To Free a Spy (42 page)

Warfield told Gonzales to wait while he checked back with Holden at ADC.

Captain Holden put his brother on the phone.

“It’s Tom Holden, Colonel.”

“Listen, Tom, I’m minutes away from seeing Quinn. What’s this about?”

“I’m a little uncomfortable telling you this but you need to know, even if it backfires on me. It’s not confirmed yet, still restricted to the very highest level and a handful of others at the Bureau. Not even the White House knows. Consequences are too great if it’s leaked and then couldn’t be confirmed. I have it only because I’m in charge of security for Fullwood’s data bank.”

Warfield looked at his watch. “Understood. Get to it.”

“Ever hear of a Leonard Magliacci?”

Warfield listened for the next ten minutes without saying a word.

* * *

Warfield nodded and Gonzales ran the amphibian up the steps. Before Warfield jumped over to the dead escalator he asked O’Hare if there were any firearms on board. There were none. The evacuation was a domestic operation.

“How many flights you gotta go up?” O’Hare asked, as Warfield made the leap.

Warfield had heard Cross mention Quinn’s suite. “Twelfth floor,” he shouted back. He ran beyond the cavernous lobby, through a roomful of slot machines and past the Austin Quinn Ballroom, where he found a stairwell and took two steps at a time. The elevators were likely operating on emergency power but he couldn’t risk being trapped in one. At the eleventh floor he took a minute to catch his breath and weigh the information Tom Holden had given him. He tried to imagine every scenario he might encounter at Quinn’s, and how he would respond. His first objective was Ana’s safety. Then Quinn.

* * *

Privately owned apartments occupied the twelfth floor of the Golden Touch. A couple of emergency red exit lights in the hall prevented total darkness. A sliver of light escaped under one of the room doors, frosting the hall carpet, and Warfield gambled that was Quinn’s suite. He went back to the stairwell and removed the fire axe he’d seen mounted there and planned his arrival.

Warfield stood in front of Quinn’s door and brought the axe down hard. It slammed through the lock and Warfield swooped low, rammed the door with his shoulder and rushed the room.

Quinn calmly stood there with a gun pointed at him.

“Well.
I was getting concerned, Warfield,” Quinn said. The cocky smile had returned. He waved Warfield to a chair with the pistol. “Almost thought the storm kept you away. You’ll have to forgive me for underestimating you again.”

Warfield’s head was spinning. Quinn was
expecting
him?
Why? Did that mean Quinn used Ana to draw him there in case he survived the goons who tried to kill him? Was Ana complicit in Quinn’s plot, or a victim?

“Ana. Where is she, Quinn?”

“Ana’s fine. Got a little sleepy after dinner. How about you, Colonel. Care for a drink? Or did you swear off after your…what would you call it? Your dark period?” Quinn put the .38 on the bar and kept an eye on Warfield as he poured a glass of Glenfiddich. Warfield noticed that he looked worse than when they met the day before.

“You kept up with me pretty well, Quinn, after Joplan,” Warfield said, trying to buy time.

“Joplan. Now there’s a subject, Warfield. We could talk about him all evening, couldn’t we? Figured I’d have to deal with you when you told Fullwood and me you’d narrowed the Habur gate screw-up to three possibilities and that two of them pointed to a mole. Trying to smoke me out. I’d sold you short before then.”

“What’s the plan now?” Warfield kept his eyes peeled for an opportunity but Quinn never took his eyes off Warfield.

Quinn nodded toward the outside. “There’s a dangerous storm out there. You take a risk when you don’t evacuate. People get washed away. Some never found. I won’t miss you. You’ve hounded me.”

“
You’re
the victim, is that it, Quinn, beginning with the girl’s murder? What was her name? Karly?”

Quinn looked surprised. “Your sarcasm doesn’t escape me, but it’s true. I didn’t intend to hurt Karly. Things got out of hand when she demanded money and I momentarily lost control.”

“And Frank Gallardi bailed you out.”

“How’d you get all this, Warfield?”

“So Gallardi was victim number two. How many in all? Karly. Gallardi. Joplan. Swope. Her lawyer. You tried me three times—the car blast, the condo, the chase this morning.”

“You failed to include the gangster that dumped Karly’s body. This Matty Fig. I should get the citizenship award for that one.”

“Who does your dirty work, Quinn? If it’s Pat Biggers, he will be the last one on your to-do list. Who’ll take care of him?”

Quinn put his drink on a small desk across the room from Warfield and sat down behind it, all the while keeping the .38 trained on him. “You don’t discourage easily. This is a fallback plan, me dealing with you myself, and I admit I don’t like it. But you amaze me, Warfield. Where’d you get your information?”

“Ever hear of Leonard Magliacci?” Warfield was playing the card Tom Holden gave him minutes ago.

Quinn’s face revealed his contempt for Magliacci. “Forgot to count that lowlife. He’s dead—another good deed to my credit. Magliacci never accomplished anything in his life, then he goes snooping around after Frank’s death, finds things from Karly’s room that Gallardi kept in a safe, like an idiot. Then this Magliacci blackmails me.”

“And the timing was perfect for you to take advantage of Joplan’s contact, Seth.”

“I never met with Seth, Warfield. Joplan’s contact I met with was some Frenchie—Pierre, or something like that—in Paris. I didn’t know he was fronting for a terrorist”

“Don’t try to sell that, Quinn. What good could anybody trying to get the names of unstable Russian scientists be up to? Treason is treason. You knew what you were doing.”

“You’d have done the same thing, Warfield. You can’t say otherwise if you haven’t been through what has happened to me.”

“Give it up, Austin. You can do something positive with the rest of your life, even in prison. Start by clearing Ana. She’d be free if you hadn’t bribed Helen Swope.”

Quinn smiled. “So you think Ana…” He stopped mid-sentence.

“What about Ana?”

Quinn didn’t answer.

Warfield had no intention of dying there but he had to stall until Quinn made a mistake—or Warfield created one.

Quinn said, “I’m happy to fill you in, Warfield, because I’m the last person you will ever speak with. What happened that night up in Karly’s apartment is ancient history, an unfortunate situation. And the CIA list, it got into the wrong hands, okay, Warfield? And it’s a big regret that…that…that what I did put the country at risk. But I’ve got too much life ahead, too many opportunities, to let mistakes I made years ago stop me. When I get past you and one or two other obstacles I’m back on track. I’m not an evil man! It’s the circumstances. You for example. I warned you to stay out of this. And because of what you stirred up, more people got hurt. Like that lawyer of Ana’s, Upson. And Morgan. None of this should have happened to me. I’m going to take my life back.”

“Yeah, Quinn, you were walking through the park one Sunday morning on your way to church when hell opened up before you and pulled you in. You parlayed that night with Karly Amarson into a crime wave, and none of it’s your fault. Kill me or not, your own ruination is sure to come.”

“Wishful on your part, Warfield.” Quinn hit the Scotch again.

Warfield played another Holden card. “But you’re forgetting the inevitable. Magliacci’s sealed your fate.”

Quinn was smug. “Magliacci’s dead. You know that.”

“He left the FBI a little surprise.”

Quinn stared at Warfield silently.

Warfield continued. “Few things in a safe deposit box, including photos of Karly’s jewelry, a knife, other stuff covered with blood—”

Quinn laughed. “Good try, Warfield. Those things exist only in some Bureau file. They’re on the bottom of the Atlantic. I put them there myself. Photos are nothing.”

“—along with a letter from somebody named Maria Sanchez and—”

Quinn sneered. “Listen Warfield, that maid’s letter might snag some Joe installing floor mats over at the Ford plant, but the threshold’s high for a man at my level. You know that. Remember Bill Clinton? Magliacci’s claim won’t get beyond the tabloids.”

“—and blood types,” Warfield continued. “DNA from two different people on the things Magliacci sent to the feds.”

DNA!
This one registered with Quinn.

Why hadn’t Quinn thought of that, Warfield wondered.

“Turn yourself in before it hits the news, Quinn. More killing will only make it worse. Even if you get away with it, you can’t live with what you’ve done. Sooner or later it’ll drive you mad. Everyone in the world will know what Austin Quinn is. You’ll be a
Washington Post
headline today and a footnote in history books tomorrow, but not for the reasons you’d like.”

Quinn kept switching the pistol from hand to hand and running his fingers through his hair. He was silent except for heavy breathing.

As Warfield pursued the surrender tack, Quinn became more agitated and less stable. Then he sat stone still for what seemed to Warfield like a lifetime, all the while looking straight into Warfield’s eyes. Every nerve in Warfield’s body stood on alert for the slightest opportunity to take him but Quinn kept the .38 leveled at his chest from the desktop.

The wind and rain lashed the windows. Quinn finally rose and directed Warfield to stand up. “Put your hands on that wall behind you and lean against it, Warfield. Don’t turn around. I don’t want to be looking at you when you die.” He spoke quietly and without emotion.

During the interminable wait, Warfield had scanned the room in search of a weapon to use. The object he chose now as he faced the wall was an octagonal crystal clock the size of a baseball that sat on a table within reach. It would be dense enough to take a toll if Warfield could manage it. His plan was to snatch the clock, drop to the floor and laser it to the exact point where Quinn was standing—all in a seamless, light-speed move with enough force to disable Quinn momentarily or at least distract him long enough for Warfield to overpower him.

The plan wasn’t ideal, but neither was Quinn at his best. He’d been drinking, and the Magliacci revelation—the DNA part, it seemed—had him reeling. On the other hand, Quinn had him one-zip in firearms, and his movements were erratic. What Warfield had to do first was pin down Quinn’s exact location behind him. With luck he might nail him with the clock. If not, it should at least confuse him for the instant Warfield needed. Quinn shouted for him to lean against the wall. He complied, but not before he established the coordinates he needed. Warfield had thought he might have convinced Quinn his plan was doomed and to give it up but now it didn’t look that way.

Warfield waited no longer. In a swift move, he swept up and fired the clock-missile to the predetermined point with all the force he could summon from the awkward position he was in, and folded into a low profile on the floor at the same moment. The clock left his hand even before he could see Quinn in his peripheral vision.

The clock hit the wall—
not Quinn. Quinn had anticipated it and moved, or Warfield was off-target. Where was Quinn now?
Warfield spun around, but Quinn was no longer standing there, and then Warfield heard the gun discharge. Warfield fell to the floor.

* * *

In the moments that followed, Warfield realized he wasn’t hit but Quinn had disappeared. Then he heard groans coming from a pair of double doors beyond the point where Quinn stood seconds earlier. They were locked, but Warfield stood to the side and used the axe to break in. Austin Quinn lay stretched out on the bed, one hand over his stomach, the other dangling off the side. The .38 lay on the floor.

A moderate amount of blood seeped from the wound where the bullet entered Quinn’s right temple. His face was white, his muscles twitched and his eyes were dull. Warfield found a weak pulse. He ran to another room and found Ana alive but in deep sleep. He couldn’t rouse her. He bounded down the stairwell to the lobby, hoping to find a medical-emergency crew. The lobby was ankle deep in water now and no one was in sight. He ran to the top of the escalator, and through the rain saw a vehicle plowing through the water a few yards from the building. It turned out to be the AAAV heading toward the Golden Touch. When it got closer he made out Damn Right Donaldson with O’Hare and Gonzales. What a beautiful sight.

The AAAV stopped at the edge of the lobby. “Decided I better check on you, Warfield. You got more lives than a litter of cats, but one of these days you’re gonna use ’em all up.”

* * *

President Cross stood by his desk in the Oval Office and pressed the phone hard against his ear. He didn’t believe he was hearing Warfield right. It was the static.

Warfield spoke louder and slower this time. “It’s about Quinn. He shot himself, Mr. President!”

“
Quinn? My God!
”

“May not make it.”

“
What…what happened?
”

The line improved a bit and Warfield took a minute to sketch out the scene. “I know this is a personal matter for you, sir, as well as political, but there are some urgent decisions.”

Cross knew Warfield was right. The president had to deal with realities first, emotions later. “Give me the situation!”

“I’m with Quinn now in Atlantic City. General Donaldson with the guard here in Jersey, he’s getting us to a trauma center.”

“You stay with Austin until I get somebody there to manage information. It won’t be quick, the weather as it is, but the press can’t get there either. And Cam, don’t talk to anyone.”

* * *

“Tell me what you know, Cam,” Cross said. It was Sunday afternoon in the Oval Office and the storm had subsided. Warfield had returned from Philadelphia that morning and showered at the White House before meeting with Cross. He hadn’t yet been back to see the destruction at his own place.

He laid out both the hard and the circumstantial evidence: Quinn’s Paris trip. Randall Coffman. The Donald O. Goodwin alias. Suri. Helen Swope. Quinn’s warnings to back off. The attempts on Warfield’s life. Quinn’s revelations to Warfield in the moments before he shot himself.