The Deceived

by Brett Battles

  A building that size, it seemed a reasonable guess it was only one apartment per floor. Unit 4, fourth floor.

  When his gaze reached what he assumed was Jenny’s apartment, he stopped and stared. Each of the apartments had two windows looking out over the canal. But the apartment on the fourth floor was different. Where the windows had once been, there were now large sheets of plywood. Even in the dim light of the streetlamps, he could tell the bricks around the sheets were dark, almost black.

  He looked at the apartments on the fifth and the third floors. No curtains in these windows, not even knickknacks on the windowsill. Only darkness and the sense of abandonment. And though there were curtains drawn across the windows of the first and second floors, Quinn got the distinct feeling no one was home.

  A fire, Quinn thought. There was no mistaking the signs. And the fourth-floor apartment had taken the brunt.

  What the hell? he thought.

  He willed himself to continue moving forward along the path. In the distance, he could hear the traffic on M Street, but here next to Jenny’s building there was an eerie quiet. Even the water in the canal seemed hushed as it moved through the old locks and tumbled from one level to the next.

  When he reached the sidewalk running in front of the small apartment complex, he stopped again. The light above the main doorway was out, but the darkness didn’t hide the strip of caution tape strung across the top of the steps. As Quinn suspected, the building had been evacuated.

  He checked the street, then walked up the steps and ducked under the tape. From the pocket of his leather jacket, he removed a pair of latex surgical gloves and pulled them on.

  He tried the doorknob. Locked, but the door itself felt loose, like the deadbolt hadn’t been engaged. He tried the knob again, leaning against the door to see if it might be weak. The lock in the knob held for a moment, then gave way with a muffled pop. Quinn wasted no time crossing the threshold and closing the door behind him.

  He found himself in a small community entry. The first thing he noticed was the smell. Smoke. But not as strong as he’d expected. It made him wonder how long it had been since the fire had occurred.

  To the right was a set of metal mailboxes. There were five in total. To the left was the door to the first-floor apartment, and straight ahead was a staircase.

  Quinn walked over to the mailboxes. There was enough illumination filtering in through a large window above the main door for him to read the labels on each without pulling out his flashlight. The boxes were all numbered 1 through 5, but there were no names.

  Quinn forced the lock on the one labeled “4.” The box was stuffed full, like whomever it belonged to hadn’t been home for at least a week before the fire occurred. No mail would have been delivered after the blaze. Quinn pulled out several items. They were all addressed to the same person.

  Jennifer Fuentes.

  He put everything back, then pushed the box closed.

  He turned to the stairs and headed upward. Except for the number on the apartments, the second and third floors were identical to each other: a simple landing, a door, and the stairs.

  Quinn climbed to the fourth floor, this time stopping just short of the landing so he could take in the space before him. Perhaps it had once looked like the lower floors, but not anymore. The walls were black with smoke damage, and the door to apartment 4 lay in a heap off to the side. It looked as though fire crews had hacked their way into the apartment so that they would have a shot at saving the building.

  Testing the floor first, Quinn stepped onto the landing and approached the threshold of the apartment but did not enter. The darkness inside was almost complete, the plywood over the windows blocking any outside light. Quinn pulled out his flashlight and turned it on.

  The firemen may have saved the rest of the building, but they hadn’t been able to do anything for Jenny’s place. The destruction was total. The fire had been so all-encompassing it had left nothing untouched.

  All of Jenny’s possessions, all of them, were gone.

  Quinn left the building as quietly as he had entered. He started walking toward M Street, where he would be able to catch a cab back to the hotel. As he headed up the sidewalk, he heard an engine start up somewhere along the block behind him.

  He kept facing forward, like he hadn’t noticed it. Perhaps it was nothing. A lot of people lived within a block or two of where he was walking. Any one of them could have been heading out on a late-night errand.

  He continued on his way, waiting for the car to pass by, but it didn’t. The engine noise was still there, a low rumble thirty yards back. He focused on the sound, gauging its location with every step. It remained steady, constant, as if it was moving with him, at his pace.

  His hand moved to the grip of his gun, ready to pull it out the moment he felt it was necessary.

  He was almost to M Street, its lights and activity a complete contrast to his current surroundings. If this was some kind of snatch-and-grab, those in the car would be coming after him at any second. He might be able to take them out, then again, he might not.

  Not worth the chance, he thought as he removed his hand from his gun.

  Without warning, he sprinted to the corner and turned right on

  M. Seeing a gap in the traffic, he raced into the street. A car heading west on the other side honked at him, but he ignored it as he ran to the far sidewalk.

  When he reached it, he glanced over his shoulder back at Jenny’s street. He expected to see the car that had been following him, but it wasn’t there. Quinn moved into the darkened entrance of a closed gift shop and watched the corner.

  It was a full half-minute before a Honda Accord appeared at the end of the street. The car was surprisingly empty. There was no team of men readying to take up the chase. There was only a single occu-pant—the driver.

  The Honda sat at the curb for several minutes, passing up multiple opportunities to go. Quinn could see the driver looking back and forth as if expecting to find something.

  Finally the car turned right onto M Street, and drove past Quinn’s position. Though it was on the opposite side of the street, the driver was now close enough for Quinn to make an ID.

  Son of a bitch, he thought.

  Tasha Laver.

  CHAPTER

  QUINN ROSE EARLY THE NEXT MORNING WITH THE

  echo of his old mentor Durrie’s voice in his head.

  “Things in our world are different, Johnny. You’ve got to worry about yourself, no one else.” It was a refrain Durrie had often preached. “There’s no room for anyone else. Others make things messy.”

  Once again, his old mentor’s message was clear. It was the same sermon Quinn had been hearing in his head since he’d decided to find Jenny. Get the hell out of there and go home. It’s what Durrie would have done.

  Except for one thing, Quinn thought. Durrie would have never come looking for Jenny in the first place.

  Of course, that was because Quinn wasn’t like him. He never had been.

  Quinn actually cared about other people. He felt responsibility. He felt loyalty. None of those were Durrie’s strong points. In fact, Durrie would have undoubtedly said those qualities were incompatible with being a cleaner.

  When Quinn had been a cop in Phoenix, and had nearly gotten himself killed because he’d nosed around a murder investigation he wasn’t officially involved in, Durrie, seeing potential in the young kid’s abilities, had interceded. He had offered Quinn the chance at something more, a life that suited Quinn better than either of them had realized at the time.

  Growing up, Quinn had been smarter than almost everyone else around him. But he was self-aware enough to know not to advertise the fact. Warroad, Minnesota, was a nice place, with good people, but they wouldn’t tolerate a know-it-all, especially one who felt trapped and stifled in the place they called home.

  So he blended in, joking and playing and laughing with the other kids, being polite and helpful and respectful to the adults, while
all the time improving his attention to detail, exercising his memory, and reading everything he could. Because he kept his real self private, he unintentionally learned the art of secrets, of play-acting, of fitting in.

  In his early teens, he developed a love of puzzles and real-life mysteries, enhancing his personal education with books on crimes and investigational procedures. That’s when he decided he wanted to be in the police. Not a beat cop, but a detective.

  Looking back, it wasn’t law enforcement he had been preparing himself for. It was a life in the secret world.

  That’s what Durrie had seen in him, a cleaner in the making. All Quinn’s mentor had to do was finish the education.

  He taught Quinn the intricacies of the job, pointing out obstacles and ways around them, helping him to improve certain skills that were lacking, and to hone those that were already developed. Then, when the apprenticeship was over, he did all he could to help Quinn get up and running on his own.

  Of course, that was all before Durrie went off the deep end and his truer nature took hold, ultimately putting him at the wrong end of a bullet from Quinn’s own gun.

  No. Durrie would have never come in search of Jenny.

  But for Quinn, finding her was something he had to do.

  For Markoff.

  There was no choice.

  The debt to someone who saved your life can never be repaid in full.

  Not a Durrie rule. Durrie would have scoffed at such sentiment. Or, more likely, would have called you an asshole and never taken anything you said seriously again.

  It was Orlando’s mentor, Abraham Delger, who had said it to Quinn. Unlike Quinn’s former boss, Delger wasn’t afraid to show a softer side now and then.

  An old Chinese proverb said that the one who saved the life was responsible for the one who had been saved. Not a debt, per se, but an acknowledgment that if a person lived when they should have died, all that they did after was due to the actions of the one who stayed death’s hand.

  But Quinn could never accept that way of thinking. Delger’s idea that the debt was owed by the person who had been saved instead of the one who had done the saving rang truer.

  And ever since that night in the Finnish countryside, Quinn owed his life to Markoff. It was something he knew he’d never stop trying to pay off. Even now, after his friend had turned up dead.

  Once he was showered and dressed, Quinn pulled his laptop out of his bag and set it up on the desk. Using his wireless connection, he hacked into the hotel Wi-Fi system, bypassing the pay-by-the-day page.

  First he did a quick web search, verifying the address of Congressman Guerrero’s office. In his gut, he knew there were answers there. But the only way to be sure was to go in person. The website not only confirmed the congressman’s location, it also confirmed Guerrero’s grander goal. Across the top of the site was a banner ad:

  AMERICA FIRST GUERRERO FOR PRESIDENT

  Quinn smiled to himself as a way into the congressman’s office formu

  lated in his mind.

  He closed the browser and opened his e-mail.

  There were several messages. He ignored all but the two from Nate. As Quinn had taught him, the subject line was just the day’s date—year first, then month, then day. Easy for sorting and no hint of the contents.

  Quinn clicked open the first one sent.

  Was working late and figured you might be asleep. I can give you more details on the phone in the morning if you want.

  I ran a check on Tasha Laver. So far I’ve found only 3 people with that name in the entire country. It’s not a common combination apparently. Unfortunately, two are in their seventies, and the other one’s dead.

  I’d say it’s a pretty good guess none of them are your 30-year-old woman.

  I’ll continue to check, but doubtful about any relevant hits.

  Have you called Orlando yet?

  N.

  No luck on Tasha. Why doesn’t that surprise me? Quinn thought.

  The second e-mail was sent a few hours after the first. Quinn opened it.

  The pictures you took in Houston just finished processing through the system. Nothing.

  I’ve started them through some of the secondary sources, and should have more info in the morning. I was thinking maybe they’re not from here, so I’m also trying some of the foreign databases, but those are going to take longer to get any results from.

  Do you think they might be ghosts?

  Ghosts were those who eluded the system, often actively searching and removing any information about themselves that might be floating around. There was a damn good chance Nate was right. After all, Quinn was a ghost, and he was in the process of turning Nate into one, too.

  Quinn clicked on Reply.

  Let me know as soon as you get anything new.

  On Tasha Laver, leave it for now. Name is probably a dead end.

  Good job.

  Q

  He hit Send.

  The House Majority Whip’s office was in the Longworth Office Building on Independence Avenue. It was the second, and smallest, of three buildings specifically designed and constructed for the members of the House of Representatives. It was the same building where the Majority Leader had his office, so it was convenient for party matters. The minority party leaders were next door in the Rayburn Building, a massive structure that housed the bulk of the congressmen.

  Each of the three buildings—Rayburn, Longworth, and Cannon— sat in a row just to the south of the Capitol building.

  Quinn had never had a reason to enter any of them. In fact, he had never been inside the Capitol either. Though he’d made many trips to D.C., they’d all been on business, and usually involved meetings in generic-looking buildings far from the tourist areas.

  One time, he had spent fifteen minutes at the Lincoln Memorial, then had walked over and taken in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Both had been more powerful than he’d expected. He had finally pulled himself away from the black granite wall when he found himself staring at names he didn’t know, but realized could have belonged to his father or his uncles or any of a thousand men he’d met over the years if luck had broken differently.

  After he had finished with his e-mail that morning, he’d called Congressman Guerrero’s office, pretending to be a reporter doing a feature piece on the congressman. It had been easy. Part of Quinn’s play-acting past. He could quickly fall into most any role. It was the one talent Durrie had admired in Quinn from the beginning.

  His old mentor hated role-playing, and came more and more to rely on Quinn’s abilities as the need arose. “You’re a natural liar,” Durrie had said. “Keep it up and you’ll do all right.”

  Quinn wasn’t sure he liked the compliment, but he couldn’t deny that putting on the identity of someone else was almost as simple for him as getting out of bed.

  The person at Guerrero’s office had told him he’d be happy to set up a meeting with someone from the press office.

  “I actually met one of your staffers when I was in town several months ago, and wonder if she might be available,” Quinn had said.

  “I can check. Who was it?”

  “Her name is...” Quinn paused like he was reading his notes. “Jennifer Fuentes.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said, not missing a beat. “Ms. Fuentes is not in the office this week. But you’re in luck, the assistant press secretary, Dylan Ray, has an opening at two-thirty. Would that work?”

  “That’ll be fine,” Quinn said.

  At precisely 2:20, Quinn climbed the steps in front of the Longworth Building, then passed under a narrow archway into an alcove lined with several metal-framed glass doors. Quinn pulled one of the doors open and entered.

  Security in the twenty-first century was not like that of Quinn’s childhood. Now everywhere you went, security guards and detection machines and pat-downs and bag searches and background checks were the norm. The innocence was gone and humanity had no one to blame but itself.

&nbs
p; The Longworth Building was no exception. As Quinn expected, the first thing to greet him upon entry was a metal detector and X-ray machine. Hence the reason he’d left the SIG back at the hotel.

  “Purpose of your visit, Mr. Drake?” one of the officers asked after Quinn had handed him the ID he was using as cover.

  “I have a meeting with someone on Congressman Guerrero’s staff at two-thirty.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “Dylan Ray.”

  The officer checked a computer screen, then nodded and returned the ID. “Have a good day, Mr. Drake.”

  Quinn took an elevator to Guerrero’s floor, then made his way through the building, passing the offices of several other House of Representative members. Some of the names were familiar to him, from stories he’d read in the paper or reports he’d seen on TV.

  After several minutes, he arrived at Guerrero’s office. Even from a distance, it was apparent the congressman’s suite was different from the others Quinn had been passing. Its entrance was more ornate. The dark wood façade was larger than those of the surrounding offices and shone like something out of a Pledge furniture polish commercial.

  Two flags flanked the door. On the left was the Stars and Stripes, and on the right the state flag of Texas. The door between them was open.

  Quinn put a smile on his face and walked through the doorway into a small lobby.

  The room was designed to make people feel like important things happened there. In the center was a desk, modern and sleek, with a large multiline phone and a flat-screen computer terminal sitting on top. Behind the desk was a woman, blond and smiling and attractive. To either side of her were closed doors, no doubt leading deeper into the suite.

  “May I help you?” she asked, her Texas accent evident.

  “Yes, please. I’m here to see Dylan Ray,” Quinn said.

  “Your name?”

  “Richard Drake. I have an appointment for two-thirty.”

  The woman glanced at her computer, then smiled again, apparently finding his name on the list.

  “Please have a seat,” she said. “I’ll let Mr. Ray know you are here.”