Brett Battles - The Silenced

“All right,” Quinn told them. “Two minutes and I make the call.”

“Let me speak to my sister,” Quinn said.

“Where are you?” the Ghost asked.

“Let me speak to my sister.”

“You already spoke to her.”

“And you could have dumped her since then. Let me speak to her, or we abort.”

The phone exchanged hands.

“I’m here,” she said, strain still in her voice, but a little calmer than the last time.

“Still okay?”

“Yes.”

“Good. It won’t be long.”

“All right,” she said. “Jake, what about Nate? Is he-”

Quinn could hear the phone moving again.

“I’m at Waterloo,” the Ghost said. “Bring me the package now and you can have her back. Then we can both move on.”

Quinn’s phone vibrated, indicating a text, but he ignored it for the moment.

“Step two,” he told the Ghost. “Head toward Victoria Station. I’ll call you in five minutes with further instructions.”

“That is unaccep-”

Quinn disconnected the call, then looked at the screen. The text was from Orlando.

Arrived point 3. All clear.

Quinn sent her a quick message back.

Did you check on Nate?

While he waited for her reply, he leaned toward Mikhail’s phone. “Anything?”

“The Mercedes is moving,” Nova reported. “Hold on.”

Quinn heard Nova speaking in Russian. There was a muffled reply that sounded like it was coming over another phone. When he came back on, he said, “It’s heading west toward Westminster Bridge.”

“That’s him,” Quinn said.

Nova said something in Russian again. Quinn looked at Mikhail, his eyebrows raised.

“He’s checking on the backup cars,” Mikhail said.

Good. That was going to be Quinn’s next question.

Fifteen seconds of nothing, then Nova said, “Have positions on the Audi and the other Mercedes, too. The Audi looks like it’s hanging back to cover the Ghost’s car, while the Mercedes is racing ahead.”

“Any sign of anyone else?” Quinn asked.

“None,” Nova said. “Should we drop the hammer?”

“Soon,” Quinn said.

His phone vibrated again.

Still alive

The rain had increased, soaking the road and chasing most people off the streets.

“Now,” Quinn said to Petra as they passed Victoria Station.

Ahead, the light was changing. Petra pressed the accelerator to the floor, then swerved the van around a car that was slowing for the light, and raced through the intersection.

“Did they make it?” Quinn asked.

Petra looked in the mirror. “No. There were too many cars between us.”

“Lose them,” he said.

Petra took the next right, then went several blocks before taking a left onto a quieter residential street. As she continued to work her way through the neighborhood, Quinn kept checking to see if the other car had returned, but it hadn’t.

“Where’s our tail?” Quinn asked.

Mikhail spoke Russian into the phone, then looked back at Quinn. “They’ve gone south. Back toward the river.”

Quinn smiled. “And Palavin?”

Mikhail spoke into his phone again, then said to Quinn, “Nearing Victoria.”

“Take us to point three,” Quinn told Petra. He then called Palavin.

“We’re here,” Palavin said. “We’ll park on the north side. You’ll have three minutes to find us, or the deal is off and your sister is dead.”

“I think you misunderstood me. We’re not meeting at Victoria Station,” Quinn told him.

“I’m done playing your games. Come get her and give me my property.”

“Step three. You should write this down. Fifty-one point seven-”

“What the hell is this?” the Ghost said.

“Figure it out,” Quinn told him, then gave him the rest of the GPS coordinates. “You should be able to get there in an hour. I’ll give you fifty minutes. And if you do anything to my sister, I will expose you, Mr. Robb, and you’ll be spending your last years in prison for murder.”

He hung up the phone.

“Well?” he asked Mikhail.

The Russian was sitting across from him, listening to his own phone. “They’re still at Victoria,” he told Quinn. “Wait… they are on the move again…” There was a pause of several seconds. “Heading… toward… point three.” Mikhail said something in Russian, then to Quinn, “Definitely heading toward point three.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “It looks like we’re on.”

The house was twenty miles northeast of the city, outside Chelmsford, near a little town called Sandon. It was down a rural road lined with fields and the occasional home. The house belonged to a Dr. Ryan O’Sullivan and his Russian wife, Ilya, both friends of Nova’s. When Quinn had scouted it with Orlando and Petra that afternoon, his only question had been where the doctor and his family were.

“Nova says the husband and wife are out of the country at a medical convention, and that the children are away at boarding schools in Ireland,” Petra told him.

“Any chance someone will show up unexpectedly?” Orlando asked.

“He says zero.”

Quinn took another look around. “All right. This will do.”

At the front of the property was a small pond that served as home to a pair of black swans. Quinn had seen them that afternoon, but the only movement on the water now was the frenetic dappling caused by the rain from the storm.

The house at the back of the property was two stories in front with two single-story wings that ran further back on each side. Though Nova had supplied a key, Quinn had no intention of entering. Their business would be dealt with out front, between the house and the pond.

The closest neighbors were a good four acres away to either side, separated by rows of trees and brush. Behind the house, nothing but a tree-ringed field.

When they arrived, Orlando was waiting for them. Her job had been to make sure no one had shown up.

Petra parked the van in front of the house, visible from the road, then Quinn and the two Russians joined Orlando under the carport on the south end of the house.

“How is he?” he asked Orlando, still thinking about Nate.

“Not great, but he’s hanging in there.”

Quinn took a deep breath. In all his years in the business, he had never been seriously shot or lost a limb. In Nate’s short time, he’d experienced both. And, Quinn realized, both times had been on projects that were Quinn initiated. Which meant there was no way to rationalize either injury as just being part of the job.

They were Quinn’s fault. He was responsible.

Orlando placed a hand on his back. “He’s a fighter,” she said. “He’s going to be fine.”

If he makes it through the night, Quinn thought.

Something buzzed nearby.

Mikhail pulled his phone out of his pocket. He listened for a moment, then said, “Five minutes away.”

Quinn nodded. “Tell Nova to drop the hammer now.”

While Mikhail passed on the instructions, Quinn turned to Petra and Orlando.

“We should get into position,” he said.

Petra and Mikhail headed off to the right, past the van. Orlando gave Quinn’s hand a squeeze, then ran along the edge of the driveway opposite the pond.

Three minutes later, Quinn saw headlights in the distance down Meyers Lane. They were proceeding slowly. He moved out from the cover of the carport to a spot in the middle of the driveway a dozen feet away from the van, then turned so he faced the road, and waited as the rain soaked his head and jacket.

A large tree at the northeast corner of the property momentarily obscured the car, then it reappeared along the road just on the other side of the pond. Even with the stormy conditions, Quinn could see it was a Mercedes sedan. It slowed to a near stop fifteen feet shy of the driveway’s entrance, then began crawling forward, finally turning onto the driveway. When it stopped again, it was two car lengths away from Quinn.