The spit of a gun in the hallway, followed by the thump of a body on the floor, told Morgan Fischer had found the partner.
“You’re alone now,” Morgan said. “Toss your gun over here. It’s over.”
Nate returned from his mission to the street just in time to see Morgan and Fischer enter the mortuary. He waited until they crossed the lobby before he made his way to the front door.
He attached his suppressor to his gun and entered the building as soon as the others disappeared down the hallway. From the corner at the back of the lobby, he watched the two men enter the casket room.
The second they disappeared, he headed down the hall and had nearly reached the door when he heard Quinn shout, “I’m armed!”
In Nate’s humble opinion, his partner was laying it on a little thick, but the others didn’t know him so hopefully they’d buy it.
Nate scooted past the casket room door and sneaked down to the janitorial closet at the end of the hall. After slipping inside, he was in the process of closing the door when he heard someone step out of the other room. He closed the door, leaving only a crack he could peek through.
The guy who exited the room was Fischer. He held a compact pistol with attached suppressor. Nate was pretty sure it was a .22—likely the weapon that had ended Jenna Tate’s life.
Nate’s eyes narrowed. Sure, death was a part of the business. Even in the relatively few years he’d been working, he’d known plenty of good people who had died. It was tough enough to take when that person was an ops agent on the front lines, but Nate had grown a particular distaste for the deaths of easy targets. Couriers, for example. Take their package from them — fine. That was part of the game. But kill them? That was the coward’s way.
The man didn’t even glance in Nate’s direction, and instead began creeping toward the lobby.
Nate slipped out of the closet.
It took fifteen seconds for him to close the gap between them. After raising his gun, he waited an additional four seconds for the man to realize he wasn’t alone.
When Fischer turned, Nate whispered, “Drop it.”
Instead of complying, the man raised his weapon, leaving Nate no choice but to pull his trigger.
As the man dropped, Nate headed back to the casket room. He didn’t arrive in time to hear the first part of what the man inside said, but he did hear him tell Quinn to toss his weapon away.
Nate took that as his cue and moved in quickly behind Morgan. He pulled back on the gun’s slide to announce his presence.
When morgan heard someone enter the room, he’d assumed it was Fischer. But the metallic slide of the pistol behind his head quickly rid him of that idea.
“Gun on the ground,” the new arrival said, his voice cool and calm.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” Morgan said, trying to buy time.
“Your friend didn’t listen to me. You should learn from his mistake.”
Morgan tried to think of a way out of this, but the gun barrel pressing against the back of his skull let him know there was only one answer.
As soon as he dropped his pistol, the man kicked it across the floor.
“Clear,” the guy called out.
His partner rose from behind the caskets and walked across the room. He looked harder, more confident than Morgan had expected. Not someone who would scare easily.
“You’re not cleaners at all, are you, Charlie?” Morgan asked.
The man walked up to him. “The name’s not Charlie. And you were right the first time. We are cleaners. And you’re on the verge of being added to our to-do list.”
The last thing Morgan saw before he blacked out was the man’s pistol swinging toward his head.
CHAPTER 8
“Did you have to shoot him?” Quinn asked, as he and Nate rolled Fischer’s body into a tarp they’d found in the garage. Thankfully, the blood splatter had been mostly contained to the carpet where the man had fallen, though there was some on the walls that would have to be dealt with.
“I guess I could have let him shoot me first,” Nate replied. “Would that have helped?”
They lifted the body.
Grimacing, Quinn said, “That would have just meant more for me to clean up.”
They carried the body down the stairs at the other end of the hall to the basement level, then lugged it into the crematorium. Morgan was already there, tied up and still unconscious in the corner.
After Quinn fired up the second cremation chamber, he joined Nate at the courier’s body. The door to the first chamber was open and waiting, but neither man was ready to put the girl in yet.
Too young, Quinn thought. She probably hadn’t even fully understood the threat she lived under every day. Few in her line of work did, no matter what their age.
Quinn finally nodded and they lifted the courier.
“Safe journey,” Nate said as they slid her inside and closed the door.
Quinn sent Nate back upstairs to cut out the section of carpet Fischer had died on and scrape the affected portions of the walls. The hallway would receive a full makeover, courtesy of Helen Cho. Quinn might even talk her into redoing the entire first floor. It would go a long way toward appeasing the shock and anger Barry was likely to feel when he finally woke from his stupor.
Quinn needed to talk to her about something else first, though. He stepped into the hall in case Morgan wasn’t as out of it as he looked, and shut the door. As usual, one of Helen’s assistants answered. When Quinn identified himself, the call was put straight through.
“I hope everything went smoothly,” she said.
Quinn had to choke back a laugh before he filled her in on his and Nate’s evening.
“You still have the chip, though, don’t you?” she asked.
“I do.”
“That’s something, anyway. At least Jenna didn’t die in vain.”
Quinn thought the courier would argue the point if she could, but he said nothing.
“The chip needs to be taken to Eli/Kreck in Newton,” Helen said. “I wouldn’t want to presume, but…”
“Wait. Are you asking me to be your courier?”
“If it’s a problem, I can arrange for someone to pick it up from you.”
Quinn usually would never even entertain an idea like that, but he couldn’t help thinking about the girl and the rest of a life she would never live. “Text me the contact info. We’ll get it there.”
“Thank you.”
“There is one other thing,” he said. “What do you want to do with Morgan?”
She was quiet for a moment. “You said he had a flight booked?”
Quinn had found the man’s electronic boarding pass on his phone, and had taken a picture of it with his own device. He checked the picture again. “Skyway Airlines Flight 12 to Rome. Leaves out of JFK at midnight.”
“It would be nice to catch him with Loban,” she said, more to herself than to Quinn. Then, “I’ll arrange for someone to take his place. Let me call you back with the details.”
“Isn’t it likely Loban already knows him? He’ll spot your guy a million miles away.”
“Look, if you have a better idea, I’m happy to hear it,” she said, frustrated.
Quinn paused, and then said, “Actually, I do.”
Morgan heard a voice. Something about cardboard, or was it carpets?
The side of his face thudded with pain. A check with his tongue confirmed at least one of his teeth was loose.
Assholes.
Keeping his eyes closed, he mentally scanned the rest of his body. A faint point of pain on his upper arm told him he must have fallen against something sharp, but other than that and his throbbing cheek, he appeared to be uninjured. His hands, though, were tied behind his back by what felt like zip ties.