Brett Battles - Shadow of Betrayal

An image of the baskets being loaded onto the other helicopters filled Quinn’s mind as he moved over to where the technician sat waiting. Anger made Quinn grab the man harder than he’d planned, but what the hell? The son of a bitch deserved it.

“Come on,” he said. He pushed the man back across to where Orlando sat waiting. “There.” Quinn pointed at the chair he’d been sitting in a few moments earlier.

Once the man was down, Orlando grabbed his right hand and placed his thumb on the screen of her cell phone.

“What the fuck?” the man said as the screen lit up.

A bright light glowed on the screen for a moment, then went out. Orlando let go of his hand, then tapped the phone twice bringing up the keyboard.

While Orlando was busy with the phone, Quinn crouched down so that he was eye level with the technician. He pointed his SIG at the man’s chest.

“What’s your name?” Quinn said.

The man shook his head, then said, “I’m not talking.”

“Really?” Quinn looked at Orlando. “Door.”

Instantly she was on the move. Quinn then grabbed the technician and pulled him back to his feet.

As Orlando threw the side door open, the cabin was filled with the mixed roar of the wind and the engine. Within seconds the temperature dipped to near freezing.

Quinn shoved the man in the back, moving him near the opening. The man got to within two feet, but would go no more. Quinn placed the barrel of his gun against the back of the man’s head.

“Take a good look,” he yelled. “There’s a hell of a lot of wilderness out there. By the time someone finds your body, you won’t be much more than bones. But I guess that wouldn’t be something you’d need to worry about. It’s the fall you’re thinking about, isn’t it?” He paused. “You won’t have to worry about the fall, either. I’m going to shoot you in the head as I push you out. So, really, it’s the bullet you need to be worried about. Now, what’s your name?”

The man said something, but his words were lost in the wind.

“Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

The man twisted his head, mindful of the gun still pointed at him. “Leary William Leary.”

“You’re not lying to me, are you, William?”

“No, sir. Not lying.”

“And you’ll answer all my questions?”

“I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Quinn let him stand there for a moment longer, then nodded at Orlando to shut the door.

“So, William,” Quinn said after he returned the man to his seat. “What’s going on with the children?”

Leary looked between the three of them. “You have to understand, I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t know what I was getting into when they hired me, and by the time I got to the base it was too—”

“Orlando, get the door.”

“No! No!” Leary said.

“Then don’t lie to me, William. You knew what was going on. You were a part of it.”

William licked his lips. “I swear I didn’t know what was going on. Mr. Rose threatened to kill me if I didn’t help them.”

“Who is Mr. Rose?” Quinn asked.

“Mr. Rose?” Leary said, confused. “He’s the big boss.”

“The Australian?”

“That’s Tucker. He was in charge of manpower outside of the lab. Security, things like that. And I think he’s the one who brought the children here.”

“So, what? You answered an ad, and took the job without knowing what it was?”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“You’re lying,” Orlando said. She was looking at the display on her phone.

“What are you talking about?” Leary said.

“Tell us about Wright Memorial Hospital,” she said.

He stared at her, unable to speak at first.

“Don’t remember that?” she asked. “Then how about Helene General Hospital? Or even the Rosen Medical Center.”

“How did you …” Leary’s voice dropped into silence.

Quinn looked at Orlando. The thumb scan she had done had apparently come up with gold.

“He’s a doctor,” she said. “Only he’s a little screwed up. Likes to sell drugs he took from work to schoolkids. Must have half a dozen aliases. Or did I get the wrong William Leary?”

The look on the man’s face told them she was right.

“What kind of doctor?” Quinn asked the man.

He hesitated, trying not to look at Orlando. “General practice.”

“Huh,” Orlando said. “Then they must have got it wrong on your record.”

“What’s it say?” Quinn asked.

“Says that Dr. Leary here is an anesthesiologist.”

“I-I haven’t done that for a while,” Leary stammered.

“How long is a while?” Quinn asked.

“I stopped a couple years ago, okay?”

“Stopped?” Orlando asked.

Leary let out a defeated breath. “My license was revoked. Happy? But then Mr. Rose found me. And he offered me a hell of a lot of money.”

“What did Mr. Rose want you to do?” Quinn asked.

“Keep the children sedated until we need them.”

“Need them for what?”

“You don’t know?” Leary said. “But isn’t that why you’re here?”

No one said anything.

Finally, Leary said, “As a diversion. To get the explosives in.”

No one said anything for nearly thirty seconds.

“What explosives?” Quinn asked.

“They’re built into the juice boxes,” Leary said. “Binary explosives. Clear liquid. Looks harmless.”

“How does it work?” Quinn asked.

“I didn’t work on them directly.”

“But you know,” Quinn said.

Leary looked away, then nodded. “I heard something.”

“What?”

“I was told the chemicals inside were kept in two different compartments inside the pouches. Apparently they’re only dangerous once the divider between them is removed and they mix together. The boxes will go in with the kids.”

“Into where?”

“That I don’t know.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Quinn said.

“I don’t! Really!”

Quinn stared at him, watching to see if he was lying. But he wasn’t. “How are the boxes triggered?”

The technician glanced at the floor. “One of the children,” he said. “One of the children is the trigger.”

Quinn heard Marion gasp, but she said nothing.

“How does it work?” Quinn asked.

“It… em … eh …”

Quinn’s hand shot out, shoving the man’s head against the wall.

“How does it work?” he repeated.

The man’s eyes were wild in fear; for a few seconds his gaze fell on Marion as if he were scared of her the most. “One of the children has the triggering device implanted in her thigh, just below the skin. It has to be activated first. A handheld device. I only saw it once, but it looked like a cell phone.”

“Who has it?”

“I don’t know. Mr. Rose or Tucker, I would guess.”

“So they activate it,” Orlando said. “Then what?”

Again he glanced momentarily at Marion. “When the trigger, the child, enters the room where the boxes are, a signal from her prompts the membrane inside to dissolve. Then thirty seconds later …”

“Jesus,” Orlando said.

“So one of the children is the trigger,” Quinn said.

Again the glance.

“Yes,” Leary said.

“Which one?”

No answer.

“Which one?”

“The new one,” Leary whispered, this time doing everything he could not to look at Marion. “The African girl.”

“Oh, God,” Marion said. “Oh, God, no.”

Quinn shot her a glance, and she grew quiet again.

“One of you was a surgeon?” Orlando asked.

“N-No,” Leary said.

A stillness filled the cabin before Orlando asked her next question. “Then who implanted the device in the girl?”

Leary dropped his chin to his chest. “Don’t make me answer that.” It was answer enough.

Quinn pushed the man’s head back up. “We need to know the target, William.”

“I told you, I have no idea,” Leary said. “I just know they needed the children to make it happen. They had to be special needs. Really, that’s all I know.”

“So you don’t know where the kids came from?”

The look on the former doctor’s face said differently. “I overheard something, maybe.”

“What?”

“Just that it was easier to obtain what they needed outside the U.S. In some other countries children like them aren’t as well cared for. They’re easier to … obtain. Tucker would bring them back in twos or threes. One time it was half a dozen. We fed them and kept them quiet.”

“By sedating them,” Orlando said.

Leary stared straight ahead, not looking at anyone.

“Door,” Quinn said.

“No!” Leary yelled as Quinn hauled him back to his feet. “I don’t know who the target is. Please, believe me.”

“I believe you,” Quinn said.

Orlando was at the door.

“Open it,” Quinn said.

“But you just said you believed me,” Leary said.

“You’re right. I did.”

The door flew open, and the noise level in the cabin once again became deafening. Leary tried to turn, but Quinn had a tight grip on his neck.

Once again, Quinn maneuvered him so Leary faced outward with Quinn’s gun against the back of the man’s head. For a second he thought he could hear Leary say, “Please, don’t.” But then an image of the gurneys parked in the storage room flashed in his mind.

Pulling the trigger of his SIG was one of the easiest things he’d done in a long time.

CHAPTER

38

“FURUTA’S DEAD,” QUINN SAID INTO THE PHONE.“Nothing I could do. They let him bleed out.”

“Oh, Christ,” Peter said.

“We’ve got a bigger problem than that.”

“What is it?”

Quinn paused for a moment. “We’re in a helicopter. Heading toward Santa Maria, California. Check the map, you’ll see what I mean.”

Nothing for a moment, then, “Okay, got it. That’s about seventy miles north of Santa Barbara. I’m not sure what you … oh, shit.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Peter had seen what Quinn already knew. A little more than another hour north of Santa Maria was the small coastal town of San Simeon. And just beyond San Simeon, Hearst Castle. Not a castle, really, but about as close to it as you got in the States. It was a colossal home built by the late newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, and was the inspiration for Xanadu in the old Orson Welles film Citizen Kane. For decades now it had been run as a tourist destination by the State of California.

Usually it wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar. Nothing to draw the attention of someone like Quinn or Peter. But as Hardwick had pointed out to Quinn, Hearst Castle was playing host to a group other than tourists this week. In fact, no tourist had been allowed near the place for the last ten days. Its remote location yet luxurious setting made it the perfect place for this year’s G8 summit meeting—a meeting of the heads of state from all the “Group of Eight” nations.

The meetings had begun in the mid-seventies with only six participating nations. They grew from the need for a more global stance to the oil shortages and recession of the time, then continued to grow and expand in the following decades until it had become arguably the most important international meeting of the year.

Every year the meeting would rotate to another of the member nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was designed to provide an opportunity for the leaders of some of the world’s most powerful nations to discuss whatever issues were deemed important at the time. And this year, it was the U.S.’s turn to host.