Shadow of Betrayal

Tucker knew he had few immediate options. Because of all the Secret Service and the inevitable security check, he’d gone to the school without a gun.

He thought about the last thing he’d seen when he’d looked over his shoulder. There had been only the two on his side of the street: the teenager and the woman. He had thought they’d been nobodies, but it looked like he’d been mistaken. The woman must have been Secret Service. She’d been dressed in street clothes, working undercover in the crowd. That had to be it.

His brow furrowed. He’d been so caught up in trying to figure out how to get out of this, he hadn’t even considered why the agent had been chasing him in the first place. Tucker had been just one of hundreds running through the streets. And as far as anyone should have been able to tell, he’d done nothing wrong.

Behind him, he could hear the woman stepping closer.

“Open the back door,” she said.

“Sure,” Tucker said. “No problem.”

He took a step toward the rear of the car and opened the back passenger door.

“Now get behind the wheel,” she said. “And shut the door once you’re inside.”

Tucker hesitated. A Secret Service agent would have had him get on the ground, like they’d tried to get Quinn to do back at the school. If she wasn’t Secret Service, then who the hell—

“Do it!” she said.

He moved back to the driver’s door. As he slipped into the front seat, he could hear her get in behind him, then the thunk of her door closing just before he closed his own. He started to reach down for the seat release so he could fall back into her.

“Don’t,” she said. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. She’d already slid all the way across so that she was sitting diagonal from him.

He put both of his hands on his lap, wishing he’d requested a gun be left under his seat. But he hadn’t thought he would need one at this point, and the last thing he had wanted was for the police to find it at one of the roadblock searches that were sure to go up soon.

“So are we going anywhere, or are we just staying here?” he asked.

“No, Mr. Tucker. We’re not going anywhere.”

The back of his neck began to tingle. How did she know his name?

“Then … what are we going to do? You want some information? You need some names, is that it? We can make a deal. You promise to let me go, I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

“No,” she said. “No deal this time. This time I’m going to kill you.”

He turned so he could see who she was, unable to stop himself.

It wasn’t the woman he’d seen running behind him. It was the smaller one, the one he’d thought was a teenager. Only she wasn’t a teenager.

“Remember me?” she asked.

“You’re Quinn’s bitch.” He paused, thinking. “Orlando.”

The small Asian woman smiled. “Good. So I don’t have to explain to you why you’re never going to get out of this car.”

No, she didn’t, he thought. He would have been out for blood, too, if he had run across the person who had once kidnapped his child. That was if he’d had any. He glanced past her, through the back window, hoping to see Petersen.

“No one’s coming,” she said.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Your friend,” she told him. “The big guy? He ran into a car back there. Don’t think he’s going to be up and around for a while.”

So he was on his own. Fine, he thought. His left hand drifted toward the door handle.

“We had a deal,” he said.

“That deal was done almost two years ago. And here you are messing with children again.”

“A bunch of defects. No one will miss them. Hell, we were doing a service.”

“We know about the explosives in the juice boxes and the trigger in the girl’s leg,” she said.

His hand stopped for a moment.

“And as far as I can tell, we haven’t heard any more booms,” she went on. “Sounds to me like Quinn’s neutralized the threat, so your mission’s a bust.”

“I’ll give you names,” he said. “The people I was working for.”

“We already have the names. We don’t need anything from you.”

“Look,” he said. His fingers were only inches from the handle. “Your son’s fine. Looks like these defe …” He paused. “… these kids are fine, too. So no reason I have to die. I didn’t kill anyone.”

She smiled.

And just as the pad of his index finger touched the door release, she pulled her trigger.

CHAPTER 42

Quinn and Nate worked their way through the buildings to the back of the school.

Iris clung to Nate, a short laugh escaping her mouth every few seconds. It had become a game to her, and that was fine with Quinn. Better that she was happy than crying.

When they reached the back of a rectangular building that butted up against the large grassy playground, Quinn stopped. There was a chain-link fence that ran along the back of the field, and just beyond it a wooded area that separated the school grounds from the golf course.

“We need to get over there,” Quinn said. He did a one-eighty, checking if they had been followed. So far so good. “I’ll go first. Once I’m over, I’ll give you a signal, then you follow.”

“Got it.”

Quinn did one final look around, then sprinted across the grass. It took him just over ten seconds to reach the fence. He tossed the pistol onto the other side, then placed his hands on the top crossbar and pushed himself over.

Once rearmed and partially hidden by a nearby tree, he scanned the school. There was no one but Nate and Iris, so he gave his apprentice a single wave.

Quinn met them at the fence. Nate handed Iris over the top, and Quinn gently maneuvered her the rest of the way over. He then hugged the girl to his chest and turned to head for the cover of the trees. That’s when he heard the shot.

Nate, already pulling himself over the fence, grunted, then fell to the ground on Quinn’s side. Quinn darted behind the same tree as before, getting Iris out of any line of fire. He pulled his gun out, then peeked around the tree.

Nate was dragging himself along the ground toward the cover of the grove.

“Are you hit?” Quinn asked.

“I’m fine,” Nate said.

Quinn glanced through the fence back at the school. There were two men in police uniforms crouched near the corner of one of the buildings. Quinn aimed his pistol so that he would hit a spot in the grass off to their right, then pulled the trigger twice.

As he’d hoped, the sound of the shots sent the officers running for cover. It also caused Iris to yell out in surprise.

“Up. Quick, quick, quick,” Quinn said to Nate.

Nate got to his feet and lunged into the woods.

Quinn rubbed Iris on the back. “You’re going to be all right,” he said. “No need to cry.”

“Here,” Nate said, holding out his arms.

Quinn handed the girl to him, and instantly she went quiet.

“You’re just the one who made the big noise,” Nate said to Quinn. “Don’t take it personally.”