Shadow of Betrayal - Brett Battles

“The meeting’s not until noon,” he said.

“That’s only five hours away. We’ve got a lot to do before then.”

“I can be quick.”

“Then you can do it alone.”

There was a second of silence, then they both began to laugh. She turned to him, her face inches away from his. He started to move in for a kiss, but she pulled back.

“Morning breath,” she said.

“I love your morning breath.”

She snorted. “That’s the worst lie I think I’ve ever heard.”

“I don’t care that you have morning breath. Better?”

She stared at him for a moment, then smiled. “Better enough.”

She moved forward, her lips on his lips, her body on his body.

By the time they left the bedroom, there were only four hours left until the meeting.

They arrived at LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, at 10:00 a.m., parking Quinn’s BMW on Sixth Street.

“We’ll start on Wilshire and do a perimeter search,” Quinn said to Orlando. “You go west and I’ll go east.”

“Okay,” she said.

“And me?” Nate asked from the back seat.

Quinn handed Nate the bag of items he’d picked up at a 7-Eleven on the way. Inside were a couple bottles of water, an energy bar, and a newspaper.

“Find a table in the central court and relax,” Quinn said. “That’s where I’m supposed to meet him, so I want you to keep an eye on things. There’s a chance he’ll show up early to have a look around, too.”

“I can do the walk-around, one of you could sit and wait,” Nate said.

“We’ll do it the way I said,” Quinn told him.

“You worried about my leg again? Jesus, haven’t I shown you that it’s not a problem? I helped you run down that guy in Ireland. I was chased in Montreal. I’m fine.”

“I don’t care about your leg,” Quinn said. “But if you want to walk, fine. Give the bag to Orlando.”

Nate didn’t move. After a moment, he said, “I’ll do the court. Whatever you want. You’re the boss.”

“Yes. I am.”

As soon as they got out of the car, Nate started to walk away.

“Wait,” Orlando said. “You need this.”

Nate turned just in time to catch the small comm gear packet she had tossed at him.

He stuffed it in his pocket, then resumed walking away.

Once he was out of earshot, Orlando said, “It was the leg, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Quinn said. “I guess. Shit.”

“If you’re not going to get past this, then release him. Set him up with someone else. Hell, I’ll take him on. Make him an apprentice researcher. He can sit behind a desk all day, I’m sure he’ll love that.”

“I… I don’t know what to do,” he said, surprised by his own words. “I want him to succeed, I do. But it’s not as easy as that. I need to know he’ll be ready for any kind of situation. I need to know he’ll be able to function at a high level at all times. I need to know he’ll do the job just like someone who still has both legs. Being a cleaner is a dangerous job, and I’m not going to put him out there if I think he’s going to have problems. He could die. I can’t have that.”

“Quinn, seriously.” She touched his arm, stopping him. “Let it go. If he’s not good enough, fine. Let him go. But you have to give him a chance to prove himself.”

Quinn looked at the ground near his feet for a moment, then, with a sigh, he tilted his head up. “Come on.”

He wanted to let it go. He knew Nate would be a good cleaner. His skills continued to improve. But the leg. The leg that had been maimed while he was helping Quinn on that personal mission in Singapore when an LP operative had purposely smashed into it. Would it hold out in the worst of circumstances? Could Quinn take that chance knowing he’d be responsible for whatever happened?

He gave her a faint smile, then started walking again.

Quinn’s main concern was being set up. He was looking for any sign that this might be the case. Perhaps a couple of men waiting in a parked car around the perimeter of the museum, or maybe some tourist who didn’t look the part.

He first walked by the Ahmanson Building and the old main entrance to the museum. LACMA was actually a collection of several buildings: the Ahmanson Building, the Bing Center, the Hammer Building, the Pavilion for Japanese Art, the old May Company building known now as LACMA West, and the newest building, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum.

The first four were clustered together near the center point of the museum grounds. In the middle of this group, beyond the entrance, was the central court where Nate would be sitting at one of the tables, reading the paper. There, in addition to a dozen or so tables and chairs, visitors would find the ticket booth, a café, and the museum store.

Quinn continued north along the sidewalk. Traffic on Wilshire was its usual midday busy, not bumper-to-bumper, but constant. Since rush hour was over, cars were again allowed to park along the street. Keeping his movements natural, Quinn checked each of the cars on either side of the street, making sure they were empty. So far, so good.

Past the last of the museum’s buildings, the grounds continued for another whole block up to Curson Avenue. Here it was more of a park. Grass, trees, pathways, kids running around, people walking dogs, and, of course, four life-size mammoths and a small lake of black tar.

It was the centerpiece of the famous La Brea Tar Pits, a tar lake about the size of a football field. The mammoths had been added sometime in the past, no doubt to provide visitors an idea of what could happen at the pits—a single mammoth at that west end looked out over the lake, while at the east end a family of three was caught in a life-or-death struggle. One of the mammoths from the family was half-submerged in the black sticky grip of the tar as its mate and child looked on in horror from the shore several feet away.

Quinn turned north on Curson. Here no cars were allowed to park along the street, but there were several school buses. That explained all the children. Field trips.

He kept up a steady pace, assessing everyone he saw, and marking those in his mind that he felt might deserve a second look. Five minutes later he met up with Orlando on Sixth Street along the back side of the museum grounds.

“All clear?” he asked.

“As far as I can tell,” she said.

“Nate. Anything?” Quinn asked.

There was a pause, then the rattle of paper before his apprentice’s hushed voice came over his receiver. “Quiet over here. The museum doesn’t open until noon. Most of the people I’ve seen probably work here.”

“No one paying attention to you?”

“I know how to do the job,” Nate snapped.

“So that’s a no?”

“That’s a no.”

“Orlando and I are going to walk around the grounds, then I’ll come over there and we’ll switch.”

“Copy that,” Nate said. Then, after a slight pause, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Quinn said, conceding without actually saying it that he might have pushed too much. He looked at Orlando. “Let’s go into the park, but switch. You take the east, and I’ll go west.”

She was giving him her patented you’re-an-idiot look, no doubt about the exchange with Nate, but she only said, “Okay.”

After wandering through the park that surrounded the museums for another thirty minutes, noticing nothing unusual, Quinn decided it was time to get into position.

He’d almost reached the central court when Orlando said, “I got something.”

Quinn stopped, instinctively turning east toward the part of the park she’d been in.

“Is it him?” he asked.

“Might be. I’m down near the east end of the lake, along that small walkway between the tar and the fence near Wilshire Boulevard. I have a good view here of the Curson gate.”

Quinn pictured the spot in his mind. “All right.”

“Two men just entered. Not tourists. Casual suits. Looking very serious.”

Quinn thought about all the office buildings that were within a few blocks of the park. “Could be a couple of businessmen trying to get some air.”

“Could be,” she said, “but they have the look.”

He knew what she meant. Tough, focused, not letting anything escape their gaze. Quinn looked at his watch: 11:15, still forty-five minutes until the meeting was to occur. Advance men, maybe? Doing the same thing Quinn and his team were doing? Or another assassination team, like the one in Ireland, getting into place?

“This is L.A.,” Nate said. “Maybe they’re agents. You know, of the talent kind.”

Quinn was about to tell Nate to knock it off, but he stopped himself.

“Keep an eye on them,” Quinn said. “Could be nothing.”

“Copy that,” Orlando said.

Instead of continuing toward the central court, Quinn headed down the path that ran along the back side of the Hammer Building, toward the tar lake.

“What are they doing?” he said.

“Hold on,” Orlando whispered.

Quinn picked up his pace as much as he could without drawing attention.

Five seconds passed. Then ten.

“What’s going on?”

Nothing.

Screw drawing attention. He began to run, leaving the path when it veered to the left, and instead keeping to the grass that grew behind the Pavilion for Japanese Art. When he reached the end, he slowed again, then stopped behind some foliage that grew next to the building.

“Orlando?”

There was a single cough over the receiver. The message was clear. She was there, but she couldn’t talk.

“I’m moving in to help,” Nate’s voice broke in.

“No,” Quinn said. “Hold your position.”

“But she might need—”

“Just hold your position.”

Quinn peeked through the bushes, trying to see what was happening. But Orlando was too far away, and the black wire mesh fence that surrounded the lake was between them.

He pulled out his phone, accessed the camera function, then activated maximum zoom and pointed the lens toward the lake. The image on the display screen jumped wildly as he moved the lens from right to left. There was a couple walking down the path, holding hands. Beyond them, a couple of kids were trying to throw rocks over the fence into the tar. Nothing for a while, then near the east end of the lake, a man in a suit leaning against the railing and looking through the wire mesh at the mammoth caught in its daily struggle for freedom. A hard man. A man with the look. And five feet farther on, also looking through the fence, Orlando.

Quinn continued scanning past her for a moment. She had said two men. But there was only the one. Where had his friend gone?

“Nate,” Quinn said. “Up and moving. Head toward the café, then take the ramp down into the park. One of the suits is next to Orlando’s position. Don’t worry about him, I’m on that. But I don’t know where his partner is. Locate him. Do not intercept. Recon only at this point.”

“Copy that,” Nate said.

As he watched, Orlando pulled her camera phone out of her pocket and held it up to her eye, acting the part of tourist. She could pass, probably. But if the guy in the suit was a legitimate concern, something must have caused him to be interested in her.

“I think he’s made you,” Quinn said. “But you’re too public there. Let’s get him someplace we can deal with him. You think you can get him to follow you?”

A low, grunted “Uh-huh.”

“Good.”

Quinn thought for a second. The problem with a public place was that there was too much public around. But he knew one place that might work.

“Head west, behind the museum. There’s an observation pit of an old excavation area. It’s covered by a cinderblock building, but there’s an opening on the north side. When I was there a few minutes ago, no one was around. I’ll wait inside.”

Another grunt of understanding.

Quinn watched through his camera as Orlando straightened up and began walking around the east end of the lake, then turned and headed west through the park. The man in the suit didn’t move at first.

“Come on, you son of a bitch,” Quinn said.

After fifteen seconds, the man began to follow. Quinn waited to make sure it wasn’t just a coincidence, then said, “You’ve hooked him.”

“Great,” Orlando whispered, not sounding thrilled by the prospect.

Quinn slipped his phone back into his pocket and made his way to the observation pit.

The building was round, built with tan-colored cinder blocks, and encircled a small pit of tar that had long ago given up all its discoveries to the archaeologists who had worked it. Across the opening on the north side was an iron fence set several feet from the surrounding wall. It was painted burnt orange, and for as long as Quinn could remember, the gate had been closed and locked. This time was no exception. Beyond the gate a concrete pathway hugged the wall and spiraled down one level to a pit of tar. A short iron railing that matched the color of the gate lined the pathway to keep anyone from falling in.

Quinn retrieved his lock picks and set to work on the decades-old dead bolt that secured the gate in place. Once it was unlocked, he left it closed, then tucked himself into the small recess where the cinderblock wall met the fence.

“I’m just inside the opening,” he said. “I don’t think he’ll follow you in, so just get him close to the entrance so I can get behind him.”

“Copy,” Orlando said. “Should be there in one minute.”

Quinn counted off the seconds in his head. At forty-nine, Orlando spoke again.

“Okay, I’m almost to you,” she whispered. “I’m going to give him a look to let him know I’m onto him.”

Quinn could hear her footsteps on the path outside. They passed by the entrance to the observation area, then stopped. A second later there was a second set of steps, quicker, heavier.

“Why are you following me?” Orlando said.

The other steps stopped, but the follower hadn’t gone far enough. If Quinn popped out now, the man would see him for sure.

“Who are you?” she said.

“That’s funny,” a male voice said. “That was my question for you.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Not a big deal. I was only mildly curious anyway.”

There was a pause, then the all too familiar thup of a bullet passing through a suppressor.

CHAPTER

19

BEFORE QUINN COULD RUSH OUT OF THE STRUCTURE, there was a second thup. Once out of his hiding place, the first thing he saw was Orlando.

She was on one knee, her back resting against the observation pit wall. Lying on the ground in front of her was the man, a bright red spot growing in the center of his chest.

“Are you okay?” Quinn asked Orlando.

She looked up. There was blood on her neck and left shoulder. She’d been hit at the point where her neck curved into her shoulder, but it looked like the bullet had passed through cleanly. Orlando had one of her hands over it, applying pressure.