Brett Battles - Shadow of Betrayal

“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 thud-thud-thud as it unrolled itself on the way down, then the support ropes they had just tied off snapped taut.

“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.”

“What’s up?”

Earlier, while Nate and Quinn had lugged the ladder inside and set it up, Orlando had volunteered to begin the recon of the first couple floors.

“I think I found something,” she said.

“What? Where?”

Instead of a reply, Quinn heard footsteps coming from his left down an intersecting corridor. Turning toward the sound, he could see the beam of Orlando’s flashlight cut through the darkness, then angle in his direction.

“It might be nothing,” she said, her voice still coming through the receiver in his ear. “We can check it out later if we need to. I’ll be right there.”

While they waited for her to arrive, Nate checked the ladder and the ropes to make sure everything was secure.

“Who wants to go first?” Nate asked, the moment Orlando rejoined them.

“You do,” Quinn told him.

“Check this out,” Nate said.

Quinn and Orlando walked over as Nate worked a wooden riser loose from one of the piles of junk. Nails stuck out in a line along both short ends, and one corner had splintered off, but otherwise it was intact.

“See?” he said after he flipped the piece of wood over.

Quinn had to look closely to see what his apprentice meant. There was a circular patch in the center of the tread that was just a shade or two darker than the surrounding wood. Nate pressed against it, and it pushed in half an inch, then sprang back when he let go.

“Pressure trigger,” Orlando said. “Good catch.”

“Peter’s agent must have stepped on this,” Nate said. “That probably sent a signal to the explosives.”

Orlando smiled. “You’ve been studying.”

Nate shrugged. “Had a lot of time on my hands.” He glanced up at the doorway high on the wall above them. “Jesus … do you think he fell all this way?”

Quinn’s eyes were drawn to something several feet away. It flashed white as his light passed over it. He walked over, picked it up off the ground.

“I’d say there is a very good chance the agent fell the whole way,” Quinn said. He held up the item he’d found. “I also think there is a pretty good chance that he is a she.”

In his hand was a pair of decidedly feminine glasses, complete with camera attached to the side.

“She was apparently here for a reason,” Orlando said. “But has anyone found out what that might have been?”

Neither Quinn nor Nate had an answer for that. So they began looking in the only place they had yet to check, under the wrecked stairs. They moved things around so they could be sure there was nothing hidden underneath—trapdoors, hidden storage spaces. But there was nothing.

“Red herring,” Nate said.

“Looks that way,” Quinn said.

“Then we’re out of here?” Nate asked.

Quinn shook his head. “Not yet. I want you to photograph everything in here. Normal and infrared. Just in case.” Quinn looked over at Orlando. “While he’s doing that, why don’t you show me what you found earlier?”

Orlando led Quinn to a hallway that ran along the back of the building. About a third of the way down, she stopped in front of a door on the right-hand side. The other doors along the hallway were all wooden and rotting. And, for the most part, all were also open. This door was different. It was metal, though it had been painted to look older than it really was.

“Look familiar?” Orlando asked.

Quinn nodded. It looked nearly identical in both texture and color to the metal remains of the door that had been torn and twisted by the explosion.

“I haven’t seen any others like it,” Orlando said. “Peter’s instructions were to look for anything unusual. Thought this might qualify.”

“Definitely.”

Quinn touched the knob, then attempted to turn it. It moved a fraction of an inch before stopping.

“So?” she said. “Do we try to get in?”

Though Quinn thought it might be better to just walk away, that would be neglecting the assignment. And as much as he was annoyed to be here in the first place, that was just not something he would do.

“Not through here,” he said.

He took a few steps down the hall away from the door. As he did, he let his fingers brush against the wall, tapping the surface every few inches. After ten feet he stopped, returned to the door, then did the same thing along the other side.

“Think this is rigged like the staircase?” Orlando asked when he finished.

Quinn looked back at the door, then frowned. “What’s your gut?”

“I think we’d be stupid to think it wasn’t.”

Quinn smiled in agreement.

He took a few paces forward, then stopped at a spot four feet to the right of the door. He touched the wall again. Like elsewhere, it was plaster, probably supported by ancient wooden slats underneath. Only the wall had given in a little at this spot as he pressed against it.

He moved his light through the hallway. Like elsewhere in the building, random junk was scattered along the floor: an old shoe, dozens of empty food containers, newspapers, cardboard boxes, and several pieces of wood in varying shapes and conditions. He wished he’d brought along one of the crowbars Peter had gotten for them, but that would mean a trip back to the car. He almost decided he didn’t have much of a choice, when the beam of his light caught something that looked promising.

It was a two-by-four, about three feet long. Quinn picked it up with one hand, then tapped it against the ground, testing its strength. It was solid, no sign of rot.