Read Online The Silenced by Brett Battles - Free Book Online Page B

Angeles.
    “We’ll get him,” Mikhail reassured her.
    Petra glanced at him, surprised that he could read her so well. They were in the back seat of a Nissan Maxima, Mikhail with his laptop propped on his lap and a cell phone in his hand, and Petra holding nothing but her fear that they would fail again. Kolya was up front driving.
    “Hello?” Mikhail said into his phone. “Da … da …” He sandwiched it between his ear and his shoulder, then typed something on his computer. “Spasibo.”
    He hung up the phone and looked at Petra.
    “What?” she asked.
    “Stepka got an address,” Mikhail said.
    “How old?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “Not old.” He smiled. “Current.”
    They reached Portland at nine-thirty, and twenty minutes later entered the small town of Gorham.
    “There,” Mikhail said, pointing at a house on the left, set back from the street.
    “I don’t see any lights,” Kolya said. “Maybe he’s not home.”
    They drove past, continuing down the road another hundred yards before Petra told Kolya to pull to the side.
    “What now?” Mikhail asked.
    Petra considered their options. They could get out of the car here and work their way back in the darkness. Take some time to observe the house, make sure nothing was amiss before making a move. That would be the cautious approach.
    But so far the cautious approach hadn’t worked for them.
    “We go knock on the door,” she said.
    While the day had been cool, the night was bordering on damn cold. Quinn was wearing two T-shirts, a thick sweater, and a wool jacket. He’d even put thermals on under his jeans. Still, he swore he could feel his body temperature lowering.
    Nate was similarly attired. But if he was as miserable as Quinn, he wasn’t saying anything. They’d been waiting in the woods for an hour, having worked their way in from a half mile away.
    They’d found a suitable hiding place between some trees and bushes, a small area that had been flattened by either kids or an animal. Not quite the fort Quinn had had in his youth, but it would do.
    They were behind the garage, and from that angle could see only part of the back of the house and none of the front yard. The windows on this side were all dark. Perhaps the target had turned in early.
    Donovan’s voice came over their comm gear. “Position check.”
    “Set,” five voices replied, one after the other in a prearranged order. Quinn and Nate remained silent. Donovan was only interested in his ops team at the moment, not the cleaning crew.
    Quinn checked his watch. Seven minutes until show-time.
    “How long do you think it’ll take them?” Nate whispered.
    Quinn kept his eyes on the dark house. “We’ll get the call at 10:05.”
    “My money’s on 10:07,” Nate said.
    “Hundred bucks?” Quinn asked.
    “Works for me.”
    Quinn flexed his feet to keep his muscles warm as he wondered for the millionth time in the last hour how he could work a “minimum temperature” clause into his job requirements.
    “Car on slow approach,” a voice said over the radio. Not Donovan, one of his men.
    “Which direction?” Donovan asked.
    “From the east. Same car passed by a few minutes ago … still slowing … okay, stopping at the end of the driveway.”
    “Everyone hold position,” Donovan said.
    “Turning onto the driveway,” the voice said.
    “Do you have a visual on who’s inside?” Donovan asked tersely, unable to keep the growing annoyance from his voice.
    “Man up front, man and woman in the back.”
    “We’re moving,” Quinn whispered to Nate.
    His apprentice nodded, then stepped back so Quinn could take the lead. They headed twenty feet deeper into the woods, then west toward the corner of the property. There they hunched down again, this time in a spot with a view of the front yard and the entrance to the house.
    The car slowly rolled up the driveway. The driver had turned off the headlights, but the running lights were still on. As it neared the