Shadow of Betrayal

Outside the room, another gurney rolled past. Once the noise of the wheels had faded, Quinn eased the door all the way shut. There was nothing he could do now but wait.

Wait, and hope he wouldn’t be too late.

Peter had pulled all-nighters before. Hell, half the time he felt like he lived at the Office’s headquarters, the rest of the world seldom conforming to Eastern Standard Time.

But tonight was different. He had a team in the middle of some serious crap, but his client, the only person who could provide the help they would need, had all of a sudden gone AWOL.

“I have visual confirmation from my agent on the ground that your man Furuta has been detained at Yellowhammer,” he had told Chercover the last time they’d talked.

“Visual?” Chercover asked, his tone unconcerned.

“I have a photo.”

“Send it to me.”

“What was he doing there?” Peter asked. “I told you I was sending a team in.”

There was a pause. “I wanted my own eyes on the ground.”

“That worked out well.”

“Is there anything else?” Chercover asked.

“I assume you’d like us to see if we can extract him.”

Again a pause. “If the opportunity presents itself.”

Before Peter could say anything else, the line went dead.

That was the last time he’d been able to get through to Chercover. He’d started calling every ten minutes, but each time the line had gone directly to voicemail.

And now with this latest text from Quinn it looked like whatever was being prepped at Yellowhammer was going live, but Peter had no means with which to stop it. It was obvious now the threat had always been real. It would have been more than enough for Chercover to get actual government forces into action. But where the fuck was he?

Peter had other contacts he could go to, but it would mean bringing them up to speed, which would delay any help. Still, he didn’t see that he had any choice. The only question was who to bring in?

He pulled up his contacts list on the screen of his laptop and began scrolling through it.

There had to be one, someone who would trust him. Someone who could make things happen in a hurry.

For God’s sake, he thought as he finished the L’s. Just one name.

CHAPTER

36

THE SOUND OF SEVERAL LARGE ENGINES WINDING up startled Marion. She’d remained hidden behind the rock outcropping where the woman, Orlando, had left her. The buzzing electric fence they’d passed under was only a hundred feet away. She’d heard the familiar whirling roar before, back in Africa. Not a truck engine, not even a jet. Helicopters, and by the sounds of them, large ones.

To her it meant only one thing: those who had taken her and Iris were about to escape. But did they still have the girl? Or had Quinn, Nate, and Orlando been successful in rescuing her? Marion wanted to believe they had, but she feared the worst.

She’d been told to stay where she was no matter what. But how could she? How could she stay when Iris’s life was still in danger?

The answer was she couldn’t.

“Hey. What are you doing?” The voice had come from behind Quinn.

He’d been crouched in front of the elevator door, just starting to pry it open. Acting like nothing was up, he released the door, then dropped his right hand onto the grip of the SIG Sauer pistol resting on his lap. He stood, keeping his back to the new arrival.

“The doors got stuck,” he said.

“Turn around!”

The man was closer now. Quinn judged fifteen feet at most. And whatever weapon he was armed with—one of the M16s no doubt—it would be aimed at Quinn’s back.

Quinn pivoted around, the barrel of his gun level with the man’s gut.

“Who ar—”

Thwack.

The man dropped to the ground.

Quinn kept his gun on the man as he ran over, but there was no need to pull the trigger a second time. The guard was dead.

He dragged the body over to the elevator door, then removed the M16 from the man’s shoulder and set it on the floor. He ripped the sleeve off the man’s shirt, knowing he’d need it for cleanup. After prying the sliding doors of the elevator apart, he used the guard’s shoulders to wedge them open. He then wiped up a small pool of blood where the man had fallen, and the trail of drops that led back to the elevator.

Once he was done, he dumped the man’s body and the sleeve into the shaft, slung the M16 over his shoulder, then slipped through the doors himself, and over to his waiting rope.

Tucker was pissed.

He had four Superhawk helicopters sitting on the ground, but only three with rotors turning.

“I thought you said everything was working fine,” he shouted at the lead pilot.

“Everything checked out okay when we fired them up last,” the pilot said. “I have our engineer looking at it now. Thinks he might be able to get it up and running in thirty minutes.”

“We don’t have thirty minutes.” Tucker looked back at the helicopters. “Goddammit! We’ll have to get everyone in three.”

“We all won’t fit in three.”

“Then some people will just have to stay, won’t they?” Tucker said. “Get back to your aircraft. We go on schedule.”