The Destroyed

CHAPTER 33

LAZIO REGION, ITALY

Given what Nate could see with the light of his cell phone, the emergency escape tunnel was not in great shape.

Roots pushed through the space between the boards that lined the ceiling and walls, boards that, because of obvious water damage, looked liked they were lucky to still be intact. If the builders had really wanted this to be permanent, they should have enclosed the tunnel in walls of concrete or stone.

“Thick one up here,” Orlando called from the front of the line. She pointed at a substantial-looking root sticking down a few inches.

One by one they ducked under the root.

“Door!” Orlando called out after another sixty feet.

They crowded together, one after another. The door was in the ceiling. Another hatch. Where it led, there was no way to know.

“I’ll go first,” Nate said.

He could see that Orlando had a different idea, but he gave her a look meant to remind her he was in charge, and she kept her thoughts to herself.

The tunnel went on for an additional five feet beyond the hatch. Orlando, Mila, and Daeng squeezed into the space so that Nate could get underneath the exit. There was a chain mounted to the bottom that ran halfway across the hatch. At the end was a metal handle.

Nate grabbed it and pulled until the rod holding the door in place moved free. He then put his hands on the bottom of the door and pushed it open enough so he could look out.

What he saw was unexpected.

“Why the hell haven’t you been answering your phone?” Peter asked.

“I’ve been a little preoccupied,” Quinn said.

“I heard you’d been shot.”

“Oh, you did, did you?”

“I assume you’re all right.”

The three men approaching from the house were getting closer. Within seconds they’d notice the two lying on the ground in front of the car.

“Fine enough. Can you hold for a moment?”

“What? I-”

Quinn touched the hold button with his thumb. “Tell your men to join their friends on the ground,” he told Michaels.

Instead of relaying the order, Michaels said, “Why? You’re not going to shoot me.”

Though the other man couldn’t see his face, Quinn smirked. “You’re probably right, but are you absolutely sure? Your people shot me, after all.”

“You were somewhere you weren’t supposed to be.”

“That’s a matter of opinion. Tell your men to get on the ground.”

With reluctance, Michaels repeated the instructions to his team.

The men took a moment, but all complied. Though most of Michaels’s team was now lying in the grass, Quinn noticed a couple were missing. “Where are the others?”

“What others?”

Quinn jabbed the gun into the operative’s head. “There were five by the house. Only three came back.”

“Go ahead and pull the trigger.”

Instead of taking Michaels up on the suggestion, Quinn took the call off hold. “Let me ask you, Peter. Any thoughts on who might have shot me?”

“I’m not going to bullshit you, Quinn. The team who shot you is working for me.”

“So, in effect, you shot me.”

“If I’d known you were going to be there,” Peter said with controlled anger, “I would have told them not to shoot. What the hell were you doing there in the first place?”

Fair question. “Looking for the girl.”

“You knew she was alive before all this started, didn’t you?”

Another fair question, but one Quinn wasn’t ready to answer. Not yet. “I’m actually in the middle of a situation here that you’re in a perfect position to handle.”

“What are you talking about?”

Quinn tapped the gun against Michaels’s ear. “Say hi.”

Michaels remained silent.

Quinn tapped again. “Do it.”

“Peter, it’s Michaels.”

Silence from the other end of the line. When Peter finally spoke, his voice was guarded. “What exactly is going on there?”

“At the moment, not much of anything,” Quinn said. “I’ve got a gun to the back of your man’s head here, and most of his people spread out on the ground around us.”

“Dead?”

“No,” Quinn scoffed. “Who do you think I am?”

“I’m beginning to wonder. So why are you pointing a gun at Michaels?”

“Because he and his men were shooting at my friends.”

“I had no idea that’s who was in there,” Michaels said.

“In where?” Peter asked.

“They have this nifty building full of detention cells,” Quinn told him. “My friends just happened to be taking a look inside.”

“Quinn, what are you and your friends even doing there?”

“I believe I already told you the answer to that.”

“Son of a bitch! This is a disaster. Why couldn’t you have-”

“Drop it!” a voice called out from behind Quinn, drowning out whatever else Peter had to say.

Quinn glanced over his shoulder. The two missing men were standing a couple dozen feet away, their guns trained on him.

“I said, drop it,” the one on the left said.

But they weren’t the only ones back there.

“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, gentlemen,” Nate said.

He, Daeng, and Orlando were another ten feet behind the men, also holding guns. A little farther back and off to the side was Mila.

After a brief hesitation, Michaels’s men dropped their guns and raised their hands.

“Five paces to your right, then on the ground like everyone else,” Nate said.

The men walked off the paces, and lay down.

“Everyone all right?” Quinn asked.

“We’re all good,” Nate told him.

“Could have sworn you were supposed to get in and out without, you know, any of these people knowing.”

“Yeah, well, uh…yeah,” Nate said. “We’ll do better next time.”

As Nate and the others walked over, Quinn lowered his gun, turned Michaels around, and motioned for him to lean against the car.

Quinn glanced at Mila. “You okay?”

She nodded.

“They treat you all right?”

Another nod.

“No rough stuff?”

“No.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Peter asked.

“Just gathering everyone together,” Quinn told him. “More cozy that way.”

“By everyone, do you mean…?”

“I mean everyone, Peter.”

“You and I need to talk,” Peter said. “Can you take me off this damn speaker?”

“Tell your friend Michaels and his team to behave, and I might be able to do that.”

“No one shoots anybody,” Peter’s voice boomed. “No knives. No fighting. No sucker punches. No violence at all. That goes for both sides. Am I clear?”

“Clear by me,” Quinn said.

“Of course,” Michaels replied, his tone not nearly as upbeat as Quinn’s.

“Happy now?” Peter asked.

Quinn walked toward the trees at the base of the hill. Once he was out of earshot of the others, he said, “All right, we’re alone.”

“This could not be a bigger mess,” Peter said.

“I beg to differ. So far I’m the only one who’s been shot.”

“I’m not just talking about what’s going on there. I’m talking about everything! Starting way back in Las Vegas in 2006. That assignment should have been a no-brainer. You want to tell me why it wasn’t? And why Mila Voss didn’t end up buried in the desert somewhere?”

“It’s complicated.”

“You can say that again.” There was a long pause, then Peter went on. “I’ve got some pretty powerful players breathing down my neck to close this as quickly and quietly as possible. The only thing they know about your involvement is what you told me initially. That you disposed of a body you thought was hers at the time.”

“I said I disposed of the body I was given.”

“Word games, Quinn. You led me to believe it was Mila.”

Quinn made no reply, well aware of the misdirection he’d perpetrated.

“When you started popping up, I knew there was more to this than what I was told back then. I didn’t want to, but I started digging. My God, what she stumbled into.”

“I don’t know what she stumbled into,” Quinn said. “I never asked.”

“You don’t know? Then why did you help her get away?”

Quinn thought about saying nothing again, knowing that the truth would, rightly or wrongly, bring into question every job he’d ever worked on. But it didn’t seem to matter. His future in the business was cloudy at best anyway. And if they were practicing no bullshit…

“She was a friend,” he said. “I couldn’t be a part of her death.”

“A friend?”

Friendships were few and far between in the business, because of the potential for exactly the kind of conflict of interest Quinn had found himself in with Mila.

When it became obvious Quinn wasn’t going to add anything, Peter said, “Well, your friend unintentionally came across some knowledge she would have been much better off not knowing. Hell, I’m more than a little worried about what I now know.”

Quinn didn’t want to ask, but he had no choice. “What knowledge?”

After Peter told him, Quinn felt numb. “That’s not possible.”

“I thought the same thing, but apparently it is.”

“And you’re sure who’s behind it?”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

Quinn looked up at the sky, his eyes not even registering the stars. Calling this a mess was the very definition of understatement. “They’re not going to stop until they find her.”

“No, they’re not.”

“I need to get her safe.”

“Good luck with that.”

“You’re working with them, Peter. You could provide some misdirection for us.”

Peter snorted. “I could, but it’s not likely to be very effective. I’m sure they’re already close to replacing me as it is. I won’t be able to hide what happened there in Italy for very long. Once they find out, I’ll be lucky if they don’t put a bullet in my head.”

“Then you need to make sure they don’t find out.”

“What I should be doing is sending in a backup team for the job Michaels is apparently incapable of completing.”

“But you won’t. You know this whole thing stinks of rot.”

“Doesn’t matter. Our job’s not about right or wrong. Hell, there is no right or wrong.”

“There’s always right or wrong, Peter, and pretending there isn’t doesn’t change that.”

Peter said nothing.

A dozen possible scenarios spun through Quinn’s mind. Safe. Was that even possible?

“We’re going to need your help,” he said.

“You mean beside covering up what’s happened there?” Peter asked.

“Yes.”

“Peter wants to talk to you,” Quinn said to Michaels as he returned to where everyone was waiting.

“Hello?” Michaels said once he had the phone.

Quinn waited patiently as Peter and Michaels talked. Mostly, the team leader was just listening, his expression at first angry, then confused. Every few seconds, his gaze would dart over to Quinn.

Finally, he held the phone back out. “Here.”

Quinn took it and raised it to his ear. “Goodbye, Peter.”

“Can you at least tell me what you’re going to do?” Peter asked.

“Once I know, you’ll get your instructions.” Quinn hung up, and looked over at the vehicles parked in front of the burning house. “That SUV,” he said to Michaels.

“What about it?”

“Who’s got the keys?”

Michaels did not look happy as he reached into his pocket and extracted a set of keys. He peeled the largest one off the ring and tossed it to Quinn.

“Have a good day,” Quinn said. He turned to his friends. “Let’s go.”

As they walked away from Michaels, several of the men on the ground scrambled for their guns and started to rise.

“Stand down!” Michaels ordered. “This project’s been terminated.”