[Quinn 04] - The Silenced

The woman, having guessed his intent, had given up trying to follow him directly, and was heading back out of the crowd. The second she took her eyes off him, Quinn crouched down next to a rubbish can, out of sight. Using the receptacle as cover, he angled himself so that he could see the entrance to the Underground station.

A few seconds later, he watched the Russian rush inside. The moment she disappeared, he stood up and started moving clockwise around the crowd. As he did, he spotted a man getting into a cab just under the train bridge.

It was Mercer. No mistake.

Wills had said Mercer was working for him. So was he Wills’s second watcher? Quinn wondered. Perhaps he had been on the outer perimeter, then had come back to check on his colleague and found him dead in front of the station. If Quinn were in Mercer’s shoes, he would have gotten the hell out of there, too. In fact, he did need to get the hell out of there, right now.

As soon as he cleared the crowd, he headed up the cobbled street back toward Charing Cross. At the end of the block, he tucked himself in between two souvenir kiosks and checked to see if the Russian had followed him. She hadn’t.

Instead of using the Underground, he walked toward Piccadilly Circus. No matter what the weather or the time of day, there was always a crowd there. He could blend in and take the tube to anywhere from there. A few blocks away, his phone vibrated. He checked the caller ID, then pressed Accept.

“I’m in London,” Orlando said. “You got my email, right?”

“I got it.”

She paused. “Is something wrong?”

“Where’s the flat you rented?”

“Quinn, what’s wrong?”

“I’d rather tell you in person.”

“You’re here?”

“Yeah.”

She rattled off an address on Charlotte Street in Soho. “You know where that is?”

“I know the area,” he said. He was only a ten-minute walk away.

“Okay, then I’ll see you soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

“WILLS IS DEAD?” MIKHAIL SOUNDED LIKE HE almost expected it.

“Killed right in front of me,” Petra said into her phone. “I tried to stop the shooter, but she got him before I could.”

“Who was she?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. We need to concentrate on finding Quinn.” Petra had heard Wills speak the name into his phone. Then she had heard him rasp it again when the body snatcher, Quinn, had tried to comfort the dying man.

“Who is Quinn?”

“The body snatcher,” she said. “The one I saw in Los Angeles. He was there, too. When I spoke the Ghost’s name, I could tell he had heard it before. He knows, Mikhail. We just need to find him, and convince him to tell us.”

“But where would we look? If he wants to stay lost, he sounds like the kind of man who can do it. Today might have been our only chance.” He paused. “You had him, Petra.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Mikhail took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. I should have done more.”

“No. You did what you could. I couldn’t have done any better. But the question is still, what do we do now?”

Neither of them said anything for several seconds.

“What about Stepka?” Mikhail said. “We have a name now. Maybe he can help.”

“I’ve already given him Quinn’s name and description,” she said. “I guess the only thing we can do is wait. Let’s meet back at the apartment.”

“Okay.” The defeat in Mikhail’s voice was palpable.

“We’re almost there,” she reassured him. “We know Quinn has information that will help. We’ll be able to see this through to the end.”

“Perhaps.” Mikhail didn’t sound as optimistic.

“We’re going to find the Ghost, Mikhail. We’re going make him pay for what he did.”

Petra kept scanning the crowds the entire way back to Bayswater. She knew she was hoping for the impossible, but if there was even the smallest of chances that she’d spot Quinn, she couldn’t afford to relax.

But he wasn’t on any of the trains, nor the platforms, nor the streets. The only thing she could hold on to was the fact that he was in the city.

Mikhail had not yet arrived when she got back to the apartment. So she checked in with Stepka.

“In the right circles, your new friend is something of a legend,” Stepka told her.

“How so?”

“First, we should make sure we’re talking about the same person. Do you have your computer?”

“Yes,” she said, glancing at the bag that held her laptop.

“I’ve sent you a picture.”

Petra switched her phone to speaker mode, retrieved her computer, and booted it up. She then opened the browser and logged on to her email. Stepka’s message was in her inbox. She opened the attached picture. It wasn’t a photograph, but a drawing. It looked very much, but not exactly, like Quinn.

“What is this?” she asked.

“A police sketch from New York City. The man in the drawing was wanted for a murder earlier this year.”

“They were looking for Quinn?”

“They stopped searching for him when another suspect turned up. The question is, is he the same man you’re looking for?”

She looked at the picture again. “It’s not quite right, but yes, this is him.”

“Okay, then this is what I’ve got,” he said.