The Collected

Several footsteps approached the table, and soldiers in the same fatigues and the men with the guns set plates in front of Nate and Harris.

In addition to the fish, there were grilled vegetables and fresh fruit. Nate tried to keep his face blank, but inside he was salivating at the sight. He hadn’t eaten since before things went wrong in Monterrey.

Another soldier placed a glass of water beside Nate’s silverware.

Harris picked up his fork. “Bon appetit.” He speared a piece of his fish and put it in his mouth. As he chewed, he looked back at Nate. “Don’t you like fish?”

Nate raised his bound hands.

“Of course,” Harris said. “Janus!”

Janus appeared at Nate’s side, and freed Nate’s hands again.

Nate wanted nothing more than to shove everything into his mouth, but he took his time, acting only semi- interested in what had been served.

“It’s become my habit to have a meal with each of our guests on his first evening here,” Harris said. “One of my little joys, I guess you’d say.” He took another bite. “Last night you arrived a bit too late, but you’re here now. That’s what counts.”

Each of us? Nate thought.

Harris cut away another piece of the swordfish. “This is delicious, isn’t it?”

The one-sided dialogue continued throughout the meal, with Harris commenting on everything from the food to the weather to the stars that now sparkled above them.

When they finally finished, he said, “I want you to know how much I admire your career. A man with your reputation is rare indeed. You are a true artist, you know that?” He smiled. “But all things come to an end.” He pushed back from the table and stood up. “Well, I wish I could stay, but our last guest arrives tomorrow, and I need to oversee the preparations. Have a good night, Mr. Quinn.”

The cell Janus took him to was not the same one he’d spent the day in. His new living quarters were located down a hallway housing several rooms. Each had a heavy door that was locked in place by a levered handle. The handle controlled a double metal-rod system attached to the outside of the door. In the locked position, the rods fit snuggly into slots in the ceiling and on the floor, literally barring the door from opening.

The room itself was a bit larger than his last, and came complete with a mattress on the floor and a rudimentary toilet in the corner. The stone walls were worn and blackened with age, and while there were still no windows, there was a rectangular vent low on the door that allowed fresh air to drift in.

The only light came from a dull bulb screwed into a socket crudely attached in an upper corner. The wire wasn’t visible, so Nate assumed a hole must have been drilled through the rock.

He lay down on his mattress and stared at the ceiling. So far, he’d been captured, knocked around, transported somewhere, bound to a chair where he was dunked in water, and then treated to a gourmet meal. Even odder, perhaps, was that even though he’d been asked a few questions here and there, there had really been no interrogation.

It just didn’t add up.

“Hey.”

Nate sat up. The voice had been a distant whisper, or maybe not even a voice at all. Perhaps it had just been the groan of the building.

“Hey, new guy.”

No groan could put words together like that.

Nate crawled over to the door and leaned down to the vent. “Who’s there?”

“Who are you?” the voice asked.

Before Nate could respond, another voice whispered, “Shut up. You know they can hear everything we say.”

“So what?” the first voice said. “New guy, who are you?”

Nate hesitated for a moment, then whispered, “Quinn.”

“Holy shit. The cleaner?”

He paused again. “Uh-huh. Who are you?”

“Lanier. Remember me? We’ve worked together before.”

Lanier?

It took a second before the name clicked. An ops guy, good at logistics, wasn’t he? They had worked together once or twice, but Nate knew the man was thinking of the original Quinn, not him.

“Sure,” he said. “I know who you are. Who’s the other guy?”

“Berkeley, another ops guy like me, and scared shitless.”

“I’m not scared,” Berkeley whispered, his voice a bit more distant than Lanier’s. “I just think we need to be smart.”

Berkeley’s name was also familiar. “Either of you know what’s going on?” Nate asked.

“No clue,” Lanier said. “I’d just finished this gig in Panama and the next thing I know, I wake up here. That was a week ago.”

“A week?” Nate said, surprised.

“Berkeley’s been here even longer. A week and a half.”

“Almost two,” Berkeley said, obviously not wanting to be short-changed.

“And they haven’t told either of you why?”

“Other than the first day we each got here, the only guy we’ve seen is that big son of a bitch Janus,” Lanier said.

“And the first day?”

“Same thing that happened to you tonight, I’m guessing. Dinner with Mr. Baldy.”

“He said his name was Harris,” Nate said.

“That’s consistent, anyway.”

“So you’ve been in your cells since then?”

“They haven’t even let us take a shower.”

“Anyone question you?”

“No.”

“Seriously?”

“Kind of freaky, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t just kind of freaky, it was all kinds of freaky.

“Did Harris tell you anything?” Lanier asked.

Nate repeated what he thought were the key points from Harris’s monologue, and added, “He did say another guest was coming tomorrow.”

“That’ll make five.”

“Five?”

“Yeah, there’s another guy in a room somewhere down the hall. They take him in and out a lot. I get the feeling he’s been beaten up pretty bad. Never responds when we call out to him.”

Five people, at least two of whom Nate was tangentially associated with. No, at least two of whom Quinn was associated with.

For the first time, he felt there might be a chance to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. How and in what order was still an unknown, but a little light was creeping in.

He put his lips near the vent. “Lanier?”

“Yeah?”

“How many-”

A door down the hall opened, and Janus shouted, “Be quiet! Time to sleep.”

His heavy, booted feet pounded quickly down the hall, stopping right in front of the vent.

Something hit Nate’s door. Bam!Bam!

Nate jumped back, his ears ringing.

“No talking,” Janus said.