“I’ll take off when we get to Geneva.”
He gave it a beat, then said, “There is another way.” He laid it all out for her.
When he was through, she stared at him, slack-jawed. “Is that even possible?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
For the first time since they had reconnected, Mila smiled. “It’s a lot better than what I had in mind. Thank you.”
“Quinn?” Orlando called out, waving at him to join her.
“Excuse me,” he said to Mila. He sat in the chair next to Orlando. “What is it?”
“I was thinking we could use a little more ammunition.”
“Definitely,” he said. “What did you find?”
She hesitated. “Something that might change the plan a bit.”
“For the better?”
“You tell me.” She turned her laptop so he could see the screen. On it was a low-resolution image that had obviously been pulled from a video. The person in the shot had the look of a homeless man-hair and beard long and matted, face thin and dirty.
Quinn shot Orlando a questioning glance.
“The footage this was pulled from is about six months old.”
“Okay,” he said. “But who is it?”
“If I’m not mistaken, that’s Thomas Gorman.”
CHAPTER 39
WASHINGTON, DC
It was just after eight a.m. when Olsen walked into the townhouse.
The moment he entered their shared office, Peter jumped up. “I’m glad you’re here. I was just about to call you.”
Olsen laid his briefcase on his desk. “Did something happen?”
“They have her.”
Olsen froze. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. One of my teams tracked her down in Switzerland about four hours ago.”
“Four hours?”
“I didn’t know myself until just before you arrived. Apparently there was a bit of a dustup, and they weren’t able to contact me right away. The good news is, in the middle of it all, they were able to sneak her on a plane. She’s on her way here now.”
“Wait, what? Here? No. We don’t want her here.”
“I already okayed the order to do that in the event she was caught.”
“I never gave you permission for that!”
“Your instructions, Mr. Olsen, were to make sure we had her this time, that there were to be no ‘fuckups.’ ”
“That has nothing to do with bringing-”
“That has everything to do with bringing her here. I want to see her right in front of me. I want to take a sample of her DNA and her prints, and I want to prove beyond a doubt that the woman we have in custody is Mila Voss. I thought you wanted the same thing.”
“We can’t have her here,” Olsen insisted.
“It won’t be for long. I’ve routed the plane to a private strip about thirty miles northeast of here in Virginia. No one is even going to know she’s in the country. We’ll put her on a second plane that’ll be standing by, and process her. You just tell me where you want her flown after we’ve got what we need, and that’s where she’ll go.”
Olsen mulled over the plan, then said, “All right, all right. We can make that work. It’s actually not a bad idea.”
“Thanks,” Peter said, not hiding his annoyance.
“I’ll have to run it by the senator and Mr. Green, but unless you hear from me otherwise, it’s a go.”
“If it is, I assume you’ll want to be there, too.”
“Absolutely.”
The neutral look on Peter’s face remained unchanged, but inside he cracked a smile.
CHAPTER 40
VIRGINIA, THIRTY-FOUR MILES NORTHEAST OF WASHINGTON, DC
The private jet descended toward the airport. As instructed, the flight crew had remained behind the locked cockpit door. There were no other crew members on board.
“Last chance if anyone wants out,” Quinn said.
There were no takers.
He, Nate, and Orlando were dressed in forest camouflage outfits, with dark brown ski masks resting on their heads. Daeng was wearing a dark suit and holding a pair of tinted glasses. Mila was the only one still wearing the clothes she’d been in earlier.
Quinn touched her arm and said, “It’s time.”
“Okay,” she replied, nodding.
“It’s going to be fine.”
“I know.”
“Shall I?” Nate asked. He was in the seat next to her.
“Thanks,” she said. She gave him the pair of handcuffs she’d been holding, and then raised her hands in front of her. Once the cuffs were secured, she took a deep breath.
“Daeng will be with you the whole time,” Nate said.
Another nod.
From the angle of their descent, Quinn knew they were almost there. “Shades,” he said.
They moved quickly through the cabin, closing all the window shades so no one could see in after they land.
After they were all seated, Quinn thought through the revised plan one more time. They had taken every precaution possible, but there were still at least a million ways it could go wrong. The number one being if Peter decided his interests were better served elsewhere and screwed them over. They’d know the answer to that soon enough.
The plane bounced as its rear wheels hit the runway, then stayed down. Once the front gear settled on the ground, the engines wailed as they worked hard to kill the momentum that had carried them across the Atlantic Ocean. Once their speed slowed enough so that the plane could safely turn off the runway, everyone but Mila jumped out of their seats.
As soon as Orlando turned off the interior lights, Quinn raised one of the shades a few inches and peeked out.
There were two medium-sized hangars, and a long, one-story building that fit with the description of the terminal Peter had given him. On the tarmac near the terminal was a plane not much different than the one they were in, and in front of it was a single car.
So far, so good.
“All right,” he said. “Looks like we’re a go.”
Peter pointed at the distant white dot moving toward them in the afternoon sky. “There she is.”
