“Yes, I am,” Quinn said.
She rolled her eyes, then slipped in.
Before anyone could say anything else, the waitress returned. She was holding a tray with the beers. Only one was a bottle of Moretti. The other was a Red Stripe.
“Three of you now, huh?” the waitress said. “Only had the one Moretti.”
Quinn reached up, grabbed the Red Stripe, then handed it to Nate.
“So I guess this is yours,” she said, setting the Moretti in front of Quinn. She turned to Orlando. “Something for you, hon?”
“Pellegrino?” Orlando said.
“The only water I got comes with or without ice,” the woman said.
“I’ll take tea,” Orlando said. “Hot.”
The waitress lost a little bit of her fake smile as she sighed. “It’ll be a minute.”
“Take your time,” Orlando said.
When they were alone again, Quinn said, “I got a response.”
“From the message board?” Orlando asked.
“Yes.”
“Wait a minute,” Nate said. “I—”
“Genuine?” Orlando said, ignoring Nate.
“Seems to be. The code word was Los Angeles. When I worked it out, this is what I got.” Quinn pulled the piece of paper he’d written the message on and handed it to Orlando—the series of numbers followed by “4:00 p.m. GMT Saturday.”
“Excuse me,” Nate said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“What are these numbers at the top?” Orlando asked. “A phone number?”
Quinn nodded. “That would be my guess.”
She set the paper on the table and pointed at the first few numbers. “Brazil?”
Quinn shook his head. He had tried the number on the ride over just to check it. “I thought so at first, but the number doesn’t work.”
“Maybe you screwed up one of the digits.”
“Thanks for the confidence.” Quinn turned the paper around. “Anyone have a pen?”
Orlando didn’t, but Nate pulled one out of his pocket and held it out. “I’ll let you use this if you tell me what’s going on.”
Quinn snatched the pen from him, then set to work on the numbers. He applied the Los Angeles code—eleven digits, including the space—to the number Jenny had sent him one more time. This time, instead of skipping words, he increased each digit by eleven, starting again at zero once he reached the number nine.
“She double-encoded it,” Orlando said.
As soon as he finished, he turned the paper around so Orlando could see it.
“Six-six-eight,” she said. “Bangkok cell phone.”
“Yes,” Quinn said.
“Hold on,” Nate said. “Can one of you please—”
This time Nate cut himself off as the waitress reappeared. When she reached their table, she set an empty cup on the table in front of Orlando and placed a small teapot next to it.
She looked around the table. “You all going to order now?”
“Not yet,” Quinn said.
“You are going to eat, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Quinn told her. “We’re not sure yet.”
This time the woman’s smile vanished completely. She turned without another word and headed back to the kitchen.
Nate leaned forward. “What message are you talking about?”
Quinn finally looked at his apprentice. “Jenny contacted me.”
“What?” Nate said, surprised.
Quinn gave him a quick description of how he’d used the message board to contact her, and of how he had just received her response.
“So she wants you to call tomorrow afternoon?” Nate said.
“GMT,” Orlando said.
“Right,” Nate said. He paused a moment. “So, nine in the morning for us.”
