“And you didn’t want to waste one of your top guys on such an easy gig,” Quinn guessed.
No answer at first, then, “That, too.”
“So she knew everything,” Quinn said, connecting the pieces. “And before they killed her, they made her talk.”
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Quinn finally broke the silence. “Listen to me. You need to do exactly what I say. If you don’t hear from me in the next twenty-four hours, shut it all down. Airports, harbors, border crossings. Everything.”
“Why?”
Quinn hung up the phone without another word.
The cab dropped Quinn off a block from Sophie’s place. He hadn’t intended to come back so soon, but when he called after he’d finished with Peter, Sophie told him Nate had woken up for a while that morning. Quinn couldn’t pass up an opportunity to talk to his apprentice and see if he might be able to tell him something that could help.
First, though, he had called Orlando and told her what he’d learned from the Mole. He wanted to leave out the part about Garrett’s abduction, but he knew that wasn’t an option. Her reaction was several moments of silence followed by a terse “What are we going to do about it?”
Quinn described the plan that he’d worked up. She hadn’t liked it, but she couldn’t suggest anything better. They went over a list of things they could need. Though some of the items were unusual, Orlando was confident she could find everything.
As Quinn walked toward Sophie’s place, he saw Dr. Garber come out the front door. Quinn jogged to catch up to him. The doctor glanced nervously over his shoulder as Quinn approached. But when he saw that it was Quinn, he slowed his pace.
“Herr Quinn,” the doctor greeted him.
“How is he?”
“As good as possible, after one night. He’ll be good as okay soon enough. Until then, he should take it very easy.”
“Thanks,” Quinn said. “I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
Quinn was about to turn around and go back to Sophie’s place, but something in the doctor’s manner made him hesitate.
“I won’t be coming back,” the doctor said.
“What? Why?”
“This is too dangerous, even for me. Everyone is looking for you. This morning I had a visitor. Someone I’ve never met before. But he seemed to know that you and I have worked together in the past. I told him I hadn’t heard from you in two years. I’m not sure he was convinced. But he did say if I saw you, I should call him.”
“He gave you a number?”
The doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. On the back someone had handwritten a telephone number. On the front, professionally printed in black ink, was the name Dahl.
“Here,” he said, handing the card to Quinn. “This way I won’t be tempted.”
Nate’s eyes were closed when Quinn entered the guest room. Sophie had barely said a word to him when she had let him in. Now she was busying herself in the kitchen.
The wooden chair was still beside the bed where Quinn had left it. As he sat down, he said, “Nate?”
Nate’s eyelids fluttered, then parted slightly.
“It’s Quinn.”
“Quinn?” Nate’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Where the hell have you been?
He smiled. “You want something to drink?”
“Water.”
There was a glass of it on the nightstand. Quinn picked it up and held it to Nate’s lips. At first Nate only took a sip. But as Quinn started to move the glass away, Nate said he wanted more. By the time he leaned back against the pillow, the glass was nearly empty.
“How’re you feeling?” Quinn asked.
“Like someone threw me under a train,” he answered. “How do I look?”
“I think that’s probably a fair assessment.”
“Great,” Nate said, his voice flat. He paused. “Thanks for coming back for me.”
“I had some time on my hands.”
Nate started to laugh, but ended up wincing in pain.
“You all right?” Quinn asked.
“Sure,” Nate said. “Never better.”
Quinn said, “Do you remember much?”
“More than I wish I did.”
Nate told Quinn he had never seen who had taken him out that night at the water plant. He had been standing in position, watching the street for over an hour, then something painful slammed into his right thigh. Needle-like, he said. The next thing he knew, he woke up in the hotel room.
“Sometimes they’d beat me up right there,” Nate said. “Sometimes they’d take me down the hall to another room. All the furniture had been cleared out. There was a rope hanging down from the ceiling. They’d string me up by my wrists. Ask me questions. Throw a few punches.”
“What did they ask?”
“Questions about you. About Orlando. What you were doing. Where you might hide out. How we were supposed to communicate with each other if the op was blown.”
“You didn’t tell them that,” Quinn said.
Nate smiled. “I told them. I just told them the wrong place.”
Quinn couldn’t help but be impressed. This wasn’t the Nate he’d come to expect. This Nate was resilient, strong-willed.
“I think when they realized I was new, and they wouldn’t get much more out of me, they stopped.”
“You did great, Nate,” Quinn said. “You kept them away from us. I couldn’t have asked for more than that.”
Quinn’s phone rang. “You need some more water?” he asked Nate.
“I’m okay.”
Quinn stood and answered his phone. “Yes?”
“There’s an…office building in Charlottenburg…on Kaiserdamm,” the Mole said, in response to Quinn’s last e-mail. He gave Quinn an address. “I am told…they will…be assembling welcome…packets there for each…of the…attendees…once they are prepared…they…will be taken to the…luncheon and placed on the tables…candied mints…are one of…the favors to be…included.”
“You’re confident about this information?” Quinn asked.
“Very,” the Mole said.
Quinn hung up. When he turned back to the bed, Nate was actually sitting up.
“Do you remember any of the people you saw?” Quinn asked him.
“There were mainly two guys.” After Nate described them, Quinn was fairly confident it was the two guards he’d locked in the closet.
“What about Borko?”
“Yes,” Nate said. “I met him one time.” There was a pause. “He’s not a nice guy.”
“What happened?”
Nate pointed toward his left shoulder, the one that had been dislocated.
“Borko did that?”
“Yeah, but not before I kicked him in the balls.”
“That might have been why he did that,” Quinn suggested.
“Yeah,” Nate said. “I thought about that later.”
“Did you meet anyone named Dahl?”
Nate hesitated. “I might have.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was pretty out of it most of the time. A lot of people seemed to come and go.”
“Can you describe any of them?”
Nate thought for a moment. “There was this one guy, a little older. The others seemed to defer to him.” Nate closed his eyes. “Sorry, that’s not very helpful, is it?”
“It’s fine,” Quinn said. “You did good.”
CHAPTER 35
Quinn went out to the kitchen. He had hoped to get more out of Nate. Maybe after his apprentice had a little more rest, he’d remember something else. The older guy, though, that could have been Tucker. Or Piper. If it was, it meant the man everyone was calling Dahl was in town. Which could also mean that Garrett was here, too.
“Who are you?” It was Sophie. She had entered the kitchen quietly behind him.