[Quinn 02] - The Deceived

Quinn leaned down to examine the latch on one of the glass doors. It didn’t appear to be locked. That made sense. Any customer that was brought into the room would have been accompanied by several of the dealer’s security team.

Still, Quinn couldn’t help feeling the whole setup felt wrong for some reason. Like it was almost too perfect.

“Check these out,” Nate said.

Quinn turned. His apprentice was standing near one of the display case tables in the center of the room. Quinn walked over.

Knives. Dozens of them, in all shapes and sizes.

“That one’s even more interesting,” Nate said, pointing at a table to his right.

Quinn looked over. Detonators, switches, timing devices. All the gear you would need to make a successful bomb, except for the bomb material itself. That wouldn’t be on the display-room floor. You’d have to ask for it.

“You get all the cases?” Quinn asked.

“Halfway done.”

“Finish up.” Quinn looked at his watch. Nearly twenty minutes had passed while they checked out the room. “We need to get out of here.”

“What about the computer?” Nate asked, nodding toward the laptop.

“I’ll check it.”

Quinn walked over to the makeshift desk. The computer and the lamp were the only items on top. No papers, no pens, nothing else. There were two drawers built into the table just below its lip, both closed.

Quinn moved his backpack around so he’d have access. From inside, he removed a small screwdriver, then carefully slipped the blade end through the handle of one of the drawers and pulled it open.

There was a pad of paper tucked into the corner of the drawer. Several pages had been torn off, leaving about three-quarters of the pad left. The page on top was blank, though he detected several faint indentations. Whoever had written on the pad last had left a trace of what they’d written behind. Quinn leaned down to see if he could get a better look without touching anything.

It looked like numbers. There was definitely a 5 and, if he squeezed his eyes just right, a couple of 8s. Another looked like either a + or a partial 4. A phone number? He had the feeling it wasn’t, but there was really no way to tell.

Quinn stared at the paper for a few more seconds, trying to pull more of the message out, but nothing else came. He frowned. If he took the paper back to the hotel, they would probably be able to figure out what the number was. But would the paper be missed? He wanted this incursion to go undetected. He couldn’t risk it, so reluctantly he closed the drawer and opened the one next to it.

This one contained only a few pens and a box of 9mm ammo. He was just about to close it when the beam of his flashlight caught something partially tucked under the box of ammo.

He leaned in for a better look.

It was a hair, dark brown with a gentle curve. Without lifting the box, it was impossible to tell how long it was. Odd that it would be there like that.

He left it untouched, too, and pushed the drawer closed.

Looking over at Nate, he said, “How much longer?”

“A couple minutes.”

Quinn turned his attention to the laptop computer. Using the handle end of the screwdriver, he unlatched the screen and pushed it up. Suddenly there was a whirring as the hard drive cycled up. A second later, the screen came on, casting a faint blue glow over Quinn and the room behind him. A rectangular box came up in the center of the screen, asking for a password.

“I thought you said not to touch anything,” Nate called out.

Quinn barely heard his apprentice as he did a quick scan of the computer. A power cord was attached to the side, but the machine was obviously running off battery power for the moment.

Why is this on? he wondered. It seemed a little loose and haphazard, unless the users planned to access it from off-site. Of course, since the computer was shut and in sleep mode, that wasn’t likely.

Unless, he thought, someone was using it earlier in the evening and is coming back soon.

They really needed to get out of there, but he couldn’t ignore the potential information on the computer.

“I need the phone,” he said to Nate.

“Hold on. One more.” Nate aimed the phone’s camera lens at one of the cabinets. “That’s it.”

He walked quickly over to Quinn and handed him the phone. Quinn dialed Orlando.

“Please tell me you’re on your way back,” she said.

“We’re still inside.”

Her voice became serious. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. We’re fine.”

“What did you find?”