“And then?” Nate asked.
“We cover her tracks and make her vanish again.”
“What if she doesn’t cooperate?”
“Then we’ll have to figure out a way to convince her.”
“You’re running this show,” Nate said. “If that’s what you want to do, that’s what we do.”
“Thanks,” Quinn told him, meaning it.
“When do we start?”
“Now.” Quinn held out his hand. “I need to borrow your phone.”
Quinn carried Nate’s mobile into the living room. He selected a name from Nate’s contact list, then hit CONNECT. Once he did, he had a sudden urge to hang up as quickly as possible, but instead he raised the phone to his ear.
One p.m. in Bangkok meant it was eleven p.m. in San Francisco the day before. Would she still be up? Or would he wake her? It had been three months since he’d last talked to her. No, he realized. Four. Oh, God.
Orlando answered after one ring. “Did you find him?”
She obviously thought Nate was calling. “He did.”
He wasn’t sure how to read the pause that followed. Anger? Disinterest? Annoyance?
“Hey,” she finally said, that single syllable adding nothing to his understanding of what she might have been thinking.
“I’m…I’m sorry. It’s been a while.”
“It has.”
She is not making this easy.
“I…I just…”
“Are you calling to chat? If you are, you’re doing a pretty bad job.”
“No. I, um, need your help.”
“Of course you do.” She paused. “Mila Voss, right?”
“Yes.”
“Figured. I’ve already pulled everything together I could find so far. I’ll email it to you.”
“Thank you. Peter put a video up on ADR-3, security footage of Mila showing up at a hotel in Tanzania. There’s a dead guy in the shot, too. Peter didn’t tell me who he was. I was wondering if you could find out? Maybe even see if there’s a connection between the corpse and Mila?”
“I can try,” she said, sounding somewhat resigned. “You know, I met her once.”
“You did?”
“She was working on an assignment that ran in tandem with something Durrie and I were on.” Quinn’s late mentor had once been Orlando’s boyfriend, not to mention the father of her son, Garrett. “I liked her. I was sad when I heard she died.”
“She didn’t die.”
“So I gather. You had something to do with that?”
“Yes.”
Nothing for a moment, then, “I’ll find out what I can and get back to you.”
“I…I miss you,” he said, but his words fell on dead air. Orlando had already hung up.
CHAPTER 10
FRIDAY, MAY 12 ^ th 2006 8:48 PM LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
If he could have run flat out, Quinn would have, but it was out of the question. A warm, beautiful Friday night along the Las Vegas Strip meant the crowds were even more massive than usual. The best he could manage was to weave in and out of the waves of people that seemed to be throwing themselves in his way every few seconds.
Once, in a rare moment when a stoplight ahead had halted traffic, he moved out into the road and made a full block in the same amount of time it had taken him to travel a quarter block earlier. Ahead, he could see the Lux casino, and, across the street, the faux cityscape and scaled-down version of the Empire State Building in front of the Manhattan Hotel, his destination.
“She’s been spotted,” Jergins had said over the phone. “They’re converging there now.”
Spotted? How? Of course there was no way he could ask the team leader, so Quinn had gotten off the call and headed straight for the Strip.
At the moment, he was on the wrong side of the street, but that would be rectified when he reached the pedestrian bridge that stretched from the Lux to the second-floor entrance of the Manhattan.
“Hey, watch it!” a man said.
“Sorry,” Quinn replied, knowing his apology had probably been lost in the hum of the crowd.
Foot traffic thickened as he neared the Lux, his pace dropping to what could best be described as a quick walk. The pedestrian overpass was maybe a block away, but damn if he couldn’t buy a break in the crowd.
“Excuse me,” he said, pushing forward. “Excuse me, excuse me.”
“Hey, we’re all going somewhere, buddy. Why don’t you cool it a bit?”
Quinn looked at the man, his face hardening into an expression that had made violent men back down. The other man’s eyes widened, then looked away as if he’d never seen Quinn.
The quick encounter only heightened Quinn’s self-anger. The civilian crowd was not fair game. His response to the man had shown weakness, not strength.
He didn’t let it stop him, though. He couldn’t afford to do that.
Finally, he reached the escalators that led up to the elevated walkway. It, too, was crowded with people, so he could only stand there as it slowly rose to the top. The inaction momentarily allowed him to wonder once more what had gone wrong.
The assassin and his spotter should have been at the Planet Hollywood Hotel waiting for Quinn’s confirmation from the hospital, not at the Manhattan. But instead, Kovacs and his man had found her. How?
As he reached the top of the escalator, he pushed the question aside and made his way across the bridge. He slowed to a walk just before he reached the hotel door, and entered right behind a group of guys barely old enough to buy a drink. Now that he was inside, running would only draw attention, and not just from those he was coming to stop. Casino personnel would not be keen on someone turning their establishment into a racecourse.
He walked past the pretzel stand and straight over to another escalator. This one took him down to the casino floor. Spread out before him were dozens of tables where guests were playing blackjack and mini baccarat and roulette and craps and Let It Ride, apparently enjoying handing over their money to the dealers.
Once he reached the bottom, he made his way past the central bar, and the faux Manhattan streets with their full restaurants and shops. Finally, he reached an unmarked door tucked away where most visitors would never see it.
He tried the handle.
Locked.
That wasn’t a good sign. He’d manipulated the lock himself so that it would only seem to be engaged, but if pushed and turned the right way, the door was supposed to open. Unfortunately, no matter how much he pushed and turned, it wasn’t budging.
He glanced around, made sure no one could see what he was doing, then pulled out his lock picks. It still didn’t open. Someone had jammed it closed from the inside.
There were two other ways to the area beyond that door; neither was convenient. The least inconvenient was via a service elevator and a maintenance-access hallway located over fifty yards from his current position.
Seeing no other options, he headed in that direction. The elevator was beyond a set of doors that could only be opened via a security card issued to hotel staffers. That wasn’t a problem. He had his own copy.
The problem turned out to be waiting for him on the other side of the door. It came in the form of a big beefy security guard with a wry smile and superior look in his eyes.
