The Deceived (38 page)

Quinn pulled back. “Is it her?” Orlando asked, her voice a whisper in his ear. “Don’t know,” he said. He’d seen enough of the escalator to get the timing right. Just be

fore it was the woman’s turn to exit, he moved forward, his head down.

As she stepped onto the second-floor balcony, Quinn bumped into

her, putting a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Wasn’t watching.” “Don’t worry about it,” she said, her voice familiar. Jenny didn’t even look at him. Her attention was focused on the

restaurant. Quinn started to tighten his grip on her arm, but she pulled away from him and began moving quickly across the tiled patio floor.

Ahead, the congressman and his party had just reached the entrance to the restaurant. Jenny must have noticed this also and was making a beeline for Guerrero.

“She’s heading for the restaurant,” Quinn said. “Front door.” “On my way,” Orlando said. Several people had gotten in between Quinn and Jenny. He

wanted to sprint after her, but that would attract too much attention.

The last thing they needed was to alert Guerrero’s security. “Orlando, where are you?” Quinn asked. “Almost there.” “She’s going to get to the door before I can reach her,” he said. There was a man standing behind a podium near the front door,

checking guest names on a list. Jenny must have caught his attention as she quickly approached the entrance. He snapped a small walkietalkie off a clip on his belt and started to say something into it.

Suddenly he lurched forward, bending over the podium and losing his grip on his radio. As he straightened back up, Orlando moved around him, her hand on her mouth as if she was extremely embarrassed. She said a few words to him, her eyes conveying her apologies.

Jenny was only a dozen feet away now. But she had spotted

Orlando and had stopped. She took a few steps back, and walked right into Quinn. As she turned around, he put a hand on each of her arms, holding

her tight. “Quinn?” she said, surprised. “We have to get you out of here,” he said. “No,” she said. “Let me go. I have to see the congressman.” “You do that and you’re dead.”

She shook her head. “You’re wrong. I have to see him.”

She tried to pull away, but he held on tight.

“You realize that some of those men with him were the same guys who were trying to grab you yesterday at the Far East Square?”

“He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“He wouldn’t have to,” Quinn said. “They’d do it for him.”

“Not once I talk to him. He won’t let that happen.”

Orlando came up behind Jenny. “We really need to leave now,” she said.

Quinn looked toward the restaurant entrance. While almost everyone was moving into the reception, there was one man coming out.

Blondie.

He had a pack of cigarettes in one hand and was shaking one of the sticks out. Quinn tried to move to the side so that Jenny and Orlando were between him and Blondie, but it was too late. The man spotted them.

“Come on!” Quinn said as he began pulling Jenny and accelerating toward the escalator.

She ran beside him, no longer resisting.

A group was just exiting the up escalator. Quinn maneuvered Jenny around them, then all but shoved her onto the down escalator.

“Run,” he said to her. He grabbed his collar and held it out so that his transmitter was only inches from his mouth. “We need a ride. Now!”

Nate answered over the radio immediately. “I’m on it.”

“To the right,” Quinn said to Jenny as she reached the bottom.

When he hit the last step, he took off after her, chancing a quick look over his shoulder as he did.

Orlando was getting off the escalator, while Blondie was just starting down at the top.

The pack of cigarettes was gone, but while he tried to conceal it, his hand wasn’t empty.

“Armed!” Quinn said, just loud enough for Orlando to hear.

But it was the wrong thing to say. Jenny heard it, too, and looked back toward the escalator.

“Keep moving,” Quinn said.

There was the spit of a suppressor behind him.

Jenny fell to the ground.

There were only a few people in the first-floor courtyard of the shopping center. All their eyes were on Quinn and Jenny, and had not seen the gun in Blondie’s hand go off. The only thing they’d seen was Jenny fall down.

One couple started toward her to see if they could help, but Quinn raced over ahead and got there first.

There was another spit, then a bullet flew past Quinn’s hip, slamming into the tile floor. The woman who had been approaching suddenly screamed. Quinn pulled out his gun, swiveled, and pointed it in Blondie’s direction.

He started to squeeze his trigger, but stopped. The man had crouched down behind the metal railing of the escalator. There were several innocents nearby, suddenly aware of the danger and trying to get away. A shot would be too risky.

Quinn spotted Orlando crouched near where the escalator let off, less than ten feet from Guerrero’s man. She waved for him to keep moving. But he leaned down, put his gun on the floor, and slid it across to her.

As she reached out to grab it, Blondie stood up, his gun coming around to aim past Quinn at Jenny.

Quinn dove toward her, not so much to shield her body as to get her moving.

“Up, up,” he said as he lifted her to her feet.

Thwack.

Quinn braced himself, expecting to be hit, but he was untouched.

He got Jenny on her feet and pulled her forward, his arm around her waist. He didn’t look back until they reached the exit.

Orlando was running toward him. Behind her, lying at the base of the escalator, was Blondie. His face was twisted in pain as he cradled a bloody hand against his chest. But they weren’t out of trouble yet. Two of his friends had just rushed onto the escalator from the second floor.

“Are you all right?” Quinn asked Orlando.

“Fine,” she said.

Outside at the curb, Nate was standing next to a taxi. The back door was flung wide open.

Quinn pushed Jenny in first, then climbed in after her, with Orlando getting in last. Nate took the passenger seat up front.

“Drive!” Nate said to the taxi driver.

“I don’t want trouble,” the driver said, apparently sensing something was up.

Orlando pointed her gun at him. “Then get the hell out.”

The driver obviously thought this was a good idea, as he threw open his door and jumped out of the car.

Nate was already climbing into the driver’s vacated seat, knowing it was his job now to get them out of there.

He dropped the car into drive and pressed the pedal all the way to the floor. He didn’t even bother shutting the driver side door. It did it on its own as they sped away.

Finally feeling momentarily safe, Quinn leaned over to take a better look at Jenny.

“Are you hit?” he asked. He hadn’t spotted any blood, but she’d gone down right after Blondie had shot at them.

“I...I don’t think so,” she said. “I heard something next to my head, then I fell.”

Quinn patted her legs, then her side. She winced when he reached her left shoulder.

“I think...I think I dislocated it,” she said.

He pushed on it a little harder, and she yelled out.

“Phone’s in my pocket,” Quinn said to Orlando. “Call Ne Win. We need a doctor.”

CHAPTER

QUINN AND ORLANDO GOT JENNY INTO THE APART

ment, while Nate drove away in the taxi, with orders to abandon it as

far from their location as possible. They took her into the master bedroom and sat her on the bed. “How is it?” Quinn asked Jenny. “It hurts,” she said. “But I’ll be fine. You should have let me go. You

should have let me talk to him.” “Just relax. Let’s not worry about that right now.” From down the hall they could hear the front door open. “Quinn?” It was Ne Win. “Back here,” Quinn yelled. The old man appeared at the bedroom door, trailed a second later

by a younger man holding what looked like a medical bag. Ne Win was

also carrying a bag, though it was more of a canvas shopping bag. “You’re the doctor?” Quinn asked. Though the man looked scared, he nodded. “Then get the hell over here,” Quinn said. Ne Win pushed the doctor through the door. “Don’t worry. Dr.

Han good doctor. He just not have to make house call in a while.” Dr. Han quickly scanned his new patient. “What’s the problem?”

“Shoulder,” Quinn said. “Dislocated, I think.” “Right or left?” Dr. Han asked Jenny. “Left,” Quinn said. The doctor glanced at Quinn, then bent down to get a better look

at Jenny’s shoulder. As he began probing with his fingers, Jenny gritted

her teeth, barely holding in whatever cry of pain she wanted to let out. “I’ll need you to remove your dress,” Dr. Han said. Jenny looked at Quinn, then Ne Win. “Maybe you two can go make some coffee,” Orlando said. Quinn didn’t want to leave. He felt responsible. But he nodded and

turned for the door. “Quinn?” Jenny said. He stopped. “I know you were only trying to help, and that maybe you were

right, maybe I shouldn’t have gone there.” “You’re all right now,” Quinn said. “Everything’s going to be fine.” “No, it’s not,” she said, with more force than any of them expected.

“You don’t understand. Steven died trying to help me stop it.” “Stop what?” Her eyes grew intense, flickering wide open for a moment, then

half closing again as if she’d spent whatever energy she’d had left. “If you really want to help me, you’ll get me to the congressman. We’re his only chance.”

“
His
only chance?” Quinn said. “You listened to the tape, right? So you know,” she said. “Guerrero. We have to save him.” “Can I have a few minutes alone with my patient, please?” the doctor said. Reluctantly Quinn nodded. He wanted to hear more, but it could wait until after the doctor had left.

“Nothing to worry about,” Ne Win said to Quinn. They were both sitting in the living room while Dr. Han worked on Jenny. “Dr. Han is okay. He does a lot of work for me.”

“He’ll keep quiet?”

“Very quiet. He know if he doesn’t, he is not doctor for long.”

They fell into silence. At one point, Ne Win held out the canvas bag to Quinn.

“The data player.”

Quinn took it, then set it on the floor beside his feet. “Thanks.”

The old man rose and headed toward the kitchen. “You want something to drink?”

Quinn shook his head.

For twenty minutes, neither of them spoke. Ne Win slowly sipped his glass of water, while Quinn tried to make sense of everything. Why would she want to
save
Guerrero? He was the one after her. It was one of his men that had shot at her. It was his men that had undoubtedly killed her boyfriend.

Quinn looked over at Ne Win. “Why did you send Markoff to me?”

The old man looked at him. For nearly half a minute, neither of them even moved.

“I only did what he told me to do,” Ne Win said.

“What?” Quinn asked, not sure he’d heard the old man correctly.

But Ne Win remained silent.

“Are you saying Markoff told you to send his body to me?”

It seemed as though Ne Win was still not going to say anything, then he leaned forward. “He told me if anything happened to him, I should get word to you.”

It was almost as if the air had suddenly gained weight. It pressed down on him as if trying to collapse him.

Markoff.

He was the one who had wanted Quinn involved. It wasn’t just chance, or someone thinking Quinn should have been the one to bury his old friend. It had been Markoff from the beginning.

“Tell me what happened,” Quinn said.

Ne Win thought for a moment, then began to speak. “He came to me, much like you did this week. Need my help. I think okay. Markoff always fair with me. No problem help.”

“What kind of help?”

“A little equipment,” Ne Win said, then added, “and some manpower.”

“Manpower?”

“One guy. Markoff doing surveillance. Needed someone to help him.”

“The Quayside Villas,” Quinn said.

“He did not tell me where.”

“But your man did.”

“My man is dead. Like Markoff.”

Quinn paused. “I’m sorry.”

Ne Win leaned back in his chair. “Something happened and they caught Markoff. My man trail them, trying to see where they take him. He call me on the phone and tell me what was happening. I say to him to call me back when he knows where they go. While I wait, I get my other men together. But no call back.”

Quinn looked at the old man, letting Ne Win go at his own pace.

“For four days, nothing. I know they dead, but I keep looking, asking people who might have seen something. Most give me nothing. Finally one woman tell me about activity down at a storage facility for shipping containers. We go have a look.”

“That’s where you found Markoff,” Quinn said.

“Yes,” Ne Win said. “He already dead, two, three days.”

“What about your man?”

“He not there. One day later, his body wash up on beach.”

Silence.

“The message in the container,” Quinn said. “Was that there when you found Markoff, or did you write it?”

“Message already there.”