scanning the ground for signs of a struggle that might indicate Daeng had been discovered. But there was nothing out of the ordinary.
So where the hell was he?
As he glanced toward the farmhouse, he flipped on his comm gear. “Daeng? Are you there?”
He knew there was little chance he’d get a response even if Daeng were okay. When Nate left, they had both turned off their gear to preserve batteries.
“Daeng?”
Dead silence.
Nate checked for guards, and spotted one on the porch of the farmhouse, and a pair in front of the other building.
He tried the comm one more time, then pulled out his phone as he crept back down the hill to the others. Given the circumstances, he was leery to call Daeng. If the former monk was in a delicate situation, the last thing he needed was his phone ringing.
He decided to give it a try anyway, and hit SEND.
Voice mail. Not even a message, just a beep.
“Where are you?” he said, and hung up.
Daeng had learned from his dealings back in Thailand and Burma that when an opportunity presented itself, a person should grab it.
About a half hour after Nate had left, two of the guards had begun a wide swing into the hills where he was hiding. Instead of panicking, he had simply circled around to the vineyard on the other side of the buildings. If the men had returned to the farmhouse right then, he would have stayed where he was, but they were taking their time. More importantly, they’d left only a single guard standing near the farmhouse to watch over everything.
This was the opportunity.
Leaving the cover of the vines, Daeng crept over to the windowless building. A glance around the front corner confirmed that the guard near the farmhouse porch hadn’t moved.
Now or never.
Taking slow silent steps, he approached the door, wrapped his fingers around the knob, and tested it. Still unlocked. He turned the knob until he felt the latch slip free, quickly opened it enough so he could slip inside, and closed it again.
He found himself in what amounted to a short empty hallway that T-boned into a wider corridor going left and right. He took a step forward and leaned out just enough so he could look in both directions. No one, just a hallway with two doors to the left, and two to the right, all along the opposite wall. At the end of the corridor to the right was a metal staircase leading up to the second floor and down to a basement level.
He stopped in front of each door, listened, then tried the handles. All four were unlocked. Inside each he found what could only be called a cell. The two middle ones were about the size of the small bedroom he’d had in Hollywood when he lived with his aunt. Maybe seven feet square, perhaps eight. The two on either end were much smaller-same length, but the width was no more than four feet at best.
He moved over to the stairwell, and detected a faint, almost rhythmic sound coming up from below. If the guard was down there, no way Daeng could descend the stairs without being noticed. So instead, he lay on the floor and inched forward until his head stuck out into the empty space above the receding staircase. He tilted it down as slowly as he could.
There was little to see at first, just the start of another corridor that looked to be a twin of the one on the ground floor. The further his head moved, the more hallway he saw. When he caught sight of the guard, he froze. The man was sitting in a chair at the far end, holding a book in his lap. Only he wasn’t reading. He was sleeping.
Whatever prisoner he was watching over had to be in one of the nearby cells, probably the one at the end.
Daeng pulled back.
There was a fine line between opportunity and stupidity-one he would surely cross if he ventured downstairs.
As he stood up, he comforted himself with the knowledge that he had pretty much confirmed that there was, indeed, someone in one of the cells. It was time to head back. When Nate showed up again, he’d tell him what he’d found, and they could figure out what to do next.
He walked to the front door, slowly opened it, and looked out.
Immediately, he pulled his head back in, and used every ounce of restraint he had to ease the door shut.
The others had returned, and were huddled together in front of the main house, talking. He might have been able to sneak away, but that would have been even riskier than if he’d made a try for the basement.
He’d just have to wait a few minutes until they finished whatever they were doing. Hopefully most of them would go into the house. It would still be a risk, but He heard feet outside heading his way.
Panic was not part of Daeng’s nature, so he calmly stepped back into the larger corridor and turned in the opposite direction from the stairs. As he reached the tiny cell on the end, he heard someone opening the main door.
Daeng opened the door, and slipped into the darkened cell. It wasn’t until the door shut that he realized it had no interior handle. So while the cell doors were technically unlocked, that only applied if one was on the other side.
Which he wasn’t.
Not quite what I had in mind.
He sat down on the mattress that filled most of the cell’s floor, and started going through the contents of his pockets, identifying everything by feel. Euro bills and change, the passport that matched the ID he was traveling under, the envelope Nate had asked him to hold, his comm, and his phone.
He checked the reception on his cell. One bar. The walls of the building were thick, and apparently not cell- phone friendly. Still, one bar was better than none. Hopefully it would be enough to at least get a text message out.
He tried, but it failed. He tried again. And again. And again.
After pushing the mattress against the door to block any sound from seeping into the corridor, he tried calling Nate several times, but apparently one bar wasn’t enough for either option.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying there when his phone vibrated. An hour? Two? He snatched it up and looked at the display.
Nate.
He punched ACCEPT, but the call failed to connect.
He tried calling Nate back, then texting him, but again, the signal wasn’t strong enough.
Maybe he’s close.
He picked up his comm gear and turned it on.
“Nate? Can you hear me? It’s Daeng. Are you back?”
“What’s going on?” Quinn asked as Nate reappeared on the hill just above them.
“I don’t know. Daeng’s not there.”
“You’re sure we’re in the right place?” Orlando asked.
“Positive.”
“Show me the farmhouse,” Quinn said.
“Okay. Down a little bit, though. Not here.”
Staying at their current elevation, they moved parallel to the summit until they were a good fifty yards to the left, then snuck up the slope, dropping to their stomachs just before they reached the top.
From this angle, the farmhouse hid a portion of the outbuilding. Nate pulled night-vision binoculars out of his pack and handed them to Quinn.
The buildings were just as Nate had described them. Though they looked old, they had probably only been constructed in the last ten or fifteen years. Quinn had seen others like them, residences specifically designed to be
