The body was wearing a suit. Dark gray, and made with expensive-looking material. And the man’s shoes. Mezlans. At least three hundred dollars a pair. Not the kind of outfit you’d expect a tunnel dweller to be decked out in.
The man was lying on his back. His suit was open, and the shirt had been ripped by the rats to get at the flesh underneath. There was even more damage along the man’s neck and jaw, but his face was largely still intact.
“I think we can rule out natural causes,” Quinn said.
The corpse’s most prominent facial feature was not one he’d been born with, nor one caused by the rodents feasting on him. It was a bullet hole, a half inch above his right eye.
“He look familiar to you?” Quinn asked.
Orlando shook her head. “Someone you know?”
I’m not… sure.
He took a step forward and looked hard at the man’s face.
The state of the dead didn’t always resemble that of the living. It was in the way the muscles let go, relaxing for the last time. But Quinn had seen plenty of dead, and had learned how to see the living in the decaying flesh.
And there was something familiar about this guy. Not the familiarity of someone Quinn knew personally, but more like someone he’d seen before. In pictures, or on TV, or something like that.
But no name came to him.
Quinn shooed a couple of the rats away with his flashlight, then leaned down and patted the man’s jacket. The pockets were all empty.
He opened the jacket and moved it out of the way so he could check the pants pockets. In the left front pocket was a thin card carrier, the kind some men used instead of a wallet. Less bulk. More streamlined. Inside were two credit cards, an insurance ID, four business cards, and a driver’s license.
The license gave him a name. Christopher Jackson. But it was the business cards that connected with Quinn.
Quinn stared at the top one for a moment, not sure he wanted to believe what he’d read.
“Who is he?” Orlando asked.
Quinn told her the man’s name.
There was still a question in Orlando’s eyes. It was to be expected. Even if she hadn’t spent so much time out of the country, there was a good chance she wouldn’t have known who he was. Quinn hadn’t gotten it on the name, either. Though Jackson had a high-level job, he kept a very low public profile.
“The DDNI,” Quinn said.
Her eyes grew wide. There was no need to explain to her what the initials meant.
DDNI — Deputy Director of National Intelligence.
CHAPTER 9
On most jobs the disposal of the body was the easy part. It was the time spent at the incident scene that could be the most problematic. The situation had to be assessed, cleaned up, and the body moved to the transport vehicle before anyone could come snooping around. It was during that segment of the job when the chance of discovery was at its highest. And if that happened, things could get really messy.
A body safely stowed in the back of a van or the trunk of a car, and the vehicle racking up the miles from where the corpse had been found, lowered the risks considerably. From there, it was straight to a preplanned disposal site. The Irish Sea for one, or an after-hours crematorium, or a deep hole in some out-of-the-way spot. Usually Quinn would have two or three options lined up. Often, as had been the case in Ireland, there would be a team on standby to help him. Being prepared was what made him one of the best.
Unfortunately, none of that applied to the body riding in the trunk of their sedan.
“Christopher Jackson. Born March 6, 1949, in Tampa, Florida,” Orlando said.
She was in the front passenger seat, her laptop opened on her lap, as Quinn drove through the city. Nate was in the back seat, quiet but looking worried.
“He had been with the agency since the late eighties,” she continued. “Worked his way up. Did some time in Germany, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and South Africa before settling in at Langley. Seemed to be a specialist-at-large, moving from one division to another. Eastern Europe, Mideast, Latin America.” She looked up from the computer for a moment. “Building quite a resume. Must have already been thinking about higher office.” Her gaze returned to the screen. “He was number two in the office of Russian and European Analysis on 9/11. He quickly moved up from there. Became Deputy Director of National Intelligence two and a half years ago. Married. Two sons. One’s still in college, Penn State. The other’s just passed the bar exam in D.C.”
“Politics?” Quinn asked.
“Nothing concrete here, but reading between the lines, he appeared to be a little right of center, but not much.”
“And nothing about him being missing?”
“Nothing.”
They had already tried calling the head of the Office twice since leaving the not-so-abandoned apartment building, but both times no one had answered. The last time Quinn had talked to him had been in the building hallway after Peter’s men had arrived to pick up Al Barker. When Quinn told him about Deputy Director Jackson’s body, Peter’s initial reply was a shocked silence, followed by a quick “Get him out. I’ll call you back.”
Orlando switched her phone to speaker so they could all hear. After the fourth ring, Quinn was sure they’d be redirected to the generic voicemail message again. But then there was a click.
“Hello?” It was Peter.
“Where the hell have you been?” Quinn asked. “We’re driving around with the—” He stopped himself from saying, “the DDNI.” The chance anyone would be able to tap into his line was minimal. But minimal wasn’t impossible. “With … someone we’re not really interested in hanging out with much longer.”
“I’ve been making arrangements,” Peter said. “This is a delicate matter.”
“You think?” Quinn said, unable to subdue his annoyance.
“It’s not something that can just disappear,” Peter shot back.
“Stating the obvious, Peter. I need a location. Someplace I can drop him off.”
There was a pause. “I’ve been on the phone with a friend from Washington.”
Quinn tensed. He didn’t like the idea of bringing more people into this. “And?”
“And he’s going to take care of it.”
“Exactly when is that supposed to happen?”
“He’s to call me back in five minutes with an address. You’ll leave the car there, then walk away.”
“This is someone you trust?” Quinn asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re not setting me up, are you?”
“No. Of course not.”
Quinn paused. “Five minutes?”
“Yes. I’ll call you back as—”
Whatever Peter was going to say was drowned out by the crunch of a car ramming into the sedan’s rear bumper.
“Shit!” Nate said.
Quinn kept his foot on the gas. In the rearview mirror he could see the other car. It was a Ford Explorer SUV. One of its headlights had been damaged by the impact and had gone out. But that didn’t seem to discourage whoever it was behind the wheel. He was coming at them again.
Quinn pushed the pedal all the way to the floor, but it wasn’t enough. The SUV slammed into them
