Double Play (Nadia Stafford 3.5)

"Good," she said. "So I'm not overthinking it." She lowered herself to lie facing him. "Okay, tell me what's bugging you."

He did.

An hour later, they were in Evelyn's hotel room, looking at an image on her laptop. An image of the building where they thought Quinn was being held. And they'd been able to find it online. Just sitting there for anyone to see, like many places were these days. You type in the location, and up pops a street view on your screen. Fucking amazing. Of course, the picture could be a couple of years old, so it didn't erase the need for on-site surveillance. But it sure as hell helped.

Finding the location had been a matter of putting together the puzzle pieces--the information the thug provided on the building together with what Felix had found from Quinn's phone and the results of Contrapasso's own investigating. Yeah, Contrapasso came through, turning over at least part of what they had. They still weren't entirely convinced Jack wasn't involved, but he knew that was a matter of prejudice rather than any actual cause for suspicion.

It would be Jack they blamed, not Nadia. They liked Nadia. They understood her drive for justice. They'd made it clear they'd hire Jack, too, but he knew that was mostly for Nadia's sake, knowing they were more likely to get her if they accepted him. Accepted, not embraced. No matter how good he was at his job, they saw him as Quinn did, and in their view he'd never rise far above the very guys they devoted their lives to hunting.

But they had come through. While they told Nadia that they'd lost track of Quinn in an office building--where his GPS tracker had been disabled--that wasn't entirely true. His captors had only zapped it. That was Jack's explanation. Felix had explained it in more technical terms. Point was, Quinn's captors hadn't discarded the tracker--Felix figured they wanted to study the tech. The problem was that the signal hadn't disappeared immediately. It just started to fail. That meant Contrapasso had two locations to work with: the office where Quinn's kidnappers grabbed him and the spot where the transmitter finally died twenty minutes later. Put the two points on a map, and Evelyn had been able to follow that trajectory, factor in the rest of the information and find a location.

Jack was less than ten minutes from their destination when Cillian's phone rang. He checked his watch. Shit. He'd forgotten all about the callback. Obviously they'd jumped the gun earlier, calling Cillian as soon as their goons caught up to Nadia. Now . . . Well, he wasn't really sure what the fuck they'd do now, but he was ready.

Jack answered to hear Cillian himself, breathing hard and saying, "It's me. Don't hang up, Jack. Please don't fucking hang up."

Jack said nothing.

"I'm sorry I got away," Cillian said, then gave a strained laugh. "Jesus, am I really apologizing for escaping? Fuck, this is such a mess. Such a damned mess." He took a deep breath. "Some guy found me. I made up a bullshit story, and I didn't report it or anything. I don't blame you for doing that. Don't blame you at all. I'm just lucky you gave me the antidote for that cyanide. You'd have had every right not to, after what I did."

He waited, as if expecting Jack to say it was all right. When he didn't, Cillian prodded with, "You still there, Jack?"

"Yeah."

Cillian cleared his throat. "Like I said, I understand why you did that. But as soon as I got free, I contacted a few people. Called in favors. Huge favors--the kind I've been saving all my life. Like yours."

Pause.

More throat clearing. "Anyway, I know a few things now. Things that can help. You're stateside, right?"

Jack changed lanes. Didn't answer.

"Hope so," Cillian said. "I hope you found your girl and everything's okay."

"No," Jack said. "Still looking."

"Fuck. Well, all right then. I can help. I'm going to set this right, Jack. I've called in the biggest favor I've got. A guy who can fix this for you. He knows the cartel--he's the one who put them in touch with me. If you're looking for your girl, you must be in the DC area. I asked my guy to get there right away, spare no expense, I'll cover everything."

More silence as Cillian still failed to get the enthusiastic--or even grateful--response he obviously expected.

"I'm going to give you an address," Cillian said. "I need you to get there right away. This guy won't wait forever. I can't afford that." A strained laugh. "You get to him, and he'll give you everything you need, and he'll offer to help you fix this. You can just take his information if you want, but I'm going to strongly suggest you let him help. He's as good in his field as you are in yours."

"Which is?"

"Huh?"

"His field."

"A fixer." Cillian gave a short laugh. "Which is what we need right now, huh? Someone

to fix this whole fucking mess. That's what he does. Helps people connect with others and solve their problems. Which he will do for you, and I'm footing the bill. My way of saying how fucking sorry I am. And I really hope . . ." Another throat-clearing. "I'm not just trying to save my ass here, Jack. I really am sorry."

"Address?"

"I'm texting it to your phone--well, my phone. You need to get there fast. I mean that, Jack. He--"

"Got it."

Jack hung up. He glanced over his shoulder at Nadia, who'd ceded the front passenger seat to Evelyn. He'd had the phone on speaker and they'd both been silent as they listened in. Evelyn opened her mouth but stopped, seeing where Jack was looking.