“A silver Mercedes. They have Winters.”
Kolya turned onto Winters’s street just in time to see the taillights of the Mercedes turning two blocks away.
“Hurry,” Petra said. “But for God’s sake, don’t let them know we’re here.”
• • •
They followed the Mercedes south on the 101 freeway into Hollywood and then downtown. There it finally exited onto a side street.
“Not too close,” Petra said. Unlike on the freeway, they could be easily spotted now.
“I know,” Kolya shot back. “But I don’t want to lose them, either.”
They were surrounded first by skyscrapers, then by squat storefronts with signs mostly in Spanish. After a while, these gave way to warehouses and manufacturing plants, most with no identification at all.
It was quiet here, almost deserted. The buildings that didn’t look abandoned were shut down for the night. But it wasn’t only the buildings that looked abandoned. The roads, too, were nearly deserted. Petra was sure they would be spotted at any moment.
“Slow down,” she said.
“Trust me,” Kolya told her.
He immediately turned right onto a side street. As soon as they were out of sight of the Mercedes, he flipped the Buick’s headlights off, then executed a quick one-eighty. A moment later they were back on the main road, the Mercedes’s taillights fading in the distance.
“Don’t lose them,” she said urgently.
“Which is it? Don’t lose them or slow down?”
Petra didn’t answer.
They raced forward, closing the gap by a third before Kolya eased back on the accelerator. Ahead, red brake lights shone brightly in the otherwise dark, empty night. Kolya let the Buick coast to a halt in the darkness near the curb.
After half a minute, the brake lights dimmed as the Mercedes crept forward several feet, then turned off the road. A second later it slipped behind a building, but it didn’t completely disappear. The brake lights had come on again, and the red glow leaked back to the street. It stayed like that for half a minute, then everything went dark.
“There was a parking lot about half a block back,” Petra said.
“I saw it,” Kolya said.
“Take the car there and wait. If the Mercedes comes back out, duck down and make sure they don’t see you.” Petra opened the door and climbed out.
“How long do I wait?”
“You have something better to do?”
“No. I was just … I mean, what if you need help?”
“I won’t.” Petra hesitated in the opening. “If I’m not back in two hours, go to the airport and call Mikhail.”
“What about you?”
“If I’m not back by then, I’m dead.”
QUINN AND HIS APPRENTICE, NATE, HAD BEEN waiting for almost two hours. But waiting was part of the job, and they were both experts at it. They sat quietly, saying very little, their minds wandering but their senses alert. When their handheld radio came to life, neither of them even flinched.
“Give us five to clear out, then you’re on,” a male voice said on the other end.
Quinn clicked the Talk button. “Copy.”
He had no idea who the prime op was on this job. Wills had supplied Quinn with all the instructions he would need, so there had been no face-to-face with the other team. Sometimes you knew who you were working with, sometimes you didn’t. It was the world they lived in.
As far as his own team was concerned, after reading through the job specs, Quinn had determined there would be no need for more than the two people. So after Minnesota, Orlando had gone home to San Francisco to be with Garrett.
“Be careful,” she’d said. “If you need me, I can be there in a couple hours.”
“We won’t need you.”
“That warms my heart.”
“I need you, but not for this. Is that better?” he asked.
“It’s a start.”
Quinn and Nate waited quietly for five minutes to pass. The room they were in had served as an office at one time, but it had been years since it was last used. They had brought two folding chairs, a thermos of coffee, and a couple Styrofoam cups, but otherwise the room was empty.
