Brett Battles - Shadow of Betrayal

Marion would have believed it once. But not now.

The targets were always the same: unofficial orphanages where the parentless came to live because there was nowhere else. There was no set hour when the abductors would arrive. Sometimes it was during the day, sometimes night. But they always came for the same thing, for the special children, the ones like Iris. The children no one else wanted.

It was the report from Afghanistan that was most interesting. The details of the kidnapping were pretty much the same. Several tough-looking men showed up at a building dozens of children called home. Once the men had what they wanted, they were gone. But it was the final paragraph that caught her attention.

A vehicle was stopped at a U.S. military checkpoint. Inside was a Caucasian male. He was accompanied by a driver and a bodyguard, both Afghanis. There was also a child in the car. The soldier couldn’t say for sure, but he guessed the young boy was about six years old. Though the soldier had no way of knowing, the basic physical description he gave matched that of the boy kidnapped the previous day. The Caucasian man said he was a doctor, and that they were transporting the child to a facility in Kabul for treatment. He produced paperwork backing up his story. Seeing no threat, the soldier let them through. “Our job isn’t to look for doctors transporting disabled kids,” he told an investigator later.

The report surmised that the supposed kidnapping and the doctor with the child in the car were unrelated. Again, Marion might have believed that, too, at one time.

After she finished reading all the reports, a part of her wished she had stopped with her simple Internet search. Her mind might have been more at ease then. She would have assumed the incident involving Iris had been an isolated event. But now she knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t even some localized event happening just in Côte d’Ivoire or even just West Africa. No, it was much bigger than that.

The next day she decided to collect as much information as she could. She wasn’t sure who she would give it to, but someone had to know. And the more evidence she had, the better chance she had of someone listening. She found a coffeehouse with a couple of computers in back, and signed on to the UN site again. She got through the first portal fine, but when she attempted to navigate into the restricted area she’d been in the day before, her access was denied. A message popped up asking her to call the system administrator at her earliest convenience.

That was the moment she knew she’d made a serious mistake.

Immediately she logged off and left. She took Iris down into the subway system and randomly rode the trains as she tried to think what she should do. At Times Square she got off and found a pay phone.

She called the UN, but not the system administrator’s office. She dialed the extension for the friend who had helped her with the airplane tickets, a Dutchman named Henrick Roos.

“It’s Marion,” she said, before he could speak.

“Marion?” Roos said. “Are … you all right?”

“I need you to check something for me,” she said. “I seem to be locked out of everywhere but our main site. It was fine up until this morning. Is everyone having problems or is it just—”

“You should probably come in,” he cut her off.

She paused. “Why?”

“There are some … questions that need to be answered.”

“What questions?”

“It would be best if you just came in. I’m sure it will all be fine.”

“Okay,” she said, trying not to let her fear seep into her voice. “If you think that’s best.”

“Yes. I do,” Roos said. “When … can we expect you?” His words were unnatural, forced.

Marion took a deep breath, and did a quick calculation in her mind. “I can be there in an hour and a half. Two tops,” she said.

“We’ll see you then.”

He hung up without letting her say goodbye.

For a second the world seemed to pull away from her. She was standing in one of the busiest places on Earth, yet she felt like she was alone in the middle of a large clearing, visible for anyone to see her. A small cry reminded her that she was anything but alone. Marion reached down and pulled Iris out of the stroller.

“It’s all right, sweetie,” Marion said, hugging the child. “Everything’s fine.”

Iris rested her cheek against Marion’s shoulder.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Marion whispered.

Two hours , she thought. By then they’d realize she wasn’t coming.

The only question was, how far away could she get by then?

CHAPTER

12

DAYLIGHT INVADED THE ROOM FROM SOMEWHERE.Quinn forced his eyes open, not really wanting to wake up, but knowing that it must be time. The light was coming from around the edges of the curtain covering the window on the far side of the room—the whiter light of midday, not the yellow of morning.

The room was as old and tired now as it had been when he’d entered it early that morning. The bedspread, the dresser, the night-stands, even the television, all relics of an older time. But as a place to sleep, it had done fine.

Quinn struggled for a moment to remember the name of the place. The Murphy? Marsh? No, the Morgan Motel. Just south of Albany, he remembered.

Quinn turned away from the window to reach for his watch when he realized he was alone in the bed.

“Orlando?” he called out.

No response. In fact, there was no other noise in the room at all.

Quinn rubbed his face with his palms, then, with an audible grunt, he sat up. He reached over to grab his watch off the nightstand, but instead managed to knock it to the ground. He decided the effort needed to pick it up was too much. Shower first.

In the bathroom, he got the water going as hot as he could stand it, then jumped in and stood beneath the stream for several minutes, unmoving. As the sleep that had been clinging to him began to recede, he rolled his head from side to side, stretched his back, then his shoulders.

When he walked out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, clean and dry and awake, he found Orlando sitting on the bed, a paper sack and a plastic shopping bag beside her.

“Good morning,” he said.

“All right, we can go with morning, if that’s what you’d like,” she replied.

He gave her a playful sneer, then removed a fresh set of clothes from his suitcase.

“I see you got breakfast,” he said as he pulled on his shirt.

“Lunch, actually. We missed breakfast,” she said. “We’ve almost missed lunch, too.”

She tossed something at him. His watch. He caught it and looked at the display as he pulled it over his wrist. 3:41 p.m.

Once Orlando opened the paper bag the smell of burgers and fries wafted from inside. She handed one of the sandwiches to him.

“I also brought this.”

From the plastic bag she withdrew a newspaper, and held it up so he could see it.

It was the Albany Times Union. In bold print across the top was the headline:

SPY CHIEF DEAD

Then below it in smaller type:

DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF

NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

JACKSON MURDERED

But neither was what caught Quinn’s eye, nor were they the reason Orlando was holding the paper up. It was the sketch above the fold that was of interest, an artist’s rendition of the man police were looking for in connection with the crime.

“I don’t think the guy could have done better if I’d posed for him,” Quinn said.

The image was definitely Quinn.

“Yeah,” Orlando said. “I was thinking about cutting it out and framing it.”