The Discarded Read Online Free PDF Page B

it takes. Find out if I’ve been screwed, and if I have, rectify the situation. Can I be any clearer than that?”
    He smiled. “No, ma’am. Your wishes are fully understood.”

CHAPTER 4
     
    PRESENT DAY
    DENMARK
     
    “A ND WE SAID yes to this job because…?” Nate asked.
    Quinn didn’t bother answering. He’d been asking himself the same question and had yet to come up with a decent answer.
    Four times in the last nineteen hours, they had been ordered to move into position, and, as of thirty seconds ago, four times they had been told to stand down.
    “Please tell me we’re not going back to the hotel again,” Daeng said.
    “No,” Quinn said.
    There was no sense in it. With their luck, they’d barely walk into their suite and Winston—the op leader—would call them back.
    “Then I assume neither of you will mind if I stretch out on the floor,” the Thai man said.
    “Oh, by all means,” Nate told him. “Make yourself comfortable. If you’d like, I could grab something for you. A coffee? A stuffed croissant?”
    “A beer would be nice.”
    “Wouldn’t it, though?”
    Quinn pushed himself away from the wall and headed for the door.
    “Where you going?” Nate asked.
    “I’ll be back.”
    “Hey, if you’re actually going for coffee, wouldn’t mind a cup myself.”
    Quinn glanced at him, not amused, before stepping into the hallway.
    The building they were waiting in was being renovated, all the floors ripped apart and at various stages of being put back together again. Their floor, the second, was full of half-finished walls and bare concrete.
    He walked all the way to the large room at the south end of the building and called Orlando back in San Francisco.
    “Guess what?” he said when she answered.
    She groaned. “Are you kidding me?”
    “Nope.”
    “What the hell’s wrong with these people?”
    “I was kind of hoping you could tell me that. Did you get ahold of Helen?”
    “I tried,” Orlando said. “She hasn’t called back.”
    Helen Cho was the head of the organization that had hired Quinn’s team for the job.
    “You think she’s avoiding you?” he asked.
    “I’m beginning to.”
    “This is ridiculous.” He paused, considering their options. “All right. If we get jerked around one more time, we’re out of here.”
    “I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long.”
    So was Quinn, but Helen was, in essence, a new client. And he often gave new clients more leeway than he usually would. “If she calls back, let me know,” he said and hung up.
    He should have known this was a bad idea from the beginning. It wasn’t that Helen ran a shoddy shop—far from it. His few dealings with her so far had shown she was pretty buttoned up. But this was a sub-job, something she’d inherited from another agency that had overextended itself.
    “I’m stuck with the team they already have in place,” she had told Quinn and Orlando during the briefing. “That’s why I want you there. I know I can trust you to make sure things go right.”
    “We’re not fixers,” Orlando reminded her. “My people won’t be picking up the pieces if yours screw up.”
    “I understand that,” Helen said. “I’m sure everything will go fine. But I’ll be able to sleep a lot better if I know at least one aspect of this project is handled by someone I trust.”
    It was far too early in their still-budding working relationship for a do-me-a-favor assignment, but Quinn and Orlando had decided to go ahead with it. If nothing else, it was a little chit they’d have in their pocket if they ever needed one in the future.
    But now it was getting to the point of the absurd, and budding relationship or not, these continued delays were increasing the risk of danger to Quinn and his team. That was unacceptable.
    Outside, the glow of central Copenhagen blotted out the stars in the northern sky. The operation was taking place just south of the city, in a business district in the suburb of Albertslund. From his