CHAPTER 1
NINE YEARS EARLIER
MARRAKESH, MOROCCO
Jonathan Quinn sat quietly in the back of the van, eyes on the video monitor, wireless earbuds in his ears. On the screen was the video feed from the body cam worn by the operation’s team leader, Thomas Klopp.
“There’s Canto,” Nate said. He sat next to Quinn, keeping tabs on the feeds from cameras hidden around the neighborhood.
Quinn glanced at his apprentice’s monitor. The upper left feed showed a street wide enough for only pedestrians and motorcycles. At the bottom of the image, a superimposed designation identified the location as being three blocks from the target’s house. Maurice Canto was center screen, surrounded by four bodyguards, pictures of each having been in the briefing file. Based on Canto’s known habits, an additional guard would be a dozen or so meters in front, and another the same distance behind.
Quinn toggled his mic. “Alpha’s approaching.”
“Copy,” Klopp responded.
To Nate, Quinn said, “Locate the bodyguard on point.”
“Checking.” The images from different cameras flicked on the screen until Nate stopped on one. “There.”
The lead guard was a block ahead of his boss.
“How did you miss him?” Quinn asked.
“I-I’m not sure.”
“A slip like that could get someone killed.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
By most measures, Nate was proving to be an excellent apprentice, but when mistakes like this happened, Quinn wondered if the kid would ever become a full-fledged cleaner.
Quinn activated his mic again. “Guard one is two blocks away, using route C.”
“Copy,” Klopp said.
Being a lookout was not a task Quinn normally took on. He was a scene cleaner, the person who scrubbed a mission location of all evidence of foul play. A job that, more times than not, included the removal of a body. But due to circumstances that the client—Albert Sanger of Stonewell Security Solutions—had described as “out of my control,” the mission team was short-handed and Quinn had reluctantly agreed to the additional duties.
Like he and Nate had seen on the scouts they’d performed over the last two days, when the lead bodyguard reached the house, he brought up his phone and studied the screen to check the security cameras inside the house. These were the same cameras Quinn and Nate had tapped into the first night on the job, the feeds from which played on a third monitor in the van, between Quinn’s and Nate’s stations.
The guard completed his check a few seconds before his boss arrived. He shared a few words with Canto, and pushed a button on his phone.
A message flashed on the center monitor.
“Alarm’s off,” Quinn said into his mic.
“Copy,” Klopp whispered.
Canto did not enter the residence right away. Instead, he and two of his bodyguards waited outside while the four others went in.
“Sticking to script,” Quinn said. “Advance team’s inside. Canto still out front.”
Klopp clicked his mic once to acknowledge.
Via Canto’s own security cameras, Quinn and Nate watched the men in the house split into two groups. One stayed on the ground floor, while the other pair started up the stairs.
Canto’s place was a traditional, old-city home—several floors with open walkways all built around a central core open to the sky. Its age, however, did not mean it was rundown. Canto had clearly invested a lot of money renovating it, both in terms of style and security.
Like Quinn and Nate had seen before, the duo on the stairs went straight to the roof deck first. After they conducted a quick search, they descended to the fourth floor and took a fast but thorough look around. When they descended to the third level, Quinn switched his monitor to one of the rooftop cameras and said, “Cleared to position one.”
Half a second later, Klopp and his four-man team appeared on top of the building behind Canto’s. After quietly lowering themselves down the three-meter difference, they crept over to the top of the stairs.
“In position,” Klopp said.
“I’ve got you on screen,” Quinn replied.
On the center monitor, the two guards who’d been on the ground level went up one flight, where they were met by the two coming down. After a search of the floor and a short huddle, one pair returned to the ground floor while the other headed up again.
“Guard three and guard four heading back your way,” Quinn said.
A click from Klopp.
As they’d rehearsed, Nate switched his screen to a feed from the ground floor, while Quinn activated the quad-box function on his, giving him shots from all four rooftop cameras simultaneously.
On Nate’s monitor, the ground-floor guards walked over to the front door and let their boss in. The two guards who had been waiting outside with him remained where they were.
Some might call Canto paranoid, but the man had reason to be cautious. His position as a trusted adviser to the notorious arms dealer Janus Sideropoulos put a target on his back.
On three of the four cameras Quinn was watching, the other two guards stepped onto the roof, considerably more relaxed than they’d been on their previous visit. They didn’t even realize they weren’t alone until darts filled with Beta-Somnol—a fast-acting knockout drug—hit them. One was able to get his hand halfway up to the dart before he dropped to the deck. The other one didn’t even try.
Quinn shot a look at Nate’s monitor, but neither Canto nor the guards with him gave any hint they’d heard a thing. Canto had grabbed a bottle of something from a cabinet and was starting up the stairs.
Quinn said, “Canto’s on the way.”
“Alone?” Klopp asked.
“Alone.”
“Copy.”
On the third floor, Canto went to his office and shut the door behind him.
“Alpha in location three-one,” Quinn said. “Guards one and two still on ground floor, guard one using the toilet, and guard two by the front door. No eyes on the stairs. You are free to move.”
“Copy that.”
Klopp led his team onto the stairway and down to the third floor. There, two of his men peeled off to keep an eye on Canto’s office, while Klopp and the other two continued down until they were one floor above ground level.
“Status,” he whispered.
“No change,” Quinn said.
Klopp clicked his mic. He and his men then moved along the walkway, behind the half wall at the edge.
When they reached the optimum spot, Quinn said, “Stop.”
The men complied.
“Guard two’s standing near the front entrance,” Quinn said. “It’s a straight shot from there. If you move four meters ahead, you’ll have your best angle on the door to the toilet. Approximately at your two o’clock.”
Klopp left one of his men at the first position, and proceeded with the other to the second spot.
“Any movement at the toilet?” Klopp whispered.
“Door’s still closed.”
With a signal from Klopp, the man at position one rose just high enough to aim his dart gun and shoot. Guard two must have seen the projectile coming at the last second, because he tensed but couldn’t avoid being hit. In a panic, he turned toward the front door, but the drug took him down before he could touch the knob.
The whoosh of a flushing toilet.
“Here he comes,” Quinn said.
With no need to hide now, Klopp and his companion braced their weapons on top of the half wall and aimed them at the bathroom door. A moment later, the door swung open and guard one stepped out, his gaze on his crotch to make sure his pants were fastened.
Klopp’s partner fired a dart into the guard’s shoulder. This guy yanked the dart out before it could deliver its full payload, so Klopp pulled his own trigger, hitting the target in the thigh. The man reached for it but wasn’t speedy enough this time, and kept heading down until he crumpled on the floor.
That was Quinn and Nate’s cue.
Quick and efficient, they shut down the monitors and cleared everything from the central area of the van. Nate moved into the driver’s seat, and Quinn the front passenger’s. On previous missions, their spots had always been reversed, but the time had come for Nate to take on more responsibilities.
Quinn toggled his mic button. “Team two, ready?”
“Team two ready.”
Team two consisted of the fifth and sixth men working with Klopp. They were positioned near Canto’s building.
“Heading to you now,” Quinn said.
“Copy.”
Nate started the engine and navigated the ancient streets toward their destination. Unlike the narrow road Canto and his men had arrived on, the one in front of his house was wide enough for small vehicles, such as the undersized delivery van Quinn and Nate were in.
“Twenty seconds out,” Quinn said into the radio.
As the van turned onto the target’s street, Quinn and Nate caught sight of Canto’s remaining pair of guards standing in the front-door recess.
Nate eased the van to a stop right in front of Canto’s house, to avoid drawing any attention. Other than from Canto’s bodyguards, of course. One of them slapped the side of the van and shouted for Nate to keep moving. Before he could make a second demand, team two moved into the narrow gap between the van and the building at either end, delivering the same Beta-Somnol fate that had befallen the guards’ colleagues.
Quinn and Nate moved into the back of the van, slid open the side door and, with the help of team two, maneuvered the unconscious bodyguards inside. They then donned stocking caps, checked that their long sleeves were all the way down, and pulled on their rubber work gloves. With the tools of their trade in prepacked duffel bags slung over their shoulders, they exited the vehicle and team two entered.
Quinn nodded at Nate, who knocked twice on the house’s front door, paused, and knocked once more. One of Klopp’s inside men opened the door, and the two cleaners slipped into Canto’s home. As soon as the door closed, they heard the van drive off. That whole operation had been accomplished in less than forty seconds, matching the best time from their practice the previous day.
Nate knelt beside the downed bodyguard near the door, while Quinn checked the one by the toilet. The man’s pulse was slow and steady. A single dose from the darts would have been enough to keep someone his size unconscious for at least two hours, but this guy had been hit twice, receiving at least some of the first dose and all of the second. He’d likely be out for at least an extra hour. And boy, did he have a hellish hangover coming.
Quinn plucked out the dart from the guy’s thigh and found the one the guard had pulled out on his own. After stowing them in his bag, Quinn glanced up the central opening toward the third floor. From his angle, he couldn’t see much of anything, but knew Klopp and his team would be preparing to storm Canto’s office. Once they had the target subdued, a second van would be called in, and Canto would be transferred into it in the same efficient manner as before.
Quinn and Nate’s main job on the mission was not only to stage the house so that it looked like a kidnapping—not a stretch since that was exactly what it was—but to also plant evidence indicating the action had been perpetrated by Laurent Hájek, a rival of Janus Sideropoulos.
In one of the duffel bags, sealed in a special case, were partial fingerprints of known Hájek associates. Quinn and Nate would transfer them to a few select spots within the house. The trick was to leave just enough to convince Sideropoulos’s people that their competitor was behind this. Too many prints—or too few, for that matter—and the scene would look like the setup it was.
Quinn rolled the guard over and tied his hands behind his back with the same kind of cord favored by Hájek’s associates. Much less efficient than the zip ties Quinn and Nate usually used, but to each their own. After he’d bound the man’s ankles, Quinn shoved him against the wall and headed over to see how Nate was doing.
“Klopp to Quinn.”
Quinn clicked on his mic. “Go for Quinn.”
“I need you up here. We have a problem.”
“Copy.” To Nate, Quinn said, “You good here?”
“I’m actually done.” Nate zipped up his duffel. “You want me to come with you?”
Quinn nodded, and the two men headed up the stairs. When they reached the third floor, they discovered one of Klopp’s men standing outside Canto’s office.
“Your boss inside?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, sir,” the man said, moving out of the way so they could enter.
The office was twice as long as it was wide, running parallel to the outer walkway. Shelves filled with expensive trinkets and treasures and old books lined the walls in a gaudy display of wealth. The spoils of blood money, Quinn knew.
A large, antique desk sat toward the other end of the room, and slumped over the top was Canto. By all appearances, it looked as if Klopp had achieved his goal, but if that was the case, Klopp and the three men with him would not have looked so uneasy.
“What’s going on?” Quinn asked.
Klopp grabbed Canto by the hair and lifted the man’s head. The Italian’s eyes lolled dead in their sockets, and his mouth was surrounded by foam.
“The asshole killed himself,” Klopp said. “I tagged him, but there was something weird about his expression as he fell down. I didn’t think anything of it until I checked his pulse and realized he was dead.”
Quinn walked around the desk to the other side of Canto. “Lean him back.”
Klopp grabbed the dead man’s shoulders and pulled him into a sitting position.
“Did you see him put something in his mouth?” Quinn asked.
Klopp shook his head. “His hands never got close to his face.”
Glancing at Nate, Quinn said, “Flashlight.”
When Quinn opened Canto’s mouth, Nate shined his light between the Italian’s teeth. One of the molars on the bottom right was broken. An old-school, fake-tooth suicide pill. He motioned for Klopp to take a look.
“Jesus. Is that what I think it is?” Klopp said.
“It appears to be.”
“I thought those things were just Cold War fairy tales. Who would want one of those in their mouth?” He frowned. “Sanger is going to be pissed.”
Quinn didn’t care. Dealing with Sanger’s reaction would be Klopp’s problem.
The main thing Quinn needed to concern himself with was that he and Nate now had to get rid of a corpse. But, like any job he took, all the contingencies had been planned for.
The mission was essentially the same as far as Quinn was concerned. While Sanger and his friends at Stonewell wouldn’t be able to extract any information from the dead man, they could exploit his disappearance and make Sideropoulos think his rival was gunning for him.
“We could use a little help,” Quinn said.
“What kind of help?” Klopp asked. Op agents were seldom interested in assisting the cleaning staff.
“Tying up the guards on the roof,” Quinn said. “Nate can give you the cord. Hands behind the back and ankles. And be sure to collect the darts and bring them back to me.”
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