The Czech-made Semtex explosive was overkill for the job, but Quinn had to make sure everything in the room above him was destroyed. The bad part was that he’d have to wait to set it off. Several of the boxes of mints had already been carried away. It was possible they weren’t even in the building. If Quinn detonated the Semtex now, he might miss those other cases, and, in the process, tip off Dahl and Borko that he was onto them. The destruction of the virus had to be coordinated.
Quinn placed the Semtex at several points along the bottom of the laboratory. He then set a radio-activated detonator at each point. After that, he extracted a small box from the backpack. It was a relay. All they had to do now was trigger the relay with one of the remotes Orlando had obtained, and a signal would be sent out to the detonators. Then boom.
Quinn attached the relay to one of the poles, then gave everything a final inspection. Satisfied, he unfastened the strips holding the backpack to the pole and pulled the pack over his shoulders. Now it was only a matter of time.
CHAPTER 37
Though Quinn’s sleep was short, it was the best he’d had in days. It didn’t matter that he and his team were holed up in the cold back room of an abandoned store, or that they had to sleep in sleeping bags on blow-up mattresses. It always happened this way. The night before any big operation, Quinn would sleep like the dead.
At 5:30 a.m. his eyes opened. He was fully awake. The first thing he did was check on Nate. His forehead was damp, but not hot. The fever he’d had earlier seemed to have broken. Quinn got up and stepped around the mattresses, working his way out of the room.
He made a quick stop in the bathroom, then went out to the coffee shop just down the street and bought coffee and breakfast rolls. He made one final call to the Mole on the walk back. It was short, this time Quinn doing most of the talking. As he finished the conversation, he passed a news kiosk. On the counter was a stack of the Berliner Morgenpost. The headline caught his eye.
“Police Raid Terrorist Cell,” it read in German. The address of the raided house was Sophie’s. She was even mentioned in the article as being a potential member of the organization. He read on:
One of the suspected terrorists was killed in the gunfight as she tossed a grenade at undercover officers. Extensive damage was done to the structure. Police were forced to fire tear gas canisters to root out the rest of the terrorist cell. According to police sources, at least two others remain at large.
The rest of the story was below the fold, where Quinn couldn’t read it. It was all bullshit, of course. But apparently Borko had enough contacts to cover his own tracks.
Quinn returned to the hideout and found the other two still asleep. He set the coffee and food within reach if either of them awoke, then went back into the bathroom.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror for a moment. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and he was looking pretty scruffy. A plastic shopping bag sat on the floor near the sink. Inside were toothbrushes, toothpaste, a comb, deodorant, a hairbrush, razors and shaving cream, some first-aid stuff.
Quinn pulled out a razor and the cream and gave himself a thorough shave. He wiped away the excess foam, then opened one of the toothbrushes and brushed his teeth. Cleaner now, he turned off the light and returned to the other room.
Orlando was sitting up, drinking coffee. Nate was awake, too, the sleeping bag pulled up around his head. He was peeking out at Quinn through a small opening. “It’s fucking cold,” Nate said, his voice muffled by the bag.
“Have some coffee,” Quinn said.
“Can you just pour it over the top of my sleeping bag?”
“I guess you’re feeling better then,” Quinn said.
“Compared to what?”
“Yesterday.”
“I guess.” Nate slowly sat up, letting the bag slide off his head and down to his shoulders. He moved his head slowly from side to side, stretching his neck. “Definitely better. Yesterday when I woke up, I could barely turn over. I guess this is an improvement.”
“Do you think you’re up to this?”
Nate didn’t even hesitate. “I’ll be fine.”
“If you can’t do it, tell us,” Orlando said, her tone all business.
“Good morning to you, too,” Nate said, turning toward her.
“I’m serious,” she said.
“So am I. I’ll be fine.” Nate slowly reached over and picked up the remaining cup of coffee. “I mean, if you’re asking if I can run a mile, then sucker punch someone, I’d have to say no. But I can drive a car.”
“Even with your fucked-up shoulder?” Orlando asked.
“Jesus,” Nate said. “You need to take a happy pill or something.”
“Nate,” Quinn said quickly.
“No,” Nate countered. He looked at Orlando. “I realize this isn’t easy for you. I know you wish you found Garrett instead of me. If I were you I’d feel the same way. But I’m here and you need my help to get him back. My shoulder is fucked up. I feel like shit. But if I say I can do the job, I’ll do it.”
Orlando and Quinn both stared at Nate for a moment. Then Orlando said, “You could have just said yes.”
Nate’s hard expression softened. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Nate gave her a smile and waved it off.
“So are we all good now?” Quinn asked. “Because we need to get a move on.”
Orlando had been able to learn from monitoring conversations at the plant that the transportation of the polio-laced mints was scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Their only chance to take everything out was between the time the mints left the water plant and when they arrived at the building on Kaiserdamm where the welcome packets were being stuffed. A narrow window at best.
Nate unzipped his bag and began to stand up, the whole time wincing in pain.
“There’s some aspirin in the bathroom, if you need it,” Quinn said.
Nate looked over at him. “I may need the whole bottle.”
The information the Mole had given Quinn proved to be accurate. The place where the welcome packets were being prepped was an old stone office building sitting at the corner of a block of similar old stone buildings.
Quinn watched it from the Einstein Coffee Shop on the corner, just down the street. For the past thirty minutes several people had entered the building. The majority were young, probably university students. All were dressed comfortably for several hours of menial work. Quinn pegged them as the hired help who would be filling the packets.
Quinn’s phone rang. It was Orlando. “The van’s leaving now.”
For the last hour she had been in position on top of the same apartment building she’d been on two nights before. This time she was watching Borko’s goons load the boxes of mints into a white cargo van.
“Is Borko still there?” Quinn asked.
“He left about ten minutes ago.” Orlando’s voice came in short bursts. Quinn guessed she was once again making her way down the stairs, this time to Nate, who was sitting behind the wheel of a maroon BMW Quinn had appropriated earlier that morning.
“How many boxes total?” Quinn asked.
“Twenty.”
“All of them, then.”
“Looks like it.”
Twenty boxes, each containing 120 tins, gave Dahl 2,400 miniature biological weapons containers. Multiply that by the 6 mints in each box and the total number of delivery devices was 14,400. There were enough tins so that every attendee could leave with several extras. Have one now. Take a few home. Share them with your friends.
“They secured the boxes with a cargo net,” she added.