'Quinn?' Nate's voice was a hoarse whisper. 'Where the hell have you been? He smiled. 'You want something to drink?' 'Water.' There was a glass of it on the nightstand. Quinn
picked it up and held it to Nate's lips. At first Nate only took a sip. But as Quinn started to move the glass away, Nate said he wanted more. By the time he leaned back against the pillow, the glass was nearly empty.
'How're you feeling?' Quinn asked. 'Like someone threw me under a train,' he answered. 'How do I look?'
'I think that's probably a fair assessment.'
'Great,' Nate said, his voice flat. He paused. 'Thanks for coming back for me.' 'I had some time on my hands.' Nate started to laugh, but ended up wincing in pain.
'You all right?' Quinn asked.
'Sure,' Nate said. 'Never better.'
Quinn said, 'Do you remember much?'
'More than I wish I did.'
Nate told Quinn he had never seen who had taken him out that night at the water plant. He had been standing in position, watching the street for over an hour, then something painful slammed into his right thigh. Needle-like, he said. The next thing he knew, he woke up in the hotel room.
'Sometimes they'd beat me up right there,' Nate said. 'Sometimes they'd take me down the hall to another room. All the furniture had been cleared out. There was a rope hanging down from the ceiling. They'd string me up by my wrists. Ask me questions. Throw a few punches.'
'What did they ask?'
'Questions about you. About Orlando. What you were doing. Where you might hide out. How we were supposed to communicate with each other if the op was blown.'
'You didn't tell them that,' Quinn said.
Nate smiled. 'I told them. I just told them the wrong place.'
Quinn couldn't help but be impressed. This wasn't the Nate he'd come to expect. This Nate was resilient, strong-willed.
'I think when they realized I was new, and they wouldn't get much more out of me, they stopped.'
'You did great, Nate,' Quinn said. 'You kept them away from us. I couldn't have asked for more than that.'
Quinn's phone rang. 'You need some more water?' he asked Nate.
'I'm okay.'
Quinn stood and answered his phone. 'Yes?'
'There's an. . . office building in Charlottenburg. . . on Kaiserdamm,' the Mole said, in response to Quinn's last e-mail. He gave Quinn an address. 'I am told . . . they will . . . be assembling welcome . . . packets there for each . . . of the . . . attendees . . . once they are prepared. . . they . . . will be taken to the . . . luncheon and placed on the tables . . .candied mints . . . are one of . . . the favors to be . . . included.'
'You're confident about this information?' Quinn asked.
'Very,' the Mole said.
Quinn hung up. When he turned back to the bed, Nate was actually sitting up. 'Do you remember any of the people you saw?' Quinn asked him.
'There were mainly two guys.' After Nate described them, Quinn was fairly confident it was the two guards he'd locked in the closet.
'What about Borko?'
'Yes,' Nate said. 'I met him one time.' There was a pause. 'He's not a nice guy.' 'What happened?' Nate pointed toward his left shoulder, the one
that had been dislocated.
'Borko did that?' 'Yeah, but not before I kicked him in the balls.' 'That might have been why he did that,' Quinn
suggested. 'Yeah,' Nate said. 'I thought about that later.' 'Did you meet anyone named Dahl?' Nate hesitated. 'I might have.' 'What do you mean?' 'I was pretty out of it most of the time. A lot of
people seemed to come and go.' 'Can you describe any of them?' Nate thought for a moment. 'There was this one
guy, a little older. The others seemed to defer to him.' Nate closed his eyes. 'Sorry, that's not very helpful, is it?'
'It's fine,' Quinn said. 'You did good.'
Chapter 35
Quinn went out to the kitchen. He had hoped to get more out of Nate. Maybe after his apprentice had a little more rest, he'd remember something else. The older guy, though, that could have been Tucker. Or Piper. If it was, it meant the man everyone was calling Dahl was in town. Which could also mean that Garrett was here, too.
'Who are you?' It was Sophie. She had entered the kitchen quietly behind him.
