said.

She nodded.

“Well, isn’t that interesting. Did he come to you or did you go to him?”

“It was all before my time.”

“That’s not very helpful,” he said. “I’d be happy to turn you over to my two other guests. I’m sure they’d love to get ahold of someone who worked directly with the Ghost.”

“It’s not like that!”

“Then enlighten me.”

“You don’t understand. I’m good at my job. I love doing work that helps protect my country. But this…” She paused. “This wasn’t right.”

Quinn waited for her to go on.

“When Robb contacted-”

“Robb?” Quinn asked, not recognizing the name.

“That’s what he goes by now. Trevor Robb.”

The name Petra was so desperate to know, Quinn thought. “Go on.”

“When… Palavin contacted us, I had to look up his file just to know who he was. Former KGB. Arrived U.K. in 1988. According to the report, he’d already established himself as Trevor Robb, but he’d left Moscow in a hurry and had arrived with only limited funds.”

“So he came to you for money, is that it?”

“Yes. He agreed to share what he knew in exchange for enough cash to make him wealthy, and the promise that we would provide whatever protection he deemed necessary for the remainder of his life.”

“That’s a pretty steep price.”

“Apparently his information more than compensated for his demands at the time.”

“But not now,” Quinn said.

“He hasn’t been an active asset for us for many years. I understand he still tries to keep his fingers in things, but nothing we would be interested in. Then we heard from him a little over a month ago that his life was in danger, and that we were bound by our agreement to protect him. He was an inactive client I inherited from previous case officers, so it fell to me to arrange what he wanted. I talked with his representative, who laid out their plan, and instantly I knew it was something MI6 couldn’t touch. I took it to my superiors, thinking they’d instruct me to tell Mr. Robb to go to hell. But they didn’t. They agreed we shouldn’t be directly involved, but they felt it was important we stick to the deal. There are British interests at stake. It was decided that we would pass it on to one of our contractors, giving them a story that they would find plausible.”