The Collected jq-6

by Brett Battles

  “Wash up,” Janus said. “You want to look good for later.”

  Nate held his cuffed hands in the air, silently asking how he was supposed to do that.

  Janus smirked, then pulled a pair of cutters out of his back pocket and snapped the plastic tie in two. For half a second, Nate thought about making a move, but Janus quickly stepped back into the doorway, out of range.

  “Now wash,” the big man said.

  With Janus keeping an eye on him, Nate used the toilet, removed his shirt, and cleaned up, using the soap and washcloth next to the sink. It felt good to get some of the grime and old sweat off, but he knew it was just temporary. Unlike the room he’d been held in, this one didn’t seem to have any climate control. The air was thick and humid. Even as he was drying off, he could feel sweat forming on his skin again.

  He grabbed his shirt, but before he could pull it back on, Janus said, “Uh-uh. Change.”

  The big man nodded at the clean clothes. Nate hesitated. If he wanted to avoid revealing his prosthetic, the pants were going to be a problem.

  He grabbed the shirt-a brown button-up with short sleeves-and pulled it on. When he was done, he turned back to Janus and took a step toward the door.

  “Pants, too,” Janus said.

  Nate looked at the pants he was wearing, then at those hanging on the wall. They were both jeans.

  Realizing his only possible way out was to break his silence, he said, “What difference does it make? They’re the same.”

  If Janus was surprised to hear his voice, he didn’t show it. His look took in both pairs of pants. He shrugged. “Change.”

  “I’m not going to change. They’re the same damn pants.”

  Janus’s ears grew red as his face tightened in anger. “You will change.”

  “You want me to change? Fine. But I’m not going to do it with you standing there watching me.”

  “Change.”

  “Privacy, and I will.”

  They stared defiantly at each other for several seconds.

  Finally, Nate said, “What do you think I’m going to do? Steal the soap? Here.” He grabbed the bar and tossed it at Janus. “Better?”

  Janus frowned, took a quick look around the room, and nodded. “One minute.” He pulled the door closed.

  The first thing Nate did was remove the bolt from his pocket. He then pulled his pants off, but before donning the other pair, he bent down and opened the seam on the calf of his artificial leg. As much as he now wished there was a weapon embedded inside, that was one option his leg didn’t have. Traveling as much as he did, his prosthetic already made him a target for extra attention from airport security, so he couldn’t afford to take that kind of chance.

  What it did have, though, was a small space he could use to stow the bolt. It was meant for a memory card, or a note or photograph, so it would be a little snug, but he was pretty sure the bolt would fit.

  There was something else in the storage space, too. A button designed to be pushed in just these kinds of circumstances. His leg had a heart-rate monitor, which, in turn, had a dead-man switch. Unless the switch was turned off each time he removed his leg, an emergency signal would be activated if the leg was not attached to his stump for more than an hour. To help cut down on the chance of it being discovered, the signal was passive and needed to be pinged. In addition to the dead-man switch, there was also a way to activate the signal without removing the leg-a button at the top of the storage area.

  He searched for it with his fingertip, found its grooved top, and pressed it.

  Knowing he was running out of time, he jammed the bolt inside, sealed up his leg, and quickly pulled the new pants on. He was just buttoning the top when the door opened again.

  “Happy now?” he said.

  Janus grunted. “Hands.”

  Nate held out his hands, wrists together.

  Once Janus had secured them with another plastic cuff, he said, “Let’s go.”

  The next time Janus took Nate from his cell was several hours later.

  They went back down the long corridor, passed the toilet without stopping, and out a door into a large, open courtyard.

  The area was rimmed by a high stone wall spackled with decades-if not centuries-of dirt. The ground was also covered with stone, big square slabs with more than the occasional weed growing up between the cracks. What was beyond the walls was impossible to see. The only things visible were scattered clouds across a dusky sky.

  At the far end of the courtyard was an old wooden table surrounded by several empty chairs. On the table were burning candles and two settings of plates and silverware. At intervals along the courtyard wall beyond the table were eight unsmiling men, dressed in fatigues, and armed with automatic rifles.

  “Go,” Janus ordered, pointing with his chin toward the table. “Take seat near right end.”

  Nate tried to imagine what could possibly be going on here, but he hadn’t a clue. It was just all too strange.

  He took his assigned place and looked at Janus, wondering what he was supposed to do now.

  Janus smiled, moved around the table, and took a chair on the opposite side that had no place setting.

  They sat silently as the sky continued to darken. The whole time Janus stared blankly at Nate.

  It was just over thirty minutes when a door somewhere behind Nate opened. This was soon followed by the clack, clack, clack of someone striding across the courtyard. Nate resisted the urge to turn and look. The new arrival finally came into view as he moved around to the chair at the end of the table and sat. Not surprisingly, it was the bald man.

  “Good evening, Mr. Quinn,” he said. “How is everything? I trust you’ve been treated well?”

  Nate looked at him but said nothing.

  “Still the silent routine, I see.” He looked past Nate. “Janus, I think we’re ready.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Janus rose from his chair and headed off to the right.

  “You can call me Mr. Harris,” the bald man said, smiling. “It is my pleasure to have someone of your status at my table this evening. I assume you’re hungry. The chef has prepared baked swordfish. One of my favorites.”

  A door opened.

  “Ah, excellent.”

  Several footsteps approached the table, and soldiers in the same fatigues and the men with the guns set plates in front of Nate and Harris.

  In addition to the fish, there were grilled vegetables and fresh fruit. Nate tried to keep his face blank, but inside he was salivating at the sight. He hadn’t eaten since before things went wrong in Monterrey.

  Another soldier placed a glass of water beside Nate’s silverware.

  Harris picked up his fork. “Bon appetit.” He speared a piece of his fish and put it in his mouth. As he chewed, he looked back at Nate. “Don’t you like fish?”

  Nate raised his bound hands.

  “Of course,” Harris said. “Janus!”

  Janus appeared at Nate’s side, and freed Nate’s hands again.

  Nate wanted nothing more than to shove everything into his mouth, but he took his time, acting only semi-interested in what had been served.

  “It’s become my habit to have a meal with each of our guests on his first evening here,” Harris said. “One of my little joys, I guess you’d say.” He took another bite. “Last night you arrived a bit too late, but you’re here now. That’s what counts.”

  Each of us? Nate thought.

  Harris cut away another piece of the swordfish. “This is delicious, isn’t it?”

  The one-sided dialogue continued throughout the meal, with Harris commenting on everything from the food to the weather to the stars that now sparkled above them.

  When they finally finished, he said, “I want you to know how much I admire your career. A man with your reputation is rare indeed. You are a true artist, you know that?” He smiled. “But all things come to an end.” He pushed back from the table and stood up. “Well, I wish I could stay, but our las
t guest arrives tomorrow, and I need to oversee the preparations. Have a good night, Mr. Quinn.”

  The cell Janus took him to was not the same one he’d spent the day in. His new living quarters were located down a hallway housing several rooms. Each had a heavy door that was locked in place by a levered handle. The handle controlled a double metal-rod system attached to the outside of the door. In the locked position, the rods fit snuggly into slots in the ceiling and on the floor, literally barring the door from opening.

  The room itself was a bit larger than his last, and came complete with a mattress on the floor and a rudimentary toilet in the corner. The stone walls were worn and blackened with age, and while there were still no windows, there was a rectangular vent low on the door that allowed fresh air to drift in.

  The only light came from a dull bulb screwed into a socket crudely attached in an upper corner. The wire wasn’t visible, so Nate assumed a hole must have been drilled through the rock.

  He lay down on his mattress and stared at the ceiling. So far, he’d been captured, knocked around, transported somewhere, bound to a chair where he was dunked in water, and then treated to a gourmet meal. Even odder, perhaps, was that even though he’d been asked a few questions here and there, there had really been no interrogation.

  It just didn’t add up.

  “Hey.”

  Nate sat up. The voice had been a distant whisper, or maybe not even a voice at all. Perhaps it had just been the groan of the building.

  “Hey, new guy.”

  No groan could put words together like that.

  Nate crawled over to the door and leaned down to the vent. “Who’s there?”

  “Who are you?” the voice asked.

  Before Nate could respond, another voice whispered, “Shut up. You know they can hear everything we say.”

  “So what?” the first voice said. “New guy, who are you?”

  Nate hesitated for a moment, then whispered, “Quinn.”

  “Holy shit. The cleaner?”

  He paused again. “Uh-huh. Who are you?”

  “Lanier. Remember me? We’ve worked together before.”

  Lanier?

  It took a second before the name clicked. An ops guy, good at logistics, wasn’t he? They had worked together once or twice, but Nate knew the man was thinking of the original Quinn, not him.

  “Sure,” he said. “I know who you are. Who’s the other guy?”

  “Berkeley, another ops guy like me, and scared shitless.”

  “I’m not scared,” Berkeley whispered, his voice a bit more distant than Lanier’s. “I just think we need to be smart.”

  Berkeley’s name was also familiar. “Either of you know what’s going on?” Nate asked.

  “No clue,” Lanier said. “I’d just finished this gig in Panama and the next thing I know, I wake up here. That was a week ago.”

  “A week?” Nate said, surprised.

  “Berkeley’s been here even longer. A week and a half.”

  “Almost two,” Berkeley said, obviously not wanting to be short-changed.

  “And they haven’t told either of you why?”

  “Other than the first day we each got here, the only guy we’ve seen is that big son of a bitch Janus,” Lanier said.

  “And the first day?”

  “Same thing that happened to you tonight, I’m guessing. Dinner with Mr. Baldy.”

  “He said his name was Harris,” Nate said.

  “That’s consistent, anyway.”

  “So you’ve been in your cells since then?”

  “They haven’t even let us take a shower.”

  “Anyone question you?”

  “No.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Kind of freaky, isn’t it?”

  It wasn’t just kind of freaky, it was all kinds of freaky.

  “Did Harris tell you anything?” Lanier asked.

  Nate repeated what he thought were the key points from Harris’s monologue, and added, “He did say another guest was coming tomorrow.”

  “That’ll make five.”

  “Five?”

  “Yeah, there’s another guy in a room somewhere down the hall. They take him in and out a lot. I get the feeling he’s been beaten up pretty bad. Never responds when we call out to him.”

  Five people, at least two of whom Nate was tangentially associated with. No, at least two of whom Quinn was associated with.

  For the first time, he felt there might be a chance to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. How and in what order was still an unknown, but a little light was creeping in.

  He put his lips near the vent. “Lanier?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How many-”

  A door down the hall opened, and Janus shouted, “Be quiet! Time to sleep.”

  His heavy, booted feet pounded quickly down the hall, stopping right in front of the vent.

  Something hit Nate’s door. Bam!Bam!

  Nate jumped back, his ears ringing.

  “No talking,” Janus said.

  Nate waited, hoping Janus would walk off and he could get more info out of Lanier, but the big man seemed to have decided to take up residence outside his door.

  Eventually, Nate crawled back over to the mattress, but it was a long time before he finally fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 19

  Harris paced back and forth acrosshis room.

  Despite his outward appearance earlier, his dinner with Quinn disturbed him.

  The purpose of the face-to-face meals was to show the men they’d taken that there was no hope. The soldiers, the controlled meal, the relaxed facade of the man in charge-all meant to reinforce that message.

  But there was something troubling about Quinn.

  While the others had put up stoic fronts, Quinn seemed almost relaxed, like he knew something Harris didn’t.

  For the first time, the thought that perhaps they should have just killed Quinn and the ops team crossed his mind, but he quickly pushed it aside.

  Damn Quinn!

  Instead of getting into the cleaner’s head, it was like the cleaner was starting to get into his. That would never happen.

  He poured himself a glass of whiskey.

  Fun, remember? It’s going to be fun.

  He toasted that thought, and poured himself another.

  CHAPTER 20

  “I’m not getting in there,” Burke told them.

  They were standing next to Daeng’s rental car in the parking structure near the international terminal.

  “Fair enough. A question first,” Quinn said.

  “I’m telling you, I’m not getting in.”

  “If you give me the right answer, you won’t have to.”

  Burke looked at him warily, but said nothing.

  “We know you were part of the termination in Monterrey,” Quinn said. “And that you were assisting the cleaner, Quinn. So what happened?”

  Burke hesitated. “What do you mean?”

  “That’s the question, Doug. You answer it right, and you can walk away.”

  Burke held Quinn’s gaze for a second. “Did Pullman send you? Or…”

  “Or who?” Quinn asked.

  “No one. Never mind.”

  “Or who?”

  Burke shook his head. “I was just testing you.”

  “You’re a horrible liar. Do you realize that?”

  Before Burke could even respond, Quinn’s fist slammed into the man’s gut.

  Burke let out a groan as he doubled over and clutched his stomach.

  “What the hell?” he said, panting.

  Quinn opened the car’s rear door, and shoved the bastard into the backseat. While he climbed in next to Burke, Daeng swung around the car and bookended the guy on the other side. Orlando slipped into the driver’s seat.

  Quinn grabbed Burke’s shoulder and shoved him against the backrest. “See, this is what not being helpful gets you.”

  Burke stared at him, not even attempting to hide the fear
in his eyes. “Who are you people?”

  “Well, we’re not with Pullman.”

  Burke’s eyes widened. “Shit.”

  “Come on, Doug. Tell me about Monterrey.”

  “Look, I did everything your boss wanted. If you couldn’t catch him, that’s not my fault.”

  Keeping his face neutral, Quinn said, “And why wouldn’t that be your fault?”

  “I…I told you where we were going to be,” he pleaded. “If you hadn’t had cop cars waiting right there, Quinn would have never known anything. It’s not my fault. It’s your fault you couldn’t pull it off. The guy is good, man. He outsmarted you.”

  It took every ounce of Quinn’s will not to punch Burke senseless. “What happened after he saw the lights?”

  “He turned around and made a run for it,” Burke said, as if it were obvious. “Ask your people. They know what happened.”

  “Where did he run to?”

  “To that building he ditched the van behind. Where do you think?”

  “And what did you do then?”

  “I ran like hell.”

  “Together?”

  “No. He…he told me to leave first.”

  “So, he didn’t get out of the van?”

  “What are you talking about? Of course, he did. I saw him steal one of your…” Burke’s voice trailed off. “You’re…you’re not with Mr. Blair, are you?”

  Quinn tapped Orlando on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Burke said as she started the engine. “Hey, come on. I’m being cooperative.”

  Quinn’s hand shot forward, his fingers wrapping around Burke’s neck. As he squeezed, he said, “No, we’re not with Mr. Blair, either. We’re with Quinn.”

  Burke began to shake.

  There were valleys and canyons in the hills behind Malibu that, despite being within a few miles of over a million people, were surprisingly unoccupied. Quinn directed Orlando to one he’d used in the past.

  “Here,” he said, after they’d traveled deep into the ravine.

  Orlando pulled to a stop and shut off the lights, plunging them into a darkness the nearby city no longer knew. The only illumination was from the star-filled sky and the glow of Los Angeles to the north and east.