The Silenced

height, and at least fifty years old. Quinn had never seen him before.

The passenger was different, though. Quinn knew exactly who he was.

“Hello, Mercer,” Quinn said.

Mercer sneered at Quinn.

The driver opened the rear passenger door and leaned inside. When he stood back up, he had Liz with him. She looked scared.

“Now the bags,” the Ghost said over the phone.

Quinn slipped the phone into his pocket, then pulled the bags out of the van and walked them over to the car.

On the road in front of the property, two cars appeared — a Mercedes and an Audi. A moment later they turned down the driveway.

“What is this?” Quinn yelled.

The rear passenger door on the other side of the S600 opened, and an elderly man climbed out. There was no mistaking his face. He was the older version of the wavy-haired twin in the Young Leninist photo, and the middle- aged man from the headshot in Annabel Taplin’s folder.

The murderer.

The faux Trevor Robb.

The Ghost.

He was smiling an ugly smile.

“I’m afraid this was a career-ending job from the beginning. For a last assignment, I’m sure it wasn’t as satisfying as you would have hoped, and for that I apologize.”

The Mercedes and the Audi pulled to a stop behind the Ghost’s car.

“What are you talking about?” Quinn asked, wiping the water from his face.

“You know about the people I’ve had removed. You obviously know about the late Mr. Robb. I’m afraid you are too dangerous to me alive. I can’t have that.”

“So you’re just going to kill me?” Quinn said.

“You and your new friends,” Palavin said, glancing back toward Petra and Mikhail. He smiled. “Yes. I know who you are. Dombrovski’s puppets. Mercer was kind enough to take photos of each of you in Maine before he killed your friend.” He looked back at Quinn. “So kind of you to team up with them. Makes things so much more neat and easy.” He then said something in Russian.

Mikhail spat several words back.

Palavin laughed, then said in English, “A fool’s quest to think you could best me.”

“So you and your two men there are planning to take on all of us?” Quinn asked.

“Me and my two men?” He waved toward the two cars behind his. “There’s far more than just the three of us.”

“If that were true, shouldn’t there be a third car? I mean, in addition to the two cars that were shadowing you, didn’t you have another one following me?”

Palavin cocked his head, his eyes narrowing. “So you had your own surveillance,” he said. “So what? My third car is just down the road, making sure we’re not disturbed.”

“No,” Quinn said. “It’s not.”

Even from this distance, he could see doubt flash across Palavin’s face. He stepped toward the Mercedes.

“Stop,” Palavin ordered. His gaze flicked to the man standing with Liz. “Fedor!”

The man raised a gun to Liz’s head.

“She’s dead if you come any closer,” Palavin said.

“I don’t think so,” Quinn said.

The thup of a bullet passing through a suppressor was all but drowned out by the rain. Fedor collapsing to the ground dead, though, was impossible to miss.

Liz, jerking in surprise, let out a disbelieving shriek as she looked down at Palavin’s driver.

“Get down!” Quinn yelled at her.

On the left side of the car, Mercer drew his own gun. But before he could aim, Quinn dove to his right, his hand reaching out for the pistol Fedor had dropped. As his fingers curled around the grip, a bullet pierced the air a few inches above his back.

Quinn rolled forward so he was against the car, out of Mercer’s direct line of sight.

The rain muffled a lot of the other sounds, but Quinn could still hear the doors of the Audi and other Mercedes opening further down the driveway.

“Kill them all!” Palavin yelled.

“Give it up, Quinn. You don’t have a chance,” Mercer demanded as he popped out from around the end of the car, his gun trained on the place he thought Quinn would be.

But Quinn had used the noise of the rain as cover and had moved along the front of the car, stopping a few inches shy of the corner. When Mercer came into view, Quinn was much closer than the other man expected.

“I don’t think so,” Quinn said as he pulled the trigger.

Mercer twisted to his right just enough so that the bullet caught him in his shoulder instead of his heart. He yelled out in pain and fell to the ground, his gun landing with a thud on the wet gravel a few feet away. Still in survival mode, he tried to grab at it, but Quinn kicked it out of reach.

“You keep moving like that, you’re going to bleed to death,” Quinn said, pointing the gun at him.

“What are you waiting for?” Palavin shouted toward the backup cars from his crouched position behind the car door. “Take them out!”

The sound of weapons being drawn and slides being pulled back could be heard by everyone, even in the rain. But no triggers were pulled.

Quinn moved around the door until he could see the Ghost, then pointed his gun at him. “I’m sorry,” he said, acting embarrassed. “Did you think those were your men in those cars?”

The blood drained from the Ghost’s face as he turned to look behind him.

There were eight men, each with guns trained on the former KGB agent. On Quinn’s earlier command, Nova and his men had “dropped the hammer” on the Ghost’s backup cars, then procured the vehicles for themselves.

Orlando stepped out from the bushes near the pond, adding a ninth gun to the mix.

Quinn motioned for her to get Liz, then he pulled Palavin to his feet.

“You can’t kill me,” Palavin said. “I’m under the protection of MI6. If anything happens to me, they’ll hunt you down and make you pay.”

“Really? That’s what you’re counting on? Some tenuous, outdated relationship with British intelligence?” Quinn smiled, then leaned in close. “Who do you think gave me your phone number? MI6 is done with you.”

Palavin’s face turned red. “You won’t kill me and you know it.”

Behind him, Quinn could hear two sets of footsteps approaching on the wet driveway.

“You’re right. I won’t. I don’t need to.” He glanced over his shoulder. Petra and Mikhail were now standing behind him. “My friends here might have other ideas, though.”

Petra said something in Russian, and though Quinn wouldn’t have thought it was possible, Palavin went even paler.

“You can’t leave me with them,” the old man said.

“Is it Ghost? Or Mr. Ghost?” Quinn asked.

The old man could only stare at Quinn, his lip trembling.

“Well, Mr. Ghost. No one ever messes with my family or my friends and lives to talk about it.”

Chapter 48

“I have people who are going to be looking for me.” Mercer said as he was being led toward the van, his