Nate moved into position. “How’s this?”
“Perfect.” Quinn aimed in Nate’s general direction, cheating the lens to the right, and taking in the building that, until a few minutes before, had only been a blue dot on a computerized map.
The structure appeared to be two separate buildings joined in the middle. The first two floors were common to both, but above the second floor, two towers—one at either end—rose up an additional nine floors. The towers didn’t take up the whole footprint of the second-floor roof, though. The remaining area appeared to be a large patio. Quinn could make out the tops of several umbrellas near the edge of the roof. Perhaps, Quinn guessed, there was even a pool.
“Got it,” he said, lowering the camera.
“You want me to take one of you?”
“Maybe later.” Quinn pushed a few buttons on the touch screen, e-mailing the picture to Orlando. He traded the phone for the tracking device in his pocket, then pointed at a vehicle bridge that spanned the river just beyond the building. “Let’s stop at that bridge. We can head back then.”
They began walking again. Quinn stayed on the river side so that Nate would be between him and the building. It would make it easier for him to look at the structure without being obvious.
“After dinner, I want to go over the presentation again,” Quinn said, maintaining character. “I want to make sure we’ve got it down before tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry,” Nate said, falling into the act. “We’ll do fine.”
“And the forecast numbers. We should call New York and make sure those haven’t changed.”
“I’ll send an e-mail as soon as we’re back at the hotel.”
“No,” Quinn said. “Call them.”
“New York’s still sleeping,” Nate said. “You know that, right?”
As they came level with the building, Quinn first glanced down at the tracker. As he’d expected, it indicated they were even closer now. He then let his eyes stray toward the building. “Right. Okay, send an e-mail for now. But I want you to call once someone’s in the office.”
“Sure. No problem. Anything else?”
A sign was mounted into the wall just below patio level between the two towers. It was a blue rectangle, and written on it in yellow letters was
“You have the PowerPoint, right?”
“Yes,” Nate said. “For the millionth time. Why are you so uptight about this? It’s a killer presentation.”
“I’m uptight because this could mean a fifty percent increase in our sales,” Quinn said.
Below the sign was an open atrium stretching the height of the first two floors and ending at a glass door about fifty feet in. It was impossible to tell from where they were, but Quinn assumed it was security controlled. That would have been consistent with the other buildings like it he’d seen.
“So what do you want to get for dinner?” Nate asked.
“Are you changing the subject?”
“Absolutely. The presentation’s ready. What I’m most worried about is what I’m going to put in my stomach.”
The path forked ahead. To the left, it headed downhill, passing under the bridge, and to the right, it went around the side of the Quayside Villas building to the street. Quinn led them to the right.
Around the lower level were a couple of shops: a bakery, a laundry, a wine shop. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Quinn glanced upward, following the rise of the west tower. There was no way to tell where in the building Markoff ’s message had been pointing them toward without getting inside. But there was also no doubt the building was where he had placed his beacon.
Around the front was a small two-lane road that passed between the Quayside Villas and a hotel on the left.
“I don’t care what we eat,” Quinn said. “You can choose.”
“A girl in the bar was telling me about a great Japanese place downtown.”
“Japanese? Shouldn’t we at least try Chinese while we’re here? Or Indian?”
An offshoot of the road curved toward the front door of the Quayside, rejoining the road up ahead. The front door was glass again, leading into a lobby at the base of the west tower. Mounted on the window next to the door was a security pad for a keycard or something similar. There was also a push button that looked like a large, flat light switch. No doorman, though.
But this realization was short-lived. Ahead there was another glass door, this one leading into the east tower. Beside it was a glass-walled room, complete with a bank of television monitors and two security guards.
“I’m ready to head back,” Quinn said. “How about you?”
CHAPTER
THE PHONE RANG ONCE.
