“Hello?” Michaels said once he had the phone.
Quinn waited patiently as Peter and Michaels talked. Mostly, the team leader was just listening, his expression at first angry, then confused. Every few seconds, his gaze would dart over to Quinn.
Finally, he held the phone back out. “Here.”
Quinn took it and raised it to his ear. “Goodbye, Peter.”
“Can you at least tell me what you’re going to do?” Peter asked.
“Once I know, you’ll get your instructions.” Quinn hung up, and looked over at the vehicles parked in front of the burning house. “That SUV,” he said to Michaels.
“What about it?”
“Who’s got the keys?”
Michaels did not look happy as he reached into his pocket and extracted a set of keys. He peeled the largest one off the ring and tossed it to Quinn.
“Have a good day,” Quinn said. He turned to his friends. “Let’s go.”
As they walked away from Michaels, several of the men on the ground scrambled for their guns and started to rise.
“Stand down!” Michaels ordered. “This project’s been terminated.”
CHAPTER 34
FRIDAY, MAY 12 th, 2006 8:31 PM LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Quinn drove to Valley Hospital as fast as traffic would allow. There, he used a forged FBI badge to get beyond the waiting area and into the main part of the facility.
Finding an empty office at this time on a Friday night wasn’t difficult. Once inside, he located a computer. Then, using a little of what he’d paid good money to learn, he bypassed the standard security and gained access to the hospital’s system. Once he was in, he created a record for one Naomi Reese, noting that she had been dead on arrival at the ER. He listed the preliminary cause of death as heart failure, and used a line of code from his own private server to schedule the record to appear in the system the follow morning. When it did show up, it would be buried so deeply that it’d only be found if someone was looking for it specifically. There was at least a ninety-five- percent chance no one at the hospital would ever even set eyes on it.
As soon as he was done and the computer was back in its original condition, he called Jergins.
“I’m sta-”
“She’s just been spotted,” Jergins cut him off. “Over at the Manhattan Hotel.”
The blood drained from Quinn’s face. “What are you talking about?”
“Kovacs’s man found her. They’re converging there now.”
“That’s…not possible. I’m standing next to the body right now. She’s dead.” There was a big part of him that knew he should have kept his mouth shut. These were words that could easily come back and haunt him, but he was already committed so he couldn’t back down now.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m looking at her now,” Quinn said, his gaze fixed on nothing. “I’ll have her out before daybreak, and dispose of her as planned.”
“Then who the hell did they see?”
“I have no idea, but I guarantee you it’s not the target.”
Jergins swore under his breath. “I’ll send them a message, but if they’re chasing this other person, it’ll probably be awhile before they get it. Hopefully they’ll back off when they realize it’s not her.” He paused. “You’ve got her. I’m declaring end of mission and bugging out.”
“See you next time,” Quinn said.
“Hope it goes smoother for you than it has for the rest of us.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Quinn left the hospital, and drove to the Strip.
How in the world had they seen Mila? She should have been in the sub-basement safe room where no one would find her. No one.
He tried to reach Julien, but the call went straight to voice mail.
“Where are you?” he yelled, then hung up.
He knew for a fact that he and Mila had reached the Manhattan unobserved. From there it should have been simple. In through the garage, downstairs, hide. Even if, God forbid, she had shown her face in the casino for a reason Quinn couldn’t possibly imagine, who would have seen her? The spotter should have been driving around lost while Kovacs was at Planet Hollywood.
He tried Julien again. Voice mail.
The only thing more frustrating than not being able to get through to his friend was the traffic, which had gone from bad to horrible.
He made a snap decision and pulled into the entrance for Caesar’s Palace. Twenty feet in, he stopped along the side of the road and jumped out, leaving the engine still running. Horns blared at him, but he ignored them as he weaved through the cars trying to get to the hotel, and made his way to the sidewalk.
There, he turned south toward the Manhattan and ran.
CHAPTER 35
ITALY
The quickest way out of the country would have been to head straight back to Rome and catch the first flight available. It was also the most obvious choice, and therefore the first place someone trying to find out where they’d gone would check.
Perhaps Peter would keep a lid on things, but Quinn knew he’d be a fool to count on it. Not that Peter wasn’t trustworthy. It was just that in this business, trust wasn’t always a constant. Peter was obviously under considerable pressure, something he’d handled well in the past, but no matter how cool he remained as things pressed down on him, without the power and influence he used to have shielding him, his breaking point could be much easier to reach. There was just no way to tell, so it was best to be cautious.
As they neared the outskirts of Rome, Quinn leaned forward from the back where he was sitting with Orlando and Mila. “Go northeast,” he said to Nate. “We’re skipping Rome.”
“Venice?” Nate asked.
Quinn nodded, pleased they were on the same wavelength.
“You’re not going to Rome?” Mila asked as he settled back in the seat.
“No. Not safe.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I appreciate you setting me free, but you can let me out anywhere around here.”
“No one’s getting out.”
“I have something I need to do!”
Quinn stared at her for a second, then looked forward without saying anything.
“I said, let me out!”
He didn’t move.
“Dammit, Quinn! Let me the hell out!”
She tried to reach across him for the door. He pushed her back without looking. She then tried the same thing on Orlando’s side, but Orlando’s response was even rougher than Quinn’s.
Mila fell back against the seat, panting heavily. “So, what? I go from one group holding me hostage to another? Is this because you’re afraid that me showing up might get you killed?”
