The Cleaner (31 page)

'I don't deal.'

'Tell me about Robert Taggert.'

Burroughs looked at Quinn with contempt, but there had also been a flicker of what-the-fuck in the spook's eyes. 'Is that name supposed to mean something to me?'

'Try this one then. Henry Jansen?'

This time it was a twitch, just above Burroughs's left eye.

'It's a little confusing,' Quinn said. 'I mean, since they're the same person.'

Burroughs shrugged. 'Okay. If you say so. So what?'

'Jansen was supposed to give you some information,' he said. 'About an operation run by Borko.'

Burroughs stared hard at Quinn, then turned to Murray. 'Stop the car,' he commanded.

Murray, surprised, slammed on the brakes. Burroughs started to reach for the door. 'Hold on,' Quinn said calmly as he raised the gun. 'Ken, just keep driving.'

The car lurched forward as Murray pressed down on the accelerator.

'Stop the fucking car!' Burroughs snapped. Turning to Quinn, he said, 'I don't know what you're playing, but I'm getting out now.'

'Keep driving,' Quinn said. He raised his gun, aiming it at Burroughs's chest. 'If you think I'm kidding around, you're wrong. Some people I care about are in a lot of trouble because of whatever's going on. My personal rules of engagement aren't as strict as they used to be.'

Burroughs clenched his jaw. His fingers were still on the handle of the door. Quinn waited. It was obvious that Burroughs knew something he didn't want to share.

Finally, Burroughs let go of the handle and leaned back into the seat.

'Jansen. Taggert. You're right, okay? They're the same guy,' Burroughs said.

Quinn remained silent.

'And yes. He said he had come into some information that he wanted to pass on to us.'

'Who's us?' Quinn asked, moving the barrel of the gun a fraction of an inch to remind Burroughs it was there.

'The Agency. Who did you think?'

'What did he want to tell you?'

'If we knew that, he wouldn't have had to tell us, would he?'

'So, he never said anything about a biological sample he might have for you?'

'He wasn't specific about what he had.'

'That's all you knew?'

Burroughs hesitated, then said, 'He told us it was something tailored.'

Quinn furrowed his brow. 'What does that mean?'

'That's all he would say. We were meeting so he could give me the details.'

'Tell me about the meeting,' Quinn said. 'We were supposed to meet in Vail. On the slopes.' 'When?' 'The same day as the fire. I was in Vail, but

Taggert didn't show up.' 'Didn't you know where he was staying?' 'No. He insisted on making those plans himself.

The only thing he allowed us to do was arrange

for someone to drive him around.' 'Protection?' 'We insisted.' 'And this chauffeur didn't tell you where he was?' 'She was instructed not to. Taggert was very nervous.

We didn't want anything messing up the meet.'
She?
'Jills,' Quinn said. 'That's right. You were the one who found her,

weren't you?' Quinn stared at Burroughs for a moment, eyes narrowing. 'What's the Office's role in this?'

Burroughs seemed to gauge how much he wanted to say. 'I tell you this, and you have to tell me everything you know.'

'I did say this was an exchange, didn't I?' Burroughs nodded. 'But you haven't shared

anything with me yet.' 'You're right,' Quinn said. 'I haven't.' 'Quinn?' Murray said from the front seat. 'What?' Quinn asked. 'You told me to keep a lookout for anything

unusual.' 'What is it?' 'I think we're being followed.' Quinn swiveled around in his seat to look out the back window. There were several cars behind

them. 'Which one?' he asked. 'The sedan. Directly behind us.' A dark Ford was two car lengths back. 'You're

sure?' Quinn asked. 'I've made a couple of turns. He's staying right with us.' 'Do it again,' Quinn said. 'A quick turn at the next block. No signal.'

Quinn watched out the back window as Murray executed his instructions. The Ford continued to follow them.

'Again,' Quinn ordered. 'Left at the next street.'

The sedan stayed with them. Quinn turned to Burroughs, who had a look of satisfaction on his face. 'I told you they'd come for me.'

'Where the hell did they come from?' Murray asked. 'The blonde,' Quinn said. 'She works for you,

doesn't she?' Burroughs smiled but said nothing. 'The girl?' Murray asked. 'She probably saw us drive off with our friend

here and called it in.' 'Sorry,' Burroughs said. 'It looks like we're done.' 'Lose them,' Quinn ordered Murray. 'Are you kidding?' Murray whined. 'You've

already got me in deep enough shit as it is.' 'That's right, Ken,' Burroughs said. 'Don't make

it worse.' Quinn turned back to Burroughs. 'Keep quiet.' 'Fuck you,' Burroughs said. 'Ken, pull over, and

I'll make sure they understand you did this against your will.'

Quinn lowered the angle of his gun and pulled the trigger.

Burroughs screamed in pain as the bullet tore through his right foot. It was all the message Murray needed. He pressed the accelerator to the floor.

Chapter 30

Quinn knew he had very little time left. He turned back to Burroughs. The man was still hunched over in pain, clutching his wounded foot.

Quinn shoved him back against the seat and glowered at him. 'You smug asshole. Believe it or not, until a few minutes ago I wasn't your enemy.' He thrust the barrel of the gun against Burroughs's right shoulder. 'This won't kill you either. But it'll hurt like hell.'

Burroughs raised a bloody hand defensively.

'This is no longer an exchange,' Quinn said. 'This is a one-way flow of information. From you to me. Got it?'

Burroughs nodded.

'Why was the Office called in?'

Grimacing, Burroughs said, 'Taggert was not considered a completely credible source. He'd cried wolf before. If something went wrong, we didn't want it boomeranging back to us. So they were running the protection.'

'Jills was working for the Office?'

'Yes.'

Something else Peter was keeping from him.

'What was Taggert up to?' Quinn asked. Burroughs's eyes darted toward the back window. 'Your friends are still there, if that's what you're wondering. Just talk.'

'He'd been working undercover. On his own.' 'A freelancer?' 'More of a lone wolf.' 'Doing what?' 'Research.' 'What kind of research?' Quinn asked. 'Biological research is what he said. He was a

virologist by training.' 'So he was working with the people who were

doing the . . . tailoring?' 'That's what he said.' 'And Borko was running things?' 'No,' Burroughs said. 'Jansen claimed Borko was

just the muscle.' 'Then who?' 'Some guy named Dahl.' 'He must have told you more,' Quinn said. 'What

is it? Smallpox? Ebola?'

'No, no,' Burroughs said. 'Neither of those. He told us that much ahead of time. Still, we weren't very inclined to believe him. Then he said he had tangible proof. That's why we gave him the meeting. But whatever proof he thought he had burnt with him in the fire.'

Or maybe not
,
Quinn thought, an image of the

bracelet in his mind. 'It doesn't matter,' Burroughs continued. 'Why?'

'He was single-source. There was no other corroborating evidence,' Burroughs said. 'I already told you, Jansen was unreliable. All he wanted was the cash.'

Quinn let out a short, bitter laugh. 'You didn't believe him.'

'He'd made a lot out of nothing before. There was no reason why he wasn't doing it again. Besides, he told us Borko was involved. Our sources confirmed Borko has been out of commission for over a month.'

Quinn couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'But what about the murder? What about the disruption at the Office?'

'Just an interagency spat. Jansen got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

'And that's what you believe?'

Burroughs was a bit slow to answer. 'Yes.'

'You're an idiot,' Quinn said. He looked out the back window. There were cars behind them, but he couldn't pick out the sedan. 'Did you lose them?' he asked Murray.

'I don't know,' Murray said. 'I think they're still back there, just not so close.'

'You're doing great. Let's see if you can put a little more distance between us.'

'Fuck,' Murray said. 'I'm a dead man.'

'I'll take care of it,' Quinn said. 'You'll be fine.'

'How the hell are you going to take care of it?' Murray asked, glancing back at Quinn. 'You'll just have to trust me.' 'So, what?' Murray asked. 'We drive around all

night?'

'You're going to drop me off first,' Quinn said. 'After that, you might want to take a little vacation. A week should do it.'

'You son of a bitch,' Murray said.

'I can't help you if I'm in jail,' Quinn said.

'You'll never make it,' Burroughs said, his voice weak.

'Really?' Quinn asked. 'You better hope I do.' He peered through the windshield. 'Take that next right. Then at the next street right again.'

Murray did as Quinn ordered. As soon as they made the second turn, Quinn said, 'Over to the curb.
Now.'

Murray pulled to the curb and jammed on the brakes. Quinn threw open the door. 'Don't worry,' he said as he climbed out.

'Fuck you,' Murray said.

Instead of flying directly out of Brussels, he drove to Amsterdam, where he caught the 7:20 a.m. KLM flight to Hamburg. There he took a train to Berlin, getting off at the Zoologischer Garten station. He made his way down through the station to the eastbound U2 platform, where he only had to wait a few minutes for the next train. He didn't take a direct route back. Instead he switched trains often, every time checking to make sure he wasn't being tailed. As far as he could tell, he wasn't.

He made it back to Neukölln by 1:30 p.m. The sidewalks on Karl Marx Strasse were filled with shoppers taking advantage of the relatively warm day. Quinn bought a couple of bratwurst sandwiches and two cans of Coke, then made his way back to the store on Karl Marx Strasse.

He almost expected Orlando to be gone, the store truly and completely abandoned. But when he opened the door and stepped inside, he could feel her standing beside him before he even saw her.

'I could have killed you,' she said.

He slowly turned to her. She was holding the Glock in her hand, pointing toward the floor at Quinn's feet. Her eyes were red, her face drawn and ashen. Quinn wondered if she'd slept at all while he was gone.

'Where the hell have you been?' she asked. 'Brussels,' he said. 'I told you that's where I was going.' 'I thought you'd be back yesterday.' Her red eyes flashed in anger.

'It took me a little longer than I'd hoped.'

He walked past her into the other room and sat down. From the bag, he pulled out one of the sandwiches. Orlando followed him in a moment later. He held the bag out to her.

'I've got one for you, too.' She walked over to him, ignoring the bag. 'You should have called me.'

Quinn almost snapped back at her. But he held himself back. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'You're right, I should have called.' He raised the bag a little. 'Take the sandwich.'

For a moment it looked like she was going to bat it out of his hand. Instead, she finally took the bag and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him.

As they ate, he told her about his encounter with Burroughs. Orlando made no comments, only nodding on occasion.

'There's something else,' he said after he'd finished telling her about Brussels.

She looked at him expectantly.

'Before I got to Belgium, I received something in my e-mail.' There was a spark in her eye. 'What?' 'I'll show you.' He picked the portable monitor off the ground

and set it in his lap. From his pocket, he removed his flash memory stick and inserted it into one of the ports on the side of the monitor. As he was doing so, Orlando moved around so she could see the screen, too. It only took him a moment to locate the pictures he'd downloaded in Frankfurt. He opened the one of Nate first.

Orlando drew in a breath at the sight of their injured colleague. 'He's alive,' she said.

'For the moment, he's more valuable that way.'

'I saw there were two files,' she said.

Quinn nodded slowly. Not wanting to, but not knowing any way to avoid it, he closed the picture of Nate and opened the other file. This time Orlando actually gasped. 'Where is he?' she asked, grabbing at the screen. 'I don't know,' Quinn said. 'The photo might be doctored.' She pulled the monitor close, her eyes less than a foot away from the image of her son. 'Does the picture look familiar?' Quinn asked. 'I don't mean the setting. Just Garrett's pose.'

'I've never seen it before,' she said, instantly understanding where he was going.

There was the possibility that Dahl's people had taken a photo from Orlando's home and changed the background. If that was the case, that could mean something worse than kidnapping had happened to Garrett, and Dahl had been forced to create the illusion that Garrett was still alive. But if Orlando didn't recognize any part of the photo, perhaps it was actually genuine.

'Where is he?' Orlando asked again. She looked at Quinn. 'Where the hell is he?'

'We'll find him,' Quinn said. 'I promise you.'

She stared at Quinn, her nostrils flaring. She seemed to be waiting for him to say something, but nothing he could think of would help the situation. Finally, she said, 'I have something you need to see.'

She sat down on the floor next to him and held the monitor so they could both view the screen. She punched a few of the buttons, accessing a specific time on the disk. The screen remained black for a moment as the player located the requested spot. Then the blank screen was replaced by an image of one of the rooms in the basement, the room without the refrigeration unit.

There were four men present. On the tables were several air tanks. As Quinn and Orlando watched, one of the men started up a portable air compressor that was on the floor.

'There.' She pointed at the monitor. To one side of the room, standing alone but watching the others, was a man.