Brett Battles - Shadow of Betrayal

Should work , he thought.

“Let me hold your flashlight,” Orlando said.

He handed it over, not even registering the fact that she’d figured out what he was going to do. That was just the way they operated, more often than not having the same ideas at the same time.

He found the soft spot on the wall again, then grabbed hold of the two-by-four with both hands and arced it back until it almost touched the other side of the corridor.

“What’s that?” Orlando asked, her voice hushed.

Quinn paused, his battering ram suspended in the air, ready to smash into the wall. It took him a second before he heard it. Something shuffling along the floor.

Footsteps. And heading in their direction. But not in their hallway, in one intersecting it.

“Nate,” Quinn whispered. “What’s your position?”

“I’m nearing the top of the ladder,” Nate said. There was a pause. “Please don’t tell me you want me to go back down.”

“No. Just hold your position when you reach the top.”

“Copy that.”

Orlando doused both of the lights, plunging the hallway into complete darkness. Careful not to make any unnecessary noise, Quinn lowered the two-by-four to the floor, then pulled out his SIG. Beside him, he could hear Orlando freeing her own weapon.

Once armed, they stood rock still as the steps grew closer. There was a muffled thud like someone bumping into a distant wall, then the steps were suddenly in the same hallway as they were.

Quinn raised his gun in the direction of the noise, then whispered, “Now.”

Orlando flipped on one of the flashlights.

“Shit! What the hell?”

Caught at the very far end of the flashlight beam’s reach was a man. He appeared to be about the same height as Quinn, but that was about all the detail they could make out. A moment after being lit up, he was gone, running down the corridor away from Quinn and Orlando.

“Hey!” Quinn yelled. “Stop!”

But the man’s pace only increased.

“Dammit,” Quinn said. Both he and Orlando started running at once. “Nate. There’s a hostile in the building. He’s heading your way.”

“Copy that.”

“Not sure if he’s armed, so be careful.”

“You want me to take him out?”

“No,” Quinn said. “Just… try to stop him, or at least scare him back in our direction.”

“Copy,” Nate said. “I hear him. Hold on.” Quinn could hear Nate breathing. “He’s just around the corner.”

“Be careful,” Quinn said.

“Stop right the—”

Nate’s command was interrupted by a loud smack, and the sound of something rubbing against the microphone.

“Dammit!” Nate yelled.

Quinn increased his speed, sprinting toward the intersection with the hallway Nate was in.

“What’s happening?” Quinn asked. “Are you all right?”

“The asshole just head-butted me in the cheek.”

“Where is he now?”

There was silence for a second.

“He’s … ah … on the ground.” Nate paused again. “I think I knocked him out.”

CHAPTER

8

THE UNCONSCIOUS MAN COULD HAVE BEEN ANYWHEREfrom twenty-five to his early forties. His face, weathered and wrinkled prematurely, had been beaten into a shape he hadn’t been born with. But though his clothes were old and thin in some spots, they were clean. And he obviously cared about his appearance enough to tuck his shirt in, comb his hair, and take a shower once in a while.

Not quite a street bum, not quite part of society, either. The guy probably existed somewhere in between.

His face also sported a new addition, a large red spot in the middle of his forehead, the remnant of his collision with Nate. Quinn knew it would turn into a bruise before long.

“Smells like he’s been drinking,” Nate said.

Quinn had noticed it, too, a faint hint of alcohol, not like the guy had been sucking anything down in the past hour, but within the last several. Sour, like beer.

“Here.” Quinn held his gun out to Nate.

He grabbed it and aimed it at the man on the ground.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Nate asked.

“Kind of hard to tell at the moment,” Quinn said. “But at least we know one thing.”

“What?” Nate asked.

“We know that hard head of yours is good for something,” Quinn said, a small smile on his face.

“Ha. Ha. Hilarious.” There was a red spot on his cheek that was a near match to the spot on the unconscious man’s forehead. Nate raised his hand and began rubbing it. “Hurts like hell.” His hand stopped in mid-motion. “Damn. I think one of my teeth is loose.”

Quinn knelt down and searched the man. The only things the guy had been armed with were an old black plastic comb and a set of ten keys. Definitely not a street person. They’d have no need for keys.

Quinn put his hand on the man’s cheek, then rocked the man’s head back and forth.

“Hey,” he said. “Wake up.”

Not even a twitch. Quinn raised his hand a few inches, then slapped it down on the man’s cheek, not too hard, just enough so that it would sting.

“Wake up,” he repeated. “Come on.”

A low groan started in the man’s chest, then escaped through his mouth. A moment of nothing, then another groan, and another. Finally, he started to move his head in a slow circle on his own.

Quinn kept his hand on the man’s cheek, his thumb wrapped around the bottom of the guy’s chin. All of a sudden, the man’s eyelids squeezed together as a grimace of pain shot across his face. One of his hands reached up and touched his injured forehead.

He grunted, then all of a sudden he froze. Reluctantly, as if it was the last thing he wanted to do, his eyelids parted.

“Oh, God. Please. I’m sorry,” he said, his voice clipped and nervous. “Just leave me alone. I ain’t got nothing.”

“What’s your name?” Quinn asked.

“No,” the man said. “You don’t need that. Just let me go, okay? Do whatever you want. I don’t give a shit.”

“What’s your name?” Quinn repeated.

The man looked at Quinn for a second, licked his lips, then said, “Al.”

“Al what?”

More hesitation. “Al Barker.”

“Okay, Al Barker. What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” Al said as if it should have been obvious.

“No one lives here,” Quinn said.

Al’s gaze flicked beyond Quinn at Nate and Orlando. “Do you have to shine that thing in my eyes?”

The beam of Orlando’s flashlight moved off the man’s face and onto his chest.

“Better?” she said.

“Shit, man, you guys got guns!” Al had apparently just noticed the pistols in Orlando’s and Nate’s hands. “What the hell are you pointing guns at me for?”

Quinn squeezed Al’s chin and turned it to the right. “Over here, Al,” Quinn said. “What are you doing here?”

Al glanced back at Orlando and Nate, then refocused on Quinn. “I told you. I live here.”

“The building’s empty, Al.”

“You don’t have to keep saying my name.”

“I just want to make sure you know I’m talking to you.”

“I know you’re talking to me,” Al said. “And I do live here. The owner pays me to stay in one of the rooms upstairs. A couple hundred bucks a month, and I get the place for free.”

“So you’re the caretaker,” Quinn said.

“I guess. Yeah, sure. The caretaker.”

“So if you’re the caretaker, where have you been all day?”

“I was upstairs … listening to the radio … building’s got no electricity, so no TV.”

“You were upstairs all day?”

“Sure.”

Quinn stared at him for a moment. “Al, where were you today?”