It was going to be a long evening.
They got to work in his room first, putting his clothes back on his closet shelves, calling housekeeping to change the sheets and replace the towels that had been thrown onto the floor, picking up his toiletries. Then they did the same in her room.
“You hungry?” They crossed the hallway to his room, where Quinn picked up the bag of fish and chips. “It’s long since cold.”
They tried reheating it in the microwave, but that left the fish tough and the breading mushy. So, they turned on their security cameras and took the bag with them down to the ground floor, where the concierge was happy to compost its contents with the kitchen scraps. They got a table in the restaurant, Quinn ordering another steak with whisky, while she had the roast chicken again with a glass of sauvignon blanc.
“Cheers.”
She raised her glass, but he could see that the initial rush of relief had worn off.
“It’s going to be hard to sleep tonight. He was here, Quinn. He might have been waiting and watching for us to leave the rooms. He made his way past all of this security and hacked our locks with no trouble. If you hadn’t set your camera…”
Quinn took her hand. “Do you want to move to another hotel?”
She shook her head. “How would another hotel help? It took him only a handful of days to find us here. He’ll just do it again. This time, maybe he’ll succeed. Or maybe he’ll plant drugs in your rental vehicle.”
It wasn’t often that Quinn saw Elizabeth shaken up. The last time had been when he’d pulled her away from that warlord’s henchmen at the airport in Mazar-e-Sharif.
He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “Maybe you should fly back to the States.”
She glared at him. “And leave you alone? Didn’t you just say I’m the brains and you’d be screwed without me?”
Well, she had him there.
“I couldnae live wi’ myself if anythin’ happened to you, Lilibet.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if I went back to Denver and you wound up dead.”
Quinn lowered his voice, leaned closer. “You’re an intelligence expert. I’m an SAS veteran. We work for the best private security firm in the world.”
“You think we should call Cobra.”
“It’s either that or we hide—stay in some cash-only hotel, dump our mobile phones and get a burner, return the rental and use the underground and buses.”
She nodded. “Well, I need internet to work.”
“I would rather lose my job a thousand times than risk your life.”
They finished their dinner and went back up to Elizabeth’s room, where Elizabeth called Corbray. She had a closer relationship with their bosses than Quinn did.
“Hey, Javier. I’m okay. Thanks. Actually, I need to have a video chat with you and Derek as soon as possible. I’m with Quinn in Scotland. I came over to help him look into the murder of his friend. The killer isn’t happy about that and broke into our hotel rooms today to plant drugs on us. I brought my laptop, so I’ll log into our systems via VPN. Thanks. Talk to you soon.”
“What did he say?”
“He was about to go into a meeting at the Pentagon. He canceled it. He’ll call Tower and be online with us in ten minutes.”
15
“What the hell happened to you two?” Javier Corbray filled half of Elizabeth’s computer screen, Derek Tower the other half, the former in D.C., the latter in Denver.
“I was attacked by the man who’s likely responsible for the murder of my best friend.” Quinn held up his arm. “He tried to knife me, but I blocked it and got him in the face wi’ my blade. Shields was punched by an asshole who might be smugglin’ drugs and aidin’ terrorists, though we’ve no proof of that.”
Derek remained impassive. “Could you put that into context for us?”
Corbray raised a hand. “Are you okay, Shields?”
“I’ve got a mild concussion, but I’ll be fine.” She didn’t want to tell them that it was hard for her to look at computer screens. She’d deal with that later if necessary.