[Quinn 01] - The Cleaner

They then took turns carrying the boxes one by one from the table to the refrigerator. It was all done very slowly, and very methodically.

On the second-to-last trip, one of the men stumbled. It wasn't much. There was no danger of spilling the contents of the box. Still, the other man rushed over and took the box from his companion's grasp. He quickly carried it back to the table and opened it. Leaning down for a closer look, he appeared to be checking that everything inside was all right.

After a moment, the man seemed to relax. Apparently everything was as it should be. As he was closing the box again, Quinn caught a glimpse of something inside. Balls or pellets or something similar. They were white.

The men put the two remaining boxes in the refrigerator, then closed the plastic cases they'd arrived with and stowed them under the counter. Their job seemingly finished, they departed.

Quinn waited another hour to see if anything else was going to happen. But the room remained empty.

'Coffee?' Quinn asked when Orlando finally stirred and sat up.

There was a market a couple of blocks away. Quinn had chanced leaving Orlando alone and had gone to get a few supplies. He'd also purchased two large cups of coffee to go from a kiosk inside the store.

'Sure,' she said, without much enthusiasm. He handed her a cup. Once she'd taken a drink, he asked, 'How do you feel?' 'How do you think I feel?' She noticed the monitor sitting on the floor. 'You see anything?' 'Yeah,' he said, then told her about the two men and their activities in the containment room.

She was quiet for several seconds. 'What could this possibly have to do with Garrett? They don't really need him as insurance against us. That's what Nate's for, right?'

She was right, Quinn knew. Nate was all the insurance they should have needed. Taking Garrett had been overkill. More than overkill, it didn't make sense. Too much work would be involved in pulling it off.

'How did they know?' she asked. Because I went to Vietnam, Quinn thought, unable to actually say the words. But Orlando wasn't an idiot – she'd already made

the connection. 'Piper tipped him off, didn't he? Somehow he knew I was there and he tipped Dahl off.'

Quinn nodded. It was the same conclusion he'd come to. Piper wasn't as clean as he made himself out to be. Maybe he was working for Dahl directly. Maybe he and his team had followed Quinn to Vietnam. There was no telling what Piper had lied about. Except for Borko. But even that revelation hadn't made a difference in the end. If anything, it had lent credibility to Duke's job offer, sweetening the trap.

'I'm sorry.' Quinn wanted to say more, but couldn't find the words.

'Don't,' she said as she closed her eyes. 'I made a choice to come here. I should have stayed home. I should have protected him.'

If he wanted to, he could have continued the argument. Saying it was his fault Piper had found her in the first place. Then she would have found some other excuse for blaming herself, and they would go around once more.

Quinn took a step back. 'I need to check a few things out,' he said. 'Will you be all right here?'

'I can't just do nothing.'

'I'm not asking you to do nothing.' He picked the monitor up off the floor and handed it to her. He then motioned to the corner where he'd put the bag containing the items he'd bought at the store. 'If the power is getting low, there's some stuff in that bag you can use to rig a line down from the light socket. Otherwise, I need you to watch.'

* * *

302

Quinn was able to buy some computer time at the Berlin Hotel, then logged on to the e-mail account he'd created the day before. As he had hoped, there was a message from the Mole.

36.241.10

Keeping himself on the move, he took a cab to KaDeWe. It was Berlin's largest department store, and, with the exception of Harrods in London, the largest in all of Europe. It was located near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. He took a table in the cafe, then used the code the Mole had sent him to adjust the previous phone number to a new one.

'It's Quinn,' he said once the connection was made. 'What have you got?'

'Taggert,' the Mole said.

'You know who he is?' Quinn asked.

'There's still a question of payment.'

Quinn scowled. 'How much?'

'My standard fee . . . is five K per request. . . you've . . . made two requests . . . that's ten thousand . . . U.S.'

'I'm good for it.'

'Not if you're dead,' the Mole said.

'I'll wire you the money. E-mail me your information.' 'When?' 'As soon as I get your info.' There was a brief silence from the other end of

the line. 'A viral biologist by the name of. . . Henry Jansen has been MIA for months . . . he fits the description . . . of your . . . victim in Colorado.'

'Maybe,' Quinn said. 'But that fire was only two weeks ago.'

'I can't help you with . . . your time line . . . but the . . . maiden name of his paternal grandmother . . . was Roberts . . . you want . . . to guess the maiden name of his . . . maternal grandmother?'

'Taggert?'

'Well done.'