* * *

Quinn chose half past ten that evening, an hour when most people were back home but not yet in bed asleep for the night. He was in a phone booth in a good hotel, the sort of place where the booths still have doors to give the caller privacy. He heard the number ring three times; then the phone was lifted.

“Yes?”

He had heard the man speak before, but that one word was not enough to identify the voice.

Quinn spoke in the quiet, almost whispering voice of Moss, the words punctuated by the occasional whistle of breath through the damaged nose.

“It’s Moss,” he said.

There was a pause.

“You should never call me here, except in an emergency. I told you that.”

Pay dirt. Quinn let out a deep sigh.

“It is,” he said softly. “Quinn has been taken care of. The girl too. And McCrea, he’s been ... terminated.”

“I don’t think I want to know these things,” said the voice.

“You should,” said Quinn before the man could cut the connection. “He left a manuscript behind. Quinn. I have it now, right here.”

“Manuscript?”

“That’s right. I don’t know where he got the details, how he worked them out, but it’s all here. The five names—you know, the men in back. Me, McCrea, Orsini, Zack, Marchais, Pretorius. Everything. Names, dates, places, times. What happened and why ... and who.”

There was a long pause.

“That include me?” asked the voice.

“I said, everything.”

Quinn could hear the breathing.

“How many copies?”

“Just the one. He was in a cabin up in northern Vermont. No Xerox machines up there. I have the only copy right here.”

“I see. Where are you?”

“In Washington.”

“I think you had better hand it over to me.”

“Sure,” said Quinn. “No problem. It names me too. I’d destroy it myself, except ...”

“Except what, Mr. Moss?”

“Except they still owe me.”

There was another long pause. The man at the other end of the line was swallowing saliva, several times.

“I understand you have been handsomely rewarded,” he said. “If there is more due you, it will be provided.”

“No good,” said Quinn. “There was a whole mess of things I had to clear up that were not foreseen. Those three guys in Europe, Quinn, the girl ... All that caused a deal of extra ... work.”

“What do you want, Mr. Moss?”

Tags: Frederick Forsyth Thriller
Source: readsnovelonline.net