The Unwanted by Brett Battles Read Free Book Online Page A

going to start hurting his confidence."
A cleaner without confidence was either working in some other field or more likely dead. So Quinn had reluctantly agreed to let Nate come along, all the time wondering if his missing lower leg, replaced now by a man-made prosthesis—albeit state-of-the-art—would be a hindrance or just an annoyance. So far, much to Quinn's surprise, it had been neither.
"Clear his weapons," Quinn said, nodding toward the bleeding man in the car.
Nate nodded, then walked around to the other side of the vehicle. Within a few seconds, he'd removed both the man's pistol and the sniper rifle, and had patted the man down in case he was carrying anything else.
"Clear," Nate said. He then pulled himself out of the car and brought the weapons back around, setting them against a tree ten feet away.
"You should let me go," the assassin said. They were the first words he had spoken. His accent was American. Midwest. Not Chicago, more like Kansas. Of course, it could have been just a put-on. "My client won't be pleased."
"I don't really care," Quinn said.
"You should."
"But I don't."
The man grew quiet.
"You bring your phone?" Quinn asked Nate.
"Yes."
"Call in. Get an ETA."
"My employer's men will be here before yours," the assassin said.
Quinn ignored him. That, he knew, was a bluff. There was no reason for anyone to come after the assassin. He either did his job or he didn't. There would be no backup or cleanup team. In this case, leaving the bodies would have been desired. They'd be a message. Don't mess with us.
Nate pulled out his phone and walked toward the road beyond the rear of the car.
The assassin shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I did what I was hired to do. So whatever operation you're running is screwed."
"The only operation I'm running is catching you. And right now I'm trying to decide if you died as you tried to get away or you shot yourself to keep from being taken."
"My employer wouldn't like that."
"I don't give a damn what your employer likes or doesn't like," Quinn said.
The man's eyes narrowed. "That would be a mistake."
"Wouldn't be the first time," Quinn said.
     
The transfer went smoothly. Peter had sent three men. Two left in the SUV they'd arrived in with the assassin restrained in the back, while the third drove the gunman's sedan away.
"Let's get to it," Quinn said to Nate once the others were gone.
They started walking back up the road toward the church. Even though there was a lot of night left, they still had a considerable amount of work to do before the sun came up.
The bodies were first on the list. Not surprisingly, pocket checks of the dead men revealed very little. Peter's men each carried forged IDs on the off chance they got pulled over by the police. The other two men had none. The only thing the guy outside the church was carrying was a spare mag for his gun. But his partner, the one who had been inside doing the talking, was carrying a little something extra.
It was a tiny manila envelope, an inch wide by about an inch and a half long, and bulging a bit in the center. Whatever was inside, Quinn guessed it must contain the information that was supposed to have been passed on. Peter's precious haul, no doubt. The reason he'd been so adamant about keeping the assassin away from the bodies.
Quinn was tempted to leave it in the man's pocket and tell Peter he hadn't found anything. But as satisfying as that was to consider, Quinn didn't operate that way. He slipped the envelope into his own pocket, then looked at Nate. "Ready?"
"Yeah," his apprentice said.
One by one, they placed the bodies on top of a large piece of plastic sheeting with whatever weapons they had been carrying, then wrapped them individually, securing them with a healthy amount of duct tape. They then stacked them in the back of the van where Quinn's and Nate's chairs had been.
While Nate searched for casings beneath the tree where the assassin had been positioned, Quinn worked the blood-soaked ground, covering it