Shadow of Betrayal

“Have your man move now.”

There was a second delay, then the foot began to rise.

“That’s it,” Peter said. “About three feet to your man’s right.”

The image remained stable for half a minute, then it rose into the air and whipped around the room until it stopped on the face of a man with short brown hair.

“Must have gotten dislodged as she fell.” Perkins’s lips moved on monitor four, but his voice still came out of the speaker on monitor three.

“Chances are she’s in that same general area,” Peter said.

Perkins set the camera down on something elevated, giving the three men back in the hotel suite a broad view of the room. It seemed to be some sort of old machine room. Unfinished cement walls and floors, and to the left the edge of a rusty furnace. But the dominant feature was the pile of rubble in the center of the room. The majority of debris appeared to be the wood that had made up the staircase, but there was a good bit of concrete mixed in. It must have been dislodged from the ceiling and walls by the blast.

Perkins and his man worked their way through the pile, pulling away planks and chunks of concrete. After several minutes, Perkins’s partner stopped and bent down.

“I’ve got a hand,” he called out, his voice distant over Perkins’s microphone.

The two men began working together to move everything surrounding the spot. Soon Peter thought he could see an arm, then a shoulder. Perkins leaned down and placed his fingers on the exposed wrist.

“Pulse?” Peter asked.

“Faint, but she’s alive,” Perkins said.

Obviously listening in on the conversation, Perkins’s men on monitor one jumped into action. They moved over to the van and pulled a stretcher out of the back. One of them then stayed on the stoop while the other took the stretcher inside the building.

“Stretcher on its way to you,” Peter said. “I’ll call ahead to get medical set up.”

“Copy that,” Perkins said.

For the next several minutes the team worked quickly and efficiently. Soon Agent Douglas was in the van, heading for medical attention. Thankfully, for the moment at least, she was still breathing.

The images on the monitors were now still and quiet.

“We can’t let this opportunity slip out of our hands,” Furuta said, his voice rising. It was the first emotion Peter had seen from the man.

“I agree,” Chercover said. He looked at Peter. “You need to get someone in there tonight. You can do that, can’t you?”

Peter was silent for a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”

“So you have someone in mind? Someone close?” Furuta asked.

“Yes.”

“Who?” Furuta said.

“That is something you don’t need to know,” Peter said.

Furuta was about to respond when his boss put a hand on his shoulder. “I think we’re done here,” Chercover said.

Reluctantly, Furuta nodded. “Keep us posted on what you find,” he said.

“What about Agent Douglas?” Peter asked as the other two began walking toward the door. It was an unnecessary question, but Peter couldn’t help pushing.

Chercover stopped and looked back at Peter. “Of course,” he said. “Keep us informed on her condition also. We’re not exactly heartless, but this is much bigger than her life, or even any one of ours.”

Peter stared at them as they turned and left, his lips now closed.

The truth was Chercover was right.

CHAPTER

7

QUINN AND NATE HAD NOT RETURNED TO LOS Angeles after Ireland. They were in the States, but still thousands of miles from home. After handing off the envelope to Peter’s contact at the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, they boarded a flight north instead of west, landing several hours later in Boston.

It was another job. The new client required only some electronic and visual surveillance, no body removals. It was a gig that suited Quinn just fine for the moment. The fiasco in Ireland was still fresh in his mind, and his annoyance with Peter for forcing him to risk his life to catch the assassin had yet to abate.

Whoever that assassin was, he’d better be talking, Quinn thought.

Boston turned out to be the easiest job he’d taken all year. A big part of that was due to the fact that he was working with Orlando again. She’d flown in early while he and Nate were still across the Atlantic, and set everything up. It made the assignment go smooth and simple.

The fact that he didn’t have to sleep alone anymore was a bonus.

“This is really what you wanted me here for, isn’t it?” Orlando had asked him as they lay sweaty and panting beside each other on their hotel bed, the sheets and the blankets pushed to the floor. “You just wanted sex.”

“That took you long enough to figure out,” he said, trying not to break a smile.

Her shoulder-length black hair was draped partially over her face. With her right hand she tucked the loose strands behind her ear.

“Oh, I knew it. I just wanted to hear it from your lips.”

“Don’t play innocent. You want it just as much as I do.”

“Oh, you think so?”

“I know you do.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, a glimmer in her eye. “I want it more than you.”