your lover? Is that what this is?' Quinn took a breath. 'She's not my lover. She's
my colleague.' 'I don't believe you.' 'I swear, Sophie. We work together.' 'And your friend in there? You work with him,
too?' 'Yes.' 'What kind of work that someone beats your
friend up? That you can't take him to the hospital?' Quinn sighed. 'You have to trust me. I need your help. This is the safest place I could take him.'
Sophie took several deep breaths, each a little longer than the last. Her shoulders started to sag slightly.
'He is really your friend?' she asked, her voice now quiet, almost defeated.
'Yes,' Quinn said.
A pause. 'Two days?' Sophie asked, looking at the doctor. 'No more than that,' he replied. She was silent for a moment. 'All right. Two days. Then you take him away.'
'Thank you,' Quinn said.
Dr. Garber headed toward the door. 'I'll be back in the afternoon,' he said to Sophie. 'Quinn will give you my number if you need me sooner.' Sophie looked at Quinn. 'What about you two? Are you leaving, too?' 'Orlando will,' Quinn said. 'I'll stay until morning. But then I have something to do.'
Sophie was silent for several moments. 'Fine,' she said, then turned and walked into her own bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
Chapter 33
The night had been a restless one. Quinn had spent most of it in a wooden chair next to Nate's bed. He wanted to be there if his apprentice woke, but Nate barely stirred. In the morning he reluctantly returned to their makeshift base on Karl Marx Strasse.
'How is he?' Orlando asked. She was sitting on one of the chairs, the monitor on the floor beside her.
Quinn unfolded the other chair and joined her. 'The same.'
She looked at Quinn. There were dark circles around her eyes. 'They're not going to be happy we found him.'
'You're right,' he agreed. 'Did you sleep at all?' 'What if Piper or Borko does something to Garrett now?' she asked, ignoring his question. 'That's the last thing they'll do,' Quinn said. 'He's the only leverage they have over us.' She took a few deep breaths, then said, 'There's something you should see.' 'What?'
'When I got back here after I left you last night,
I checked the cameras in the plant again.' 'And?' 'At some point, someone put a bunch of boxes
in the basement. It had to have been while we were following Borko. The boxes weren't there before.' 'Something from the delivery van that was parked
at the door?' Quinn asked. 'Could be.' 'Show me.' She picked the monitor up off the floor and
turned it on. The screen flashed to life. There was a view of one of the rooms in the basement.
'Those the boxes?' Quinn asked. There were several of them, some sitting on the worktable and several more on the floor.
'Yeah,' she said. There was hesitation in her voice. 'What?' Quinn asked. Orlando stared at the monitor. 'What?' Quinn repeated. 'There are only fourteen boxes,' she said. 'So?' 'Last night there were twenty.' Quinn looked at the monitor. Silently, he counted
the boxes. She was right. There were fourteen. 'Are those labels on the boxes?' Quinn asked. 'Yes. But I wasn't able to get in close enough to
one to read it.' 'The sphere,' Quinn said. Orlando switched to a live view inside the
containment room. Quinn's eyes grew wide in surprise at the new image. 'I don't think this is good,' Orlando said.
There were four people in the room. All were dressed in bio-containment suits. Two were at the worktable against the wall on the right. On the table was a box that matched those still in the basement, its top open. On the floor were three more boxes, stacked. They looked like they were still sealed. Near the door, almost out of the camera's range, were the last two boxes. These were open and empty.
The other two men were positioned in front of the safety cabinets in the center of the room. One of the men had his arms and hands shoved into the cabinet nearest the door, while the other man looked on.
'What are they doing?' Orlando asked, pointing at the men standing at the worktable.
They were removing the contents of the open box. What they took out looked to be smaller metal boxes in groups of ten, stacked double-wide and held together by shrink-wrap.
Each man lifted a stack out and set it on the table. They then removed the wrapping and placed the smaller boxes side by side on a tray, popping each of them open as they did so. When the tray was full, two stacks' worth of tins, one of the men carried the tray to the center workspace and slipped it through a slot at the bottom end of one of the safety cabinets.
As the man was carrying the tray to the cabinet, Quinn was able to get a glimpse inside the tins. They were empty.
