The Discarded (19 page)

The ropy guy took a step toward Daeng and said, “Get in.”

He grabbed Daeng by the arm and pulled him toward the van.

“Wait,” the man up front said. “Search him.”

His buddy pushed Daeng against the side of the vehicle and patted him down, pulling out Daeng’s phone and his wad of cash. After stuffing the money into his own pocket, Ropy Guy showed the phone to the other guy.

“Get rid of it.”

 Ropy Guy tossed it on the ground, crushed it under his heel, and kicked the remains under a car parked nearby.

Now!
Daeng thought.

He shoved past the man and darted toward the back of the Caravan, hoping the second guy would hinder his friend’s view.

A single
thup
.

Daeng grabbed his left thigh as he stumbled forward and fell to the ground. He barely had time to register the burning pain of the gunshot before he was hauled to his feet and thrown into the van.

As they sped way, the man in front turned around, his gun peeking through the split between the seats. “So tell me, Mr. Nosy, what do we call you?”

CHAPTER
19

“W
HERE THE HELL
is he?” Nate asked.

Quinn had his phone to his ear as he tried Daeng’s number again, but like before, all he reached was voice mail. He called Orlando, putting her on speaker.

“I need to get a position on Daeng,” he said.

“Something happen?”

“Not sure. Maybe nothing.”

“Searching…” No matter where one of the team was in the world, Orlando could pinpoint that person via his phone to within a foot of his actual position. “Um…problem.”

“What?” Quinn asked.

“I don’t have a signal. Backtracking…okay, last ping was six minutes ago. Wait…”

When she failed to continue, Quinn said, “You still there?”

“According to his history,” she said, sounding both surprised and confused, “his last position was a hundred and seventy-three feet east of you on the other side of the street.”

Quinn and Nate whipped around and looked out the window. All Quinn saw were a few parked cars.

“We’ll call you back,” he said.

They jumped out of the SUV and sprinted between vehicles to the other side of the road. When they reached the ping point, Quinn scanned the ground and then dropped to his knees so he could look under the cars. With darkness falling, it was hard to see much of anything, but there was something just a few feet behind the rear tire of a Honda. A bump on the pavement.

By stretching his arm under the car as far as he could, he was able to get the tip of his fingers on the bump and work it toward him. Even before it cleared the bumper, he could feel that it was a phone, and once he had eyes on it, he knew it was Daeng’s.

“Quinn,” Nate said.

He was crouched next to a dark spot on the road. When he held up a finger, Quinn could see some kind of substance on it.

“It’s not oil,” Nate said.

__________

“T
ELL ME YOU
found him,” Orlando said when Quinn called back.

“No,” he said. “He was here, but something happened.”

He told her about the smashed phone and the blood on the road.

“There are a few cameras on this street,” he said. “Security, traffic.”

“I’ll look,” she told him. “You want to stay on the line or…?”

“No. We’re coming to get you.”

“Okay.”

As soon as she hung up, she closed Eli’s computer and scooted it toward Abraham. “Put it away. We’ll deal with it later.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“Not now.”

On her own laptop, she accessed the DC metro traffic monitoring system and identified the cameras nearest the Renaissance Hotel. Choosing the one with the widest view, she backtracked through the footage at double speed until she came to the point where a dark Dodge Caravan stopped next to Daeng.

The location of the incident was too far from the camera for her to see details clearly, so she noted the time and switched to one of the closer cameras. Unfortunately, since they were intended to monitor intersections, none were pointing directly at the spot where Daeng had been.

She looked at the map, noting the businesses and buildings in the area. There was the Renaissance, of course. It would undoubtedly have surveillance out front, but given the point where Daeng was taken, it was unlikely the hotel’s cameras would be useful. There was, however, an office building close enough that its system may have picked up something.

After circumventing the firewalls into the building’s security system, she discovered seven cameras covering the outside of the building—three in the back where deliveries were made, and four in front. The first of the front cameras was angled so that it caught only a thin slice of the Caravan. Daeng, though, was clearly visible, as was a man standing outside with him. The gunshot seemed to come from inside the van. She had to watch the clip frame by frame before she could identify the tip of a suppressor sticking out the front passenger window.

Her jaw tensed. She reversed the footage a bit and let the whole thing play out again at normal speed. Though she couldn’t see exactly where Daeng had been hit, from the way he’d fallen and how he looked as he was pushed into the vehicle, she was pretty sure the bullet had struck him in the leg.

She checked the other three cameras but none provided a better view. She made her way back to the traffic camera and watched as the SUV began moving again. Once it reached its closest position to the camera, she froze the playback and enlarged the image so she could get a look at the license plate. The magnification distorted the picture but the number on the plate was readable. A quick run through the DC motor vehicles database returned the same result she’d received with the Maserati.

McCrillis International.

Next, she tried to trace the Caravan’s path, jumping from traffic cam to traffic cam, but there were holes in the system and some cameras weren’t working properly so it wasn’t long before she lost the trail.

She didn’t even check for any satellites that might have been overhead. The sky had been cloudy since they’d arrived and any overhead shots would be useless.

For the moment, she was out of options for tracking the Caravan, so she uploaded into the facial recognition system the images of the woman and the man who had met with Ethan Boyer.

She was setting the final parameters when Quinn called back.

“We’re out front,” he said.

Surprised, she looked at the clock on her computer and saw that forty minutes had passed since they’d last spoken.

“We’ll be right there,” she told him.

She input the final data, started the search process, and closed her computer.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Abraham asked as she stuffed her laptop into her bag.

“I’m fine.”

“You seem—”

“I’m fine,” she repeated and stood up. “Let’s go.”

__________

M
ISTY BLAKE OPENED
the townhouse door before Quinn had even finished knocking. Her smile was one of relief. Without a word, she stepped across the threshold and threw her arms around him. When she finally pulled back, she had water in her eyes.

“I’m so happy to see you,” she said.

“Can we come in?” Quinn asked.

“Of course. Please.” She stepped out of the way and gestured for them to enter.

When the door was closed again, she gave Nate and Orlando hugs, too, then stopped when she came to Abraham. “I don’t believe we know each other.” She held out her hand. “Misty Blake.”

“Abraham Delger,” he said as they shook. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“We appreciate you letting us use this place,” Quinn said.

“It was just sitting here empty,” she told him. “No big deal.”

The townhouse was one that had been owned by Peter. He had controlled several hideaways throughout the DC area. After his death, the government had taken over all those listed as being owned by the Office, but a few had been completely in Peter’s name. Per his will, Misty, his former assistant and right hand, had inherited them all.

Quinn knew he and his friends needed someplace anonymous and needed it fast, so he had called Misty while he and Nate were on the way to pick up the others. As he’d hoped, she had immediately offered him one of her places.

“I, um, put some food in the refrigerator,” Misty said. “It’s not a lot. I wasn’t sure how long you’d be here. If you need more, just let me know.”

“I doubt we’ll be here very long at all, so I’m sure it’s plenty,” Quinn told her.

“There are clean sheets on the beds, towels in the bathrooms. Soap, shampoo—it’s all there.” She looked around as if searching for something else she needed to tell them.

“It’s perfect. Thank you. You’ve done more than enough.”

“Okay. Well, then, I, um, I guess I should…go.”

“Thanks again,” Orlando said.

Quinn knew Misty wanted to stay, but he wasn’t about to bring anyone else into this until he knew exactly what it was they were dealing with. He put an arm on her shoulder and walked her to the door. “You have a spare key, correct?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then we’ll slip ours through the mailbox when we leave.” He paused before asking, “Do you have the other item?”

She stared at him for a second before her eyes widened. “Oh, right. Sorry.” She dug into her purse and pulled out a small square object no bigger than a dime. As she handed it to Quinn, she said, “Spare bedroom closet, left side.”

“Thank you.”

“If you need anything else,” she said, “seriously, let me know.”

“We will.”

Reluctantly, she opened the door. “It
is
good to see you.”

“You, too, Misty.”

The moment she was gone, Orlando set both hers and Eli’s laptop on the dining table and showed the others the footage of Daeng’s kidnapping.

“Boyer must have realized he was being tailed,” Quinn said.

The computer dinged as a small window opened in the top corner.

“We’ve got a hit,” Orlando said.

She clicked the alarm and the security footage was replaced by an information sheet. On it was a picture of the woman from the car, but not the picture Quinn had taken.

“This is interesting,” Orlando said, reading the screen. “She’s used at least eight different names, one for each time she’s been arrested.”

“On what charges?” Quinn asked.

“Breaking and entering. Reckless driving. Assault. Oh, and attempted murder.”

“Any convictions?”

Orlando shook her head. “Charges dropped every time. Never even went before a judge. Her professional name is Gloria Clark.” She read some more and then looked at Quinn. “She’s a fixer.”

“A fixer?” Fixers were the people you called to take care of a problem that required some creative thinking. “I’ve never heard of her.”

“Me, neither, but she works directly for McCrillis, which makes her corp-intel, so we’ve likely never crossed paths.”

Quinn turned to Abraham. “I don’t get it. Why is corporate intelligence involved in this?”

“I honestly don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me, either.”

“What was the name of the guy who hired you to transport the girl again?”

“Gavin Carter.”

“Who was
he
working for?”

“I’ve been under the impression that the CIA was at least partly involved. Could have been in conjunction with someone else, though. I just don’t know.”

“Did he do any corp-intel work?”

“I wish I could tell you, Johnny, but I have no idea.”

“Do you at least know where he is now?”

“No. Last time I talked to him was right before I dropped off Tessa. I did halfheartedly try to track him down once, but no luck. Since I didn’t really think he’d tell me anything, I didn’t try again.”

“I’ll find him,” Orlando said, turning back to her computer.

Quinn touched the nape of her neck. “Before you do that, I’d like you to locate Ethan Boyer. I mean exactly where he is right now. You can hunt down Carter after.”

She looked at him the way she did when she knew what he had in mind. “It won’t be easy.”

“When is it ever?” He turned to Nate. “Need your help.”

They went upstairs into the spare bedroom. There were two beds, made and ready, and a nightstand between them on which Misty had placed a pitcher of water and a couple of glasses.

Quinn slid the closet door open. A few blankets were on the shelf above the clothes rack, but otherwise the space was empty. Stepping inside, he knelt down at the left end and ran the tip of his forefinger along the baseboard. About seven inches from the corner, a section no wider than a Popsicle stick gave a little under his pressure. He pushed again, harder this time, and when he let go, a tongue of wood popped up. In the middle of the piece was a square depression.

Quinn inserted the square Misty had given him, and pushed the whole section back down. When it clicked into place, he could feel the ever-so-slight vibration of a motor below the floor of the closet. Behind them, in the right-hand corner, the wall that had looked as normal as the others slid out of sight, exposing a fully stocked equipment and weapons cupboard.

He looked at Nate. “Gear up.”

CHAPTER
20

S
IFTING THROUGH SAVED
traffic-cam data, Orlando tracked Ethan Boyer’s Maserati across the city to the McCrillis International headquarters. Twenty minutes later, he was back on the road, heading east into Maryland. She lost him five miles past the border, however, when he turned off the highway onto a road not monitored by traffic cameras.

A quick look at the map told her his route led through some of the more exclusive bedroom communities that surrounded DC. A search through property records told her all she needed to know.

“You find him?” Quinn asked when he came back downstairs.

She nodded. “I believe so. Last eyes I had on him, he was heading toward a gated community called The Hilltop, which happens to be where he owns a home.”