“It’s Peter,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe you should just let him go to voice-mail.”
It was a good idea. Quinn tapped the Reject prompt on the phone’s touch screen, then put the device back in his pocket.
“I didn’t mean move in together,” Quinn said. “But I thought maybe I could get a place up there. I don’t have to be there all the time. I mean I’d definitely not be there when you’re in Vietnam, but when you’re in town … you know, I could, I could be up there, too. Close by. It’ll make things easier for us.”
He looked down at her, expecting some resistance. What he’d learned since they’d become involved was that she had a fierce independent streak, and was very protective of her own space. A product, perhaps, of her previous relationship experience with Quinn’s late mentor, Durrie.
But both her lips and her eyes were smiling. “I like that idea.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. What? You thought I wouldn’t?”
“I … eh … I don’t know what I thought.”
Quinn’s phone began vibrating again.
“Dammit,” he said. He pulled it back out. “Peter again.”
“Let him leave a message.”
“That won’t work,” Quinn said. “He’ll just keep calling until I finally answer. He’s done that before.”
“Then whatever he wants, just tell him no.”
“Like that’s an option.”
Quinn touched Accept on the screen.
“What?” Quinn said.
“I need you in New York,” Peter said. “I have something for you tonight.”
“I can’t make it there tonight. I’m not even close.”
There was a second of silence. “You’re in Boston, Quinn. I have a plane waiting. You can be here within an hour and a half.”
Quinn could feel his tension returning. “How do you know where I am?”
“Does it really matter? Remember our deal. No questions.”
“You’re a son of a bitch sometimes, you know that?”
“I’ll text you with the plane info as soon as I get off.”
“What if I’m busy?”
“You’re not.”
Quinn started to tighten his hand around the phone, but made himself stop. “This is number two,” he said, knowing this would mean delaying the trip to see his parents for a few more days. But getting Peter that much closer to being off his back would be worth it. “That leaves one and we’re through.”
“I can count,” Peter said. The line went dead.
“So,” Orlando said as Quinn slipped the phone back into his pocket. “We’re going somewhere?”
Quinn and Nate stood in the hallway of an abandoned apartment building in New York, a few feet away from a doorway that had been blown out by some kind of explosion. There was debris everywhere: splintered chunks of wood, a twisted metal door frame, and bits and pieces of plaster. The room beyond the gaping doorway was a pit. A nub that had once been the concrete landing stuck out no more than a foot and a half into the room, but beyond that there was nothing.
Shining his flashlight inside, Quinn was just able to make out a pile of wood and concrete approximately twenty feet down. It wasn’t an entire floor’s worth of wreckage, but it was enough for a staircase.
“It looks like the best places to attach the ropes are there and there,” Nate said, pointing up at the ceiling.
Quinn looked up at the spots his apprentice had indicated, happy that Nate was talking about something other than the Yankee game Quinn’s phone call had pulled him away from.
Nate had found a couple of large gaps in the ceiling that exposed some of the building’s support structure. The damage looked old, perhaps caused by water, or vandals, or neglect.
“Do it,” Quinn said.
Nate picked up the end of one of the ropes. “I need a boost.”
Quinn laced his fingers together and moved up next to the hallway wall. Nate put his free hand on Quinn’s shoulder, then raised his left foot and put it into Quinn’s palms.
“One, two, three,” Nate said, then pushed himself up, straightening his left leg — his good leg — so that his head almost reached the ceiling. “Good. Hold me steady.”
Quinn tilted his head up and watched as his apprentice looped the rope through the gap and around one of the beams before tying it off. As Nate stepped down, he tried to hide a wince, but Quinn noticed.
“I’m fine,” Nate said.
“That’s not what it looked like to me,” Quinn said but immediately regretted it.
“I’m fine. A cramp.” Nate’s face was tense, serious. “We all get them.”
As if to emphasize his point, he reached down and picked up the end of the second rope.
“I’m ready, let’s go,” Nate said.
Quinn moved three feet to his left and made another cradle with his hands. Nate repeated the task with the new rope. When he stepped down this time, he stared Quinn in the face and didn’t wince. But it didn’t matter. Quinn couldn’t help remembering Nate lying unconscious on a Singapore street, his foot mangled by a car that had purposely rammed into him. It had been Quinn’s call to remove the foot. It had been the right decision, but that didn’t make Quinn feel any less responsible.
“Shall I unroll it?” Nate asked.
“Please,” Quinn said.
The end of each security line was attached to a rope ladder sitting next to the empty doorway, waiting. Nate walked over and maneuvered the ladder so that it was centered in the opening, ready to roll over the edge into the darkness.
Another hour, two tops, and they’d be done, Quinn thought. And even more important, one more job would be ticked off the Peter payback list.
So far this one had been easy, if not a little unusual. Peter had arranged for a sedan to be waiting for them at the airport, complete with a trunk full of the equipment he thought they might need: flashlights, gloves, crowbars, the rope ladder, and handguns for each of them.
Peter hadn’t been the one to greet them, though. Quinn wasn’t even sure if he was in the city. It had been one of his agents, a woman named Ida. Quinn had met her briefly once before. She gave Quinn and Orlando the brief as they drove into Manhattan. It basically boiled down to a mop-up job in an apartment building, with a little recon work thrown in. Apparently an agent had run into a little trouble. While the agent had been extracted, there was the possibility that evidence had been left that could link the agent to the building. Peter wanted Quinn to make sure any link was severed. While they were at it, they were also to keep their eyes open for anything unusual.
“The agent was interrupted before the recon was complete,” Ida had said, just before they’d dropped her off near Columbus Circle.
“Recon is not one of our normal services,” Quinn told her.
“We both know that’s not true.”
Quinn had almost argued the point, but let it go. Doing this job meant he was almost done with Peter and the Office. Once he finished the third of his promised jobs, he was going to stop taking Peter’s calls. Enough was enough. The last few years had proved that.
Nate pushed the ladder over the edge of the opening. There was a
“We’re almost set here,” Quinn said, subconsciously turning his mouth toward the mic attached to the collar of his shirt.
There was no response.
“Orlando? Did you hear me?”
There was a second of nothing, then Orlando’s voice in his ear. “Yeah, just a minute.”
