Without a word, both the Driver and the Other One opened their doors and got out. As they did, a blast of cold air swept into the SUV. Quinn watched as they walked over to the Taurus and climbed in. A moment later, the sedan roared to life. Without even giving the engine time to warm up, the Driver executed a quick U-turn, then sped off, back toward I-70.
Quinn chuckled to himself. This sort of cloakand-dagger bullshit was really kind of amusing, if you thought about it. Asinine, but amusing.
He got out of the Explorer, his teeth clenching against the frigid air. The leather jacket he was wearing was a lousy barrier to the cold, but it was all he'd had with him when his vacation on the islands was cut short.
He hurried around the front of the vehicle and got into the driver's seat. The moment he had the door closed and the engine started again, he flipped the heater on full blast, letting the warm air fill the cabin. One of his first stops would be a place he could buy a winter coat, maybe even a couple of sweaters. Thermals, too. God, he hated cold weather.
Once he was reasonably warm, Quinn reached into the back and retrieved the padded envelope. He poured the contents onto the passenger seat. Inside were two business-size envelopes, a folded map, and three sheets of paper. Two of the sheets were a wire-copy news report about a fire in some place called Allyson. Apparently a vacation rental had burned down, and the person who'd been staying there – an unnamed man – had died.
Quinn picked up the final piece of paper and scanned it. It was the job brief containing his instructions and a limited amount of background information. Peter, as always, was trying to control what Quinn knew. Still, it was more information than the news article had revealed.
The dead guy's name was Robert Taggert. Quinn's assignment was to determine if the fire had indeed been an accident – which the local authorities were leaning toward – or something else.
That was all there was. Nothing else on Taggert. No helpful hints as to what Quinn should look for. Just an address – 215 Yancy Lane – and a contact name with the local police force. On the surface, a piece-of-cake job. No reason for Quinn to have been brought in. Which to Quinn meant there was probably more to it than the brief was letting on.
He grabbed the map and unfolded it. The location of the fire was marked with a small red X. It was at least a couple hours' drive from Quinn's current position. He set the map down and opened the first envelope. Cash, about five grand. A week's worth of expense money if nothing too costly came along. Longer if Quinn didn't have to pay anyone off. And if this really turned out to be a one- or two-day job, a little extra cash for his own pocket.
The other envelope held two identifications, both with Quinn's picture. The first was a Colorado driver's license. The second was an authentic-looking FBI ID. He'd played a Fed before, but it had been a while.
His new name, he was amused to see, was Frank Bennett. Peter had a thing for classic pop singers. Quinn guessed that 'Tony Sinatra' would have been a little too obvious.
He set everything back down, then reached under the driver's seat looking for the one thing that hadn't been in the packet. When he pulled his hand back out, he was holding a soft leather case. He unzipped it and found what he expected inside, a 9mm SIG Sauer P226 and three fully loaded magazines. It was his weapon of choice. He put his hand back under his seat and pulled out a second pouch, this one containing a sound suppressor designed to attach to the end of the gun's barrel. Anything else he needed would be in the standard surveillance kit that was undoubtedly in the back of the vehicle.
He stored the gun, mags, and suppressor in the glove compartment, then put the Explorer in drive.
Chapter 2
Breakfast the next morning was scrambled eggs and sausage, in the restaurant at the Allyson Holiday Inn, where he'd spent the night. He sat alone in a booth, with a copy of the local paper on the table next to his plate.
It was full of the usual stuff small-town papers were interested in. A couple of short blurbs made up the international section: one about curbing ethnic tensions in Europe, and another on the continuing chaos in Somalia. The national news items were longer stories, with footers directing readers to other pages for the rest of the story – an ailing Supreme Court justice, a corporate fraud trial in Chicago, and a rundown of the expected highlights in the President's upcoming State of the Union address.
But it was the local stories that commanded the bulk of the front page. Rather, one local story. The Farnham house fire. The story was a follow-up to the piece that had been included in Quinn's brief. It contained nothing new. Just old information reworked to sound fresh and feed the curiosity of the local population. The fire investigators were calling the blaze an accident. Faulty wiring. One tourist dead. There was little else. Taggert's name still hadn't appeared. That seemed a bit unusual, but Quinn suspected Peter might have something to do with it.
A waitress walked by carrying a pot of coffee. She stopped when she saw what Quinn was reading. 'That was awful, wasn't it?' she asked.
He looked up. Her nametag identified her as Mindy. 'The fire?'
'Yeah,' she said. 'That poor man.'
'Did you know him?'
'No,' she said. 'He might have come in here to eat, I guess. A lot of tourists do. Coffee?' 'Please,' Quinn said, pushing his cup toward her. She refilled it. 'What I can't help wondering is
if he has a family somewhere. Maybe a wife. Maybe some kids.' She sighed. 'Awful.'
'It sure is,' Quinn said.
She shook her head. 'They say it happened while he was sleeping. Probably a nice guy, just enjoying a vacation, then suddenly he's dead.'
She moved on, refilling a few more cups of coffee on her way back to the register.
The Allyson Police Department's headquarters was located about a mile from the Holiday Inn. Quinn's contact was the chief of police, a guy named George Johnson.
