[Quinn 01] - The Cleaner

should have realized was there from the beginning. To the girl's left, on a small bed, low to the floor, was a sleeping child.

Orlando walked across the room and knelt down next to the bed. She kissed the child lightly on the forehead, then stood and led Quinn back into the hallway.

'What's he doing here?' Quinn asked.

'He's my son,' Orlando said.

'Yeah, I know. But I thought he was with your aunt in San Francisco.' 'My aunt is getting too old to care for him. Her

health isn't what it should be.'

'Is it safe, though? To have him with you?'

She was silent for a moment. Then said, 'He's all I have left.'

Chapter 11

Quinn awoke before the sun. Reaching over to the nightstand, he felt around until he found his watch. Four- thirty a.m.

Sighing, he rolled onto his back. After several minutes of staring into the darkness, he tried closing his eyes again, hoping that maybe he could eke out a little more sleep. But the rest of his body wasn't cooperating. His day had begun, whether he liked it or not.

He reached back over to the nightstand, flipped on the lamp, then got out of bed. The tile floor was cool but not uncomfortable. On the dresser opposite the foot of his bed was a television. He grabbed the remote control off the nightstand next to the lamp and turned the TV on. The business report was running on CNN International. Though Tuesday morning was imminent here in Vietnam, the New York Stock Exchange had just rung its closing bell on Monday afternoon. A financial reporter was running through a list of numbers, but Quinn paid little attention. He didn't play the market. Too risky.

He retrieved his computer, his text pager, and the flash memory stick from his bag on the floor. The stick was attached to an otherwise empty key ring. His everyday keys were in his BMW back in L.A., stowed in a safe compartment few would ever be able to find.

He sat down at a table next to the bed. He opened his computer and turned it on.

The previous evening, before he'd fallen asleep, he'd spent twenty minutes reading Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee. As he read, the lights in his room had dimmed three times. It made him leery of the electrical system in the building, so he'd decided to run his computer off battery power for now. It wasn't a problem. The laptop had a full charge and could run for several hours.

Quinn slipped the memory stick into a port on the side of the computer. The first thing he did was access an encoded document containing information he'd been compiling over the years. The document was a list of locations and bank accounts, a blueprint of potential hideaways and cash deposits that were available to him if needed. He didn't know how long they could stay in Vietnam, so he had to be ready just in case they had to move. From the list, he chose three potential backup destinations.

He closed the document, then opened his modem software. After entering his personal code, he clicked the button labeled 'Connect,' and was promptly greeted with an error message: <Hodem not properly configured.>

Quinn's pager doubled as a wireless, high-speed satellite modem. He turned it over, unhinged a tiny cover in the upper left corner, slid it away, and exposed three small buttons. Using a ballpoint pen, he pushed the middle button, then the one on the left. He flipped the pager back over and opened the cover so he could view the display screen.

<Searching • • • > blinked on and off for several seconds. Then it was replaced by <Acquiring Signal> blinking more rapidly than the first message. Finally <Secure Link> held steady on the screen.

Returning his attention to the computer, he signed on and went directly to his e-mail.

There were a dozen messages waiting for him. The first he opened was from Orlando, sent only a few hours earlier.

Call me when you wake up. – 0.

Obviously she didn't expect him to be up quite as early as he was. If I called her now, she might never speak to me again. He couldn't help smiling as the thought passed through his mind. But it wasn't just the thought that had made him smile, he realized; it was seeing her again, talking to her. It was actually being close enough to reach out and touch her if he wanted. Strike that. He did want to, but his conscience wouldn't let him.

On the television, the business report was replaced by the world news – a report about the recently elected president of Serbia. A reformer, apparently. Reaching out, the reporter said, to his country's former enemies in an attempt to heal old wounds with a promise to send both civilian and governmental representatives to some upcoming European Union conference on the Balkans.

Quinn picked up the TV remote and lowered the volume, then looked back at the computer screen. Of all Quinn's messages, Orlando's was the only one sent directly to his main e-mail address. Everyone else sent their correspondence to Quinn via dummy accounts that would then electronically forward the messages through a series of circuitous routes to his main e-mail hub. There was a note from his father. A joke, and not a very funny one, about ice fishing and polar bears. Another was from his mother, hinting that she needed help around the house, mentioning three times how useless his father was. It was an old complaint.

He sent them each a quick e-mail, telling them he was on another business trip and would call when he got back home. They thought he was a private consultant in the banking industry, with clients all over the world. It was his standard cover story, though embellished somewhat for his parents.

Six of the nine remaining messages were from other freelancers Quinn had hired at one time or another, all checking in, looking for work.