“For God’s sake, David. Run interference. I don’t have time to deal with him.”
“He said to tell you it has to do with Peter.” He said the name almost like it was a question, as if he wasn’t sure he was pronouncing it right.
Helen froze. “He said Peter?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
That’s right. That’s how she knew Quinn. He was Peter’s go-to cleaner. But why would he be calling now? What the hell was going on? “Give me a minute, then put him through.”
When her phone rang, she was sitting again, looking at her computer. She picked up the receiver and said, “Mr. Quinn.”
“Director Cho, thank you for taking my call. I’m—”
“I know who you are,” she said. On her monitor was a surprisingly short dossier for one Jonathan Quinn. “You’re a cleaner.”
“That’s correct.”
“As you can imagine, my schedule is rather full. I only have a moment. If we could make this quick?”
“Of course. I’m hoping you can help me with a few questions.”
“I’m not an information service.”
“I’m asking as a favor to Peter.”
As a test, she said, “If Peter wants a favor, he can call himself.”
“Ma’am, I have no doubt you already know Peter was killed in the Caribbean early last week.”
She said nothing.
“I was standing less than fifty feet away from him when it happened.”
Helen seldom found herself at a loss for words, but this was one of those moments. When she finally found her voice, she said, “Tell me how it happened.”
Quinn told her a story of kidnapping and torture and murder and escape. His details so neatly filled in the holes in the report on Peter’s death that she knew he was telling the truth. Her analysts were right. It had been an act of revenge gone wrong.
“The rest of you survived, though?” she asked.
A hesitation. “Yes.”
Neither said anything for a moment.
“You said you had questions, Mr. Quinn.”
“Peter left some unfinished business that he wanted me to take care of.”
“And what might that be?”
“What do you know about Miranda Keyes’s death?”
“Miranda Keyes?” Helen said. “Who is Miranda…” Her voice trailed off as she remembered. “You mean the woman from the State Department killed in that car accident?”
“It wasn’t an accident. Someone murdered her and her colleagues.”
“That was a long time ago. I don’t remember all the details, but I seem to recall that there was a thorough investigation and no determination of foul play. So that’s quite an accusation.”
“It’s not an accusation. The original report was suppressed.”
“Who would do that?”
“That’s one of my questions.”
“Well, even if it’s true, I obviously have no idea.”
“Maybe not. But you’re in a position to help me find out.”
“And why would I do that?”
“It’s my understanding that you and Peter were close, or at least as close as Peter would let anyone get. I thought you’d be interested in bringing his wife’s killers to justice.”
“Wait, are you saying Miranda Keyes and Peter were married?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“That’s not my problem.”
She considered the possibility. It would have been the kind of marriage better kept secret, for the obvious, diplomatic reasons. But still… “I knew Peter. If he wouldn’t share that with me, he wouldn’t tell you, either.”
“You’re right. He never said a word to me. But he did tell his assistant, Misty Blake.”
Misty Blake. For a second time, Helen found herself unable to speak.
“I need your help narrowing down who might have wanted her dead,” Quinn said. “I’ll take it—”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” she said, the pieces falling into place.
“Excuse me?”
“You were with Misty at Peter’s apartment.”
Now it was Quinn’s turn not to say anything.
She decided to push again, using what she knew to get more information out of him. “Yesterday photos were taken of Misty and two other men outside Peter’s place. One of them is you, isn’t it?”
“No,” he said cautiously. “I…I left before they went back there.”
“But you were there for the break-in the day before, weren’t you? I’ll bet you’re even the one who shot my man in the hand?”
“Your man? Sorry I bothered—”
Sensing he was about to hang up, she said, “Hold on. While the team does work at one of the agencies I oversee, I had no knowledge of the operation, not until it was over.”
Silence.
“Mr. Quinn?”
The silence continued for another second, then, “You sent men to a house in Arlington Ridge, too.”
“Again, my people, but not by me. Once I found out what was going on, I canceled the entire job.”
Dead air, long and empty. If the display hadn’t shown that the connection was still active, Helen would have thought Quinn had disconnected.
“Director Cho,” he said after nearly half a minute. “This agency of yours — what’s it called?”
“That’s not important,” she said.
“Really? You’re dodging that question? You don’t think I could find out some other way?”
“All right, it’s called O & O.”
“Ah, so that’s O & O. I’ve heard of them, but have never had the pleasure until now. Not the kind of place I’d ever do work for. They don’t exactly have the best rep.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“My understanding is that O & O does work for hire.”
“If you’ve heard of O & O, then you know it does.”
“Then don’t you see? The client who sent them after us is most likely the one who sold Peter out to prevent him from looking into his wife’s murder. Whether they pulled the trigger or not, they’re the ones responsible for his death. Now they seem to be interested in taking out my friends and me. So what I need you to do is tell me who this client is.”
“You’ll forgive me for declining to give you that information,” she said.
“Actually, I won’t.”
“Let me rephrase. Decline to give you that information at the moment. You understand that I can’t just give you a name without doing some due diligence on my end.” The irony of her statement was not lost on her.
“I believe I can help you with that. Expect an e-mail from me. You’ll want to examine the attached files very carefully.”
“You have my e-mail address?”
“Of course,” he said. “Do you have a pen?”
“Yes.”
He gave her a phone number. “I expect to hear from you very, very soon. And know this. I’m going to find out who these people are one way or the other, and you’d much rather be on board now than have me look later into why you were unwilling to help.”
“Is that a threat, Mr. Quinn?”
“It is.”
CHAPTER 29
The Mole had no idea what he was going to tell Griffin if Orlando and Quinn didn’t provide him direction. He could go ahead and give up this Misty Blake woman, but he had a pretty good idea what Griffin would do if he found the woman, and the Mole couldn’t bring himself to be a part of that.
Perhaps he could generate a fictional identity. He could easily seed data all over the place to support it. He played it through in his mind, and grimaced. With enough time, he could do it, but that he didn’t have. One little glitch and it would be a house of cards tumbling down right on top of him.
So…what? Keep lying and say he couldn’t find anything? Griffin would never go for that.
The only real solution was if he didn’t have to worry about Griffin anymore.