Quinn pointed at an old Dumpster sitting to the side. “If we move that over to those pipes, we can scale up.”
The pipes were a set of four electrical conduit tubes running up to the roof, each no more than an inch in diameter. They weren’t optimum but Quinn and Nate had climbed walls using less.
Nate cut a flap in the fence, held it out of the way so Quinn could pass through, and then he followed. Moving the Dumpster was tricky. It had a bad wheel that wanted to squeak with every turn. Quinn had to lift the corner off the ground while Nate pushed.
“Why don’t you stay down here,” Quinn suggested when he noticed Nate rubbing his bruised ribs. “I’ll go up and scout around.”
“No way,” Nate said.
He pulled himself onto the Dumpster and started up the skinny pipes to the roof. Quinn waited until Nate was finished before making his own way to the top.
The roof was massive. Scattered across it were several old air-con units, dozens of pipe vents, and several other items that made up the building’s systems. Quinn had hoped to find a stairwell entrance but didn’t see any.
“Are those hatches?” Nate asked a few moments later, nodding toward the far end.
It was hard to tell from where they were. To get a better look, they stuck to the edges, where their steps had less chance of being heard, and headed over. One of the metal plates was indeed a hatch, while the other was some kind of vent.
They knelt beside the former. Quinn ran his fingers underneath the lip until he found a release lever. He had to push hard to get it to move, and when it finally slid to the open position, it did so with a much louder click than he would have liked. He and Nate froze. When no one came to check out the noise, Quinn grabbed the lip again and lifted.
The hatch moved up four inches before it was stopped by something inside. Leaning down, he discovered a rod, one end attached to the hatch and the other running down below the frame, out of sight. He moved his hand through the opening and felt around. The problem was a hook on the bottom, and the only way to dislodge it was to lower the hatch.
“I need something thin but strong,” he whispered to Nate. “At least a foot long.”
With a nod, Nate crept back to the edge of the roof and soon returned with several twigs, none more than an eighth of an inch in diameter.
Quinn chose one, notched a V into the end, and slipped it through the opening, placing it so that the cut cradled the rod. He then lowered the hatch until there was just enough space for the twig. With a push of the stick, the hook swung out of its mooring point, allowing him to open the hatch all the way.
He leaned through the hole. An empty hallway, the only illumination coming from the sunlight streaming past Quinn.
He lowered Nate in first, and then slipped into the opening. Nate grabbed on to him as Quinn hung from the frame and helped him down without making any noise.
Nate winced as he straightened up, but Quinn acted like he hadn’t noticed.
There were several more doors along the corridor, but the one at the very end interested Quinn the most. He was sure it would lead them farther into the building.
It opened with a slight squeak. Again, they paused.
Though they heard no one heading their way, they did hear a voice.
Winston’s townhouse was an end unit, designed so that the master suite didn’t share a wall with anyone else. Perfect for their needs.
Daeng and Ananke brought two dining room chairs up to the master bathroom. One they placed in the large Jacuzzi tub, then dumped Winston onto it and tied him up. The other was placed just outside the tub for Orlando.
“Daeng, if you will,” Orlando said, when everything was ready.
Daeng picked up a bucket of ice water they’d prepared downstairs and began pouring it over Winston’s head. The man woke with a jolt, gasping for breath.
Orlando let Daeng douse him for a few more seconds before saying, “Enough, I think.”
Daeng tipped the bucket back.
“What the hell, man?” Winston said between pants. “Who are you?”
“We have a few questions for you, Mr. Winston, and would appreciate your cooperation,” Orlando said.
“Fuck you!”
Orlando glanced at Daeng and tilted her head ever so slightly. He stepped forward again and dumped the remaining water over the man’s head.
Winston sputtered and started panting again. With a shiver in his voice, he said, “You think that’s going to make me talk?”
“Of course not,” Orlando said.
This time her nod was to Ananke.
The smiling assassin approached Winston slowly and leaned forward until her mouth was only a few inches from his ear. “She doesn’t like it when you don’t cooperate,” Ananke whispered. As the last word left her lips, she stabbed a syringe into his arm and shoved down the plunger.
Winston yelled out and tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go.
As Ananke stepped back, Orlando said, “In about an hour you’ll start to feel the sweats. Nothing too drastic. Under normal conditions you might not even notice. Another hour after that, your gut will begin to clench, and soon you’ll be vomiting up everything that’s in your stomach. But the spasms won’t stop. As you continue to dry heave, your temperature will spike. It’ll probably be a good five or six hours before you start bleeding from your nose and your eyes, but it will come. And the pain—” She sucked in a breath and shook her head. “I’m not going to lie to you. It’s going to be bad. Every nerve ending is going to feel like it’s being smashed under a hammer. You’re going to die, Mr. Winston, but not until morning. Unless, of course, you take your own life. Most in your position do.”
Throughout her speech, he stared at her, his eyes growing wider and wider.
She reached over to the sink counter and picked up a hand towel. Unfolding it, she revealed another syringe. She held it in the air and admired it.
“This,” she said, “will stop all that from happening.”
It was a lie, of course. Her syringe contained the same harmless saline solution that had just been injected into him. This part of the plan had been Ananke’s idea, a riff, she told them, on the method she’d used on Edmondson.
“Give it to me,” he said. “Please. I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
Orlando frowned. “You’ll answer our questions first, and then you get it.”
“No way, man. You give it to me first. If I die, whatever it is you want to know goes with me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’ll admit it would be easier to get the information from you, but there are other ways to obtain it. So, if you’re refusing to cooperate, I guess we’re done here.” She stood up. “Have a good life, Mr. Winston. What little of it that’s left.”
She started for the door. Daeng and Ananke turned to leave with her.
“No!” Winston yelled. “All right, all right. I’ll talk first. I’ll talk!”
Beyond the door, Quinn and Nate found stairs leading down to the first floor. Walls lined both sides, the one on the right stopping near the bottom, while the one on the left continued on for another dozen feet until it met the front corner of the building.
Quinn went first, stopping four steps from the bottom.
The voice was a bit louder, but still too distant to make out the words. He could tell the speaker was a man.
He peeked around the end of the wall. A huge room extended all the way to the far side of the building and back nearly to the center point. To his left, at the front of the structure, was a walled-off room, probably a lobby.
If he had to guess, machinery had once filled the space. Now, the only machine in the room was an ambulance parked near the closed roll-up door. The room appeared otherwise deserted.