From his pocket, he pulled out a disk about the diameter of a quarter, and half an inch thick. He removed the protective covering off the sticky rubber base, then crept along the wall until he was only a few feet away from the sconce. He touched a tiny switch on the side of the disk, then pressed the object against the wall. He held his hand underneath for a moment, making sure it wasn’t going to fall off.
“That did it,” Nate said. He was looking at the small monitor.
The disk was a jammer. Until it was turned off, the camera would only be generating garbage.
Quinn moved in close to the sconce and pulled out his flashlight.
“Was that other source on this side of the sconce or the other?” he asked.
“The other,” Nate said.
Quinn moved quickly to the opposite side, passing directly in front of the camera lens. He trained his light along the edge of the sconce and worked his way to the top. There was nothing obvious.
Keeping his motion steady and careful, he reached up into the central vase and worked his fingers down along the stems of the flowers. Less than an inch down, he hit a bump. It was about an inch wide, and rounded over the top like a blemish. It was a shape he knew.
He worked his fingers around it and gave it a tug. It resisted for a moment, then pulled free of the wall. It appeared that it had been held in place by a magnetic backing. He could feel it wanting to reattach itself as he moved it up the side of the vase with his fingertips. Once he was free of the sconce, he slipped his prize into his palm.
It was black and no more than half an inch thick at its highest point. It was exactly what he’d expected. But just to confirm, he pulled out the tracking device and held it next to the bump.
1.0000.
They had found the source of Markoff ’s beacon.
In essence, it was a mobile phone, without the ability to receive or transmit sound. It used the digital airways merely to let others who knew its ID code know it was there. And aided by the fact that the device was basically passive, the specialized battery could last for over a month.
There was no question now. This was where Markoff had been leading them.
“Do you think he ever got inside?” Nate asked.
“No idea.”
Quinn put the beacon and the box that had tracked it down into his bag. Neither was needed any longer.
Not wanting to waste any more time, he moved quickly to the door and examined its locks. He aimed the beam of his flashlight directly into each slot. Unlike the keyholes on the door to room 04-21, these were not faked.
Quinn held his hand out, and Nate gave him the monitor back. Returning to the main menu, Quinn ran through the options until he’d selected sec sys—Security System. He moved the detector along the doorjambs, across the top and the bottom. When he was through, he looked at the display screen. sys det—inact.
“There’s something there,” he said. “But it’s not on.” “So we go in?” Nate asked. “Yes.” “Can I do it?” “Fine,” Quinn said. “Just be quick.” From his own backpack, Nate removed a set of lock picks and set
to work first on the deadbolt, then on the lock in the handle of the door. After a moment, he looked up. “Done,” he said. Quinn glanced at the detector. The display still read sec sys—
inact. He gave Nate a nod. His apprentice smiled, then turned the han
dle and pushed on the door until it cleared the jamb. “I’ll go first,” Quinn said. He returned the monitor to his bag, then pulled out a palm-size
flashlight and turned it on. As he entered the room, he swung his
flashlight in a wide arc, looking for any type of booby trap. “Clear,” he said. Nate entered, then shut the door behind him. “Check the bedrooms,” Quinn told his apprentice. “I’ll look out
here.”
Quinn did a quick sweep of the living room, then moved on to the dining area and the kitchen. The couch, the tables, the chairs, the appliances in the kitchen all spoke of someone who liked to live comfortably. Only it was a sham. A fine layer of dust had settled over everything. In the kitchen, the cabinets were all empty. The same went for the refrigerator.
As Quinn reentered the living room, Nate emerged quickly from the hallway. “I think I found something,” Nate said.
It was in the closet of the smaller bedroom. The only thing that indicated there might be something odd was a metal strip that ran up the center of the back wall.
Nate had already flipped up the tan carpet that had covered the closet floor. Underneath, where Quinn would have expected concrete, there was wood. He tapped the flooring and was greeted with a hollow echo.
“It looks like it flips up here,” Nate said.
He slipped his fingers into a groove along the edge closest to them, then began to lift the base of the closet up. It seemed to be hinging along the back wall. As soon as Quinn could get his fingers underneath, he helped Nate to push the floor all the way up.
There was a metal fastener attached to the underside, very near the top. That explained the metal support bar on the back of the closet. Quinn flipped the fastener over the edge of the trapdoor and snapped it into a slot on the bar.
In the void that had been the closet floor, there was a steep metal staircase—almost a ladder—leading down into the darkness.
