Shadow of Betrayal - Brett Battles

Quinn allowed himself a relieved breath, then asked, “Orlando?”

“Don’t know. I’ve been alone since you left.”

Quinn nodded. With the chaos, it would have been surprising if they had found each other. He turned his attention back to the group cowering against the wall.

“Who’s in charge here?” he called out.

There were a few murmurs, then several people looked toward a woman standing near the middle of the group. She appeared to be in her fifties, and had the look of a school administrator, caring but strong.

After a second, she said, “Leave us alone. We won’t bother you.”

“So you’re in charge?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m in charge of this school.”

“What’s your name?”

She hesitated. “Ms. Stanton. Now please, leave. You’re scaring the children.”

“I’m sorry,” Quinn said. “We’re not here to hurt anyone.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I’m looking for a girl. She’s about five, and African.”

“I’m not letting you take any of the children,” Ms. Stanton said.

Quinn ignored her. “The girl’s name is Iris.”

One of the women, a teacher perhaps, moved slightly.

“You have something to tell me?” Quinn said, looking at her.

“No,” she said.

He glanced at Nate, then pointed at the woman. “Check.”

Nate walked over.

“Please step out,” he said to the woman.

The woman began to tremble, but she didn’t move.

“What are you going to do to her?” Ms. Stanton asked.

“We’re not going to do anything to her,” Quinn said.

“Please, I need you to step out,” Nate repeated.

For another couple of seconds she remained where she was, then her resolve crumbled and she moved forward.

Behind her was Iris.

Nate reached out to her. “Hey, sweetie. Come here.”

The girl didn’t move, so Nate leaned in and picked her up.

“Got her,” he said to Quinn.

“You can’t take her,” Ms. Stanton said.

“I want you to listen to what I’m going to say very carefully. The man who brought this girl to your school today also brought several others. Correct?”

Ms. Stanton nodded. “Mr. Lee came up from Ventura.”

“Mr. Lee?”

“That’s who you’re talking about, right?”

“Mr. Lee isn’t who he said he is.” Quinn paused. “He came here for one reason, to kill you and your special guests this morning.”

“What?”

“Those bombs that went off outside? There’s more, only here in the school.”

“Impossible,” she said, though she looked terrified that it might be true.

“He brought juice boxes along with the children, didn’t he?”

“Sure. Everyone did.”

“Well, there isn’t juice inside his. I’m guessing the ones he brought are in the auditorium right now, just waiting to go off. Get everyone away from them, then tell one of the agents.”

“My God,” Ms. Stanton said.

“Do you understand?” Quinn asked.

A pause, then, “Yes.”

“Good.” Quinn looked at Nate. “Let’s go.”

“You can’t… just kidnap her,” Ms. Stanton said, much of her defensive posturing gone.

“She and the others he brought were already kidnapped.” He turned and started heading for a doorway at the far end of the hallway.

“Then where are you taking her?” Ms. Stanton called out.

Quinn stopped a few feet from the exit and looked back over his shoulder. “To her mother.”

Tucker knew he had few immediate options. Because of all the Secret Service and the inevitable security check, he’d gone to the school without a gun.

He thought about the last thing he’d seen when he’d looked over his shoulder. There had been only the two on his side of the street: the teenager and the woman. He had thought they’d been nobodies, but it looked like he’d been mistaken. The woman must have been Secret Service. She’d been dressed in street clothes, working undercover in the crowd. That had to be it.

His brow furrowed. He’d been so caught up in trying to figure out how to get out of this, he hadn’t even considered why the agent had been chasing him in the first place. Tucker had been just one of hundreds running through the streets. And as far as anyone should have been able to tell, he’d done nothing wrong.

Behind him, he could hear the woman stepping closer.

“Open the back door,” she said.

“Sure,” Tucker said. “No problem.”

He took a step toward the rear of the car and opened the back passenger door.

“Now get behind the wheel,” she said. “And shut the door once you’re inside.”

Tucker hesitated. A Secret Service agent would have had him get on the ground, like they’d tried to get Quinn to do back at the school. If she wasn’t Secret Service, then who the hell—

“Do it!” she said.

He moved back to the driver’s door. As he slipped into the front seat, he could hear her get in behind him, then the thunk of her door closing just before he closed his own. He started to reach down for the seat release so he could fall back into her.

“Don’t,” she said. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. She’d already slid all the way across so that she was sitting diagonal from him.

He put both of his hands on his lap, wishing he’d requested a gun be left under his seat. But he hadn’t thought he would need one at this point, and the last thing he had wanted was for the police to find it at one of the roadblock searches that were sure to go up soon.

“So are we going anywhere, or are we just staying here?” he asked.

“No, Mr. Tucker. We’re not going anywhere.”

The back of his neck began to tingle. How did she know his name?

“Then … what are we going to do? You want some information? You need some names, is that it? We can make a deal. You promise to let me go, I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

“No,” she said. “No deal this time. This time I’m going to kill you.”

He turned so he could see who she was, unable to stop himself.

It wasn’t the woman he’d seen running behind him. It was the smaller one, the one he’d thought was a teenager. Only she wasn’t a teenager.

“Remember me?” she asked.

“You’re Quinn’s bitch.” He paused, thinking. “Orlando.”

The small Asian woman smiled. “Good. So I don’t have to explain to you why you’re never going to get out of this car.”

No, she didn’t, he thought. He would have been out for blood, too, if he had run across the person who had once kidnapped his child. That was if he’d had any. He glanced past her, through the back window, hoping to see Petersen.

“No one’s coming,” she said.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Your friend,” she told him. “The big guy? He ran into a car back there. Don’t think he’s going to be up and around for a while.”

So he was on his own. Fine, he thought. His left hand drifted toward the door handle.

“We had a deal,” he said.

“That deal was done almost two years ago. And here you are messing with children again.”

“A bunch of defects. No one will miss them. Hell, we were doing a service.”

“We know about the explosives in the juice boxes and the trigger in the girl’s leg,” she said.

His hand stopped for a moment.

“And as far as I can tell, we haven’t heard any more booms,” she went on. “Sounds to me like Quinn’s neutralized the threat, so your mission’s a bust.”

“I’ll give you names,” he said. “The people I was working for.”

“We already have the names. We don’t need anything from you.”

“Look,” he said. His fingers were only inches from the handle. “Your son’s fine. Looks like these defe …” He paused. “… these kids are fine, too. So no reason I have to die. I didn’t kill anyone.”

She smiled.

And just as the pad of his index finger touched the door release, she pulled her trigger.

CHAPTER

42

QUINN AND NATE WORKED THEIR WAY THROUGH the buildings to the back of the school.

Iris clung to Nate, a short laugh escaping her mouth every few seconds. It had become a game to her, and that was fine with Quinn. Better that she was happy than crying.

When they reached the back of a rectangular building that butted up against the large grassy playground, Quinn stopped. There was a chain-link fence that ran along the back of the field, and just beyond it a wooded area that separated the school grounds from the golf course.

“We need to get over there,” Quinn said. He did a one-eighty, checking if they had been followed. So far so good. “I’ll go first. Once I’m over, I’ll give you a signal, then you follow.”

“Got it.”

Quinn did one final look around, then sprinted across the grass. It took him just over ten seconds to reach the fence. He tossed the pistol onto the other side, then placed his hands on the top crossbar and pushed himself over.

Once rearmed and partially hidden by a nearby tree, he scanned the school. There was no one but Nate and Iris, so he gave his apprentice a single wave.

Quinn met them at the fence. Nate handed Iris over the top, and Quinn gently maneuvered her the rest of the way over. He then hugged the girl to his chest and turned to head for the cover of the trees. That’s when he heard the shot.

Nate, already pulling himself over the fence, grunted, then fell to the ground on Quinn’s side. Quinn darted behind the same tree as before, getting Iris out of any line of fire. He pulled his gun out, then peeked around the tree.

Nate was dragging himself along the ground toward the cover of the grove.

“Are you hit?” Quinn asked.

“I’m fine,” Nate said.

Quinn glanced through the fence back at the school. There were two men in police uniforms crouched near the corner of one of the buildings. Quinn aimed his pistol so that he would hit a spot in the grass off to their right, then pulled the trigger twice.

As he’d hoped, the sound of the shots sent the officers running for cover. It also caused Iris to yell out in surprise.

“Up. Quick, quick, quick,” Quinn said to Nate.

Nate got to his feet and lunged into the woods.

Quinn rubbed Iris on the back. “You’re going to be all right,” he said. “No need to cry.”

“Here,” Nate said, holding out his arms.

Quinn handed the girl to him, and instantly she went quiet.

“You’re just the one who made the big noise,” Nate said to Quinn. “Don’t take it personally.”

Quinn looked back at the school. The police officers were still out of sight, but he knew that wouldn’t last for long.

“We need to keep moving,” he said.

If he headed south and a bit to the east, he knew they would get to the road that led to the golf course clubhouse, but that would be the first place anyone looked for them. So he turned left.

As they ran, Quinn pulled out his phone and called Orlando.

It rang five times, then clicked over to voicemail.

Dammit, he thought, then tried it again. Same response.

The trees were thinning to the right. Beyond was the green fairway of one of the holes. Not surprisingly, there was no one out on the course. The facility had no doubt been shut down due to security concerns for the now-canceled event at the school. Quinn moved to the left, keeping more trees between them and the open space.

After several minutes, he saw a wooden fence ahead of them that separated the course from the backyards of several houses. Once again he had Nate wait as he approached alone. What he was hoping to find was a gate behind one of the houses. No luck on that front, but what he did find was an empty house waiting for a new owner.

“Over here,” he called.

As Nate hopped the fence, Quinn saw that the shoe and pant leg near Nate’s right ankle had been ripped apart.

“What the hell happened?” he asked.

Nate looked down at the damage. “I got hit,” he said. “But see? No blood. Bonus for missing a leg. I have to tell you, though, the vibration stung like a son of a bitch.”

Nate was going to do fine, Quinn knew. Just fine.

As they headed across the backyard, Quinn’s cell phone began to hum.

“Hold on,” he told Nate.

Orlando’s name was on the screen.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t know where Nate is.”

“He’s with me.”

“And the girl?”

“We’ve got her.”

He could hear her sigh. “Thank God.”

“We could use a ride, though,” he said.

“That I can help with.”

He told her where they were. “I’m going to leave Nate here with the girl. Pick them up and get out of town.”

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“I need to find Tucker.”

A pause on the other end. “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “He’s dead.”

And as soon as she said it, he knew where she’d been.

There was no statute of limitations on a mother’s vengeance.

Hardwick had followed the car south on the 101 all the way to Santa Barbara to a motel called the Santa Barbara Beach Inn. He hadn’t been seen because the person he was trailing had no reason to suspect he was being followed. Arrogance. An arrogance that had served him well for years, but was ultimately going to bring him down.

He parked in the lot and got out of the car. The fat suit he’d worn when he’d met with Quinn was gone. He was leaner and in far better shape than he’d portrayed at the museum.

Once he found which room the man was in, he located a maid working alone on the second level. She hadn’t put up much of a fight. It was too bad he had to kill her, but he couldn’t leave anyone who would recognize him. He pulled her cart into the room where he’d left her, then shut the door. He would be long gone by the time anyone found her.

Her passkey in hand, Hardwick listened at the man’s door. A TV was on inside, and somewhere water was running. A shower, he realized.

Perfect.

He used the key and let himself in.

The suite was nice enough. Not the Four Seasons, but livable. Of course, Hardwick would have never stayed there. He assumed it was chosen more for its low profile than for its décor. The living area consisted of a couple of couches, a small dining table, some odds and ends to give the space character, and a plasma TV hanging on the wall and tuned to CNN.

To his right was a door that led to a spacious bedroom, with attached master bath. That’s where the sound of the shower came from.

Hardwick checked his watch: 9:15.

As if on cue, the shower turned off.

Hardwick made himself comfortable on one of the couches. From the bathroom he could hear first the flush of the toilet, then the sink turn on, then off.

When the man entered the living room, he wore only a towel around his waist. He crossed to the TV, and seemed annoyed by what he saw.

“Expecting something else?” Hardwick said.