Morten pulled himself from his thoughts, satisfied they’d covered their bases, and walked over to where his shoulder bag was waiting. The rest of his luggage for his flight to Europe was with the doorman downstairs, and undoubtedly being loaded into the car at that very moment. “Anything comes up, anything,” he said, “contact me immediately.”
“Of course,” Griffin said, opening the door.
“I’ll be back the evening of the third. Let’s have it wrapped up by then, shall we?”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER 3
“No, no, no, no, no!” Jonathan Quinn dropped to the ground beside Orlando.
Blood covered most of her shirt. More saturated her left pant leg, the wounds courtesy of the now-dead Janus. She wasn’t the only victim. Before Quinn and Daeng had taken Janus out, the man had also shot Peter, who was dead before he hit the ground.
“Orlando. Orlando, can you hear me?”
A flicker in her eyes.
“Orlando? Come on, baby, stay with me!”
Quinn grabbed her hand, hoping she would grip back, but her fingers lay motionless across his.
“Do you hear me? Baby, please stay with me!”
A slow, long blink.
“You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be fine. Just stay with me. Please. Orlando, come on. Stay with me!”
When her lids slid closed again, they stayed that way.
“Orlando!”
Someone grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back.
“No!” he yelled.
“You need to move out of the way,” Daeng said calmly.
Quinn snapped his head around, ready to shove his friend away, but stopped when he saw Liz and Nate running up with the first-aid gear from the plane that had come to take them off the island. Nate skidded to a halt and fell to his knees, then ripped open the Velcro seam of the bag he was carrying.
Quinn’s sister, on the other hand, froze when she caught sight of Orlando. “Oh, Jesus.”
“Give me that,” Daeng said to Liz, grabbing her bag. He motioned at Quinn. “Get him out of the way.”
Liz tore her eyes away from Orlando and put an arm around her brother. “We need to give them some room.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Quinn said, twisting away from her.
“Don’t be stupid. You’ll only make things harder.”
He glared at her, then looked down at Orlando.
“Come on. Please,” Liz said.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay,” he whispered.
Liz guided him off to the side.
Working at skill levels equal to that of seasoned EMTs, Nate and Daeng ripped away the clothes covering Orlando’s wounds, and set to work stopping the bleeding. Once they’d done what they could, Daeng pulled a transfusion kit out of the bag.
“What’s her blood type?” he asked.
Before Quinn could think of the answer, Nate said, “B positive.”
“I’m B negative,” Daeng said. “She can take from me.”
As he set up the transfusion line, two of the men they had just rescued — Lanier and Berkeley — jogged up with a stretcher from the plane. Once blood was flowing out of Daeng’s veins and into hers, they moved Orlando onto the stretcher, lifted her, and, with Daeng jogging alongside, headed quickly toward the aircraft.
Quinn started to follow, but caught sight of Peter’s crumpled form and slowed, unsure what to do.
Nate came up behind him, carrying the first-aid kit. “I know,” he said. “But we don’t have time.”
Leaving Peter’s body seemed wrong. He deserved more than just being part of the carnage they were leaving behind on the island, but Nate was right. Orlando was in critical shape, and if she didn’t get medical attention soon, she would also die.
Liz put a hand on Quinn’s arm and pulled. “Let’s go.”
He took one last look at Peter before running with Nate and his sister toward the small jet.
The moment the last person had climbed aboard, Nate yelled toward the cockpit, “Go!”
In the back of the plane, Quinn knelt beside Orlando, took her hand in his, and gently squeezed it.
“I’m right here,” he whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He searched her face for some sign that she’d heard him, but saw nothing.
Moments after the plane’s wheels left the runway, Nate tapped him on the shoulder.
“Sorry,” Quinn’s former apprentice said. “I don’t want to disturb you, but, well, it’s just that I’m not sure where to tell the pilot to go.”
Nate had been held captive for several days on Duran Island, arriving there with a black bag over his head, while Quinn had come open-eyed, intent on rescuing Nate and the other men who’d been taken by Javier Romero.
There was only one choice.
“Isla de Cervantes,” Quinn said. The island was a short flight from Duran.
“Okay.” Nate headed toward the cockpit, fighting against the incline of their assent.
Under any other circumstances, Isla de Cervantes would have been out of the question. The events at Duran Island were deeply interwoven with Isla de Cervantes’s political history. Who knew how the authorities were going to react when they discovered what had happened on Duran? If they somehow learned Quinn and the others had been involved, and were still around, there would undoubtedly be questions.
Hard, difficult questions.
What Quinn and the others really needed was assistance from someone in the area, someone who could help cover their tracks. Quinn’s closest contact was Veronique Lucas, based an hour away in Puerto Rico. She had already proved incredibly useful by arranging for the plane they were now using. Maybe she had resources on Isla de Cervantes, too.
The plane was equipped with several satellite phones. The nearest was in a small cabinet next to the bathroom. Quinn retrieved it and made the call.
“Yes?” Veronique answered cautiously.
“It’s Quinn.”
“Quinn?” she said, happily surprised. “Is it martini time al—”
“Veronique, I need your help.”
“More?”
“Orlando’s been shot.”
The playful tone in her voice vanished. “What?”
“We’re flying to Isla de Cervantes now. We need help. Fast.”
“Can you bring her here?”
“Too far. She’s…she’s not doing well.”
“You’re flying into St. Renard’s?” The island’s main airport.
“Unless there’s another place that would be better,” he said.
“No, that’ll be fine. How soon?”
“Fifteen minutes or so, I think. Not much more than that.”
“I’ll have an ambulance waiting.”
Quinn’s gaze flicked to Nate and the three other freed prisoners. “We have others who need medical attention, too.”
“How many?”
“Four, but none are as bad off as Orlando.”
“Understood. So they could wait a little if they had to.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Let me—”
“One other thing,” he said. “No one can know we’re there. It could get…problematic.”
“You might want to tell me why.”
Quinn hesitated for a moment, but knew if he really wanted her help, she needed to know. “Do you remember a man named Javier Romero?”
“Hell, yeah. Kind of hard to forget.”
He gave her the CliffsNotes version of what had happened on Duran.
“Virgen Santa,” she said when he was done.
“You could also do us a favor and have their navy pick up the boat of Romero’s soldiers that got away. Someone should go to the island pretty soon, too. We left Romero alive, but who knows what Janus did before he came after us.”