Flight 12: A Jonathan Quinn Thriller

CHAPTER 7

Cold and wet, Daeng broke into a small warehouse a few docks south of Pier 81. In a back room, he found several personal lockers, one containing several T-shirts and a pair of work pants that fit him well enough. No shoes, though, so he was forced to stay in his soggy boots. Not wanting to steal from someone who did not deserve it, he left fifty dollars in the locker and then stuffed his wet clothes into a bag he also found and slung it over his shoulder.

He knew he needed to call in, but his cell phone had cracked during the crash and was history. Using the phone at the warehouse was an option, but he knew the safe play was to wait until he could obtain a disposable phone.

After twenty minutes of walking, he finally found a twenty-four-hour convenience store that had a few pay-as-you-go phones behind the counter. When he was back on the street, he activated the device and called Orlando. As he knew would happen, she let the call go to voice mail, the number being unfamiliar to her. He left a message and hung up. Within fifteen seconds, his phone rang.

“Have a nice swim?” she asked.

“I should have known you were watching,” he said.

“As best I could. Didn’t see if you got away, though. I take it you’re out of danger or are you calling me from jail?”

“Well, I did swallow some water but they didn’t catch me.”

“Eww. Might have been better if you’d let them catch you. Where are you?”

He gave her his location, then asked, “I need to catch up with Quinn and Nate. Do you know where they are?”

“Don’t bother,” she said. “They’re in Yonkers. By the time you get there, they’ll be done. Just hold tight and I’ll have them pick you up. Maybe get some breakfast.”

“An excellent idea.”

“And perhaps a side of antibiotics.”

The crematorium at Eternal Grace contained two state-of-the-art cremation chambers. The machines stood side by side along one wall, giant rectangular boxes, with smaller rectangular openings in the front where the dead were slid in.

Quinn chose the one on the right, and selected a setting that would reduce the body to ash within an hour. This, of course, would not be the end of the process. They would have to wait another hour and a half, at least, for the ashes to cool enough to be run through the pulverizer until everything was a fine powder. All in all, they should be out of there an hour or two after the sun came up.

While they waited for the chamber to reach optimum temperature, Nate laid the courier on the floor and searched her clothes to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. Quinn hunted around for one of Barry’s cardboard temporary urns so they’d have something to put the remains in. He was just opening a cabinet near the door when he heard something in the hallway.

It was faint, only a creak, but out of place. He clicked his tongue softly against the roof of his mouth to get Nate’s attention. After pointing at the door, he pulled his gun out of his shoulder holster, removed the sound suppressor from his pocket, and screwed it on.

Across the room, his partner did the same.

Morgan glared at Fischer and raised a finger to his lips. Fischer looked at him like he couldn’t understand what was wrong, which made Morgan even angrier. The asshole had touched the door. Yes, just barely, moving it a quarter inch at most, but that was enough to create a low, short whine.

No one entered the hall to check, though, so Morgan figured he and his partner hadn’t been compromised. They began moving down the hall again.

The others would most likely be in the crematorium, but there were no signs on any of the doors so Morgan had no idea where the room was. At the first few doors he passed, he stopped and listened. But as he moved deeper into the hallway, he began to hear a low rumble farther down that sounded like an air conditioner or…fire.

He followed the noise to the last door on the right. Pressing his ear against it, he hoped to hear the men moving around, but the machine was too loud and he could hear no other sounds.

Worried that the body might have already been put into the chamber, Morgan motioned to Fischer what he wanted to do, and then grabbed the door handle.

Moments after Quinn heard the creak, he picked up the sound of steps.

Though it could have been Barry coming down to see what was going on, the mortician would have been knocking into walls and making enough noise to wake the dead. So that left three possibilities. One, a silent alarm had somehow been triggered, alerting the police, who were now here to have a look around; two, a friend of Barry’s had come to check on him and noticed the door was open; or three, the steps belonged to the messenger’s killers.

Quinn felt the second option was most plausible, but he wasn’t about to assume anything.

He turned back to the room and raced to the nearest of the two windows high on the back wall, just above ground level. After a check to make sure Nate was with him, he popped it open and climbed through the opening. Nate came out right on his heels, and then carefully lowered the window back into place.

“Is it them?” Nate whispered.

“Don’t know.”

Quinn lay on the ground a few feet from the window and looked inside. He had a good view of the door when it swung open and two armed men moved cautiously into the room.

Not police. Not Barry’s friends. They were the men in the pictures Orlando had sent. Morgan and Fischer.

Quinn pulled back. “The termination team,” he whispered.

“They’re not going to leave until they get the chip,” Nate said.

Quinn fell silent for a moment before saying, “I have an idea.”

Staying to either side of the now open crematorium door, Morgan and Fischer aimed their guns inside and inched forward until they were all the way in the room.

“Where the hell are they?” Fischer asked.

The cleaners weren’t there, but the courier was. Her body lay on the floor, still in one piece.

Fischer started for the door, then looked back when Morgan didn’t join him. “Come on. Let’s find them.”

“We didn’t come for them.” Morgan walked toward the messenger, wincing a bit at the heat radiating from the nearby chamber. “Watch the door in case they come back.

Fischer looked disappointed that he couldn’t shoot anyone, but he positioned himself just inside the open door and stared out into the hall.

Morgan knelt next to the girl and began a search of her clothes. Her pants were clean — nothing in the pockets, nothing hidden in the seams. Her belt had an extra bulge under the leather next to the buckle, but when he cut it open, he found it was just some reinforcing material. She was wearing a jacket over a T-shirt. He removed the outer garment and then patted down the shirt. Nothing there.

The jacket, though, had plenty of places to hide things — under the lining, along one of the many seams, in the collar, in the hem at the bottom. He cut a hole in the lining and ripped the whole thing out, but the only thing between it and the leather was a thin layer of synthetic insulation.

He checked the collar and then began working his way along all the seams. When his fingers discovered a hole under the cuff of one of the sleeves, he brought it up for a closer look. A small pocket, he realized, purposely sewn into the jacket with a flap at the front meant to hold in something.

The pocket was empty, but Morgan had no doubt what it had recently contained.

That could mean only one thing.

He glanced over at Fischer. “Looks like we’ll have to do a little hunting after all.”

Quinn watched the basement entrance while his former apprentice sneaked down the ramp to the sedan.

Working quick and quiet, Nate opened the back passenger door and removed the desired duffel bag from the rear seat. He closed the door again but did not reengage the lock, and headed back up the ramp.

They stopped on the pathway in front of the house. Quinn zipped open the bag and found the box he was looking for.

Handing it to Nate, he said, “Off you go.”

As Nate headed across the parking lot and out onto the street, Quinn took his preplanned route to the mortuary’s main door.

Morgan let Fischer lead the way out of the basement.

As the assassin started to go around the sedan and up the ramp, Morgan tapped him on the back and whispered, “We need to check the car first.”

For about the millionth time, Fischer looked annoyed.

“I’ll do it,” Morgan said. “Go up the ramp and see if you can spot anything.”

While Fischer crept off, Morgan shined his flashlight into the trunk of the sedan, hoping the chip had fallen loose during transport and was lying in there somewhere. But he was not that lucky.

All right, then. If the cleaners had taken it off her, maybe they’d stashed it inside the car so that they didn’t lose it while they were working.

He moved around to the nearest door and lifted the handle. Surprisingly, it was open. The others must have left it that way when they brought the body down, he guessed.

A single duffel bag sat in the middle of the backseat. Morgan pulled it over and quietly zipped it open. Inside he found ropes, two rolls of duct tape, and several identical hard-plastic cases. He opened each case, but discovered only tools of varying types. Nice sets, not off-the-shelf stuff. Precision made. If he weren’t catching a flight to Rome later that night, he’d take them for himself.

He felt through the bag to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, then climbed in and leaned between the front seats to check the glove box and the storage area in the central console. A few seconds later, he rejoined Fischer.

“Well?” Fischer whispered.

“Not there.”

The answer brought a smile to the assassin’s face.

Since he’d already turned the alarm off when he’d opened the basement entrance, Quinn was able to safely pick the lock of the mortuary’s main door and slip inside. Quickly, he moved across the lobby to the rear hall, and then down to the casket showroom.

There, he positioned himself in the doorway to keep an eye down the hall back toward the lobby, and settled in to wait.

Fischer was the one who spotted the tracks on damp grass in front of the mortuary.

The residual dew on the person’s shoes left more footprints on the walkway that faded out once they reached the portico.

“Only one set,” Morgan whispered.

“Maybe the other guy was already inside,” Fischer suggested.

Maybe, Morgan thought, but he felt uneasy not knowing for sure.

“We know at least the one’s in here,” Fischer said. “Knock him off, then we can worry about his buddy.”

Reluctantly Morgan nodded, and a moment later they were inside.

At the back of the two-story lobby was a partially opened door and what looked like a hallway running off left and right. It would have been nice to find more footprints showing them which direction the person had gone, but the floor was unmarked.

They sneaked over to the half-open door and looked in. The room was a chapel, with a simple altar at one end and chairs stacked against the far wall. Fischer made a rapid circuit of the space, but shook his head when he came back out.

Morgan looked both ways down the hall, wondering where the man had gone.

A noise to the left — a faint ding, like something glancing off metal.

Morgan twisted toward the sound, but all he could see down the dim hall were four closed doors. As soon as he pointed at the first, Fischer tried to take the lead, but Morgan grabbed him and moved in front. Fischer was liable to shoot at anything at this point.

When they reached the door, Morgan placed his ear against it and listened. Nothing. The same was true at the next door. As he placed his ear against the third door, however, it moved. He jerked back around the jamb, expecting someone to race out, but the door didn’t budge beyond the half inch it already had.

He glanced at Fischer to make sure he was ready, then gave the door a nudge and let it swing open.

Dead quiet.

He raised his gun and leaned around the doorway.

The room was about half the size of the chapel, but the floor was not empty like that other space. Here, every several feet stood a pedestal with a casket on top, providing plenty of places to hide.

Keeping low, he moved inside to the left, watching for any movement among the pedestals. As Fischer followed him in, Morgan motioned for him to go in the other direction.

For the next thirty seconds, Morgan studied the room, and then glanced at his partner to see if he had spotted anything.

With a grin, Fischer pointed ahead and held up a single finger.

One person. So where in God’s name was the other guy?

Apparently not sharing Morgan’s concern, Fischer raised his gun and started moving forward.

Quinn was tempted to head back inside the casket room the moment he saw the two men approach the chapel door. But he had to make sure they headed in the right direction, so he waited until after the chapel was searched. Once both men were in the hall again, he closed the door just shy of engaging the latch, and then hurried to a nearby metal coffin and lightly tapped it with his gun.

Knowing it would be enough to get their attention, he headed farther back and crouched behind one of the pedestals.

Though he didn’t hear them enter the room, there was a definite change in the air, a sense of other he’d come to recognize from years of experience. He peered around the edge of the pedestal and marked their positions.

He let Fischer spot him and ducked back behind the column, then yelled in a suitably panicked voice, “I’m armed!”

Morgan motioned for his partner to stop. Fischer clearly wasn’t pleased with the order but he held his position.

“Don’t come any closer,” the male voice added.

“Where’s your friend?” Morgan asked.

No response.

“We know there are two of you,” Morgan said. “Where is he?”

“I…I don’t know,” the voice said. “He split as soon as we got out of the basement.”

Sure he did, Morgan thought.

Using hand signals, he ordered Fischer to go back into the hall and keep an eye out for the partner. The look Fischer returned was one that said, You go out there. I’m staying here. But Morgan had rank, so after a few seconds of staring, Fischer got moving.

When the assassin was gone, Morgan said, “What’s your name?”

“None of your business,” the voice shot back.

“Just trying to keep things cool, is all. How about I call you Charlie?”

“I don’t care what you call me.”

“Let me tell you what’s going on here, Charlie. I know you and your buddy were hired to get rid of the body.”

Nothing.

“I’ll take your silence to mean I’m right. You’re cleaners, aren’t you? Not ops men. Come in after the action, when things are quieter. Not a lot of distractions. I can respect that. Me and my partner, well, we’re on the ops side. That means when something’s in our way, we won’t hesitate to take it out. In case I’m being too cryptic, I’m talking about you.”

“We’re just doing our job. No reason to take us out.”

“We’re just doing our job, too. That messenger you were about to feed into the fire — we did that.”

Morgan read fear in the silence.

“The thing is, I’m pretty sure you have something I want.”

“You want the body? Fine. Take it. It’s yours.”

“Not the body. Something that was on the body.”

The man hesitated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he finally said. The dread in his voice told Morgan the asshole was lying.

“She was carrying something. A computer chip.”

“A…a chip?”

More confirmation.

“Yeah. You have it, don’t you, Charlie?”

Another pause, then, “Look, I didn’t realize it was that important. I—”

“Let me stop you right there,” Morgan said. “I don’t care what you realized. Here’s the deal I’m offering you. Give me the chip and we’ll make things as quick and painless as possible.”

The spit of a gun in the hallway, followed by the thump of a body on the floor, told Morgan Fischer had found the partner.

“You’re alone now,” Morgan said. “Toss your gun over here. It’s over.”

Nate returned from his mission to the street just in time to see Morgan and Fischer enter the mortuary. He waited until they crossed the lobby before he made his way to the front door.

He attached his suppressor to his gun and entered the building as soon as the others disappeared down the hallway. From the corner at the back of the lobby, he watched the two men enter the casket room.

The second they disappeared, he headed down the hall and had nearly reached the door when he heard Quinn shout, “I’m armed!”

In Nate’s humble opinion, his partner was laying it on a little thick, but the others didn’t know him so hopefully they’d buy it.

Nate scooted past the casket room door and sneaked down to the janitorial closet at the end of the hall. After slipping inside, he was in the process of closing the door when he heard someone step out of the other room. He closed the door, leaving only a crack he could peek through.

The guy who exited the room was Fischer. He held a compact pistol with attached suppressor. Nate was pretty sure it was a .22—likely the weapon that had ended Jenna Tate’s life.

Nate’s eyes narrowed. Sure, death was a part of the business. Even in the relatively few years he’d been working, he’d known plenty of good people who had died. It was tough enough to take when that person was an ops agent on the front lines, but Nate had grown a particular distaste for the deaths of easy targets. Couriers, for example. Take their package from them — fine. That was part of the game. But kill them? That was the coward’s way.

The man didn’t even glance in Nate’s direction, and instead began creeping toward the lobby.

Nate slipped out of the closet.

It took fifteen seconds for him to close the gap between them. After raising his gun, he waited an additional four seconds for the man to realize he wasn’t alone.

When Fischer turned, Nate whispered, “Drop it.”

Instead of complying, the man raised his weapon, leaving Nate no choice but to pull his trigger.

As the man dropped, Nate headed back to the casket room. He didn’t arrive in time to hear the first part of what the man inside said, but he did hear him tell Quinn to toss his weapon away.

Nate took that as his cue and moved in quickly behind Morgan. He pulled back on the gun’s slide to announce his presence.

When morgan heard someone enter the room, he’d assumed it was Fischer. But the metallic slide of the pistol behind his head quickly rid him of that idea.

“Gun on the ground,” the new arrival said, his voice cool and calm.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” Morgan said, trying to buy time.

“Your friend didn’t listen to me. You should learn from his mistake.”

Morgan tried to think of a way out of this, but the gun barrel pressing against the back of his skull let him know there was only one answer.

As soon as he dropped his pistol, the man kicked it across the floor.

“Clear,” the guy called out.

His partner rose from behind the caskets and walked across the room. He looked harder, more confident than Morgan had expected. Not someone who would scare easily.

“You’re not cleaners at all, are you, Charlie?” Morgan asked.

The man walked up to him. “The name’s not Charlie. And you were right the first time. We are cleaners. And you’re on the verge of being added to our to-do list.”

The last thing Morgan saw before he blacked out was the man’s pistol swinging toward his head.