job, was thoroughly reliable, and had never caused any problems. Of course, he wasn’t her only employer, but given how she had performed for him, he found it hard to believe the experience had been drastically different for anyone else.
Using the special-access computer, he set to work attempting to create a chronological list of jobs Mila had done. He knew there would be holes, people she might have worked for who were not official US agencies, but those gigs didn’t concern him. The order to terminate had come from Mygatt through Green. They were both with the government at the time, so the project that had caused the problem had probably also come through government channels.
Peter spent two hours sifting through the digital records before Misty called and asked if he wanted her to pick him up some dinner.
“A sandwich,” he said. “And put on some coffee.”
“Coffee’s ready whenever you are.”
Just after nine p.m., he had what he considered to be as close as possible to a complete list of Mila’s projects in the four months prior to her termination order. Whatever she did that had made Mygatt think her death was necessary would most likely have occurred not long before the scheduled event in Las Vegas. He thought it was pretty damn likely it had happened no more than eight weeks out.
He printed the list so he could lay it across the desk and get a clearer picture. Using markers, he highlighted those jobs on which there was an intersection between Mila and either Mygatt or Green. He then looked through these to see if something stood out, but on the surface there was nothing. Next, he concentrated on the jobs the two men were not-openly, at least-involved in. Same results.
Dammit.
He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. What was he missing? The room grew deathly still as his mind ran through every possibility. A full ten minutes passed before he rocked forward, thinking there was another angle he could check.
Using date, time, and location information from the jobs Mila had worked, he began his new search. The list he came up with was shorter than the one he already had, but he’d expected that. It was simply a list of projects that coincided both in time and relative location to those Mila was attached to. Other than that, there were no apparent connections between the jobs.
He checked each against her corresponding project. The first was in Chicago at roughly the same time of day, but on a different side of the city so contact between the two was unlikely. The next was in DC. For a few moments, he thought that might be it, but it was soon clear, once again, there had been no overlap. The same was true of a job in Boston, and two in New York.
The sixth had been in Atlanta. Actually, he corrected himself, it had started in Atlanta for Mila. This time there was an overlap-a flight between a small airport outside the city and Lisbon, Portugal. Mila was on the flight because of its convenience for the run she was on. The other project had been using the flight to get to Europe, too, though there was no info telling Peter what they’d been up to. He didn’t recognize the names of the people who were ultimately in charge of the project-neither Mygatt nor Green was mentioned-but there were four things that did stand out.
One, the flight had happened exactly one month before Mila was supposedly eliminated.
Two, the agent in charge of the other project was a man named Evans, the very same man who’d retired to the UK under the name Johnston and been killed just a few days before.
Three, the lead agent on the flight itself had been Lawrence Rosen, whose recent death had been caused by smashing into a Tanzania sidewalk.
And four, Rosen’s partner on the flight had been Scott Olsen.
CHAPTER 26
ROME, ITALY
“You’re sure you don’t want one?” Orlando asked, holding out one of the pain pills Dr. Pelligrini had reluctantly given them on the way out of his clinic.
“No,” Quinn said.
The last thing he needed was to be drugged up. There were moments when he had to pause and just ride through the pain, but, however strong it became, he handled it. Physically, he probably wasn’t up to doing much, but decisions would have to be made, and he needed to be the one making them.
In all his years as a cleaner, with all the bullets that had flown in his direction, this was the first time he’d been seriously hit. He would have preferred for his lucky streak to continue, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
“How much farther?” he asked Nate.
“Twenty minutes,” Nate replied from the driver’s seat of their stolen sedan. “When we get there we’ll have to park about a quarter mile away and walk in.” His words came with an implied do you think you can make it?
“No problem,” Quinn said. Whether that was true or not, he’d find out soon enough.
Orlando said, “We should have at least waited until morning.”
“My legs are fine,” he told her, a bit more harshly than he’d intended. He softened his tone. “Besides, morning might be too late.”
With no good response, she shook her head and turned away.
Quinn glanced through the window. Outside, city had given way to country. Gentle hills and vineyards and unused fields took turns cradling the road. Scattered among them were copses of trees and the occasional old- stone home or barn.
In the early hours of the morning, they all but had the highway to themselves. A handful of trucks, another car or two, but that was it. When Nate finally turned onto a side road, the additional traffic dropped to zero.
“Will they see us coming?” Quinn asked.
Nate shook his head. “There are a couple hills between us.”
“They could have lookouts.”
“They could, but they didn’t earlier, and Daeng’s been keeping watch. He would have called if something had changed.”
It felt odd to Quinn not to be the one in the know. He wondered momentarily if his own mentor, Durrie, had felt the same when Quinn had started running his own operations. Who knew what Durrie thought, though. He’d been a real ass at times. Hopefully, Quinn wasn’t falling into that category.
Ten minutes on, Nate began to slow the car. To either side, grapevines moved out into the darkness. He shut off the headlights, and turned down a narrower dirt road that weaved through a break between the rows. They didn’t go too far before the vines on their left were replaced by a gently sloping hill covered with trees. Within a couple few minutes, Nate veered off the path and inched into a space between several of the trees. He let the car roll to a stop, and killed the engine.
Twisting around, he looked at Quinn. “If you’re not feeling up to it, I could try to drive in a little closer.”
“I’m fine.”
Looking skeptical, Nate glanced at Orlando, who just shrugged as if to say, “I give up.”
Silently, they climbed out of the car and gathered near the front.
“We go around the edge of this hill, then up the next one. That’s where Daeng is.”
Without waiting for a response, Nate took the lead.
They were halfway up the second hill when he suddenly motioned for everyone to stop.
“Something’s not right,” Nate whispered. Daeng should have heard them by now and come to meet them. “Stay here.”
He dropped to a crouch, moved quietly toward the top, and paused twenty feet shy of the crest. From there, he had a clear view of where Daeng had been stationed, only Daeng wasn’t there.
Nate listened, trying to pick up any sense that there might be others around, but everything was still and quiet. Cautiously, he moved forward, his gaze splitting time between watching the woods for movement and
