“What are you going to do?”
“Find out who our new friends are.”
“Son of a bitch,” Roberts mumbled to himself.
His team had searched the area around the apartment building, but the brown-haired man and his two companions had eluded them.
He walked back over to where his men were waiting for him by the team’s vehicles, and said, “Moss, Cruz, you’re with me. We’ll take one of the cars and widen the search area. Girardi, we’ll leave you the other. Stay here and keep an eye on the building in case any of them shows back up. Questions?”
There were none.
It took Quinn ten minutes to discreetly work his way back to Peter’s street. The encroaching evening was finally playing in his favor. Though the sun was still above the horizon, the shadows had grown dark and wide.
Somehow the men in the suits had found out Quinn, Daeng, and Misty were there. A watcher perhaps, but unlikely, given the time lag in their response. What seemed more realistic was an alarm somewhere in Peter’s place had been tripped.
Whatever the case, he knew it was highly probable that most of the men were long gone now, and he hoped at least one had been left behind to keep an eye on the building in case Quinn and the others returned. It’s how he would have handled it.
Where, was the question. A watcher could be almost anywhere — in a car, a building across the street, one of a half dozen rooftops. He could be in Peter’s building, maybe even in Peter’s apartment, looking down on the street. If Quinn had to bet, he’d have put his money on either a car or a roof. Those were the quickest to set up.
The shadows were deeper on the opposite side of the street from Peter’s place, so Quinn entered the block there, and stepped into the recessed doorway of the first building he passed. From the slightly elevated position, he could see almost the entire street without fear of being spotted.
One by one, he examined each parked car he could see into, first on his side, then the other. His gaze stopped on an Audi A4 parked along the opposite curb, approximately halfway between his position and Peter’s building. A man was sitting in the driver’s seat. Given the deteriorating light, he wasn’t much more than a shadow.
It could have just been someone listening to the radio, or maybe a guy who’d arrived early for a date and was waiting for time to pass.
Or it could have been one of the suits.
Quinn mentally marked the car before scanning the rest of the vehicles. As far as he could tell, the others were all empty. Next he searched the rooflines of the buildings on Peter’s side. The sky was still bright enough that any silhouette would stand out, but he didn’t spot so much as a suspicious bump rising above a retaining wall.
The only things left were the rooflines on his side. He’d have to cross the street to check them.
He looked back at the Audi. The driver’s arm was up, his hand either on the side of his head, or in front of his face. It was impossible to tell from Quinn’s angle. A few seconds passed, then the hand lowered. Quinn could see it was holding a box or…
…binoculars.
There was no way to know for sure, but his instincts told him he was right.
He slipped back down the short set of steps, and snuck along the sidewalk in a crouch so that the watcher couldn’t spot him over the other parked cars. When he was across the street from Peter’s building, he cut between a sedan and SUV, and walked deliberately out into the road. Keeping his pace slow, he looked up and down the street as if checking to make sure he was alone. After several seconds, he jogged the rest of the way to Peter’s building. Misty still had the key, but his picks worked quickly enough.
Once inside, he raced down the hallway that ran along the side of the elevators. As he’d hoped, it went all the way to a rear exit on the alley side. He slammed through the metal security door, and ran back up the same passageway where the fire escape had deposited him earlier, not stopping until he was only a few feet from the front corner. Pressing himself against the stone wall, he ease forward until he could peek around the edge.
What he saw didn’t surprise him in the least. The driver’s seat of the Audi was now empty, because the man — the suited man — who’d been sitting in it was walking cautiously down the sidewalk toward Peter’s place. His eyes were trained on the entrance, and while he wasn’t holding a gun, he did have a hand hovering near the buttons of his coat.
You radioed your friends the second you saw me, didn’t you? Quinn thought. What did they tell you to do? Can’t imagine it was to try to take me yourself. Keep an eye on me? Wait for them to get here?
The man’s pace continued to slow as he neared the steps up to the building. When he reached them, he stopped and craned his neck, attempting to get a look through the glass door into the lobby.
One step up. Another look. But it still wasn’t enough, and he kept going until he was standing right in front of the door. He leaned in, moving his eyes as close to the window as possible, his attention fully focused on the lobby.
Quinn crept quietly over to the nearest parked car, crouched behind it on the street side, and peered through the sedan’s window. He had a perfect view of the watcher as the man leaned back from the glass door. A few seconds later, the watcher walked back down the stairs and started retracing his steps to his car.
Keeping in a crouch on the other side of the vehicles, Quinn followed him nearly all the way back to the Audi, stopping one car shy and slipping around the front end so he’d stay out of view. The man stepped around the front of his car and walked to the driver’s door, his back now to Quinn.
That was the moment Quinn had been waiting for. He closed in quietly, and as the watcher reached for the door handle, Quinn stuck the muzzle of the Beretta into the small of the man’s back.
“If I pull the trigger, your spine will be gone,” Quinn whispered. “You’ll die, but you’ll bleed out first, and I guarantee it won’t be pleasant. Do you understand?”
“You don’t have a chance,” the man told him. “Put it down and maybe—”
Quinn shoved the gun forward, knocking the man against the car. “One-word answer. Yes or no. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
With his free hand, Quinn took possession of the man’s gun, a Smith & Wesson complete with suppressor. Since it would make less noise, he switched it with the Beretta, putting his own gun in his pocket. “Who do you work for?”
The man kept his mouth shut.
“I said, who do you work for?”
No answer.
Quinn searched the man for ID, but the only thing the guy was carrying was a hundred and fifteen dollars in cash.
“We’re going for a walk,” he said.
“Like hell we are.”
The words were barely out of the watcher’s mouth when Quinn smacked the suppressor against the side of the man’s head. The watcher groaned in pain, and started to reach a hand up to where he’d been hit, but Quinn used the gun again to slap the arm down.
“We’re going for a walk.”
“Fine,” the man said, his teeth clenched, blood trickling down the side of his head.
Quinn grabbed the back of the man’s jacket and pulled him away from the car. Keeping the gun pressed against the watcher’s back, Quinn guided him to the sidewalk, and over into the passageway beside Peter’s building.
When they reached the back end, Quinn said, “Left.”
Two buildings down, he found an enclosed area built to house a couple Dumpsters. A solid metal door was pulled across most of the opening. It wasn’t the greatest solution, but it was better than standing out in the alley. After Quinn pushed the watcher inside, he shoved him against the grimy back wall.