talking about nothing at all.
But after a while Durrie's rule of romantic entanglements kicked in, and Quinn was gone, leaving one morning while she was sleeping, a short note his only goodbye.
Now, as Quinn slipped on his shoes, he couldn't help thinking he was doing it again. He paused for a moment, listening to see if she might have woken up. But the only noise from the bedroom was the breathing of a woman fully asleep.
Quinn picked up his backpack and opened the door.
Ku'damm was already crowded by the time he returned. He moved smoothly through the mixed groups of tourists and locals, his mission urgent but his pace relaxed. When he checked the staircase handrail at the mall, though, his was still the only marker. He added a second square near the first, letting his team know he was still safe, then melded back into the crowd walking into the mall.
For the moment, his only assets were those he carried in his backpack: his phone, the SIG Sauer and three additional magazines, six remaining miniature cameras, a portable monitor to check the camera angles as he was setting them up the night before, his set of IDs, a knife, his lock picks set, a small first-aid kit, and a pair of lightweight binoculars with limited night vision. Money wouldn't be a problem. He had plenty of accounts under names no one knew but him and were therefore untraceable.
What he didn't have was his computer. An annoyance, but not the end of the world. No one but Quinn would ever be able to access any of the data on his hard drive. It would simply purge itself if anyone tried. Most of what the machine contained was backed up on disks in L.A. anyway. What information he did need was on the flash memory stick in his pocket. If he needed to access it, he could buy computer time at dozens of places all over the city.
His most immediate need was clothes. He found a department store and picked up enough items to last him a couple of days. He paid for his items in cash, then changed in the store's bathroom. Once he was ready, he went in search of a pay phone.
'Could you connect me to Herr MacDonald's room, please?'
Quinn was standing in a phone booth outside a bakery, not far from where he'd purchased his clothes. His cell phone was in his backpack. Until he bought a new charging unit, he needed to preserve the phone's battery as long as he could.
'I'm sorry, sir,' a male voice said. 'Herr MacDonald checked out this morning.'
He took a deep breath. MacDonald had been the name he'd used to check into the Four Seasons. Even if Orlando had ditched the room as a precaution, she wouldn't have checked out. It only confirmed what he'd already expected. Borko had somehow traced their encrypted communications signal back to the hotel while Quinn was in the water plant. Quinn had to assume they'd taken Orlando in the process.
A call to the Dorint Hotel yielded the same results.
There was a tap on the door behind him. Quinn glanced over his shoulder. An impatient-looking teenage girl stared at him through the glass.
Quinn nodded, then opened the door and stepped out.
Finding Orlando and Nate was now his top priority. And as he walked away, he knew exactly where to start.
Duke had been operating out of Berlin for a long time. Too long, actually. And that was good because he'd done things. Stupid things. Things smart people in the business didn't do no matter how long they lived somewhere. Duke wasn't that smart. Just lucky.
Quinn sat in the driver's seat of a Volvo station wagon he'd stolen a half hour earlier in Ku'damm. He was parked across the street from a nightclub on Kaiser Friedrich Strasse. It was early yet, and the club didn't open for several hours. But there was already plenty of activity: cases of alcohol being delivered, windows being cleaned, sidewalks being swept.
It was Duke's place. He probably thought of it as a cover, but to Quinn it was a liability. 'Always keep a low profile,' Durrie had said. 'Don't be flashy. Flashy gets you killed. You can make enough money in this business that you don't have to throw it around. Are you listening to me?'
Quinn had listened. But apparently no one had taken the time to make Duke understand. Because, as he did every morning, Duke pulled up in front of the club in the same Mercedes sedan he'd driven Quinn around in the day before.
Duke was alone. His arrogance his downfall. A 'Berlin is my town, nobody can get to me here' kind of attitude.
His purpose for coming to the club this early was to check the receipts from the night before. Quinn knew this from the last time he'd worked with the man. Back then Duke had bragged about his businesses, how he liked to start each day knowing exactly what was going on. And how, specifically, he would begin with an 11 a.m. stop at La Maison du Chat – the not so subtle name for his club.
Patterns. Idiotic, thoughtless patterns.
Quinn watched the big man get out of his car and waddle into the club. Twenty minutes later, Duke reappeared at the door, smiling. He turned and said something to someone inside before lumbering back to his car.
As Duke started his Mercedes and pulled away from the curb, Quinn started the Volvo. He waited until the Mercedes was half a block away, then made a U-turn to follow.
They drove across town, stopping finally in front of a jewelry store. Again Quinn waited while Duke went inside. This errand didn't take nearly as long. Apparently, the receipts here were less than desired. There was no smile on Duke's face as he returned to his car.
They spent two hours going from business to business. Duke may not have been very smart when it came to the intelligence game, but he obviously knew how to diversify his interests. He seemed to have his hand in a little bit of everything: a nightclub, several jewelry stores, some restaurants, an accounting office, a promotions company, over a dozen magazine kiosks. Still, even if all were moneymakers, none would have paid him as much as brokering a single good undercover job. Of course, from Duke's point of view, at least none of these other ventures
