Brett Battles - The Collected

Nate barely parted his eyelids as the door to his cell opened.

Janus entered, carrying something. “I bring water for you.”

“Go away,” Nate whispered.

A laugh, deep and scornful.

There was a clacking sound Nate couldn’t place, followed by a moment of nothing, then pain, everywhere pain, as a bucketload of water splashed down on the exposed wounds across his back.

Arcing his whole body, Nate screamed. “You bastard!”

He wanted nothing more than to jump up and slam a fist into Janus’s face, but his legs refused to move off the bed.

More laughter as the pain echoed in waves, each as strong as the last. Nate cringed as he tried to force the pain away. He could feel another scream of agony growing in his belly, but he refused to release it.

“Get. Out!” he managed.

“You want more water, you let me know,” Janus said. “Oh, and even if you are tempted, I would not lie on my back if I were you.”

There was a final bout of laughter as the man left and the door closed.

Sleep. I just need to sleep , Nate thought, desperately clawing at oblivion.

But as soon as his mind started to relax, there was another scream from down the hall as Janus played his water trick on one of Nate’s cellmates.

Nate slowly moved his hand into his pants pocket and gripped the bolt, as if it were a talisman that could give him the power he needed. Surprisingly, doing so seemed to relieve a bit of the pain, and he finally felt sleep begin to sweep over him.

As it did, he thought he heard Liz’s voice again.

“Keep your head clear, and always be ready. It’s the only way you’ll make it.”

“I love you,” he mouthed soundlessly. “I love…”

Eastern Mexico

The names on the Post-its were once more nagging at Quinn. Maybe it was just being on a plane again, but he was sure there was something there.

Peter. Berkeley. And either himself or Nate.

He tried slotting in each of the other names, looking for a combination that might ring a bell.

No.

No.

No.

Nothing. No set of players that made any sense.

He finally gave up and looked over at Orlando. She had her laptop open, and, against airline regulations, connected to the Internet via an unused channel she’d hacked into through the plane’s own datalink system.

“Anything on the cargo plane?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah. Got that a while ago,” she said.

“And you weren’t going to tell me?”

“You were resting.”

“I was not resting.”

“Well, that’s what it looked like.”

He frowned. “So, the plane?”

“Byrd Cargo. Named after founder Norman Byrd. Established nineteen sixty-five. Based out of Tampa, Florida.”

“Anything on the specific aircraft?”

“On a long-term charter.”

“To who?”

“A company called Gene/Sea International. And before you ask, they don’t exist.”

“And Byrd Cargo knows this?”

“No. Gene/Sea’s got a pretty good front. Websites, bank accounts, PR releases. They claim to be a biochem company focused on the ocean. Even have a few research papers you can download. All very legit-looking.”

“But they’re not real.”

She looked over at him, her face blank. “Didn’t I already say that?”

“Yes, you did,” he conceded. “Who are they fronting for?”

She looked back at her screen. “That part, not so easy.”

“That’s what you’re trying to figure out now?”

“No. A little difficult from here. I have a friend looking into it.”

“So what’s that you’re working on?”

“I finally got some hits back on one of the bots I sent out.” Her bots were programs that wormed their way through the Internet, looking for whatever they’d been instructed to find.

“Concerning?”

“Senator Lopez.”

“And?

“ And what my bot dug up might not mean anything,” she said. In a tone indicating Quinn should have already figured that out, she added, “Which is why I’m working on it.”

“What did it turn up?”

She took a deep breath, and turned to him again. “Sweetheart, let me figure out if this means anything, and if it does, you’ll be the first to know. Cool?”

Quinn held up his hands in surrender. “Cool.”

She looked unimpressed. “Can I get back to work now?”

“Be my guest.”

He leaned back in his chair, thinking he could get a couple minutes of shut-eye before they began their descent.

Just as he was drifting off, Orlando shook his arm and said, “Hey!”

He opened his eyes, sleep retreating as fast as it had come.

“What? Now you’re ready to talk?”

Her face scrunched up. “What are you talking about?”

“Lopez? I didn’t just dream all that, did I?”

“Don’t worry about Lopez right now.” She nodded her chin at her screen. “Just got an email from Crissy Franklin.”

Franklin was one of the people they’d contacted, trying to locate one of the ops on their potential-missing list.

“And?”

“She says Maurice Curson is unaccounted for.”

Quinn thought for a moment. “Curson? He wasn’t on our list.”

“We didn’t include him because he’s been out of the business for a few years.”

“Blackballed,” he said, remembering. Something had happened on one of Curson’s jobs that forced him out of the game.

“Apparently he’s been working private security since then,” Orlando said. “But Crissy says he recently got a gig, a real gig. He was supposed to be back a few days ago, but there’s been no sign of him.”

Quinn frowned. “The connection’s kind of iffy, don’t you think?”

“We should still put his name on our list.”

“If you think so,” Quinn said.

A bong sounded throughout the cabin. A flight attendant came on the intercom, telling them in Spanish that they were descending into Tampico, and that electrical devices needed to be turned off and stowed away.

As soon as they were on the ground, Quinn checked his phone. There was a message from Steve Howard asking him to call back via vid-chat ASAP. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any place private enough in the small terminal to see what he wanted, so they arranged for a car first, and made the call from inside the sedan.

Quinn held his phone out so that both Orlando and Daeng could see Howard’s face when it appeared.

“Sorry for the delay,” Quinn said. “What’s up?”

“I was finally able to get a look at the security footage from Peter’s building,” Howard said. “Unfortunately, there’s a chunk missing.”

“From when?”

“Seven days ago. Eleven p.m. to one a.m. I’ve checked all the days between that and when Misty came to the apartment, and also five days on the other side, but found nothing unusual.”

“So you think seven days ago is probably when he went missing?”

“It is when he went missing,” Howard said.

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

“Peter’s building isn’t the only one with security cameras. I checked the others in the area, and hit the jackpot on a building same side of the street and a few doors down. One of their cameras is aimed just wide enough to catch the front of Peter’s building. Here, let me show you.”

Howard’s face disappeared as he pointed his camera phone at a laptop sitting on a table next to him. On the screen was a nighttime image of a street. The camera that had shot it obviously had a low-light setting, because despite the hour it was taken, it was easy to make out details.

“This was shot at 11:57 p.m. You see that station wagon?” A finger moved into view and pointed at a car parked along the left edge of the screen. “That’s right in front of Peter’s building. That’s where you should pay attention.”