Brett Battles - The Silenced

For the next five minutes Quinn searched the rest of the building in case there was more security, while Orlando headed down to the basement to assess the situation there. After he confirmed there were no more than the two men they’d already dealt with, Quinn headed back downstairs.

When he hit the lobby, he told his new Russian friends, “Give us thirty minutes, then bring the van into position.”

“Roger,” Mikhail replied.

The basement level was a mess. The long central hallway was littered with boxes and damaged office furniture. Off the corridor were doors every twenty feet. Most were open, revealing equally trashed rooms.

“Where are you?” he called out.

“Down here.” Orlando’s voice came from the far end of the hall.

Quinn worked his way around the scattered debris until he reached the room she was in. It was a fair guess that in the eighties the basement rooms had all been used as offices, but they had sometime since been turned into storage areas. The room that had once been rented by the Ghost was full of near-empty wooden shelving units.

Orlando was standing off to the right, in front of a unit against the wall. She’d already cleared a lot of debris out of the way.

“This should be it,” she said.

Quinn immediately saw what Palavin had done, or rather, what MI6 had redone. The room was in the corner of the building. The wall on the right seemed to be about a meter further into the room than it needed to be. Plenty of space for a walled-off closet.

“Looks right to me.”

She grabbed the wooden shelf. “Help me with this?”

Together they started to pull the bookshelf away from the wall. The rusty screws that had been holding it in place easily gave way. Once the area was clear, Quinn set his backpack on the floor and removed a two-foot-long wrecking bar that was strapped to the outside. Though it was unlikely that Palavin’s watcher would check inside the building after they left, they couldn’t take any chances. They needed to make it look authentic.

Quinn began swinging at the wall, and five minutes later he had a hole wide enough for the job he was supposed to be doing. As expected, there was nothing inside.

While he took a moment to catch his breath, Orlando staged the scene by propping some of the debris against the wall and making it look like something had been removed from inside. Once she was done, Quinn helped her push the shelving unit back in place. That was part of the show, too. Since the building wasn’t long for life, there would have been no need for Quinn to repatch the wall like the one MI6 had done. Covering it up with the shelves so that it wouldn’t draw the attention of security was all that was required.

That done, Orlando pulled two heavy-duty plastic-fiber bags out of her backpack, while Quinn scanned the room for the last things they needed to complete the illusion. He found some old chairs in the corner and used the wrecking bar to create several chunks of wood about the same size as human bones.

“What do you think?” he asked Orlando.

She glanced at his handiwork. “Perfect.”

“Pulling up now,” Petra announced.

Quinn and Orlando, each carrying one of the plastic bags that now ostensibly contained the remains of Trevor Robb, stepped from the hallway into the front lobby. Through the glass doors, they could see the van stop at the curb. Painted on the side was the business name Halvorsen Cleaning Services.

“Street?” Quinn asked.

“Clear,” Petra said.

Orlando went first, with Quinn right behind her. As soon as they cleared the building, the side door on the van swung open. Mikhail was standing several feet inside so that he wouldn’t be seen. They wanted Palavin’s surveillance to think there were only three people on the job.

“Here,” Orlando said, setting her bag just inside so Mikhail could grab it.

As soon as he did, she ran over to where they’d left the first guard to return his keys and badge. Quinn waited until she came back, then they both climbed inside, and he slammed the door closed.

“Go,” Quinn said.

Petra took her foot off the brake, and they were off. Mikhail, sitting in the back with Quinn and Orlando, was talking to someone in Russian on his phone. After a moment he moved it away from his face.

“Is he moving?” Quinn asked.

“Yes,” Mikhail said.

“Following us or checking out the building?”

“Following us.”

Quinn nodded. “Good.”

So their work in the basement had been unnecessary. That was fine. The energy he’d expended had worked off any rough edges he felt. What was left now was focus.

Clear, lethal focus.

Ten minutes had passed since they’d left the financial district when Quinn’s phone rang. The caller ID read BLOCKED.

“Here we go,” he said.

He pushed Accept.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Quinn?”

“Who is this?” Quinn asked.

“My name is Fedor.”

“Sorry, I’m talking to only your boss.”

Quinn could hear Fedor start to say something, but he disconnected the call before he could hear what it was.

It took only ten seconds for the phone to ring again.

“Mr. Quinn,” Fedor said, “I’m calling to give you instructions for-”

“I talk to your boss or I talk to no one.”

“Wait!”

“Tell him if he wants Trevor Robb’s body,” Quinn said, “he’d better be the one on the other end when my phone rings again.” He hung up again.

No one said anything for several moments.

Finally, Orlando looked over at Petra. “You never told us what he did to you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The Ghost. You said he hurt all of you in one way or another. What did he do to you?”

Petra looked uneasy.

“If it’s too personal,” Orlando said, “you don’t have to answer.”

“No,” Petra said. “It’s just hard to talk about.” A wan smile crossed her lips. “His name was Andrei. I was twenty-three, and he was twenty-five. We’d been married a year and a half when the Ghost’s men came for him. He did nothing wrong, other than want a better future for our children.”

“How many did you have?” she asked.

She shook her head. “None. We were going to have two. A boy and a girl. That’s what we talked about. But the Ghost took them from me before they could even be conceived. Someone in our building overheard Andrei saying something they took to be subversive and turned him in. What, I never knew.”

Once more, silence descended on the car.

After nearly a minute, Quinn said, “I think we’ve waited long enough.”

He called the number Annabel had given him, and almost immediately Fedor answered.

“Is he ready to talk to me now?” Quinn asked.

“How did you get this number?” Fedor stammered.

“Seriously? That’s what you’re worried about? Do you know what I do for a living? Put your boss on.”

The line went silent for half a minute, then Palavin came on. “Mr. Quinn?”

“Yes.”

“You have a problem talking to my assistant?”

“I don’t have a problem talking to him,” Quinn said. “I just don’t have any reason to. This business is between you and me.”

“You have something for me?”

“If you mean do I have the body you sent me after, yeah, I have Trevor Robb right here.”

Palavin’s response was quick and casual. “Robb? Is that supposed to mean something to me? Because, Mr. Quinn, it doesn’t.”

“That’s interesting,” Quinn said. “It’s the name I found on the ID tucked under the sole of his shoe.”

“His shoe?”

“Yes. Looks like he put it there in case something happened to him. Guess it’s a good thing he did.”