“I’m Mr. Edgar.”
Quinn cocked his head. “We’ve worked together before, haven’t we?” He stared at the man for a moment. “Not Edgar. It’s …” He thought for a moment. “It’s Mercer, isn’t it?”
“Not bad,” Mercer said. “And you’re Quinn.”
Mercer had been a background player on a job three years earlier. A gig for the Office.
“You were a courier, weren’t you?” Quinn asked.
“Was. But haven’t been for a long time.”
Without another word, Mercer turned and walked out of the room, leaving Quinn and Nate alone.
Nate, who was already sitting down, sandwich in hand, said, “Friend of yours?”
“Barely know him,” Quinn said as he took a seat across the table from his apprentice.
“Friendly type.”
Quinn shrugged. You met all kinds in this business.
At five minutes after two, the back door to the shop opened again, and four men walked in. They were all somewhere between thirty and forty years old and were casually dressed: jeans, button-down shirts, light jackets.
“Quinn?” the one with thinning hair asked.
Quinn stood up and held out his hand. “Are you Donovan?”
“Yep,” Donovan said. “Shall we get down to it?”
A moment later everyone was seated around the table looking at a map. It showed property lines and accurate footprints of each structure in the area. There were also circles of various sizes indicating the locations of trees and other vegetation. At the street end of each property was the corresponding address. Donovan pointed to a block of Main Street not in the town center area, but further out in the direction of Mosher Corner.
“Here’s the target house,” Donovan said.
He circled an upside-down, reversed L in the center of a parcel on the north side of the street. The home was set back a couple of hundred feet from the road.
“We’re doing it in the target’s home?” Quinn asked.
Donovan nodded. “Not ideal, I know. But he lives alone, and seldom goes out. The report I have says the only visitors he gets are the mailman and a weekly delivery of groceries.”
“Bedridden?” Nate asked.
“No. Just private,” Donovan replied. “We arrived yesterday morning. Since then I’ve had one of my men keeping an eye on the place using thermal-scanning gear. We’re sure someone is inside, but whoever it is hasn’t stepped through the front door yet.”
Quinn thought for a moment, then said, “How positive are you that you’ll need me?”
Donovan paused, then said, “Let’s you and I take a walk.”
They headed up Main Street, then south along Elm. As soon as it was apparent no one was interested in them, Donovan removed an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Quinn. A file listed Kenneth Moody’s name, his address, and the letter T.
Terminate.
“So what does the rest of your team think?” Quinn asked.
“Per instructions, they know the mission, but not the target’s ID.”
Quinn nodded. Wills had given him the same instructions. But Quinn had long ago decided that whatever he knew about a job, Nate and Orlando would know also.
“Any chance this guy realizes what’s coming?” Quinn asked.
“From what I understand, he’s paranoid, so he probably always thinks something’s coming.”
“And you’re positive he’s there alone?”
“My man’s been doing hourly thermal scans since yesterday. So far he’s only logged one person.”
“What about a basement? I assume this house has one. Your equipment can’t see down.”
Donovan smiled. “Wills got some satellite time last night. Took ten overhead thermal images at just after two-thirty a.m. local. It confirmed our findings. Only one person.”
“What if it’s not him?”
“Then we don’t term.”
They walked silently for a moment. “So what’s the plan?” Quinn asked.
“The property is surrounded by a thick layer of trees and enough distance between houses that we shouldn’t run into any problems with neighbors. We’ve ID’d weak points and will be inside the house less than two minutes from mission start.”
“Tonight?”
Donovan nodded. “In position at nine p.m., then get things going at ten. Your designation will be team four. When we get back, make sure you get comm gear for you and your assistant.”
“Will do,” Quinn said.
“When we’re ready for you, you’ll get a ‘Team four go.’ But if I say ‘Abort,’ get the hell out of there.”
“Vehicle?” Quinn asked. His rental car was not body-removal-friendly.
“Parked two blocks away. A black Lincoln MKZ.” He gave Quinn the plate number.
“Gear?” Quinn asked.
“Everything on the list we got is in the trunk, less what was waiting for you at the motel.”
“Okay,” Quinn said. “Then we’re set on my end.”
It was a straightforward op, the kind that should go off flawlessly. Only the job in L.A. was supposed to have been the same kind of thing.
Quinn couldn’t help wondering how this one was going to get screwed up, too.
Chapter 9
“If we’re too late …” Petra let the sentence hang, not wanting to give voice to her biggest fear.
So much time wasted.
Bangkok. Hong Kong. New Jersey. And yesterday Los Angeles.
All a waste of time.
In each case they’d been too late. The only positive Petra could take from any of it was that they seemed to be getting closer. While McKitrick, Chang, and Thomas had been dead or missing before she had arrived, Winters had at least still been alive. For a while, anyway.
That left Moody. If they didn’t find him, then the promise she and the others had made to those who had died would go unfulfilled, the justice they sought rendered permanently unfinished.
But Moody had proved frustrating in his own way. Mikhail’s search for him had led from Philadelphia to Manhattan to Boston.
Only Boston wasn’t the end, either. It was just another stop on Moody’s trail. He had been there, but had again moved. It took until early evening before Mikhail was able to pinpoint Portland, Maine, as Moody’s next destination.
It was a 112-mile drive north to Portland, but traffic made it seem twice as far. They were already past the two-hour mark, but only halfway there. If it was possible, the traffic here was even worse than it had been in Los Angeles.
“We’ll get him,” Mikhail reassured her.
Petra glanced at him, surprised that he could read her so well. They were in the back seat of a Nissan Maxima, Mikhail with his laptop propped on his lap and a cell phone in his hand, and Petra holding nothing but her fear that they would fail again. Kolya was up front driving.
“Hello?” Mikhail said into his phone. “Da … da …” He sandwiched it between his ear and his shoulder, then typed something on his computer. “Spasibo.”
He hung up the phone and looked at Petra.
“What?” she asked.
“Stepka got an address,” Mikhail said.
“How old?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not old.” He smiled. “Current.”
They reached Portland at nine-thirty, and twenty minutes later entered the small town of Gorham.
“There,” Mikhail said, pointing at a house on the left, set back from the street.
“I don’t see any lights,” Kolya said. “Maybe he’s not home.”
They drove past, continuing down the road another hundred yards before Petra told Kolya to pull to the side.
“What now?” Mikhail asked.
Petra considered their options. They could get out of the car here and work their way back in the darkness. Take some time to observe the house, make sure nothing was amiss before making a move. That would be the cautious approach.