The Collected jq-6

by Brett Battles

  The problem was that when Jake and Orlando returned, she knew her brother would tell her as little as he could afford to. He may have seen it as a way to protect her, but to Liz it was unacceptable.

  She needed to be looking for Nate, too. To do that, she needed to know the same things her brother did. Then the idea hit her-a way of putting herself firmly in the loop. She thought it through as thoroughly as she could, and when she was ready, she wrote her brother a note and left the house.

  The first part of the plan was deception. She had to make sure Jake thought she was out of the way. Nate had once shown her how easy it was to lock on a cell phone signal and track its location. She had no doubt her brother would do just that when he realized she was gone. So to convince him that she had left, she drove all the way to San Diego, and spent the night in a small motel called The Otter House.

  Early the next morning, she spotted a delivery truck behind the building. While the driver was filling a vending machine, she put her phone on silent mode, and tucked it into the truck’s glove compartment. Though she didn’t have the training her brother and her boyfriend had, she was the smartest of the three, and remembered everything she’d heard them talk about. Putting the phone in the truck meant that during the day, her location would seem to be moving around, like she was driving aimlessly through the city, thinking.

  Her location deception set, she headed back north, arriving in Jake’s neighborhood at a quarter after two. Since she was driving his car, she parked on a side street not too far away, then snuck back and input her code into the gate security pad. She eased the gate open and peeked inside.

  No cars in the driveway.

  She walked quietly over to the house and looked through the windows as best she could, but the ones along the front were not designed to provide much of a view inside.

  I’m sure it worked, she told herself. It had to.

  She thought for a moment. If they were already gone, she was wasting valuable time. But if they were still here?

  Just say you forgot something, and keep the conversation to a minimum.

  She took a deep breath, put on her best distressed face, and let herself in the front door.

  The house was as quiet as it had been the day she’d first arrived.

  “Hello?” she called out. “Anyone here? It’s Liz.”

  Dead silence.

  As she walked through the living room, she began to worry that maybe Jake and Orlando hadn’t come back yet. If that were true, she wasn’t any better off than she’d been the day before. She scanned the living room. Everything looked exactly like it had been when she’d walked out the door. She glanced over at the dining room table. Even the note was still there.

  Hold on.

  She walked over to take a closer look. She had left the note facing up, and near the center of the table. Now it was flipped down, and a bit off to the side.

  Someone had been here.

  Moving into the kitchen, she checked the trash can. There were food wrappers and a couple of takeout boxes.

  So not just one person. At least two.

  Jake and Orlando.

  Her hopes began to rise.

  She all but ran through the living room, and down the hall to the linen closet on the other side of the bathroom.

  Please, please…

  Inside on the left was a hidden moveable panel. She had seen Nate open it only once. It had been on her first visit as he’d shown off the house to her. He’d let her in on quite a few secrets that day, probably more than he realized.

  She opened the panel, activated the touch screen, and navigated to the sound recording control window. The presets she’d checked off were still in place: VOICE ACTIVATED,COMPLETE HOUSE. She opened the log of recordings. There were dozens, some brief, some considerably longer.

  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.

  CHAPTER 25

  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 g
et 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.

  It was best to keep what he was doing to himself.

  He waited ten minutes before deciding it was okay to work again. With exceeding care, he did a hand dance between extracting the rear frame and holding the strings that ran through the middle of it as he lowered the frame to the floor.

  All right, so will the front pop out as easily as the back did?

  He eased the strings forward a little, giving them some play. The slats and front frame didn’t move. With his other hand, he gently pushed the back of the top slat. No movement. Pushing on the bottom had the same response. It wasn’t until he alternated back and forth rapidly that he got it to walk itself out.

  He continued to push top, bottom, top, bottom until the frame neared the edge. There, he paused, examined his progress, then pushed harder on the top than the bottom. As he’d hoped, the upper part moved out of the opening first. The moment the bottom slipped free, the whole frame dropped toward the corridor floor, but the strings saved it from crashing to the ground.

  Gripping the strings in his left hand, Nate turned his body so that his right shoulder was aligned with the opening. He stuck his arm out, testing how far he could reach. The narrowness of the vent stopped him about midway on his bicep, but it was enough to get his elbow outside, so he could bend it in different directions. It was enough to grab a leg, or maybe even a gun if the opportunity presented itself.

  Satisfied, he moved his arm back into the cell, and pulled up on the strings so that he could set the frame back into the opening. It was only partway up, though, when the door at the far end started to open.

  Too well trained to panic, Nate focused on raising it the remaining distance. Just before footsteps started down the hall, the frame reached the hole and he pulled it in as much as he dared, hoping it was far enough in the hole not to be noticed.

  The strings, though, could still be a problem. He couldn’t slip them off now without the risk of being noticed. He kept them taut so that they were as flush to the slats as possible, and watched through the vent as the footsteps neared. He half expected the men to stop right outside, but the booted feet continued by, the man in the sneakers once again being escorted between them.

  As soon as they’d dropped off their prisoner and left, Nate seated the frame the rest of the way in the hole, removed the strings, and put the rear portion back in place.

  CHAPTER 26

  Northeastern Mexico

  Quinn spent the flight to Mexico thinking once more about the names on the Post-its.

  Nate, Peter, and potentially Berkeley? Quinn, Peter, and potentially Berkeley?

  Whatever the combination, he couldn’t see the through-line yet, the connection.

  Breaking it down to smaller groups made it even worse. He and Peter had interacted so much over the years, it would be nearly impossible to pinpoint anything specific the disappearances might be related to.

  To a lesser extent, the same was true of Nate and Peter’s relationship, the difference being only the number of jobs Nate had worked on since he’d entered the business versus those Quinn had done for the Office.

  The wild card was Berkeley.

  As far as Quinn knew, there were only six missions they had worked on together. He’d also never had a lot of interaction with the guy, more just “hello”s and “how you doing?”s during briefings.

  The image he had of Berkeley was of a quiet man, efficient, a guy who stuck to whatever guidelines he’d been given until told to do otherwise. A team player, not a mission leader.

  Quinn spent an hour thinking through each job they’d shared. The gigs had been spread out over a five-year period. None, as far as he knew, were tied to each other. Each mission had gone smoothly-the target taken down, the body disposed of.

  Think wider, he told himself. What about the others on each job? He created a list in his head of names, and checked them off against his mental picture of the twenty-two green Post-its Orlando had created of the potential missing.

  On three of the jobs, there were no matches at all. Two jobs, though, had single matches, and the final job actually had two. But none of the missions were filled completely by the names that had been on his window.

  He focuse
d on the three with matches, but still nothing stood out.

  Frustrated, he looked past the sleeping Orlando and out the window at the night sky.

  Maybe it had nothing to do with the jobs at all. Maybe it was random. Maybe the disappearances were not even connected.

  Words echoed through his head. Maybe Nate’s already dead.

  No.Not possible. And not even something he wanted to consider.

  But try as he might, he could only dampen the voice, not silence it.

  The red eye got them into Monterrey at just after five a.m. As soon as they cleared Customs and Immigration, Orlando pulled out her computer and pinged Nate’s emergency beacon.

  “Nothing,” she said, annoyed.

  “Maybe his battery died,” Daeng suggested.

  “Impossible,” Orlando said. “The signal’s passive, so it draws very little power. The battery that feeds it could last months.”

  “We’ll try again later,” Quinn said. “Let’s go.”

  Much to Orlando’s displeasure, she had been unable to locate Captain Moreno’s residence, so they would have to talk to him once he was at work. Given the time, that wouldn’t happen for several hours. There was something else, though, that Quinn wanted to do in the meantime.

  They picked up a rental car, and skirted around the edge of the still-sleeping city. Their destination was the set of coordinates Orlando had been able to dig out of Pullman’s computer for the warehouse where Senator Lopez had been terminated. Quinn didn’t expect to find anything there that might tell them where Nate was, but he wanted to take a look at it and get a feel for the mission his former apprentice had been on.

  They found the large gray building just after the sun came up. It had multiple loading bays lining one side, and two cars parked at the end. The gate of the chain-link fence that surrounded the property was closed, but there was an intercom box mounted to a standalone pipe off to the side.

  “I got this,” Orlando said. She jumped out of the car.