“A turncoat in the LP,” Quinn said under his breath. It didn’t seem possible. These were the same people who had killed a friend of his. Hell, the same people who had destroyed Nate’s leg and forced him to use a prosthetic the rest of his life. “You believe he’s not just using us?”
“I’m not one hundred percent. I know caution is in order. But goddammit, Quinn, something’s going on. Something that people are trying to stop us from finding out. And if it has anything to do with the G8 meetings … they start the day after tomorrow, for Christ’s sake. We can’t just sit around and see if something happens.”
Quinn frowned. “Hold on,” he said.
He moved the phone away from his ear and tried to let his mind go blank for a second. He needed to clear away all the conflicting thoughts that were ramming against one another. Only then would he be able to truly assess the situation.
In the distance he could see a police helicopter circling above the Beverly Center. It wasn’t much more than a point of light, but he watched it go round and round several times before he brought the phone back up to his ear.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. You will tell me everything you know,” Quinn said. “You will send me copies of any information you have. And you’ll do it right now.”
“So you’ll stay on it?” Peter asked.
“That was our deal, wasn’t it?” Quinn said. “But you need to know moving forward, whether my team and I continue is going to be a minute-to-minute decision.”
“Okay … okay. I can live with that. I … appreciate it.”
In the distance, the helicopter had moved off in search of trouble elsewhere.
“Talk,” Quinn said.
CHAPTER
24
PETER WAS TRUE TO HIS WORD, AND AS SOON AS HE had finished briefing Quinn on the phone, he uploaded everything he had to a secure FTP site. Quinn booted Nate off the laptop for a few moments so he could download and print out all the documents. Stack of paper in hand, he got out of Nate’s way and moved over to the kitchen counter.
Peter had done the same thing to Deputy Director Jackson that Quinn was doing to him, demanding everything the DDNI had from and about Primus. There was almost two years’ worth of material. Most was information passed on before Hardwick had revealed his LP ties. The information on the Odessa kidnapping was there, as was the tip about the arms dealer’s trip to Thailand. There were other things, too. Guerrilla cells in South America, money transfers between terrorist organizations, two potential assassination attempts.
Good stuff all, and a treasure trove that would make whoever possessed it look like a superstar. But from all Quinn could tell, the DDNI didn’t use any of his newly obtained knowledge to improve his position. Instead he acted on it, often passing tips to appropriate governments anonymously. No personal gain, just doing the job he was hired to do.
Quinn opened the refrigerator to grab a beer before diving into the stuff that was most relevant, the information concerning the group who had approached the LP.
“Can I have one of those?” Nate asked, looking up from the laptop.
“Depends. You get anything yet?” Quinn asked, already reaching for the second bottle.
“I think so,” Nate said. “At first I did all the basic searches. Public sites and that kind of stuff.”
Quinn set the bottles on the counter and popped the tops, letting Nate go over his process uninterrupted. It was the way Quinn had taught him to operate if time permitted. Quinn had said it was so that he’d be able to evaluate Nate’s progress. That had been true at first. But Quinn had come more and more to trust Nate’s abilities, so now it was just habit.
“I got a couple hits,” Nate went on. “But they were mostly about the state bird of Alabama. But I did find a Yellowhammer Lake in California.”
“That sounds promising,” Quinn said as he handed Nate a beer.
“Thanks,” Nate said. They both took a drink. “I thought so at first, too. But it’s remote. Yosemite area. You have to hike into it. So I thought I should keep digging.”
“Let me guess,” Quinn said. “Couldn’t find anything.”
“Close, but you’d be wrong. I came across a few odd entries that mentioned an actual place called Yellowhammer, and it didn’t seem like they were talking about a lake. The first was so random I thought someone must have mistyped it.”
“I’m guessing there’s a ‘but’ here.”
“Right,” Nate said. “The second one. It was on a blog that posts wartime letters. Some of them from as far back as the Revolution. I found another mention in one of the letters. It was dated near the end of World War II. Some guy writing home to his wife saying he’d been assigned to a place called Yellowhammer.” Nate turned to the computer. “I’ll read it to you.”
He clicked one of the tabs in his browser, then skimmed the text on the screen with his finger.
“‘They’re sending me to Yellowhammer until my time’s up. I finally get to go to California, I guess, but it’s so far from you. At least it’s only four months and then I’ll be home. I do wish I was there now.’ Goes on for a little while longer, but that’s the important part.”
“That could be anything,” Quinn said. “The military loves code names. Might not even be a place at all, but an operation.”
“I had the same thought.”
