The Buried (12 page)

A
T THE SAME
moment a
ding
rang out from the computer’s speaker, a dialogue box appeared on the screen.

COMMUNICATION ALERT

Sat. 6 G2

Below this were two buttons:
VIEW
and
IGNORE
. The attendant clicked the first and then read the details of the alert. After determining it wasn’t an anomaly, he consulted the instructions for this particular hunt.

Adhering to the stated procedures, he created a map of the location and e-mailed the message, the file that had accompanied it, and his map to the listed contact. In addition, he sent a text to the contact’s phone alerting the man of the incoming information.

Then, much like the illegal software had done, he returned to his previous task.

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

M
ATTHEW MORSE SET
down his fork and leveled his gaze at the man across from him. “I don’t care what they’re saying in Hong Kong,” he said, his words straining to escape his damaged vocal cords. “We know the threat exists, and we know it starts there.”

Ketterman, one of Morse’s assistant directors, smiled uncomfortably. “I understand that, sir. I’ve seen the data myself. But our team in country has been unable to locate Tsu anywhere. There’s no indication that he’s in the territory.”

“You just said you read the data yourself. Then you know there is
every
indication.”

“Gold team is one of our best, sir. If they can’t find him, then—”

“Then they’re not looking hard enough. I suggest you encourage them to do so.”

Morse picked up his fork again, signaling that the meeting was over.

“Of course, sir. Right away.” Ketterman left quickly.

Morse finished off his salmon, dabbed the corner of his mouth with his napkin, and touched the intercom button.

“Mr. Carter, I’m finished.”

A moment later, his assistant came in, collected the used dishes, and exited without a word.

Morse was getting ready to head to his 2:30 meeting when the special cell phone in his left pocket buzzed. He removed it and read the text.

HIT RECEIVED. INFO SENT.

He checked his e-mail and clicked on the message from the NSA.

He ran the recording of the call through his agency’s decoding software. Though the encryption was impossible to fully break, a few words leaked through—Seattle, Cho, photo, and a garbled word that sounded to him like Danielle—leaving no doubt that the scrambled satellite call was related to the woman.

He consulted a map. From where the call was made, the originator could go in only two directions—either east or west along the interstate. If, as Morse suspected, the caller was one of those involved in extracting the girl from Edmondson’s house, he would have come from the west and logically would continue east. This presented an excellent intercept opportunity.

He grabbed the main phone.

“Stevens,” the leader of the field team in Seattle answered.

“It’s Morse. How quickly can you get to your helicopter?”

CHAPTER
15

COLUMBIA CITY, WASHINGTON

“H
IS NAME IS
Jonathan Quinn,” Donnie said over the phone.

“Why does that sound familiar?” Orbits asked.

He was sitting in his car, two blocks away from the Columbia City home where the missing girls had been found, close enough to see the frenzy of police and media and looky-loos, but far enough away not to draw any attention.

“He’s a cleaner,” Donnie said. “Pretty highly regarded from what I understand. I haven’t been able to confirm it, but one source heard he was on a job at the Edmondson house last night.”

So he hadn’t just been some random guy walking down the street.

“He was there, all right,” Orbits said. And if Quinn had been at Edmondson’s, then he either had the girl or knew where she was. “Quinn…didn’t he used to work for the Office?”

“He did,” Donnie said. “Right up until they folded.”

Orbits nodded to himself. He knew exactly who the guy was. Orbits had never directly crossed paths with him but had snooped around a few jobs Quinn did.

Excellent work each time. Quinn clearly knew how to handle the dead.

“Where is he now?” Orbits asked.

“Been trying to figure that out but got nothing so far. Except…” Donnie hesitated.

“Except what?”

“I heard Edmondson was a termination. Which makes sense if Quinn was there. The thing is, the doer was supposedly Ananke.”

“Oh, really?” Orbits hadn’t expected that.

“Again, not confirmed.

Ananke was an old…acquaintance. Orbits hadn’t actually talked to her since she’d walked in on him having a little fun at Mardi Gras with a couple of forgettable college girls. But come on, how long could she stay mad at him? It was
Mardi Gras
, for God’s sakes. You’re supposed to have fun there.

“I’ll touch base with her,” he said. “What about the group from California? Are they still in the area?”

“They were a few hours ago.”

“Check again and call me back.”

After Orbits hung up, he scrolled through his contact list until he reached Ananke’s newest number.

As he pressed
SEND
, his heart began to race. Maybe he wasn’t quite as over her as he’d thought. He was saved from making a fool of himself, though, when his call went straight to voice mail.

“Hey, kitten, it’s Ricky. Long time. Give me a shout back when you get this, okay? Later.”

He hung up, sure she’d be excited to hear from him again.

BOULDER, COLORADO

A
NANKE CAUGHT AN
early morning flight out of Seattle to Denver, picked up her car from long-term parking, and drove home to Boulder.

Her house was along a dead-end road on the western edge of the city. Under most circumstances, the lack of alternate exit routes would have ruled the place out, but the views were spectacular—hills and trees and mountains on one side, and on the other a sky that seemed to move eastward forever.

She solved the escape-route problem by also purchasing the house on the next street over and creating a private drive between them. In all likelihood, she would never have to use it, but it was good to know it was there.

After a light snack, she stretched out on her king-sized bed and fell asleep. A call woke her, but by the time she was able to grab her cell, the call had gone to voice mail. The phone number looked vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place it. She played back the message.

The second she heard, “Hey, kitten,” she froze.

Ricky Orbits. That son of a bitch.

How did he get her number? She’d changed it multiple times since she left him specifically because she hadn’t wanted to talk to the asshole again. And now he wanted her to call him back?

An image flashed in her mind, not just of Ricky on the phone but Ricky on the phone standing outside her driveway gate. He’d somehow gotten ahold of her number. Why not her address, too?

Before she realized it, she was hyperventilating. She raced to the sitting area that had the window overlooking her garage, and sighed in relief when she saw that the street beyond the gate was empty.

For someone so cool on the job, I sure lost it in a hurry
.

It was that goddamn bastard. Orbits was the only one who had ever gotten so far under her skin. She had known he was a mistake from the beginning, but she couldn’t help herself. And boy, how she’d emotionally paid for it after she’d found him in all his glory with his two new surgically enhanced friends. He’d even invited her to join in.

Just the memory of it made her shiver.

Three years of scar tissue that apparently could still be ripped off at will. She didn’t want him back. God, no. She didn’t want anything to do with him.

“No, Ricky. I will
not
be calling you.”

After she deleted his message and his number in her missed calls list, she went to her safe, retrieved one of the many unused SIM cards she kept for emergencies, and traded it with the one in her phone. The card for her old number she cut in half and then burned in the kitchen.

COLUMBIA CITY, WASHINGTON

W
HEN ORBITS’S PHONE
rang, he hoped to see Ananke’s name on the screen, but the caller ID read
DONNIE
.

“Yeah?” he answered, not bothering to keep the disappointment from his voice.

“Got something for you on the California team,” Donnie said.

“What about them?”

“They just boarded a helicopter and headed east out of the city.”

Orbits sat up, his funk forgotten. “Where are they going?”

“I have it on good authority they’ve got a location on Quinn and are on the way to intercept him.”

If the team reached Quinn first and grabbed the girl—assuming the cleaner had her—then Ricky’s bonus was gone.

“I need to follow them,” he said.

“Already got you covered. I’m texting you an address. Get there quick. There’s a chopper waiting. One of those
jet
kinds. Goes real fast.”

Donnie could be a little weird but he was surprisingly efficient at times. “Thanks, buddy,” Orbits said. “You rock.”

The helicopter was revved and waiting when Orbits arrived.

As Orbits climbed aboard, the pilot, a thirtysomething guy in a dark green jumpsuit, pointed at a set of headphones hanging next to the passenger seat.

“Afternoon, Mr. Orbits,” the man said. “I’m Marv Sutter. I’ll be your pilot.”

Orbits shook his hand. “Call me Ricky.”

“All right, Ricky, where are we off to?”

Orbits pulled out his phone. On the drive over, Donnie had been texting every minute or so with updated GPS coordinates of the other helicopter’s position. Orbits used these to track the aircraft’s route on a map. At last report, it was southeast of Bellevue, paralleling the only major road in the area.

“Follow the I-90 east as fast as you can.”

“How far we going?”

“You’ll know when I know.”

__________

O
RBITS WASN’T THE
only hunter to arrive in the Emerald City looking for Danielle Chad. Four others touched down at Sea-Tac International Airport on separate flights that morning.

Each represented a different interested party. Three had the singular goal of finding the woman. The fourth, however, was operating under slightly different instructions.

The first of the other three landed at 10:45 a.m. on a flight from Las Vegas, took possession of a waiting car, and drove straight to Edmondson’s neighborhood. The second and third arrived right before and right after 11:00 a.m. They, too, had vehicles standing by. While the second took the same route as the first, the third chose to start his search with the Bellevue safe house. All three had been briefed that others might be interested in the woman, but each was sure he would be the one to find her.

Bianca Zorn—hunter number four—arrived on the same Las Vegas flight as number one. Unlike the other three, she knew for a fact she wasn’t the only one searching for the asset. As she had waited for her flight north, she had received an e-mail with pictures of six men potentially in or on their way to Seattle for that express purpose. It turned out that one, Drew Evans, was seated two rows in front of her.

Upon arrival, she followed him through the airport. In the crowd as they neared baggage claim, she moved in close enough to slip a tracking node under the bottom of his suit jacket. She then let him move ahead, and waited until he exited to the street before doing so herself.

She, too, had arranged for transport. In her case, it was not a car but a KTM 1290 Super Duke R motorcycle—an extremely agile, high-performance bike. Hanging from the seat, locked in place, was a helmet.

She donned the black leather jacket she’d brought with her, then detached the helmet and set it on the ground. Reaching under the seat, she felt around until she found the hidden latch and clicked it into the open position. A portion of the seat flipped up, revealing a Heckler & Koch VP9 pistol, two spare magazines, a suppressor, and a small kit bag containing the other items she thought she might need. She placed the magazines in her backpack, attached the suppressor to the gun, and slipped them into a custom-made slot inside her jacket.

Next, she retrieved the mounting kit she’d brought with her and affixed her phone near the midpoint of the handlebars so she could see it while she drove. After pulling on the helmet, she synched its comm to her phone via Bluetooth and climbed on the bike.

She followed Evans at a distance of a quarter mile, down I-405 and into Columbia City. She had no idea what he expected to find at the Edmondson house. The woman was long gone and the police would still be crawling all over the place.

Another one of those sense-driven hunters, she guessed. They like to “feel” where their target had been, saying it gave them valuable insight. It was all bullshit, sideshow stuff. She relied on a combination of actual clues and logic-based intuition, not some invisible vapor memory that didn’t exist.

She parked the bike around the corner from where Evans had stopped. Leaving her sunglasses on, she exchanged her helmet for a blue baseball cap from her bag. She pulled her long blonde hair through the back and created a loose ponytail, making her look nothing like she had at the airport.

According to the tracking dot, Evans hadn’t moved for the last three minutes. She confirmed this as she rounded the corner and spotted him sitting in his car, parked at the curb. The chaotic scene in front of Edmondson’s house started about a block farther down. Evans seemed to be staring at it, “sensing” all he needed to know to find the girl.

Bianca had other tasks to deal with so there was no reason to prolong this. As she walked down the sidewalk, she unzipped her jacket halfway. Right before she reached the man’s car, she moved into the street, stopped near his closed driver’s-side window, and stared off toward the police activity.