eyes.
“Clear,” he whispered, then turned on his flashlight.
Nate joined him, shutting the door behind them. Quinn crossed over to the interference disk they’d left next to the sconce and removed it from the wall.
“Stairs,” he whispered to Nate. “Hurry.”
They moved quickly down the hall, trying to remain as quiet as possible. When they reached the door to the stairwell, Quinn put a hand on it and started to push it open, but stopped.
There were footsteps coming up from below.
Quinn motioned for Nate to follow him, then headed further down the corridor. There was just enough curve left in the hallway that if they went to the end and hugged the right corner, they would be out of sight of the stairwell door.
As soon as they took up position, Quinn doused his flashlight and replaced it with his SIG. He aimed his pistol through the black void toward the corner.
Seven seconds later, the stairwell burst open. There was light, not a lot, but enough to send a gentle glow around the corner toward them. Quinn stood motionless, counting footsteps and waiting for the moment one of them decided to check around the corner.
But no one did. And within seconds, he could hear the two people moving down the hallway toward apartment 05-21.
A door opened, then closed again. Suddenly the hall was plunged back into darkness.
“What about the bug?” Nate asked.
“What?” Quinn whispered.
“The bug? Isn’t Orlando trying to get onto the computer right now?”
Nate was right. Quinn should have thought of it, too. He quickly dug out his phone and called Orlando.
“Don’t tell me you’re still—” she started to say.
“Someone’s going inside. Shut it down now!” he said, then hung up. He put a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”
Nate went straight to bed when they returned to their new base, with instructions to wake everyone up by noon the next day. But Quinn stayed with Orlando, giving her a more detailed description of what had happened.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said when he was through. “It’s set up like a very high-end operation.”
“But?” she said, obviously sensing his hesitation.
“But...” He thought for a moment, then said, “It seemed off.”
“You’re going to have to give me a little more than that. What do you mean by ‘off ’?” There was an underlying irritation in her voice. But it was easy to see why. Her eyes were bloodshot from working on the computer, and her cheeks were taut with fatigue.
“It was like something wasn’t right,” he said, trying to clarify. “Everything seemed too well put together. Too perfect. Like the indentations on the pad of paper.”
“That wasn’t perfect,” she said.
“No. That was sloppy. Someone in this kind of operation shouldn’t do something like that.” Like Quinn and Orlando, they would have been trained to place individual sheets of paper on a hard surface before writing, never on something that would record their words.
“Maybe you should have brought it back with you,” she said.
He shook his head. “I got the feeling it was left there on purpose. If I took it, it would have been noticed.”
He then told her about the hair. How it also seemed out of place, and that he had seen no others anywhere.
“That’s really odd,” she said. “Tucked under the box? No others?”
“No others,” he said. “In fact, the rest of the apartment was pristine. No fingerprints or anything else.”
“I think maybe leaving them there was the right move,” she said. “It
“It just didn’t make sense.” He began to yawn. “Why don’t you take the other bedroom,” he told her. “I’ll take the couch.”
“I’ve got too much to do,” she said, turning back to her laptop. Sitting next to it on the table was a rectangular metal box about two inches thick. It was cream colored and whirred in a similar fashion to the arms dealer’s computer, only louder.
“You’ll probably do better with a little rest,” he said.
When she looked back at him, he realized he’d said the wrong thing. “Look. What do you want? Do you want to know what’s on the tape Jenny gave you? Because it was pretty fucked up and it’s going to take me time to get any information off it. And what about the computer from tonight? Do you want me to analyze what’s on it or not? Not to mention finding out something about the unknown LP. Or do you want me to just get some sleep and let all this sit until then? I’m willing to do that if that’s what you want, because God knows I’m tired. But I was under the impression we needed to figure this stuff out sooner rather than later. Was I wrong?”
She stared at Quinn, defying him to say anything.
