sound. He stopped and took a longer look at it.
The refrigeration unit was of the walk-in variety. It would have looked more appropriate sitting in the basement of a butcher shop than a decommissioned water facility.
Quinn knew he had to get out of the building, but he couldn't help wanting to take a look inside. This time his desire to investigate overrode his desire to flee.
He grabbed the handle on the unit's door and gave it a pull. At first it wouldn't open. Then he saw a steel pin was preventing the latch from releasing. He removed the pin, and the door opened easily.
Freezing air flowed over him. The unit hadn't been set to just cold but
Quinn stood in the doorway and moved the beam of his flashlight around the inside of the refrigerator. He estimated that it was about eight feet deep by five feet across. Against the walls on either side were heavy-duty storage racks. Each had four wide metal shelves. All empty. Even so, it made for a cramped space.
He was beginning to close it back up when he heard a noise coming from the other part of the basement. He glanced at the door between the rooms, almost expecting it to burst open and let in a flood of armed men. But it remained shut.
He closed the refrigerator door and replaced the pin so nothing would look suspicious. From where he stood he could see the window in the far corner of the room. It was high up on the wall, just above the outside ground level.
The freedom of the German night beckoned him. He turned and looked back at the door that separated him from the people in the other room. He couldn't chance it.
Quinn jammed himself into the space between the ceiling and the top of the refrigerator, as far back against the wall as he could. In his right hand he held the SIG Sauer Orlando had picked up for him. Attached to the end of the barrel was a suppressor. The last thing he wanted to do was use the weapon, but if they found him, he wasn't going to go easily.
Half a minute later, the door to the outer room opened. It was followed immediately by the sound of several people entering. Flashlight beams darted from wall to wall, covering every inch of the space. All, that is, except the place Quinn hid.
Quinn counted footsteps. Four men. The sounds of movements stopped after a few moments.
'See?' It was Matz, the one who'd first come into the sphere looking for Quinn. 'I told you. He didn't come down here.'
'Then where is he?' a second man asked. It was the voice from the radio, in person now. Matz had referred to him as 'One.' But now that Quinn heard the voice without static, it sounded very familiar.
'Perhaps he got by the guards upstairs?' Matz suggested. 'Made it outside without anyone seeing?'
'You think that's possible?' One asked.
'I don't know. But he's obviously not down here. The basement door was still locked. If he didn't get away, then he must still be upstairs somewhere. You did say he was good.'
'I asked for professionals and Duke gives me morons.'
Quinn's lips pressed hard against each other. Duke, again.
Silence. 'What about in there?' One asked.
'The cold storage?'
'Yes.'
Their footsteps approached the refrigeration unit and stopped near the door. 'There's a safety pin that acts as a lock. It's still in place. If he was inside, he couldn't have put it back in.'
One finally said, 'Let's go.'
Quinn listened as the men left the room. He heard the door close, but he didn't move. Something wasn't right.
Finally after several minutes, he heard the shuffling of feet. Then a door opened, and the man who had been waiting behind departed.
Quinn remained still for a moment longer, his mind racing. It was the lingerer. The voice from the radio. The
person Matz had called One. The man Piper had
warned him about. A man he'd last seen in Toronto. Borko.
Chapter 21
It was nearly one in the morning by the time Quinn finally made his way out of the building. Borko had left guards, but as the Serbian himself had admitted, Duke's men were morons. Quinn had little difficulty sneaking through their surveillance.
Quinn caught the last train heading north out of the Rathaus Neukolln station, the U7. There were only a handful of other passengers aboard. For a while he just rode, his mind racing. He knew he had to get to the emergency rendezvous point, but he was having a hard time processing everything that had just gone down.
Borko had gotten the better of him, no denying that. Quinn had been lulled into believing he was in control. But it was Borko who had been in control all along. And even though Quinn had actually gotten away, Borko was still in
