Quinter (PDF)

"e;QUINTER: An Adventure Story with a Heart."e; Thomas March Quinter, 44, is a Cleveland trial lawyer with a love for the law and a thirst for justice. Not long after leaving the safety of one of the whitest of Cleveland's white shoe law firms to set up his own shop, he's approached by a former college classmate, David Bordman. an increasingly mysterious figure whose background since their days at Princeton includes the Navy, the CIA, and the U.S. State Department. Now Bordman has a big job with a big arms manufacturer that includes a big promise: pull off a delicate business deal with Spain and jump the line to become the CEO of Nortex. Bordman flies to Cleveland where over lunch he explains that the extreme sensitivity of the project requires a considerable amount of secrecy. So he wants to hire Quinter, who is well-acquainted with Spain, to go to Costa del Sol and set up several sites for Nortex, but under Quinter's own name, not the company's. The fee offered is more than generous, and, despite a nagging suspicion that all is not what it seems to be, Quinter agrees. Quinter's secretary, Jennifer Millieux speaks Spanish fluently, and he would love to take her with him, but not for that reason alone--it was Quinter's affair with Jennifer while they both worked for Davis-James, that precipitated his divorce from Natalie, the daughter of the firm's managing partner. Surprisingly, Quinter's relationship with Jennifer cooled once they were both in the same small office. Now, he wonders, was that a mistake? On her part, Jennifer, who was hurt by the change in Quinter, still has strong feelings for him. She decides to accompany him to Spain to try, for the last time, to see if they can regain their former intimacy. The picture darkens quickly as events spin out of control. Returning from lunch with Bordman, Quinter discovers his office has been ransacked and Jennifer attacked. The attacker, who gets away by strong-arming an unsuspecting Quinter on his way out of the office, is clearly foreign, perhaps Middle-Eastern. Quinter, with no reason to connect the attack and his assignment from Bordman, is perplexed. At a get-acquainted cocktail party meeting at Nortex headquarters in Massachusetts, violence strikes again. This time it's murder, and the captured villains are Iraqis. But before Quinter can express concern about his and Jennifer's safety, Duane Johnson, Nortex's suave CEO, assures him the tragic event is unrelated to their Spanish deal, and raises Quinter's per diem substantially. Quinter says yes, and soon he and Jennifer are on a Nortex corporate jet bound for Costa de Sol. Once in Spain, all hell breaks loose. There are murderous attacks, which both Quinter and Jennifer repel by taking the lives of their attackers, abductions-first his, then hers-that call for last minute escapes, and then the Spanish National Police, believing that Quinter and Jennifer are ruthless killers, make them the objects of a nationwide manhunt. Quinter learns that a recently acquired Nortex supertanker just arrived on Costa del Sol. Under cover of darkness, with extreme daring, he boards the ship and discovers that he and Jennifer have been lied to from the beginning. Now he knows there is more at stake than a simple State Department sanctioned arms deal. He also knows he has to stop it-but how? As the tale races to its dramatic conclusion, Quinter and Jennifer, who are now operating as a team, must correct the record and prevent the deal from taking place-without getting themselves killed in the process. And Quinter has one other important task-bringing David Bordman to justice.