Brett Battles - The Silenced

At 6 p.m. Quinn and Orlando stopped for a quick bite at the Iron Duke in Victoria Station. All the pieces of the plan were in place. There was no question in Quinn’s mind whether they would succeed or not. They had to. The survival of his family depended on it.

At 6:14 his phone rang.

Blocked.

It was time.

He let it ring four times before he answered. “Hello?”

“Good evening, Mr. Quinn,” Palavin said.

“Been waiting to hear from you.”

“Is everything still on schedule?”

“Yes. Everything’s fine. You have the location for me?”

“My assistant will be calling you with that information later,” Palavin said.

Quinn tensed, not liking the deviation from what he expected. He stood up and walked to a less-populated section of the pub. “So you’re just calling to make sure everything is fine?”

“Not exactly. I’m calling to ensure you know how important it is that you stay on track.”

“Everything is on track.”

Orlando walked up, her backpack over her shoulders, Quinn’s in her hand.

“That’s good to hear. But sometimes I find that extra incentive doesn’t hurt.”

“What incentive?” Quinn said.

“I think maybe we should stop playing games with each other,” Palavin said. “You’ve known for at least a day now that I’ve had an interest in making sure you finished what I hired you for. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have tried to hide your sister from me.”

Quinn froze.

“What is it?” Orlando mouthed.

But Quinn could only shake his head, his eyes wide.

“I do appreciate that you brought her to London. It makes my job easier.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a sister.”

“Oh, my God,” Orlando whispered.

She walked away from him, pulling her phone out of her pocket.

“I can let you talk to her if you’d like.”

Quinn looked over at Orlando. She had her phone to her ear, but shook her head. Nate wasn’t answering.

“What do you want?”

“What I’ve wanted from the beginning. For you to finish the job you were hired to do.”

Quinn’s grip tightened on his phone. “You don’t need my sister to make that happen. I’m already doing the job.”

“Perhaps it would have been unnecessary before, but once you knew I was trying to find her, how could I trust you were being honest with me? Now that I actually have Elizabeth, I think maybe we can see eye to eye. You bring me the body, and I will let her go.”

“I want to talk to her,” Quinn said.

“Naturally. I wouldn’t expect you to believe me if you didn’t.”

“Just put her on!”

The phone fell silent for a moment. The next thing Quinn heard was heavy breathing.

“Liz?”

“Jake? God, Jake. Help.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Just bruised.”

“That’s it?”

“So far.”

He then asked the question he’d avoided with Palavin. “What about Nate?”

She sobbed. “They shot him. They-”

There was the sound of movement. “I think you’ve talked enough,” Palavin said. “We’ll call later with the location.”

Palavin hung up.

Quinn grabbed Orlando by the shoulder. “Come on,” he said, pushing her toward the exit back into the station.

“What happened?” Orlando asked.

“Nate,” he said, then started sprinting for the entrance to the Underground.

There were half a dozen police cars parked on Charlotte Street. A large area in front of the apartment building had been cordoned off. As with all crime scenes, a small crowd had gathered around the outside of the police zone.

Quinn and Orlando approached a couple standing just off to the side.

“What happened?” Quinn asked, trying to sound curious but unconcerned.

The woman glanced over. “We heard a man was shot,” she said.

“Really?” Orlando said. “In this neighborhood? Was he badly hurt?”

The woman shook her head. “Don’t know. We’ve only been here a few minutes.”

“Thanks,” Quinn said.

They walked over to the sidewalk on the other side of the street. There was a waiter standing next to an empty outside table in front of an Indian restaurant. He was looking toward a group of police gathered beyond the police line. The restaurant itself was empty.

“Someone got shot? Did I hear that right?” Quinn asked.

“Yes. Apparently.”

“Did you hear it happen?”

“No,” he said. “But I saw people running out of the building. Then one of the neighbors came out yelling about gunfire.”

“Just the one person hit?”

“As far as I know,” the man said. “An ambulance took him away ten minutes ago.”

“Unbelievable,” Orlando said. “I wonder what happened.”

The man shrugged. “Drugs probably. Isn’t that what it always is?” He turned and walked back into the restaurant.

Orlando pulled out her phone and began typing. While she did, Quinn guided them toward Tottenham Court Road.

“The closest medical facility is University College Hospital,” Orlando said.

“Is that where they took him?” Quinn asked.

“I don’t know yet.” She pressed a button on the phone, then held it up to her ear. “Yes, hello,” she said, using a remarkably good British accent. “This is Chief Inspector Owens. I’m checking on the status of a man who would have been brought there within the last thirty minutes… Yes, I’ll hold.”

They had reached Tottenham Court Road.

“Taxi or foot?” Quinn asked.

“Foot for now,” she said, then pointed toward the north. “That way.”

They darted through traffic to the other side of the street.

“I’m here,” Orlando said as they reached the sidewalk. “Yes, I’m involved with the investigation on Charlotte Street. It was my understanding that the victim was brought to your hospital. Is that not right?… Oh, good. He is there… And his condition?… No, I understand. Thank you.”

She disconnected the call.

“He’s there, but she had no information on his status.”

“How the hell did Palavin know?” Quinn asked.

“A spotter at the train station?” she suggested.

“I would have seen them.”

“Did Liz still have her phone?” They both knew if she did, it would have been a simple matter for someone with the right resources to track it.

“Nate got rid of it in Paris,” he told her.

“A homing device in her clothes?”

“The only one who could have put one there was Julien. And there’s no way he did.”

“So how?” she asked. “They were spotted somewhere? That seems pretty random. Palavin wouldn’t have known where they were headed after Paris, and I doubt he had the resources to-”

“The passport,” Quinn said.

“What?”

“The passport you arranged for them to pick up in Paris before they left. Did you have your contact install a GPS clip?”

“Of course. In case we needed to track them.”

Quinn looked at her without saying anything, the suggestion that the GPS IDs might have been compromised clear on his face.

“Not possible,” she said. “I’ve used Michael Loge many times. He wouldn’t give that information away.”

“For the right amount of cash, some people will give anything away.”

Orlando drifted off for a second, then brought her phone up and made a call. It was soon apparent the person on the other end wasn’t answering. She frowned, accessed another number, and called it.

“Christophe, it’s Orlando,” she said. “I’m trying to get ahold of Michael, but he’s not answering. Have you heard-” She paused, listening. “When?… How did it-No, no. It’s okay. Merci. ” She hung up.

“What?” Quinn asked.