Daeng extended a hand to him. “Take it!”
Quinn grabbed it and let Daeng yank him up to the safety of the locker. The moment he rolled out of the way, Daeng shoved the hatch down until it snapped in place.
Quinn lay on the floor, panting. “That was…not ten…minutes,” he growled between breaths.
“It was, if you take it from when the first video said it was starting,” Daeng said.
Quinn pushed himself up, annoyed. “Well, Peter certainly didn’t make that clear, did he?”
“No, my friend, he did not.”
“You’re all right, though, right?” Misty asked.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Good.” She punched him in the arm.
“Hey, what’s that for?”
Glaring at him, nostrils flaring, she said, “You could have gotten killed!”
“You were the one who wanted to stay,” he said.
“It shouldn’t have taken that long.”
“I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything, so I took a quick look around.”
“Well?” Daeng asked. “Did we?”
Quinn shook his head. “No.”
Misty hit him again.
CHAPTER 14
The meeting was held at the Hotel de Grasse, District 1, in an out-of-the-way room on the third floor. Morten had used the location multiple times, the hotel’s underground parking garage and private elevator that exited directly across from the meeting room perfect for maintaining his clients’ anonymity.
While a table and chairs were at one end of the room, Morten, as always, chose to use the sitting area at the other end. He was sitting in a blue, cloth-covered chair while his client — his potential client — was sitting on the matching couch.
This was their second meeting. The first had been four days earlier in Berlin. A meet-and-greet set up by the client’s chief of staff. This second meeting was the proof-of-concept meeting, where Morten would explain exactly what Darvot Consulting could do for the client.
“This is what I mean,” Morten said.
From inside his briefcase, he pulled out an eight-by-ten photograph.
“I’m not sure I want to see that,” the man said.
“Oh, I’m sure you will.”
Morten laid it on the coffee table. The picture showed two people in mid-copulation.
Despite his earlier protest, the man leaned forward and picked it up. “Is that…”
“Yes.” The male half of the couple in the photo was the popular sitting parliament member against whom Morten’s potential client was running in an upcoming election.
“That’s not his wife.”
“It most decidedly is not,” Morten agreed. “She’s the daughter of one of his constituents.”
The man was having a hard time hiding his revulsion. “How old is she?”
“Seventeen.”
Morten reached over and plucked the picture back.
“So what?” the man said. “You propose to release that? Is that the idea?”
Morten looked at the picture for a moment before putting it back in his briefcase. “What would that do? Yes, it might win you the election, but there would be a very good chance your own credibility would be undermined. People would assume you had something to do with releasing the picture. At best you’d last no more than one term. Is that what you want?”
“Of course not. Then what are you proposing?”
Morten smiled. “Your opponent would be approached. A quiet meeting, much like this one. He will learn of the pictures, and trust me, there are more than just the single shot. In fact, there’s more than just this one girl. He will then be given a choice. He will either do as we say, or the pictures will be released.”
“But you said if the pictures are released, I’ll get the blame.”
“Not if they’re released after the election. He’ll be forced to resign and a special election will be held, where you will then be the favorite.”
“And if he takes the deal?”
“Then he’ll throw the election for us.”
“How?”
“This is where you need to trust me. This is not the first time I’ve done this.”
By the time Morten headed back upstairs to his room, the man had moved from potential client to paying client. There had never really been any doubt. Morten had been doing this for a long time, and knew exactly how to hook the greedy. At least it wasn’t like the early years, when he had to be a little more involved in the execution of jobs. Now his focus was almost entirely on cultivating new business, instead of leaking stories or identifying bodies at an “accident” scene, or luring targets to faux meetings that would put them in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Of course, there were a few exceptions, like having to worry about old jobs that seemed to have risen from the dead.
As soon as he entered his suite, he activated the electronic bug jammer, and put in a call to his enforcer.
“So?” he asked.
“Nothing new,” Griffin replied.
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“Forensics swept the apartment, but whoever was there left no fingerprints.”
“Cameras?”
“Several security cameras were identified in the area, but none had a good angle.”
Morten’s jaw tensed. “Anything more on the house in Virginia?”
“Not yet,” Griffin said. “I’m going to call them as soon as we finish, and have them do a forensic check there also.”
“If O & O can’t come up with anything, pull the job and do it yourself.”
“Exactly what I was planning.”
“Good,” Morten said.
He hung up, grabbed the bottle of thirty-year-old Macallan whisky from the bar, and poured a generous amount into a tumbler. He took a drink.
Old. Goddamn. Jobs.
This one in particular shouldn’t have been a problem anymore. Peter was dead. They’d made that happen. Morten had made that happen. And with the son of a bitch’s death, that should have been it. No more chances of exposure.
Done. Finished. Completed.
Morten took another drink. As the whisky trickled down his throat, he could finally feel his body calming, and his thoughts becoming more reasonable.
There was no way to know if the people who’d been in Peter’s apartment knew anything even loosely connected to Morten or his boss. Peter had been involved in a multitude of things over the years, all potential reasons for why someone would’ve wanted a look inside his flat.
Yes, Morten needed to stay vigilant, but he didn’t need to get worked up. This was merely another project. Find the trio, figure out why they were there, then, no matter the reason, eliminate them.
Keep it simple. Get it done.
He smiled as he raised the glass back to his lips.
CHAPTER 15
Within minutes of driving away from the storage facility, Misty was slumped against the back door of Howard’s car, staring out the window. The chaos of the past twenty-four hours — twice being hunted by armed assault teams, seeing Peter again, the near immolation in the bunker — had clearly taken its toll on her.
Quinn tried to get her to talk, but it was as if she didn’t even hear him. Turning to Howard, he said, “Any place around here to get a room? Doesn’t have to be flashy.”
Howard thought for a moment before he said, “Yeah, I know a good place.”
He drove them to the Homestead Studio Suites just north of the tollway, and arranged for a room in the back wing. Once inside, Misty immediately lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. The others settled into the sitting area by the window, where Quinn pulled the wooden box out of his pocket.