Shadow of Betrayal

Quinn tilted his head up and watched as his apprentice looped the rope through the gap and around one of the beams before tying it off. As Nate stepped down, he tried to hide a wince, but Quinn noticed.

“I’m fine,” Nate said.

“That’s not what it looked like to me,” Quinn said but immediately regretted it.

“I’m fine. A cramp.” Nate’s face was tense, serious. “We all get them.”

As if to emphasize his point, he reached down and picked up the end of the second rope.

“I’m ready, let’s go,” Nate said.

Quinn moved three feet to his left and made another cradle with his hands. Nate repeated the task with the new rope. When he stepped down this time, he stared Quinn in the face and didn’t wince. But it didn’t matter. Quinn couldn’t help remembering Nate lying unconscious on a Singapore street, his foot mangled by a car that had purposely rammed into him. It had been Quinn’s call to remove the foot. It had been the right decision, but that didn’t make Quinn feel any less responsible.

“Shall I unroll it?” Nate asked.

“Please,” Quinn said.

The end of each security line was attached to a rope ladder sitting next to the empty doorway, waiting. Nate walked over and maneuvered the ladder so that it was centered in the opening, ready to roll over the edge into the darkness.

Another hour, two tops, and they’d be done, Quinn thought. And even more important, one more job would be ticked off the Peter payback list.

So far this one had been easy, if not a little unusual. Peter had arranged for a sedan to be waiting for them at the airport, complete with a trunk full of the equipment he thought they might need: flashlights, gloves, crowbars, the rope ladder, and handguns for each of them.

Peter hadn’t been the one to greet them, though. Quinn wasn’t even sure if he was in the city. It had been one of his agents, a woman named Ida. Quinn had met her briefly once before. She gave Quinn and Orlando the brief as they drove into Manhattan. It basically boiled down to a mop-up job in an apartment building, with a little recon work thrown in. Apparently an agent had run into a little trouble. While the agent had been extracted, there was the possibility that evidence had been left that could link the agent to the building. Peter wanted Quinn to make sure any link was severed. While they were at it, they were also to keep their eyes open for anything unusual.

“The agent was interrupted before the recon was complete,” Ida had said, just before they’d dropped her off near Columbus Circle.

“Recon is not one of our normal services,” Quinn told her.

“We both know that’s not true.”

Quinn had almost argued the point, but let it go. Doing this job meant he was almost done with Peter and the Office. Once he finished the third of his promised jobs, he was going to stop taking Peter’s calls. Enough was enough. The last few years had proved that.

Nate pushed the ladder over the edge of the opening. There was a thud-thud-thud as it unrolled itself on the way down, then the support ropes they had just tied off snapped taut.

“We’re almost set here,” Quinn said, subconsciously turning his mouth toward the mic attached to the collar of his shirt.

There was no response.

“Orlando? Did you hear me?”

There was a second of nothing, then Orlando’s voice in his ear. “Yeah, just a minute.”

“What’s up?”

Earlier, while Nate and Quinn had lugged the ladder inside and set it up, Orlando had volunteered to begin the recon of the first couple floors.

“I think I found something,” she said.

“What? Where?”

Instead of a reply, Quinn heard footsteps coming from his left down an intersecting corridor. Turning toward the sound, he could see the beam of Orlando’s flashlight cut through the darkness, then angle in his direction.

“It might be nothing,” she said, her voice still coming through the receiver in his ear. “We can check it out later if we need to. I’ll be right there.”

While they waited for her to arrive, Nate checked the ladder and the ropes to make sure everything was secure.

“Who wants to go first?” Nate asked, the moment Orlando rejoined them.

“You do,” Quinn told him.

“Check this out,” Nate said.

Quinn and Orlando walked over as Nate worked a wooden riser loose from one of the piles of junk. Nails stuck out in a line along both short ends, and one corner had splintered off, but otherwise it was intact.

“See?” he said after he flipped the piece of wood over.

Quinn had to look closely to see what his apprentice meant. There was a circular patch in the center of the tread that was just a shade or two darker than the surrounding wood. Nate pressed against it, and it pushed in half an inch, then sprang back when he let go.

“Pressure trigger,” Orlando said. “Good catch.”

“Peter’s agent must have stepped on this,” Nate said. “That probably sent a signal to the explosives.”

Orlando smiled. “You’ve been studying.”

Nate shrugged. “Had a lot of time on my hands.” He glanced up at the doorway high on the wall above them. “Jesus … do you think he fell all this way?”