He walked to the front door, slowly opened it, and looked out.
Immediately, he pulled his head back in, and used every ounce of restraint he had to ease the door shut.
The others had returned, and were huddled together in front of the main house, talking. He might have been able to sneak away, but that would have been even riskier than if he’d made a try for the basement.
He’d just have to wait a few minutes until they finished whatever they were doing. Hopefully most of them would go into the house. It would still be a risk, but He heard feet outside heading his way.
Panic was not part of Daeng’s nature, so he calmly stepped back into the larger corridor and turned in the opposite direction from the stairs. As he reached the tiny cell on the end, he heard someone opening the main door.
Daeng opened the door, and slipped into the darkened cell. It wasn’t until the door shut that he realized it had no interior handle. So while the cell doors were technically unlocked, that only applied if one was on the other side.
Which he wasn’t.
Not quite what I had in mind.
He sat down on the mattress that filled most of the cell’s floor, and started going through the contents of his pockets, identifying everything by feel. Euro bills and change, the passport that matched the ID he was traveling under, the envelope Nate had asked him to hold, his comm, and his phone.
He checked the reception on his cell. One bar. The walls of the building were thick, and apparently not cell-phone friendly. Still, one bar was better than none. Hopefully it would be enough to at least get a text message out.
He tried, but it failed. He tried again. And again. And again.
After pushing the mattress against the door to block any sound from seeping into the corridor, he tried calling Nate several times, but apparently one bar wasn’t enough for either option.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying there when his phone vibrated. An hour? Two? He snatched it up and looked at the display.
Nate.
He punched ACCEPT, but the call failed to connect.
He tried calling Nate back, then texting him, but again, the signal wasn’t strong enough.
Maybe he’s close.
He picked up his comm gear and turned it on.
“Nate? Can you hear me? It’s Daeng. Are you back?”
“What’s going on?” Quinn asked as Nate reappeared on the hill just above them.
“I don’t know. Daeng’s not there.”
“You’re sure we’re in the right place?” Orlando asked.
“Positive.”
“Show me the farmhouse,” Quinn said.
“Okay. Down a little bit, though. Not here.”
Staying at their current elevation, they moved parallel to the summit until they were a good fifty yards to the left, then snuck up the slope, dropping to their stomachs just before they reached the top.
From this angle, the farmhouse hid a portion of the outbuilding. Nate pulled night-vision binoculars out of his pack and handed them to Quinn.
The buildings were just as Nate had described them. Though they looked old, they had probably only been constructed in the last ten or fifteen years. Quinn had seen others like them, residences specifically designed to be used as mission headquarters and safe houses. The structure without the windows was particularly telling. He’d seen a similar type of building three or four times in the past, and knew without even walking through the front door that there would be holding cells and interrogation rooms inside.
He picked out the guards, then swept the binoculars around, scanning for other signs of life. The three men seemed to be it. He was about to ask Nate if there was a backup spot where Daeng might have repositioned himself, when Nate suddenly cocked his head, his eyes losing focus.
“Daeng?” he said.
He fell silent again.
“Is that him?” Quinn asked, realizing Nate was listening to the comm line.
“I’m not sure. The signal’s not strong.”
“Do you have another set?”
“The spares are in my backpack,” Nate told him, then said, “Daeng, is that you?”
Quinn moved around Nate and zipped open the pack. He found the pouch by feel, pulled out two comm sets, tossed one to Orlando, then donned the other.
“…ate…can…me?” The words were weak and broken by digital noise, but Quinn was sure it was Daeng’s voice.
“Daeng, it’s Quinn.”
“…uinn…how are…”
“Where are you?” Nate asked.
This time the words came back completely garbled.
“We’re not going to hear him until we get closer to wherever he is,” Orlando said.
Nate nodded. “You two go that way, and I’ll go the other. We can meet up in the vineyard on the other side.”
Nate stayed under the cover of the trees as he worked his way west along the hill. Every ten seconds or so, either he or Quinn would say, “Daeng, are you reading me?”
Most of the time Daeng answered, but his responses were still impossible to decipher. When Nate reached a point where Daeng didn’t answer at all, he knew he’d gone too far, so he cut to the north, staying low to the ground as he crossed an open field to the vineyard about a hundred fifty yards away. From there he began working his way back toward the house.
Since the grapes were planted just a stone’s throw from the back of the buildings, he was able to get quite close to them while staying under cover.
“Daeng?” he whispered.
“Nate? I can…ou.”
“Where are you?”
“You…ot…eve it.”
“You’re still breaking up. Start counting. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
“…ne, two,…ee, f…ix, seven, eight…”
Nate came parallel with the farmhouse.
“Nine, ten, elev…twe…irteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.”
“Stop,” Nate said. He paused in the middle of a row. “I think I’ve got you now. Where exactly are you?”
“I’m in the outbuilding.”
Nate turned toward it, as if he might be able to see Daeng. “You’re inside?”
“Yes. In one of the cells.”
“They captured you?”
“No. They don’t know I’m here.”
Nate paused, confused. “Back up. How did this-” He fell silent as he heard something coming down the row. Dropping his voice to the quietest of whispers, he said, “Quinn?”
“Yes.” An equally quiet response.
A few seconds later, Quinn and Orlando emerged from the darkness.
“Daeng, still there?” Nate asked.
“Don’t really have anywhere else to go.”
“So how did you end up in one of the cells?”
“Opportunity.”
“Opportunity?”
Daeng explained how he’d taken advantage of the guards moving onto the hills, described what he’d found, including the guard in the basement, and his belief that whoever they were holding was in a cell near him.
“And which cell are you in?” Quinn asked.
“First floor. End of the hall, opposite the stairs.”
Nate took a moment to think, then said, “We’ll position ourselves so we can keep eyes on all sides of the building. When it’s clear, we’ll let you know and you can get out.”
“That’s actually not as easy as you might think.”
“Why not?”
“I seem to have locked myself in.”
CHAPTER 27
FRIDAY, MAY 12 ^ th, 2006 5:43 PM LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Some jobs had pre-event meetings, some didn’t. Jergins was a believer in them, so two and a half hours prior to the eight p.m. operation time, he had the team gather once more to go over everything.
In Quinn’s mind, meetings like these were a complete waste. If someone on the team didn’t know what they were supposed to do by now, then he or she shouldn’t be in the business.
On this particular occasion, though, he had no intentions of raising any objections. He needed to be perceived as his usual, professional, totally cooperative self. If that meant sitting around and nodding as Jergins once more went over the emergency escape route for scenario 47f, so be it.