[Quinn 01] - The Cleaner

'What did you find?'

'I'm not sure,' he told her. 'Give me a few minutes.'

At first Quinn wasn't sure what he was looking at. The object took up over half the length of the room, side to side, and almost reached the ceiling. It was a giant sphere, not unlike a hot-air balloon, except it seemed to be sitting on a black pedestal. From where Quinn stood near the front door, it looked like the sphere was made of a thick white fabric. Maybe canvas. The black pedestal, a wide ring around the bottom of the sphere, looked to be about seven feet high. Unlike the sphere, it appeared to be made of something solid – metal, wood, or hard plastic. He wouldn't know for sure until he took a closer look. The whole thing made Quinn think of a giant golf ball sitting on a black tee.

He moved the flashlight across the object. A quarter of the way around to the left was a solid-looking scaffolding tower. Up one side of the tower ran a metal staircase. Quinn followed it with his light. It ended at a platform that was then connected to the sphere by a fifteen-foot-long canvas tunnel.

Interesting, Quinn thought. As he played the flashlight over the tower again, he noticed something else. There was an elevator running up through the center of the structure. Quinn's next thought was that the whole thing was some sort of makeshift containment unit, perhaps for the transfer of hazardous materials. Or, unable to keep the image of the glass slide out of his mind, something biological. He took a few steps into the room. Whatever was making the noise was coming from deeper in the room, toward the back. He moved farther into the room to get a better angle, then shone his light past the sphere in the direction of the noise. It looked like an air pump. That made sense. Something had to keep the sphere from collapsing in on itself. He relaxed for a moment, relieved. The pump would be pushing air into the sphere, inflating it. The pressure needed to keep the sphere from collapsing had to be greater than the pressure outside, which would be an unsuitable arrangement when working with dangerous materials.To be effective that way, the pressure in the sphere would have to be less than the surrounding room, preventing the unintentional release of anything nasty, and the

structure itself would have to have something other than the air supporting it.

Without going inside, there was no telling its purpose. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the meeting. Then again, perhaps it did. Quinn would have to bug it, just in case.

'Well?' Orlando said.

'I'm still not sure,' Quinn told her.

'You've got to give me more than that.'

'Why don't I just show you?' he said.

He pulled the backpack off his shoulders and set it on the ground. From inside he took out two objects. One was tiny and black, and the other was a rectangular box about the size of a candy bar. He put them both on the ground, then set the flashlight on top of the backpack, pointing it in front of him so he could use it as a work light. That done, he picked up the smaller object, turned it over and found a small number etched into the object's base. 'Camera 17,' he told Orlando.

'You'll need to power up the signal booster,' she told him.

'Hold on.' He picked up the rectangular box, the booster, and flipped a tiny switch on its side. He felt a slight vibration as the booster came to life.

Five seconds later, Orlando said, 'I've got signal.'

Quinn set the booster on the ground next to his backpack. 'How much light do you need?'

'Is there any seeping into the room?'

'Not that I can tell.'

'Point your flashlight in the general direction of what you want to show me. That should be enough.'

The camera's night vision was top of the line.

Orlando would have setded for nothing less. Quinn turned his backpack so that the flashlight was pointing toward the sphere. He then stood up and began a sweep of the room with the camera.

'What the hell is that?' Orlando asked.

He was aiming the lens at the sphere. 'I don't know. There's a staircase and an elevator over here.' He pointed the camera toward the scaffolding. 'At the top it looks like that tunnel thing is some sort of entrance.'

'Duke didn't tell you about this?' 'He said he hadn't been in the building for several years. Probably doesn't even know it's here.'

'I'm not sure I like this,' Orlando said. 'Maybe we should call it off. See if we can find a little more information first.'

Quinn paused a moment before answering. 'No,' he said. 'I'm here. We'll do this now.' He panned the camera over the sphere, giving Orlando a longer look. 'How many cameras did you give me?' Quinn asked.

'Twenty,' she said.

Five more than he'd asked for. 'Okay. I think I can cover most of this room with just seven.' Quinn had worked it out in his mind ahead of time, but now he was going to have to make an adjustment. 'I haven't had a look at the rest of the place yet, but based on the blueprints, let's say another eight for the back offices. That leaves five. One for outside the front door of the building. One for around back to cover the door there. One for directly across the street, and two for either end of the block. Shit, that's all of them.' He thought for a moment. 'Okay, maybe only seven for the rest of the building. That'll give me one I can put inside the sphere.'

'You're not going inside there,' Orlando said, surprised. 'If I get the feeling something's wrong, I'll just turn around and back out, okay?' 'That sounds like a great plan,' she replied, not hiding her displeasure. 'Glad you like it.'

It took him an hour to place the cameras throughout the building. Each was paired with a microphone that was really no more than a tiny disk attached to a piece of adhesive. As long as it was placed within ten feet of the camera, audio could also be picked up.