Brett Battles - Shadow of Betrayal

“No! Leave us alone!” she had said as she pressed the gas pedal down.

In the back, Iris first laughed, then screamed in surprise as she slid along the upholstered seat. Marion looked back, aware she had not secured the child, but knowing she couldn’t stop now to do anything about it.

“Iris, sweetheart, give me your hand,” Marion said. She stretched her right arm back toward the girl, hoping Iris would understand. “Come on, please. Take my hand.”

After a moment, Iris reached out her small five-year-old hand and put it in Marion’s. Marion closed her own around it and pulled the child forward. Iris whimpered in fear, but allowed Marion to move her toward the gap between the front seats.

“All right, baby. Up here with me.”

She lifted Iris and tried to move her between the seats, but the girl’s feet got caught and wouldn’t come through.

“Lift your legs, honey.”

But Iris couldn’t figure out what Marion wanted. She just smiled, her loving, simple eyes oblivious to the danger around them. Marion had no choice but to pull the girl through as much as she could, then lay her headfirst on the passenger seat while she freed the girl’s legs.

Once she got Iris situated in the front seat, and the seatbelt fastened around the girl’s tiny form as best as possible, she checked her mirror again. The car was still there.

As they drove onward, a streetlight illuminated the driver. A man. About her age or maybe even a little younger. He didn’t look particularly menacing, but he did look determined, and that was all the danger she needed for motivation.

She remembered a church ahead. It was another four blocks down and off to the right. If she could somehow get to it while he was out of sight, she might have a chance. She turned a few blocks shy of the church and pushed the gas down hard. But he remained right with her.

Two blocks down, she went left, then left again, circling the block and hoping to get him off guard. Then she had her first bit of luck all week. A taxi pulled into the road behind her, and in front of her pursuer. It was driving slower and forced the man who had been following her to reduce his speed.

She went right at the next corner, going as fast as she dared. Half a block down on the left was the entrance to the church parking area. The tires of the Saab jammed up against the wheel well as she turned in to the lot. She doused the car’s headlights but kept driving. Because there were few cars present, she was able to race across the parking lot and out the exit on the other side, onto the parallel road.

For the next hour she checked her mirror every few seconds, but there was no one there. She’d lost him. When she finally allowed herself to pull to the side of the road, she began to cry.

It was too much. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know if she should do anything. Maybe she should just give in to the inevitable, and wait for them to find her.

She heard sniffling to her right.

Iris.

The girl had been so quiet for the last fifteen minutes, Marion had almost forgotten she was there. But she wasn’t quiet now. Her lower lip arced upward in the middle, quivering. Her eyes were full of water, some already spilling onto her cheeks, and her short, shaky intakes of air were punctuated by silent pauses. Her hands were against her chest, one holding the other.

“Oh, baby,” Marion said. She reached down, released the seatbelt, and lifted Iris into her arms. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Together they cried, Marion’s tears running down onto Iris’s hair, and Iris’s tears soaking Marion’s shirt. The child, so innocent, so unknowing, scared of what was happening, scared because the woman who was protecting her was crying.

It was the jolt Marion needed, the reminder that giving up was not acceptable.

“We’ll be fine, sweetie,” Marion said, her voice soft and comforting. “Everything will be fine. I won’t let anything happen. I’m here, okay? I’m here.”

After several minutes the young girl’s sobs began to subside, and soon Marion could feel Iris’s breath grow steady and deep. She had fallen asleep.

Marion returned her to the passenger seat, then tilted it back as far as it would go. She pulled the seatbelt over Iris’s hips. It was loose, but would hold the child in place.

The one thing she knew was that they had to get out of town. She didn’t know where, just away. As she drove toward the Motel Monique, she touched her pants pocket where she’d been keeping the key. Only it wasn’t there.

“Oh, God,” she said aloud. The key.

She thought back to the last time she’d seen it, and remembered with horror putting it in the box, the box she’d left at her parents’ house.

Their clothes, their passports, the documents she’d downloaded were all left at the motel. She took a deep breath and tried to calm down. The night manager, she thought. If she slipped him a little money, he’d give her another key. All right. It’s going to be okay. I’ll just run in, grab the suitcase, and we can be—

She cut herself off, her eyes growing wide. What if the others had found the box and the key inside? What if they were headed to the Motel Monique, too? What if they showed up while she was there?

Ahead, she could see the motel. But instead of stopping she drove right by. The suitcase was lost now. She would have to forget about it, and concentrate solely on keeping Iris safe.

The one thing she had was her wallet. And inside that, an ATM card. She found the nearest ATM and took out as much money as she could.

She wasn’t dumb. She’d seen plenty of movies and knew her transaction could be traced, but they already knew she was in Montreal, so since she was leaving town, it wouldn’t matter. A calculated risk, at least that’s what she told herself.

She wanted to get back into the States. She felt it would be much easier to get lost there. But without passports, driving into the country wouldn’t be possible.

So instead of heading dead south for the nearest border crossing, she headed southwest toward Toronto, the largest city in the country. There had to be secret ways across the border there, someone who could help her.

Or so she hoped.

She found an underground parking garage in downtown Toronto near the SkyDome, or as it was now officially known, the Rogers Centre, and took a spot on the third level, as far away from the stairs as possible. She then got into the back of the car, taking the still-sleeping Iris with her. Together they lay down on the cramped seat. The only good news was that it was a pleasant night. Cool, but not cold. The pullover sweatshirt she still wore would be enough to keep them both warm.

Exhausted, she thought she’d be asleep the minute she closed her eyes. But her mind still buzzed with the last drops of the adrenaline generated by her late-night escape. She gave in to it, knowing that fighting it would only push sleep further away. Her thoughts tumbled around, each taking center stage for a second, then being replaced by another.

Glimpses of Africa: the old shopkeeper with the Taser that didn’t work, Frau Roslyn shutting the door to the secret room. New York: the Kinkos employee who had shown interest in Iris, the call to her friend at the UN. And finally Montreal: her parents, her sister, the awful motel with the pay-by-the-hour rates, the cabdriver who thought she was a hooker, and the man who had come running out of her house as she tried to drive away. His face, like a snapshot, hovered before her. She would not forget his face. The look of his eyes, the set of his mouth. This was the face of those who wanted her, who wanted Iris. And, she knew, this was the face of death. The news reports out of New York confirmed that.

She awoke to the sound of a car door slamming somewhere nearby. At first she had no idea where she was. She felt stiff and cramped. She glanced to her left and saw the back of the driver’s seat, and remembered. The face that had stuck in her mind as she had fallen asleep came back to her again, but only for a brief second.

“Goah,” a soft voice said.

Marion felt Iris begin to move against her chest.

“Goah,” the girl repeated.

It was a sound Marion had come to understand. Iris was hungry.

“We’ll go find something, okay?” Marion said.

Iris smiled like she understood.

Marion sat up, holding the child to her chest as she did. The lights in the garage gave no indication what time of day it was. But when Marion had driven in, she had passed no more than half a dozen other cars. Now the garage, at least on this level, was packed.

She glanced at her watch. Almost 9 a.m. No wonder Iris was hungry.

“What do you feel like eating?” Marion said, smiling. “Pancakes?”

Iris smiled back.

“I could use some, too. And a cup of coffee.”

“Goah.”

“No coffee for you, sweetheart. Not for another few years, huh?”

Marion climbed out of the car first. Then as she reached in and started to pull Iris out, she heard several quick footsteps that stopped nearby. She pulled herself back out, knowing as she turned who she’d see. It would be him. The man from her house. The face of death.

But she was wrong.

There was a man there, yes. He was standing near the back of her car, at the end of the gap between her Saab and the car parked next to her. But he was no one she had seen before. He was taller than the man at her house, stockier, and a few years older, too. He was wearing a suit, like he was on his way to work. That was it, she realized. Someone just passing by, and stopping to see if she needed any help.

“Miss Dupuis?” he said.

The relief that had begun flooding through her turned to ice.

She looked behind her, hoping there was some way out, but there was only the concrete wall her car was parked against. The man was blocking her only exit.

“Please, Miss Dupuis. You need to come with me.” He had an accent. Australian, maybe.

Marion’s head whipped back and forth as she looked through the garage hoping to spot someone who could help her. But there was no one. Nine a.m. and no one in the garage?

The man smiled at her. “I probably should tell you that the structure has been closed for a few minutes. An untimely gate malfunction. But don’t worry. It’ll be fixed soon.” He took a step closer. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s no one around but you and me.”

Marion began to shake in fear. Iris, sensing something was up, started to cry.

“Goah. Goah,” she said between sobs.

“Help!” Marion screamed. “Help me!”

Iris wailed, scared by the sudden outburst.

The smiling man walked toward Marion.

“Help!” she screamed again.

“That’s not very cooperative,” the man said as he stopped only a few feet in front of her.

Before she even knew what was happening, one of his hands grabbed the back of her head while the other placed something over her mouth.

She struggled for a moment, but with Iris in her arms there was little she could do. Then she began to lose focus, her mind becoming heavy. It seemed to take everything she had to keep her eyes from closing, and then that wasn’t even enough.

No. She wanted to scream it, but the only place the word was spoken was in her head.

She tried to open her eyelids one last time, frantic to stay conscious. And for a few seconds they obeyed.

Iris was there, her tear-filled eyes staring into Marion’s.

“Goah,” she said, her lower lip jutting out the way it did when she was sad.

Marion’s eyelids closed. She had no strength left.

Please, God. Don’t let them hurt Iris. Don’t let them hurt… my … child…

“The situation is secure,” the man Marion had first mistaken for a businessman said into his phone. To his colleagues he was known as Leo Tucker.

“What are their conditions?” Tucker’s boss, Mr. Rose, asked.

“The woman’s unconscious. The child seems fine, though she’s scared. Naturally, I guess. What do you want us to do?”

The original plan had been to just remove Marion Dupuis and the child she’d stolen out from under them. Kill them and dump them someplace where it would be years before they were found. But Tucker knew things had changed the minute they realized in Montreal that someone else was also interested in the two targets. At least Marion Dupuis had been predictable enough to take her sister’s car. The night Tucker and his men had arranged the “accident” at Marion’s family’s house, he had also put a tracking device in her sister’s car just in case. Preparation, that’s what it was all about.

Unfortunately, what they hadn’t been prepared for was someone else being there, too. Tucker would have been much happier if he knew who the man who’d followed Marion from her house had been, but whoever he was, he’d been able to lose Tucker’s men. A problem, but not one Tucker could personally see to. He’d have to use one of his contacts to see if they could find out anything.

“Where’s the plane?” Mr. Rose asked.

“Here. In Toronto.”

“Use it. Bring them here,” his boss said. “We need to find out what she knows about the others. We can use the girl as motivation. And if the child is still alive after, we’ll make her part of the program.”

“Consider us on our way.”

CHAPTER

18

QUINN DIDN’T EVEN NEED TO CRACK OPEN HIS EYES to know where he was. He could sense it as his body began to wake. The feel of the sheets, the comfort of a known pillow, and the overall feeling that he belonged.

Home. He was in his house in the Hollywood Hills above the Los Angeles Basin. He smiled at the thought.

It had been almost three weeks since he’d last been here. First the job in Ireland, then the part job, part vacation in Boston, followed by all the fun in New York and Montreal. His work often kept him away for long periods of time, but for some reason it felt extra special this time to be back in his own bed.

When Peter told him the meeting was to take place in Los Angeles, Quinn almost didn’t believe him. He made sure he, Orlando, and Nate were on the next flight west.

He opened his eyes and looked at the only thing that was out of place in his room. Orlando lay on the bed next to him, facing away. It wasn’t that she’d never been here before, but those occurrences were few. Mainly he had either gone to see her in Vietnam or San Francisco, or they had met elsewhere. Hawaii, Bali once, Japan, and a very wonderful week in Switzerland.

But here she was now, her bare shoulder sticking out from under the sheet hinting at more bare skin below. Quinn moved over, spooning into her. He placed his arm over her side and rested his hand on her chest between and just above her breasts. She turned, moving into him, so that they could become as close as possible.

“Don’t even think about it,” she whispered as his hand began to drift south. “We don’t have time.”

“The meeting’s not until noon,” he said.

“That’s only five hours away. We’ve got a lot to do before then.”