No one was there.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Misty came first. Daeng delayed his departure only long enough to pull the emergency stop button before joining the other two in the hallway. The elevator panel buzzed annoyingly, but not so loudly as to attract the attention of the residents on the floor.
Quinn touched Misty on the back. “Do you know this building at all?”
“I’ve only been to Peter’s apartment.”
“All right. No problem.”
He scanned the hallway, looking for the entrance to the stairwell he knew had to be nearby, and finally spotted it off to the left, where the corridor they were in T-boned with another.
“This way.”
He ran over, carefully opened the door a few inches, and listened. Footsteps, more than one set, pounding up the stairs toward them. That option was off the table.
He spun around, scanning the hallway. There was really only one thing they could do.
“Stay close,” he said.
He sprinted to the left and began pressing doorbells. After pushing the final one, he moved into the middle of the hallway so he could react to whichever door opened.
“Yes?” A tired male voice came from behind the very last door.
Quinn hurried over. The door’s peephole was black, so he donned a friendly smile, knowing the man inside was probably looking at him. “There’s a water leak in the apartment below yours,” he said. “We need to check the plumbing in your bathroom and kitchen.”
“You’re not with the building,” the man said.
“Plumber.”
“You don’t look like a plumber.”
“Thanks, I think. Look, this will only take a minute.”
“I should call down and check.”
“All right. Call. I’ll wait.”
As he heard the man walking away, Quinn pulled out his wallet and removed a credit card-sized, carbon-fiber, lock-pick set. Within seconds, he had the door open.
They found the man in the kitchen, picking up a cell phone from the counter. He was probably in his fifties, and was wearing a robe over a faded green Yoda T-shirt. He also had the runny nose and watery eyes of someone with a cold.
“I’ll take that,” Quinn said.
The man jumped in surprise. “How did you…what are you…You can’t be in here! This is my home!”
Quinn lifted his gun, not exactly pointing it at the man, but close enough. “Give me your phone.”
Shaking and wide-eyed, the man held out the cell.
Once Quinn took possession of it, he said, “Why don’t you have a seat in the living room. The couch will be perfect.”
“Okay. Sure. Please, don’t hurt me.”
“No one’s going to hurt you.”
Despite his apparent illness, the man moved quickly to the bright white couch and dropped in the middle.
Quinn followed and squatted down so that he was at the man’s eye level. “I appreciate someone who knows how to cooperate. Thank you. Now, a simple question. Fire escape?”
“What?”
“I assume you have one.”
Quinn had seen a metal fire escape on the outside near the front of the building, but didn’t know where it would be for this back apartment.
“Oh, um, through the bedroom,” the man said. “Uh, first door down the hall.”
Daeng left the room and returned a few seconds later. “It’s there,” he said.
“Outside?” Quinn asked.
“All clear for the moment.”
“Okay. You two get going.”
Daeng put a hand on Misty’s back and led her out of the room.
The fear gripping the man on the couch seemed to grow tenfold. “What are you going to do? You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? I won’t say anything to anyone! I promise I won’t!”
“What’s your name?”
The man hesitated. “Philip.”
“Well, Philip, I think you watch way too much TV. No one’s going to kill you. What I am going to do is tie you up.”
“Sure, sure. No problem.”
“Do you live here alone, Philip?”
“No. My wife—” He stopped as if realizing he’d said more than he should have.
“Good. Then you’ll only have to stay tied up until she gets home.”
Philip looked relieved. “Right. Only until she gets home.”
Using some extension cords that Philip kindly directed him to, Quinn secured the guy to a dining room chair he repositioned next to the couch.
“If anyone rings your doorbell, don’t yell,” Quinn told him. “Those guys out there are a hell of a lot nastier than I am. Trust me.”
“I won’t say a word. I promise.”
Quinn rose to his feet. “I’m just telling you for your own sake.”
As if to underscore his words, a doorbell belonging to one of Philip’s neighbors chimed. Philip tensed again.
“It’ll be all right,” Quinn whispered. “Just remember, stay quiet.”
Not waiting for a response, Quinn entered the room with the fire escape and climbed outside.
* * *
Roberts left Girardi in the lobby to both cut it off as a potential escape route, and to monitor the elevator’s progress so he could report what floor it stopped on. Roberts, Moss, and Cruz, the fourth member of the team, then bolted up the stairs.
They were passing the second floor when Girardi radioed that the car had gone all the way to the top.
As far from the lobby as possible, Roberts thought. If this wasn’t the trio he and his men were after, he’d be surprised. When they passed the floor where the broken-into apartment was located, he ordered Cruz to check it out while he and Moss continued up.
Reaching the top floor, they paused at the stairwell exit and listened for anyone who might have been in the hallway beyond. All was quiet, so Roberts signaled for Moss to open the door.
The stairway exited into a junction between two hallways. Both were empty.
Moss looked at Roberts, silently asking for orders.
Roberts scanned one way, then the other. He hadn’t heard them on the stairs, and they hadn’t gone back down in the elevator — the car was still at the top — so they had to be on this floor somewhere.
“Did you hear that?” Moss whispered.
Roberts nodded. It was a male voice shouting in one of the apartments down the hallway they’d been facing. He motioned for Moss to follow, and moved toward the sound. It didn’t take long before he pinpointed it as coming from the last apartment. A few more steps along the hall and he could make out the words.
“Help! Help me! Please, someone, help me!”
Roberts nodded at the door and mouthed, “Lock.”
Moss knelt down and quietly picked it open.
Taking turns covering each other, they moved into the apartment and worked their way up to the edge of the foyer to get a look further inside. To the right was a large living room, and smack dab in the center was the shouting man. He was tied to a chair, his back to the door. To the left of the foyer was a hallway. Roberts signaled Moss to check it out.
“Help me, please! For God’s sake! I need help!”
Moss returned and shook his head.
Roberts frowned. He’d been hoping the suspects were hiding in back. Now he was beginning to wonder if he and Moss had just stumbled onto some weird sex thing. He took a loud step into the room.
The man whipped his head around. “Oh, thank God! Please untie me!”
Roberts didn’t move. “What’s going on here?”
“These people, they burst into my apartment. They had a gun and—”
“How many?”
“Uh, uh, three.”
“Two men and a woman?”
“Yes. The white guy tied me up, and—”
“They weren’t all white?”
“The girl was. The other guy, I think he was maybe Asian? I don’t know. Please, can you let me loose?”
“Wh
ere’d they go?”
The man grunted in frustration. “I don’t know. Come on. Come on. Untie me!”
Still not moving, Roberts said, “They didn’t go back out the front door, so where are they?”
“The fire escape, I think. What does it matter? Help me out!”
“Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The fire escape. Where is it?”
Looking exasperated, the man said, “Bedroom.”
As Moss moved back into the hall to check, Roberts touched his radio. “Suspects are out of the building, probably around the back. Girardi, go check. Cruz, reposition to the lobby.”
“Yes, sir,” Girardi replied.
“Heading down now,” Cruz said.
A few seconds later, Moss reappeared and said, “The fire escape’s there, but nobody’s on it.”
Roberts nodded to a window at the far end of the living room. “Check there.”
When Moss ran past the guy in the chair, the man said, “Hey, this isn’t funny. Untie me. I gotta cold. My nose is running!”
Roberts walked over and leaned in front of the man. “I don’t care. Now shut up.”
The man turned away, unable to hold Roberts’s gaze. Under his breath, he mumbled, “He was right.”
“Who was right?” Roberts said.
“What? Nothing. Just do whatever you want to do. I won’t say another word.”
Roberts brought up his pistol and pointed it at the man’s chest. “Who was right?”
“The guy from before,” the man sputtered. “The one who tied me up. He…he said you guys would be a lot worse than them.”
Roberts leaned back. Whoever these people were, they knew Roberts’s team would be looking for them. No question at all now. These were the people who’d broken into the apartment.
“I see one of them,” Moss said. “He’s crossing the alley.”
“Take him out.”
CHAPTER 7
Quinn jumped the final few feet from the fire escape to the ground and whipped around, looking for Daeng and Misty, but they were nowhere in sight. Since they could have gone only one of two ways, and the first — heading to the main road — was out of the question, Quinn turned toward the back of the building, and weaved his way around several trash bins before reaching a narrow alley.
A little darkness would have been nice, but the summer sun was still a few hours from setting. Quinn checked both directions, looking for his friends, but the alley was deserted.
Directly across from him was a twelve-foot-high brick wall that extended for a dozen yards in either direction. To the left, it butted up against another building, but on the right there seemed to be an opening to a passageway.
Quinn eased down the alley, keeping as tight to the structures on his side as possible. Reaching the point opposite the end of the wall, he confirmed there was indeed a path that went clear through to the next street over.
He checked both ways again, saw that the alley was still empty, and raced across. Just as he entered the passageway, one of the bricks at the corner exploded from the impact of a bullet. He turned on the speed.
Ahead at the next street, he could see a sidewalk and cars parked along a curb, but between him and them was a tall, wrought-iron gate — chained closed.
Knowing the path behind him would not remain empty for long, he could neither turn and go back nor stop and pick the lock.
Without slowing his pace, he assessed the gate. At the top, the vertical bars ended in pointed spears that could not be ignored. Other than that, all Quinn had to worry about was the cracked, uneven cement on the other side, waiting to twist his ankle or break his leg.
He was fifteen feet from the gate when he heard a bullet whiz by his head and strike the side of the building to his right. What he hadn’t heard was the gunshot itself.
Suppressors. Not surprising, but it did confirm that the men shooting at him weren’t part of some average, everyday security team.
He angled toward where the fence met the wall, and leaped, grabbing the gate as he planted his right foot against it. Using his momentum, he scrambled up the V-shaped junction.
A second bullet hit the fence where his foot had been seconds before, then a third smacked into the wall, sending shards of brick onto his back.
He reached the top and flung his legs over, barely clearing the tips of the deadly spears. He dropped onto the broken pathway, and rolled as he hit the ground to avoid injury.
A double clang as more bullets hit the gate.
Getting to his feet, he could see one of the suited men preparing to take another shot. Quinn raced down the remaining few steps of the pathway and turned down the main sidewalk. Thankfully, there was more traffic on this street than there had been on Peter’s. He moved onto the road and shot through a gap between the cars to the other side, and then sprinted down the block.
As he turned onto the new street, he glanced over his shoulder. The suits were nowhere in sight. He knew it would be a mistake to stop, so he ran for two more blocks before allowing himself to slow down.
Not much farther on, the residential area gave way to businesses fronting sidewalks peppered with pedestrians. Just ahead, he spotted a bar and grill with a substantial happy-hour crowd both inside and around tables out front. He took a spot behind a group of twentysomethings, and used them to shield his presence as he watched the street.
“What can I get you?”
The waitress was a tall brunette dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt that was too small for her.
He donned an easy smile. “What do you have on tap?”
As she went through the list, he returned his gaze to the street.
“…also, um, Speakeasy Big Daddy, Blue Moon, uh, Rolling—”
“Speakeasy? That’s a West Coast beer.”
“Is it?” She didn’t really seem to care.
“I’ll take that,” he said.
“You got it.”
Quinn watched the road for another few minutes before finally pulling out his phone and sending Daeng a text.
Think I’m clear. You?
Ten seconds later, Daeng called.
“We’re okay,” Daeng said.
“Where are you?”
“In the basement of a building a few blocks from Peter’s place. You?”
“I’m in a bar.” Quinn looked around. “I didn’t catch the name. They chased me down an alley, but I seemed to have lost them.”
“A bar? I should have thought of that. Has to be a lot more comfortable than here.” Daeng paused. “So what would you like us to do? Stay put? Go to the townhouse?”
“No,” Quinn said quickly. “The townhouse is out. If Peter’s apartment was being monitored, then I’m sure the townhouse is, too. Just stay there for now and let me know if you have any problems. I’ll call you in a little while.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Find out who our new friends are.”
* * *
“Son of a bitch,” Roberts mumbled to himself.
His team had searched the area around the apartment building, but the brown-haired man and his two companions had eluded them.
He walked back over to where his men were waiting for him by the team’s vehicles, and said, “Moss, Cruz, you’re with me. We’ll take one of the cars and widen the search area. Girardi, we’ll leave you the other. Stay here and keep an eye on the building in case any of them shows back up. Questions?”
There were none.
* * *
It took Quinn ten minutes to discreetly work his way back to Peter’s street. The encroaching evening was finally playing in his favor. Though the sun was still above the horizon, the shadows had grown dark and wide.
Somehow the men in the suits had found out Quinn, Daeng, and Misty were there. A watcher perhaps, but unlikely, given the time lag in their response. What seemed more realistic was an alarm somewhere in Peter’s place had been tripped.
Whatever the case, he
knew it was highly probable that most of the men were long gone now, and he hoped at least one had been left behind to keep an eye on the building in case Quinn and the others returned. It’s how he would have handled it.
Where, was the question. A watcher could be almost anywhere — in a car, a building across the street, one of a half dozen rooftops. He could be in Peter’s building, maybe even in Peter’s apartment, looking down on the street. If Quinn had to bet, he’d have put his money on either a car or a roof. Those were the quickest to set up.
The shadows were deeper on the opposite side of the street from Peter’s place, so Quinn entered the block there, and stepped into the recessed doorway of the first building he passed. From the slightly elevated position, he could see almost the entire street without fear of being spotted.
One by one, he examined each parked car he could see into, first on his side, then the other. His gaze stopped on an Audi A4 parked along the opposite curb, approximately halfway between his position and Peter’s building. A man was sitting in the driver’s seat. Given the deteriorating light, he wasn’t much more than a shadow.
It could have just been someone listening to the radio, or maybe a guy who’d arrived early for a date and was waiting for time to pass.
Or it could have been one of the suits.
Quinn mentally marked the car before scanning the rest of the vehicles. As far as he could tell, the others were all empty. Next he searched the rooflines of the buildings on Peter’s side. The sky was still bright enough that any silhouette would stand out, but he didn’t spot so much as a suspicious bump rising above a retaining wall.
The only things left were the rooflines on his side. He’d have to cross the street to check them.
He looked back at the Audi. The driver’s arm was up, his hand either on the side of his head, or in front of his face. It was impossible to tell from Quinn’s angle. A few seconds passed, then the hand lowered. Quinn could see it was holding a box or…
…binoculars.
There was no way to know for sure, but his instincts told him he was right.
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