The Damaged Read online

  “Looks perfect,” Quinn said. The condition of the interior was consistent with the vehicle’s age. “Can we see the back?”

  “Of course.”

  Aguilar led them around to the bed and used one of the keys to open the cover. A black, easy-to-clean plastic liner protected the bed itself. At the end next to the cab sat a metal storage box that stretched from side to side, and appeared to be bolted in place.

  “It’s empty at the moment, but you can put your tools in there,” Aguilar said, following Quinn’s gaze. He picked another key on the ring and held it up. “This will open it.”

  “Thank you,” Quinn said. “This will work fine.”

  Aguilar handed the keyring over. “Anything else I can help you with?”

  “No. I think this is it.”

  “Please bring it back with a full tank of gas. And try not to scratch it up.”

  Aguilar gave them a smile and headed back around the side of the building. After Quinn and Orlando heard the garage door open and close, Orlando moved over to the corner and peered around it.

  “He’s gone,” she whispered.

  Quinn hopped into the bed, and used the key the man had shown him to unlock the toolbox. Unlike Aguilar’s description, the box was most definitely not empty. Inside he found a briefcase-sized container holding two pistols—a SIG SAUER P226 for Quinn and a Glock 17 for Orlando—four sound suppressors, three spare magazines each, two boxes of 9mm ammunition, and one of the special bullets Quinn had requested. In a duffel bag beside the case were two sets of janitorial coveralls, a box of rubber gloves, and a box of disposable surgical hats.

  “We’re good,” he said as he relocked the box.

  They headed out, Orlando playing navigator and guiding them to the first of a handful of hardware stores, where they began picking up the items they had not requested from Aguilar. Four stores later, they had everything they needed, and headed to the abandoned construction site where they would perform their final task for the day.

  Quinn had picked out the location before leaving Los Angeles, after his research confirmed the site had not only been sitting untouched for over two years, but more importantly, it was also tied up in the courts and not likely to see a resumption of construction for several more years.

  The horrendous Mexico City traffic meant they didn’t reach the site until nearly 7:30 p.m. That was fine. What they had to do was better done in the dark.

  Quinn parked the truck near a partially built structure at the center of the property. He and Orlando then grabbed the shovels they had purchased and made their way to a pile of dirt, halfway to the back property line. At the base of the pile they dug a hole, approximately six feet long by three feet wide, and five feet deep.

  “That should do it,” Quinn said, as he tossed the last shovelful of dirt onto the existing mound.

  After Orlando helped him out of the ditch, they hid their shovels inside the unfinished building and headed back to town.

  “So, where are you taking me to dinner?” Orlando asked.

  “Oh, I’m taking you to dinner?”

  “Of course you are. Someplace nice, I think. After that, maybe someplace with music.”

  “Hey, Ms. I Need a Decent Night of Sleep. Tomorrow is showtime. Don’t you think it would be better to pick up something to eat and head to the apartment so we could turn in early?”

  “Oh, please. We’re going to have plenty of rest time before the action starts. And come on, I haven’t been out in ages.” She looked at him, puppy dog eyes on full display. “Please. I promise to get you home before your mom sends the police out looking for you.”

  He chuckled. “Fine. But you need to pick out the place. Unless you want to drive.”

  She looked out at the sea of brake lights and pulled out her phone. “Let me see what I can dig up.”

  It was a night to be remembered.

  For Quinn, there was really no other way to describe it.

  To start, dinner was wonderful, and not just the food and the view of the city’s historical center. It was the conversation and the laughs and the memories Quinn would remember most.

  Not once did either of them bring up Durrie. Instead they stuck to recounting missions that hadn’t involved him, and told each other stories from their lives before they joined the world of espionage.

  It was like he was sitting across from the old Orlando again. The one who had not yet become romantically involved with Durrie. The fun Orlando. The teasing Orlando. The best friend Quinn had ever had Orlando.

  After dinner they found a club a few blocks away, where they enjoyed some Mexican rock and roll, and where Orlando, after they both had a few more drinks, convinced Quinn to get up and dance with her. As much as he enjoyed it, he almost wished he’d said no. Seeing her moving around like that, right in front of him, reminded him of the torture he’d gone through the night before, a torture he knew would be repeated when they returned to the apartment.

  As they sat back down, he casually glanced at his watch and shot to his feet again. It was a quarter after midnight. They needed to be awake again in less than four hours. “We’ve got to go.”

  “Relax, it’s early.”

  “Um, no. It’s not.”

  He held out his wrist so she could see the time.

  “That can’t be right,” she said.

  “Check.”

  She pulled out her phone. “Crap.”

  Quinn paid the bill and they caught a taxi back to their apartment.

  As they lay on the bed, Orlando under the sheet, Quinn on top, Orlando said, “Thank you for tonight.”

  “Don’t thank me. I’m going to make Peter pay for everything.”

  “I mean…for helping me forget for a little while.”

  He lay there, unmoving, not sure what to say. She’d given him an opening to talk about Durrie. He wanted to step through it, to find out exactly what had been going on so he could figure out how to help her. But if he took the opportunity, he’d be doing exactly the opposite of what she was thanking him for. After a few seconds, he said only, “I had a fun night, too. Thanks.”

  She smiled and turned away from him. “You set the alarm?”

  “I did.”

  “Good night, sweetheart.”

  “Good night, sugar bear.”

  Chapter Nine

  Quinn groaned as he peeled his eyelids open and reached for his phone to turn off the alarm. The time on the screen read 3:55 a.m.

  “Already?” Orlando croaked beside him.

  “I blame you.”

  He climbed out of bed and retreated to the bathroom, where he used a wash towel to give himself a quick standing bath, then threw his clothes on. When he came out, Orlando was leaning against the wall next to the door, her eyes half closed.

  “I made you coffee,” she said with a nod toward a cup on the table.

  He barely tasted the liquid as it went down, but the only thing that really mattered was the caffeine boost he hoped to get from it.

  When Orlando was ready, they grabbed their bags and headed out.

  The parking garage around the corner from the job site was a small setup—two stories with additional parking on the roof, about thirty spots per level. Quinn would have preferred something a bit larger, more anonymous, but this one was most convenient. Plus, unlike other places, it was open twenty-four hours.

  The attendant sitting on a chair by the gate rose as Quinn pulled up.

  “I understand you allow long-term stays,” Quinn said.

  “Depends on what you mean by long term,” the man said.

  “Three days at the most.” In truth, it would be closer to twenty hours than seventy-two.

  The man told him the price, and Quinn paid.

  “You go over that time, it’ll be extra,” the man said as he moved to the gate controls.

  “No problem.”

  The man pushed a button and the arm rose.

  Most of the spaces on the ground floor were already taken. That
was fine. Quinn wanted someplace out of the attendant’s sight, and found the perfect spot on the second floor, next to one of the stairwells.

  While Orlando got to work on her laptop, Quinn climbed into the truck bed, and added the weapons and other items Aguilar had supplied them to the duffel containing their other supplies. When he was finished, he locked up the bed and stuck his head into the cab.

  “How we looking?” he asked.

  “Just a couple seconds.” She tapped away for a bit longer, and then said, “All set.” She closed the screen and stuffed the computer into her backpack. The cameras behind the job site were now once again looping footage showing a deserted area.

  “Here,” he said as they walked to the stairs, handing her a pair of rubber gloves.

  They pulled them on, and took the stairs down to an exit that let out onto the street. After making sure no one was around, they made their way to the alley.

  During their daylight scout, Quinn had noted the lack of rear lighting fixtures on the buildings lining the passageway. Now that it was dark, even fewer of them seemed to be working, and those that were on did little to cut through the inky darkness. Down the alley they went, unseen in the shadows.

  First stop was the electrical box Orlando had examined the previous day. Quinn stood behind her, shielding the rest of the alley from the penlight she used. After opening the box, Orlando identified the power sources to each floor, attached clamp-like devices around them, and then pulled a cell phone out of her bag and turned it on. It was a cheap flip phone she had modified with extra ports on the side, into which she plugged the wires hanging off the back of the clamps. She carefully situated the phone inside the box and closed the door.

  When activated via a call, the phone would trigger whichever clamp she had designated—or all of them—to cut off the power running through the wire attached to that clamp. This was merely a safety precaution, in case things didn’t go well and they needed the distraction of a power outage.

  To prevent the very remote chance of someone opening the box and discovering the phone and clamps, Orlando removed a thin strand of sticky cord from her bag, and ran it along the edge of the box’s door where it touched the housing.

  She next pulled out a book of matches. “Clear?”

  Quinn looked both ways down the alley. “Clear.”

  She lit the match and touched the flame to the cord. The moment the substance flared to life, she stepped back and turned away. White light illuminated their small portion of the alley as if it were daylight. This might have been a problem if it had lasted long, but the substance was designed to burn hot and fast and, just as importantly, quiet.

  Within five seconds darkness descended once more.

  Orlando flicked on her penlight as she and Quinn turned to the box. The cord was gone. In its place were burn scars where the intense heat had welded the electric box’s door closed.

  Orlando removed a large bottle of water from her bag and poured it down the front of the box, speeding up the cooling process. When the bottle was empty, she used a rag to dry the surface.

  “Still too hot?” Quinn asked.

  She shook her head. “It should be okay.”

  From the duffel, Quinn removed a paintbrush and the small can of paint they’d purchased. “You want to do it?”

  “Be my guest,” she said.

  Quinn opened the can and proceeded to paint over the scorch marks. It wouldn’t fool anyone who got close enough, but from a couple of meters away, most people wouldn’t notice anything wrong.

  The closed can and the brush went into a Ziploc bag, which was then stowed in the duffel for disposal later.

  Intel had provided information on the building’s alarm system, allowing Orlando to isolate the back door and disconnect it from the system the previous morning, while making the software think everything was fine. At least, that’s what she had done in theory. They were about to test whether or not she had been successful.

  Quinn picked the deadbolt first, and disengaged the lock in the handle. Slowly, he eased the door away from the frame.

  No flashing lights. No ringing bells.

  He gave Orlando an appreciative nod and she stared back, clearly questioning his intelligence for having doubted her.

  They moved across the threshold into a dimly lit corridor, where only every third overhead was on. From the building’s blueprints, Quinn knew the door at the far end of the hall opened onto the main lobby, where the building’s sole nighttime security guard was stationed. Three of the structure’s four elevators were also accessed there. Only the freight elevator was in the back half of the building, its entrance four meters down the corridor’s back door.

  When it was time for the termination, this elevator would take them up to the job site, though not in the way most would travel. But that was still many hours away.

  They made their first trip to Felix Ruiz’s office via the back stairs. At the landing for each floor, they paused at the door for a quick listen. As they’d hoped, the building was dead quiet. Any early-bird employees weren’t likely to show up for another hour at least.

  Upon reaching floor five, they waited an entire minute before easing out of the stairwell, into a room approximately five meters square. Two large plastic bins sat in one corner, each marked BASURA—trash—and in another lived a metal cabinet, with nothing denoting its use. The only other exit was a set of double doors on the wall to the right.

  They approached the doors and listened again. Satisfied no one was on the other side, Quinn started to pull it open, but stopped when one of the hinges squeaked.

  Orlando reached into the duffel bag hanging from his shoulder and pulled out a can of WD40. She squirted the hinges on both sides of the exit, then wiped away the excess liquid with one of the paper towels.

  Quinn gently pushed the door again. This time it opened without a sound.

  They walked down the corridor to Ruiz’s suite.

  The attorney had the good sense to have his own alarm system. Unfortunately for him, the company that had installed it kept records on a computer connected to the internet. Which meant that not only did Quinn and Orlando know the make and model of the system, they also knew exactly where the door contacts were and where each motion sensor had been placed.

  Oh, and they’d also obtained the alarm company’s override deactivation code.

  Quinn picked the locks, then looked at Orlando, who gave him a nod.

  He opened the door and she moved quickly into the room, to the sound of a low beep-beep-beep coming from the control box on the wall behind the receptionist’s desk. As soon as she keyed in the code, the beeping stopped, and a green light appeared above the keypad.

  To the right of the box was a doorless entry to a hallway running right and left, with four doors leading off it. One was to a conference room, another to a storage closet, and the final two to offices.

  Ruiz’s office was the larger of the latter, and, in addition to a desk, included a seating area with an armchair and a couch. The latter of which, on closer inspection, could be turned into a bed.

  “Please tell me he doesn’t use that for what I think he does,” Orlando said when Quinn lifted a cushion to show her.

  “Well, he does have a reputation.”

  “If you’re trying to make me throw up, you’re doing a pretty good job.”

  He pushed the cushion back in place. “I’ll take the desk. You take the cabinets.”

  Before Quinn touched anything, he took a picture of the desk so that he could put everything back in the same place when he finished. The desktop itself held nothing of real value—a couple of files in an out tray, some correspondence to be opened, a multiline phone, and a wooden box containing a few pens, some paperclips, and a crucifix. Draped over the desk were power and internet lines for a computer but no actual machine. That jibed with the mission brief that stated Ruiz always carried a laptop.

  As Quinn opened each drawer, he again took a picture before going thr
ough it. But what he was looking for was not in one of the drawers. It was in a metal clip attached to the underside of the desktop.

  He freed the gun and held it up. A Smith & Wesson Colt .45. Assuming its purpose was for Ruiz to protect himself in this very room, it was a lot of firepower for the space.

  Quinn pulled out a box from his duffel and set it on the desk beside the gun. Inside were eight rows of six bullets each. Four different calibers, two rows per set.

  Quinn popped the magazine out of Ruiz’s gun, removed the bullets and the one in the chamber. He replaced them with .45-caliber ammunition from the box, sticking a final new bullet in the chamber.

  The ammunition looked identical to that he had taken out, but had two important differences. None of the new bullets contained any gunpowder, nor would their primers work. There was no way for Ruiz to know that without pulling the trigger, however, so if he happened to inspect his weapon, he wouldn’t see anything wrong.

  Quinn put the live bullets into the empty holes in his case, reseated the gun in its clip, and returned the case to his duffel.

  “Find anything interesting?” he asked.

  “Not really,” Orlando said. “I’m guessing all the good stuff’s on his computer.”

  “Let’s finish up. I don’t know about you but I could use a nap. I mentioned before that I blame you for the lack of sleep, didn’t I?”

  Orlando removed her backpack and set it on the armchair. “You did, but you were wrong. It was your fault.”

  “Mine? I wasn’t the one who wanted to go out last night.”

  “But you were the one who was supposed to be keeping track of time.” She pulled two cameras out of her bag and tossed one to Quinn.

  As he caught it, he said, “I don’t believe we ever established that.”

  “We didn’t have to. It was presumed.”

  “I never presumed it.”

  “But I did. Which means it was your fault.” She placed her camera in a bookcase directly across from Ruiz’s desk. “How’s this look?”