He heard the voice again, and realized it was coming from an open doorway along the back. After letting Nate take a look, he pointed at the walled-off room up front. It would provide a considerably better vantage point than the stairs. Staying low, they crept over to it and worked their way down the wall until they came to a door. All was quiet on the other side, so Quinn inched it open. Taking the darkness within as a good sign, they slipped inside.
Quinn did a quick scan with his penlight to make sure they were alone, and then said, “Head for the ambulance. While you disable it, I’ll check out that back door to see if I can figure out what’s going on.”
“Got it.”
Quinn eased the door open, and immediately stopped.
Someone was walking across the big room. Make that two people. When they stopped, Quinn heard one of the ambulance doors open. A third set of steps, farther away.
Quinn mimed for Nate to switch places with him and hold the door. He then slipped his phone through the narrow opening until the camera lens cleared the jamb.
On the screen was a view of the other room. He changed the angle until the ambulance was the focus, and zoomed in. The rear door was open wide. One man was standing in front of the opening, pulling out a gurney. Another was walking toward the man from the back of the room.
As the back end of the gurney came out of the vehicle, the rear legs and wheels automatically deployed. The third man climbed out of the ambulance a moment later, set something on top of the rolling bed, and grabbed the end.
The two with the gurney rolled it toward the back door, while the other man continued to the ambulance and circled to the driver’s side.
“Are they going somewhere?” Nate asked.
Quinn had been wondering the same thing, but remained silent as he tried to figure out what to do.
Their choices were few, and none of them good.
Orlando, Daeng, and Ananke left Winston a huddling mess under a steady stream of cold water in his shower. That had been Ananke’s doing, a little ad-libbed addition to what Orlando had told the guy.
“You may feel clammy for the next twenty-four hours,” Orlando had said as she administered the “antidote.” “There’s a chance you’ll have a headache, too.”
His fear ticked up another notch. “I–I already have one.”
She nodded. “If you’re lucky it won’t get too bad. Sometimes…” She shrugged. “Let’s just say, to lessen the side effects of the antidote, you’ll want to do nothing for at least the next twenty-four hours. Forty-eight would be even better. Can you do that?”
Lips shaking, he said, “Yes.”
“I would stay in bed and sleep. Wouldn’t even turn on the TV. But that’s just me.”
Though he said nothing, Orlando knew he would do exactly that.
When she signaled Daeng, he cut Winston loose from his chair. The man immediately threw the ropes off.
“Slowly,” Orlando warned. “If you increase your heart rate, you’ll speed up the spread of the poison, making it all that much harder to rid it from your system.”
The man’s movements switched from high speed to slow motion in an instant.
“We’ll be off now, Mr. Winston. We thank you for your cooperation.”
“There is one other thing he can do,” Ananke said as Orlando and Daeng were turning for the door. “I heard one’s chances are greatly improved by soaking in cold water for thirty minutes every three hours.” She looked directly at Winston. “I don’t know if it’s true, but you might want to give it a try.”
He pushed the last of the rope away, stumbled out of the tub into the shower.
As he turned on the water, Ananke said, “Cold, remember. Only cold.”
“Cold. Right.” He moved the dial all the way to C and slipped down the wall to the tiled floor.
When they were outside, Daeng said, “The water was a nice touch.”
Ananke smiled. “Thank you very much, Daeng. It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things.”
Orlando had to admit it had been a good addition, but she kept the thought to herself.
Once they were in the car, Daeng said, “Where to now?”
“You heard him,” Orlando replied. “L.A.”
“We’re not done, then?” Ananke asked.
“No.”
“Oh, goody.” She sounded genuinely excited.
Daeng looked less enthusiastic. “Maybe we should pass the information on to Helen’s organization. They’d probably want to deal with it.”
“You have more confidence in them than I do,” Orlando said.
“Okay,” he said, “but shouldn’t we at least let Quinn know what we’re doing?”
Quinn would shut her plan down before they even pulled away from the curb.
“Just drive,” she said.
CHAPTER 30
“Higher,” Orbits said, his voice echoing through the otherwise empty room.
Branson, one of his new team members, tilted the girl’s head back.
“That’s good,” Orbits told him.
He snapped off three more photos.
“All right, give me a moment.”
Branson let the captive’s chin fall back to her chest.
Orbits scrolled through the shots he’d taken. Of the last three, two were fine, but in the third he’d captured part of an eye, showing it was closed. He couldn’t have that. Someone might get the idea she was dead. He trashed it, and then looked through all the others to see what else he might need. The problem was, he didn’t know exactly what would identify the girl to someone, and if his plan were to work, others had to know for sure he had her.
He’d already shot pics of the pads of her fingers, and the small butterfly tattoo on her waist. There were other torso photos, lower-face photos, back photos. He’d even shot a full range of her nearly bald head. What else could there be?
He was about to tell Branson they were done when the picture of her face gave him one last idea.
“Pull her lips back,” he said. “I want to take a few of her teeth.”
“You got it,” Branson said. He tilted her head up and peeled back her lips.
Orbits took a shot. “Now open her mouth.”
When Branson pried the woman’s jaw apart, she stirred slightly, moaning. Apparently it was almost time for Orbits to force some more of the sedative down her throat.
He moved in really close, took several shots of her upper teeth, and then switched his angle to do the same with her lower. Her tongue had lolled to the side, though, and partially blocked the shot. He grabbed it to move it out of the way, but as his thumb touched the underside, she flinched.
It couldn’t have been from pain. He had barely touched her. Curious, he bent her tongue back and spotted several black marks. They were small and the angle made them hard to see clearly. He took a picture and brought the photo up on the display.
Not random marks — a tattoo of numbers.
“Is that it, or do you want to take some more?” Branson asked, still holding the girl’s mouth open.
Orbits looked up in surprise, having momentarily forgotten anyone else was there. “Yeah, yeah. I got what I need.”
He walked way, staring at his phone. Could this be the reason everyone wanted the girl?
He zoomed in on the tattoo a bit more. Two sets of eight digits, with a period after the first two numbers in each set, and, in front of the second set — the one beginning with 95—a minus sign.
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.
He knew what this was. GPS coordinates.
When he entered them in his phone, up popped a map of northeastern Kansas, an arrow dropping into the countryside not too far from a town called Meriden. He clicked on the satellite view but it didn’t make things any clearer. The surrounding area was mostly farmland, while the exact spot was a small, grass-covered clearing encircled by a thick grove of trees. After zooming in as far as he could, he saw a few spots of white within the grass — rocks, probably — but nothing else.