[Quinn 04] - The Silenced

“How do you know who I am?” she asked.

“We know because we’re good at what we do,” he said, then stared at her for a moment. “My patience level is a bit low, so I’d advise you to answer my question.”

She hesitated, then said, “We don’t want to hurt you.”

Quinn glanced at the gun in his hand, then looked back at her. “Good to know.”

“I mean, you don’t need to point those at us,” she explained.

“Thanks for the suggestion, but why don’t you convince us first.”

“Okay. I understand. I would do the same.”

“You would, would you?”

“If I felt it was necessary.”

Quinn smiled, as if amused. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“We only thought that you had been here. We waited on the chance you’d come back.”

“Why would you think it was me?”

“We … we had a picture of you we could show around,” she said. “A drawing.” She started to reach into her pocket.

“No, no, no,” Orlando said, raising her gun a few inches and reminding the Russian she was still in the line of fire. Petra put her hands back into her lap.

Orlando moved around the bed and reached into the woman’s pocket. She pulled out a piece of paper, then unfolded it.

“This was never my favorite picture of you,” she said, holding it up so Quinn could see.

It was the police sketch that had run in all the New York papers earlier that summer. First reports had said that the man in the drawing was a suspected killer, something that was later retracted and forgotten.

Mostly forgotten, Quinn thought.

“You lied to me before, didn’t you? You do work for Palavin,” he said.

He’d wanted to provoke a response, perhaps a little tic, or a look in her eye that would either confirm or deny what they had learned from Stepka. What he got instead was a volcano.

Petra’s face scrunched up in a snarl as her cheeks and forehead turned red. Her fingers seemed to dig into the arms of the chair, and she leaned forward like she was going to jump up. Mikhail, too, had become tense and angry. He said something to Petra in Russian that dripped with disgust.

“I told you, we do not work for Palavin,” Petra said, barely able to get the words out through her clenched teeth.

“You are connected to him somehow.”

Mikhail again said something in Russian.

“That’s not working for us,” Orlando said. “English only.”

“Or what?” Mikhail asked.

“Or we kill you,” Quinn said.

Mikhail glared in defiance, but said nothing more.

“We don’t work for him,” Petra spat. “We are trying to find him.”

“Why?” Quinn asked.

“He must answer for what’s he’s done.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re here to kill him.”

“No,” she said. “We will take him home and put him on trial.”

“I was told you are terrorists. Are you telling me you work for the Russian government?”

“I said nothing about our government.”

“So you are terrorists?”

“No!” she yelled. “The only one who caused any terror is Palavin.”

The room was silent for a moment, then Orlando said, “A private trial, then.”

Petra bowed her head a fraction of an inch, but said nothing.

“And after you’ll kill him,” Quinn said.

“Why not?” Mikhail said. “He is responsible for so much—” He stopped himself.

“He’s responsible for so much what?” Quinn asked. “Why do you want him?”

“Why don’t you tell us why you are working for Palavin?” Petra said, looking directly at Quinn.

“Who said I was?”