Brett Battles - The Collected

Nate had said Jake had installed it in case of emergencies, but hardly ever put it to use. There were cameras, too, both still and motion, but she hadn’t bothered with them.

The only question now was, had they discovered where Nate was? Listening at double speed and working backward from the last recording, she had her answer seven and a half minutes later.

“This is interesting.” Orlando’s voice. “He’s not based in Reynosa.”

“Where, then?” Jake asked.

“Monterrey.”

“Maybe it would be better if we talked to the captain in person.” A pause. “US passport?”

“I have two.” A new voice. Male, but not one Liz recognized.

“Break one out. We’re going to Mexico.”

She listened for another ten minutes to see if there was anything else important, then erased the recordings, closed the panel, and bought a ticket online to Monterrey.

Thought still hot, the temperature had begun to dip.

Sun’s down , Nate thought.

As if heralding the passing of day to night, he heard a door open. Three sets of heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway, and didn’t stop until they reached the door of the newest prisoner.

Nate moved into position by the vent again, and was there in plenty of time to see them walk back by, this time accompanied by the man in the sneakers.

Seconds later, the door opened and shut again, and quiet returned.

Nate waited a few minutes, then said, “Did you see him?”

“See him?” Lanier asked. “Do you have a window?”

“No. Through the vent.”

“Mine’s angled down. Can’t see a damn thing.”

“Same here,” Berkeley said.

“I saw him.” The voice was a croak from farther away.

“Who the hell is that?” Lanier asked.

“It’s the guy across from me,” Berkeley said.

The one who’d been there a while, but hadn’t responded in the past.

“Hey, buddy,” Lanier said. “You all right?”

There was a grunt. It could have been a yes, or it could have been a none-of-your-business.

“What’s your name?”

“Not important,” the man said, his croak replaced by a gravelly bass.

“However you want to play it. Me, I’m Lanier. The guy across from you is Berkeley. And down there at the other end is Quinn.”

It was quiet for a second before the man said, “Quinn, huh?”

Feeling the need to reply, Nate said, “Yeah. That’s me.”

The man let out a low laugh. “Okay. Call me Jonathan, then.”

Both Lanier and Berkeley said hello, but Nate kept quiet. He had no doubt the man in the far cell had chosen the name Jonathan just to send the message he knew Nate wasn’t Quinn.

“What’s your specialty, Jonathan?” Lanier asked. “I assume you’re in the biz.”

“Whatever needs doing.”

“A jack?”

“Sure.”

The more the man talked, the more Nate couldn’t help thinking he knew the voice, but he couldn’t put a name to it.

“So Jonathan, why haven’t you answered us before?” Lanier asked.

“I didn’t hear you.”

“We’ve been trying to talk to you for days.”

Silence.

“How long have I been here?” the man asked.

“You came here right after I did.”

“And how long is that?”

“I’ve been here eight days.”

More silence.

“You okay in there?” Lanier asked.

Quiet.

“Hey, Jonathan. You still with us?”

A few more seconds of nothing, then a grunt like before, followed by, “I’m going to get some sleep.”

“All right,” Lanier said, sounding disappointed. “We’ll be here when you wake up.” His next words were directed at Nate and Berkeley. “Either of you come up with any fresh ideas on how we get out of here?”

They talked for another few minutes, but no one had anything concrete.

Finally, Nate said, “I’m going to get some rest, too.”

Putting a hand on the door, he started to push himself up, but his palm slipped, hitting the frame of the vent.

Unexpectedly, it moved.

He stared at it. Even if he could get the grill off, the hole would be too narrow for him to crawl through. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be useful, though.

Making sure his body shielded the vent from any potential camera in the room, he tugged on the frame. It moved again, creating a thin gap between it and the door. He tried again, but apparently it had gone as far as it could. If he had a hammer or a crowbar, he could have worked the tip into the gap and lever the grill out in seconds. But his holding cell had come equipped with neither.

He studied the gap, and wondered for a moment.

Maybe…

He worked the bolt out of his pocket, flipped it around, and lowered the cap end into the gap. Sure enough, his instinct had been right. Almost a perfect fit.

Working his way from one end to the other, he levered the bolt back and forth, expanding the length of the gap all the way across. Then he did the same on the ends. The bottom was the hardest part because he couldn’t see what he was doing, but by the time he finished his first full pass, the frame had pulled away from the door a full quarter inch.

The second go-around was easier, and he was able to increase the gap half an inch more.

Before proceeding any further, he leaned as far down as he could and looked through the slats. He was worried that the front part of the frame might fall out into the hallway if it lost the support of the back half. If that happened, the bang would surely bring guards running. But the positioning of the front portion looked unchanged. In fact, now that the back had separated some from the front, he could see that the vent slats were actually attached to the front half.

That was good. He could actually do something to ensure the front didn’t fall out.

He hurried over to the mattress and spent several minutes pulling loose four long pieces of thread. Back at the vent, he carefully worked an end of one of the strings over a slat, and used the barrel of the bolt to snag it and bring it back in. He tied it off, and repeated the procedure with the remaining strings.

Once more, he began working the back half of the frame out of the opening. It was slower going now, as he had to use one hand to hold the strings so that the front half wouldn’t fall out.

It took twenty minutes for it to finally pop free. When it did, he tried to grab it to keep it from falling, but success only came at the expense of losing control of the bolt. It slipped from his hand and clattered onto the floor. As quickly as he could, he smothered it with his leg.

“What was that?” Lanier asked. “Did you guys hear that?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Berkeley said.

“Quinn, you awake? You hear that sound?”

Nate held still.

“Quinn?” Lanier paused. “Hey, Quinn.”

“He’s asleep,” Berkeley said. “Just let him be.”

“You didn’t hear that noise?”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“It sounded like metal or something.”

“Nope. Sorry.”

“Jonathan, how about you?” Lanier asked.

There was no response from the man with the gravelly voice.

Soon, quiet returned to the hallway. Nate remained motionless, sure that Lanier was listening at his own vent for any new noise.

If they had all been in the same cell, he would have been happy to show them what he was doing, but blind to each other like they were, he couldn’t take the chance. There was no way to know what kind of surveillance there might be in the hallway. Hell, for all he knew, Lanier or even Berkeley might not even be in a cell at all, and could be guards trying to get him talking.