The Unwanted (15 page)

Adrenaline still pumping, he all but jumped out of the car. He had to force himself to walk, not run, around the front of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk.

The street was quiet. No one else was out. The only real noise was distant. Cars moving through the city as they did at all hours, a few horns. And sirens. More than on the average New York night. He tried to gauge their location and direction. None seemed to be heading toward him. Yet.

There was a Honda Prelude parked behind his Buick. He knew he'd have no problem getting in and getting it started. And its trunk would be large enough for the body of the Deputy Director.

Quinn walked over to the rear of his sedan, pulled out the key, and stuck it in the lock on the trunk. Only when he turned it, nothing happened. He tried pulling it open with his other hand, but there was only the groan of the vehicle's springs.

The trunk lid wasn't going anywhere. It had gotten tweaked during the accident, and would take equipment and time he didn't have to open it.

He pulled out his phone and dialed Peter. "It's Quinn," he said.

"Where the hell are you?"

"You need to send someone for the car." He gave Peter the address of the building closest to where he'd parked the Buick. "You have to make it quick. The cops are looking for it now."

"Jesus. I told you to park it in a—"

Quinn hung up, then began walking. It turned out he wouldn't need the Prelude after all.

CHAPTER
10

BY THE TIME QUINN MADE IT TO THE MARRIOTT
Marquis Hotel in Times Square, it was almost 3 a.m. Even then, there were dozens of people about. It was New York after all, where the night people replaced the day people, keeping the city in constant motion.

Escalators took him up several floors to the main lobby level. As he stepped off, his phone began to vibrate. He wasn't surprised by the name on the display. ORLANDO.

Instead of answering, he looked around, spotting her in seconds. She was across the lobby, standing against the wall. When their eyes met, she lowered her phone and smiled.

A moment later he spotted Nate standing several feet away from her. Quinn's apprentice was scanning the room, doing what he'd been trained to do in these exact kinds of situations.

"Took you long enough," Orlando said once he reached her. Per standard procedure, she'd refrained from calling him after they split up.

He gave her a condensed version of what had happened. When he finished, he asked, "Do you know if Peter got anyone to the car yet?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "He's here, you know."

"In New York?" Quinn asked, surprised.

"No. I mean here in this hotel."

That gave Quinn a moment's pause. "Where?" he said.

"He's got a room upstairs. He asked me to bring you up as soon as you got here."

"He asked
you
to bring me up?"

"I didn't say I would. We can just leave if you want."

Quinn paused. Orlando's suggestion was very intriguing, but after a few seconds he shook his head. "Let's just get it over with."

Peter's room was on the twenty-third floor. The door opened as they approached it. That wasn't surprising. Quinn had noticed several cameras placed discreetly along the corridor leading up to the door. Those inside had no desire to be surprised by unexpected guests.

Sean Cooper, one of Peter's men, stood just inside the room holding the door.

"Quinn," Cooper said.

"Sean," Quinn replied as he and the others stepped inside.

"Heard about the accident," Cooper said. "You all right?"

"I'm fine," Quinn said.

The room had two double beds, a rust-colored couch next to the window, a small desk against the wall, and a television cabinet. Your standard tourist room.

There was a computer on the desk. The screen looked like it had been divided into four images. Feeds from the cameras outside the room, Quinn guessed.

Peter was sitting on the couch, looking at them as they walked in. On a small round table in front of him was a tumbler filled with amber liquid and ice.

Quinn pulled out the desk chair and offered it to Orlando. But she shook her head and sat on the edge of the bed closest to the couch. Quinn took the chair for himself. Nate remained standing, taking up position a few feet behind Quinn.

A full minute passed before anyone said anything.

Peter finally shook his head and said, "That didn't go as planned, did it?"

"Not exactly the way I would have wanted it," Quinn agreed. "Did you get to the car?"

Peter picked up a television remote sitting next to his glass and pointed it at the TV. There was a half-second delay before the television came to life. Quinn had to swivel the chair around so he could see. On the screen was a commercial for a car rental agency.

He looked back at Peter, his brow furrowed.

"Hold on," Peter said, but offered no further information.

The commercial was followed by another for food storage bags, then an ad for a national chain of restaurants. Once the restaurant ad faded to black, there was a moment of nothing, then the screen filled with a graphic animation:
CNN Breaking News.
Accompanying the graphic was a quick, driving piece of music emphasizing the importance of what was to come.

When the image wiped away, it was replaced by a night view of a city street. A hundred feet from where the camera was positioned were dozens of parked police vehicles, most with lights flashing. For several seconds there was only the noise of the city, then a female voice broke in.

"You are looking at a live shot along West Twenty-seventh Street near Broadway in New York City, where the tragic end of what looks like a kidnapping has been discovered."

The TV image split into two boxes. One continued to show the scene on the street, while the other contained a shot of one of the overnight anchors, a woman, her hair and makeup perfect. Her face was taut, unsmiling, in the universal news anchor look for "this is serious."

"I want to bring back CNN correspondent Daniel Costello, who has moved in as close as possible. He joins us via telephone."

The shot of the anchor was replaced by a still image of a man in his mid-thirties. Under the picture the name Daniel Costello was printed in bold type.

"Dan, as I understand it, the police have still not made any official statements."

"None so far, Connie," Costello said, his voice distorted by the phone line. "We've been told that a press briefing's been scheduled for ten a.m. Otherwise they're pretty much saying nothing."

"What about the identity of the victim?"

"Nothing has been released yet. What we do know is that the body of a man was found in the trunk of a car parked on West Twenty-seventh Street. Through other sources, we have also learned that the victim was a prominent public figure."

"But no name," the anchor said.

"No. There's been some speculation here, but nothing concrete."

"We've heard that the car in question was involved in some sort of incident earlier in the evening. Can you tell us what happened?"

"That's right, Connie. Apparently the NYPD had received a tip about the car several hours ago. Sometime after midnight, one of their patrol cars spotted the vehicle and began pursuit. During the chase the car was involved in an accident at the corner of West Thirty-third and Broadway, sending one man to the hospital. After the accident, the car continued for several blocks until the driver either could go no farther, or decided he would do better on foot. At that point, the police were in a full-scale search, so it wasn't long before the vehicle was discovered."

"And that's when they found the victim in the trunk," the anchor said.

"That's correct."

"Is there any word on suspects?"

"The driver is reported to be male, mid-thirties, with short brown hair. At this time, the police have no one in custody. I've heard from sources that they should have a more accurate description by the time of the briefing later this morning."

Peter switched the TV off.

"I told you to get someone there quick," Quinn said.

"We did. But the police were already there."

"Then you weren't quick enough."

Orlando was staring at Quinn. "They have a description of you," she said.

"That was pretty generic," he replied.

"It is now, but they obviously knew to look for us. Perhaps someone is feeding them a more accurate description right now."

Quinn remained silent for a moment, then looked at Peter. "You called me and warned me about the APB. How did the police know?"

"We're . . . not sure," Peter said.

"Who knew we were going in the building?"

"Only me and my team," Peter said, then looked toward the door where Cooper stood. "Sean and Ida." But Peter seemed to hesitate.

"Who else, Peter?"

"My client knew I was sending someone in, but he didn't know who."

"Who the hell is your client?"

"Someone who would have very much wanted this to stay quiet."

Nate cleared his throat, and everyone turned to him. Quinn could see his apprentice had something he wanted to say.

"What are you thinking?" Quinn asked.

"Isn't it possible that whoever killed the Deputy Director might have been keeping an eye on the building?" Nate asked. "It's probably the same guy who planted the explosives, don't you think? Maybe we were just being watched."

Quinn looked back at Peter. "You're sure your client wouldn't have leaked this?"

"Absolutely."

"Doesn't matter how they found out at the moment," Orlando said. "Pretty soon the whole city is going to be looking for you. We've got to get you out of town now."

She was right. The search for Deputy Director Jackson's supposed killer would go nationwide, but it would be most intense there in New York.

Quinn stood up. "We need a vehicle."

Peter hesitated, then looked at Cooper. "Get the stuff out of our car. They can take that."

"No," Quinn said. Cooper, who had already started for the door, stopped. "Not out of the garage. Something on a nearby street. Something generic."

There would be cameras in the garage of the Marriott Marquis, and maybe even security guards walking around who might take special notice of them. The less people who saw Quinn, the better.

Cooper looked at his boss, his eyebrows raised.

"Do it," Peter said.

With a single nod, Cooper left.

Everyone was silent for several moments.

"You knew the DDNI would be in there, didn't you?" Quinn asked.

"No. I didn't," Peter said, then paused. "There was the possibility, yes. But I really didn't expect to find him there. Especially not dead."

"Then what did you expect?"

Silence, nearly thirty seconds of it. Quinn began to think Peter wasn't going to answer him at all. Then, "I thought we might find a clue to where he'd been taken."

"What do you mean?"

Again, Peter hesitated. This time, though, the silence lasted only a moment.

"Let me show you something," he said.

He walked to the computer on the desk, pulled over the chair Quinn had vacated, then sat down. By the time Quinn, Orlando, and Nate had moved in behind him, he'd already minimized the surveillance images on the screen and replaced them with a spreadsheet. It was broken down into four columns. There were locations listed down the left-hand column, dates in the center two, and two- to four-digit numbers in the right.

"What is this?" Quinn asked.

"Inside the envelope you brought back from Ireland was a jump drive." A tiny flash memory card able to hold multiple gigs of data. "There were only four files on it. This was one of them."

"Looks like an itinerary," Orlando said.

"Yes," Peter said.

"How the hell does this tie into what happened tonight?" Quinn asked.

Peter glanced at Quinn. "The DDNI hired us a month ago for a special project. He'd been approached by a source claiming to have information about a potential terrorist operation."

"Jesus, Peter. Every source says they have information about a potential terrorist operation," Quinn said. "It's the in thing."

"That's why the DDNI hired us instead of using his resources at CIA," Peter said. "He wanted to keep it quiet. Our job was to coordinate meetings with Primus, then check out the info he handed over."