Quinn described the door Orlando found.
“You think you can get in without tripping any explosives?”
“There might be a way. But people will know someone’s been there. I won’t be able to cover it up.”
Peter didn’t even hesitate. “Do it.”
“Fine,” Quinn said. “Then what would you like me to do with the eyewitness?”
“What eyewitness?” Peter asked, surprised.
Quinn smiled to himself.
“He was there?”
“Says he left right after.”
“Describe him.”
Quinn gave him a quick snapshot of Al’s vitals.
The tone of Peter’s voice changed from one of surprise and concern to one of controlled anger. “Hold him there. I’m sending someone to pick him up.”
“All right,” Quinn said. “You can probably get a description of this Monroe guy out of him, but I doubt much more.”
“Find anything else I should know about?”
“No. That’s it.”
Peter hung up.
“Please,” Al said. “Don’t open it. We’ll die like that lady did.”
They’d brought Al and Nate with them when they returned to the other doorway. Once Al saw where they were going, he’d tried to stop walking. But Nate’s gun in his back was enough of a prod to keep him moving forward.
“Do you know what’s behind this?” Quinn asked the caretaker.
“No,” Al said. “Always been locked. You should leave it that way.”
“I’m planning on it.”
Quinn picked up the two-by-four he’d left on the floor earlier.
“Move him back a few feet,” Quinn said.
His apprentice nodded, then pulled Al out of Quinn’s swing zone.
“What are you going to do with that?” Al asked.
Quinn held on to the middle of the two-by-four with one hand, and wrapped the other hand around the end pointed away from the wall. He pulled it back high behind his head, then swung it forward. Like a battering ram, the two-by-four smashed into the soft spot of the wall.
There was a loud crack as the plaster and the wooden slats beneath it shattered under the force of the blow.
“Hey! Stop it,” Al said. “Mr. Monroe is going to be pissed.”
“According to you, Mr. Monroe is already pissed,” Quinn said. He pulled the two-by-four back, raising it high again. “What’s behind the door?”
“I don’t know! I swear!”
Quinn drove the board into the wall again.
“Ah, man,” Al said. “No one’s supposed to go in there.”
“What’s inside, Al?”
Al’s shoulders slumped. “You might as well finish it. I don’t know.”
Instead of taking another large swing, Quinn began punching his ram into the wall, over and over, until there was a hole approximately two feet in diameter passing all the way into the room beyond. It was just big enough to stick his head through. He set the board on the ground, then held out his hand to Orlando. She gave him one of the flashlights.
Letting the light lead the way, he leaned in.
At first it didn’t look much different from the room Peter’s agent had nearly died in. The notable exception was the floor. Though it was lower than the level of floor in the hallway, it was only by a couple feet, not twenty.
The wall across the room from the hole appeared to be made of concrete.
The wall to his right was closest to his position, about five feet away. It appeared to be constructed of the same material as the wall he’d busted through: slats and plaster. Long ago, someone had painted a red stripe at waist level along the entire side, but it was faded now. Given a few more years, it might not even be noticeable.
Stacked along the far side to the left were several cardboard boxes. Judging from the water stains on the sides and the way they sagged into each other, they appeared to have been there a long time.
Nothing obvious caught his attention. Certainly nothing that would have warranted locking the door. Perhaps it was another red herring. Perhaps the whole building was nothing but something to throw Peter’s people off the track of whatever it was they were working on.
