Brett Battles - Shadow of Betrayal

“Sorry,” Nate said.

“What?” Quinn said. “No. You did fine. Better than fine. You got away.”

Nate was silent for a moment, then said, “Thanks.”

Quinn pulled out his phone, intending to call Orlando, but his phone began to ring before he could dial. Peter. Dammit. Quinn hit Accept.

“Hold on, Peter,” Quinn said.

“Wait. What’s going—”

“I said hold on.” Quinn put Peter’s call on hold, then punched Orlando’s name on his quick-contact list.

“Hello?” she said.

“Everything all right there?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said. “Why?”

“Serious. Are you okay?”

She paused. “Hunky-dory,” she said, using their latest code to signify all was normal. “What’s going on?”

“We may have been followed, too.”

“From the Dupuis’?” she said. “You would have noticed.”

It’s true. He would have. He was excellent at the spotting-the-tail game, and he hadn’t seen anyone suspicious on their way back to the motel. But if the others had the resources, there were ways to track a car without needing to keep visual contact.

“I still want you to get out,” Quinn said. “We’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.”

“All right,” she said, but she sounded annoyed.

Quinn clicked back over to Peter.

“What the hell are you doing putting me on hold?” Peter all but yelled.

Quinn ignored the comment. “The Dupuis you wanted us to find. Is her name Marion?”

Peter took a moment, then said, “I told you I don’t have a first name.”

“Well, if it isn’t, there’s another Dupuis who’s in a hell of a lot of trouble.” Quinn recounted the evening’s events, up to and including the suitcase, what Orlando had learned online, and Nate’s encounter with the men who had followed him.

“They weren’t yours, were they?” Quinn asked.

“No. Not mine.”

“So is she who you wanted us to find?”

Silence.

“I… I don’t know,” Peter finally said. “It sounds like it, but…” Peter went quiet again.

After several seconds, Quinn said, “But what?”

Nothing.

“Peter?”

Quinn moved the phone away from his ear so he could see the display. The call was gone.

CHAPTER

16

“QUINN?” PETER SAID. “GODDAMMIT. QUINN, AREyou there?”

The line was dead. The cause was right there on his display screen. No Sig—no signal.

He was on a private jet flying back to Washington, D.C., from New York. Usually the onboard equipment had no problem connecting his signal to the nearest ground station, but on occasion there were moments when it would fail.

Even as he was looking at his phone, the signal strength went from nothing to back to full. He started to redial Quinn, then stopped.

Quinn would want instructions on what to do next, but Peter wasn’t sure. The woman sounded like a lead, but was it worth the extra effort to locate her again? Her connection could have been random, and the information she might have weak at best. Or maybe she was the missing link, the key to knowing what the terrorists had in mind. Hell, not only what, but who the sons of bitches were.

Too many fucking unknowns , Peter thought. Who? What? When? There were no answers to any of these questions. All he had was the word of Primus, and five dead men: the DDNI, Peter’s two men, and Primus’s team in Ireland.

At least Tasha was pulling out of it. The last report he’d heard, she’d regained consciousness for a few minutes. She’d been groggy, and in no condition to talk. But she was alive.

The door in the front of the cabin opened. One of the officers stepped out from the cockpit and walked over to Peter.

“Sir. There’s a sat-vid call for you,” he said. “Would you like me to connect it?”

“I can get it,” Peter said.

“Yes, sir. It’ll be on channel two.”

The officer returned to the cockpit, closing the door behind him.

In front of Peter’s chair was a table connected to the wall of the plane. Rectangular, utilitarian, with a wide pedestal base that was as long as the table. On top was a recess hidden under a cover, unnoticeable if you didn’t know it was there.

Peter touched the cover at exactly the right spot. It slid to the side, revealing a touch-screen interface underneath. With a tap in the center, the screen lit up. With another touch, a thirteen-inch flat screen monitor rose out of the table.

Peter selected channel two. There was a momentary pause before an image came onto the screen. A man sitting in what looked to be an office.

Chercover.

Peter wasn’t surprised. He had assumed it would be either him or his minion Furuta. Both had been a pain in his ass since the DDNI had disappeared. They had stepped in once it was obvious Deputy Director Jackson was missing, and had wanted to be kept up-to-date on everything that was happening.

“Did you find the girl?” Chercover said.

“We know who she is.”

“So you don’t have her yet.”

“It’s not that easy, and you know it.”

Silence for several seconds. “You’re on this project not by my choice. Remember that.”

Peter tried to rein in his temper, but he knew he was less than successful. He could keep anger out of his voice if he really wanted to, but almost never off his face.

Goddamn video phones.

“We are making pro—” he started to say.

“Who is the girl?” Chercover asked, cutting him off.

Peter took a moment to remember all that Quinn had told him. “Her name is Marion Dupuis. Works for the UN, most recently in West Africa. Earlier this week her parents and her sister were killed by a gas leak in their home. We don’t think the leak was an accident.”

“So our terrorist friends are after this Marion woman,” Chercover guessed.

“They at least want to send her a message,” Peter said.

“But you don’t know where she is?”

Peter hesitated a mere half second. “There was a possible sighting in Montreal. I have people there now investigating.”

Chercover stared through the monitor.

“She might be a dead end,” Chercover said. “What we need to do is find out the rest of what Primus was going to tell us. That seems to me to be the most direct path, don’t you agree?”

And yet you’re the fucker who told me to go after her in the first place , Peter thought, but only said, “Of course.”

“Good. Forget about the woman. She isn’t worth the effort.”

Peter could see Chercover’s arm move, then the screen went black.

Peter touched the control panel again, and the monitor slipped back into its home beneath the surface of the table.

He placed his right hand across his forehead and tried to rub away the anger that threatened to consume him. On his list of top ten items he hated most, being micromanaged by a client was right at the top. And when the client was right, it was even more maddening.

Such was the case with Chercover. Of course the girl wasn’t worth the trouble, not without more information. Peter could have Quinn search for her for weeks, but she might never be found. It was eye-on-the-prize time, and the prize was finding out the details Primus had yet to reveal.

Peter knew all this, but now whatever he did, it would seem like he was following Chercover’s directions, not his own instincts.

He found his cell phone and dialed Quinn back.

The line rang but a single time, then, “Peter?”

“Sorry,” Peter said. “I lost signal there for a little bit.”

“What were you going to say before?” Quinn asked.

“I don’t remember,” Peter said. He didn’t, and whatever it was didn’t matter anymore.