The Deceived (26 page)

word after “Mexico” was relevant.

day one plus call.

Then the final piece of the code. Reverse the order. “Call plus one day,” he said. “So that’s why she went active last night,” she said. “Jenny thought

we were going to call her again.”

Quinn spent several minutes working out his reply. When he was done, he entered it on the website, and clicked the button to post it.

Haven’t tried where you went yet. I’ve only been to Nicaragua, but your trip sounded great. Will spend time tonight on Internet checking it out. Have some vacation time next month but have no firm plans yet. Same old story, no time to plan anything!

Yeah. Poor old me. HAHAHA.

But sounds like you had a good time. Sailing, partying. What could be better? Sing me up!! Do you have recommendations for hotels in Cozumel? Also would be interested in other insights. Am always up for a good time.

Thanks!

“Sing me up?” Orlando asked “Typo,” Quinn said with a shrug. “Happens all the time.” “Weak.”

The real message read:

am in sing a poor same time tonight

The cab from the Pan Pacific dropped Quinn and Nate on the north side of the Singapore River along Clarke Quay. Their destination was still another quarter mile up the river, but taking the sidewalk that lined the shore would be an easy and inconspicuous way to get there. Plenty of tourists used the walkway. Who would notice two more?

Clarke Quay had once been the place merchants would bring their ships in and sell their goods directly to the shop-houses that lined the river. But that was another century, long removed from the present. Now business was conducted at the huge port a few miles away on ships that would fill the river side-to-side and then some. Ships that were stuffed with cargo emptied by giant cranes instead of the shop owners’ sons, and transported in quantities the merchants of the 1800s could never imagine.

The shop-houses were rows of two-story buildings pressed up against each other, following the edge of the river. Shop on bottom, home on top. Many were gone now, lost in a wave of rejuvenation and renewal that seemed to be a constant state on the island. But several remained.

No longer the businesses of old, though. They had been turned into clubs and restaurants, some even extending to the outside, providing dining on the wide path that had been built up many feet above the river water. These reclaimed buildings had been painted in bright colors—blue, pink, yellow, green, orange—as if the brightest would attract the most customers.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nate said.

Quinn looked back, then followed his apprentice’s gaze toward one of the buildings. In bright orange letters above the entrance was a sign that read
Hooters
.

“One of the great American exports,” Quinn said.

Nate smiled. “Maybe we can stop in for a drink later.”

“Not likely.”

Precise, man-made walls of stone lined both sides of the Singapore River, guiding it in the direction man wanted it to go. The path along the top curved gently with the dictated contour of the waterway. It was kind of a metaphor for Singapore itself—clean, man-manipulated, and tightly controlled.

As they moved west out of Clarke Quay and into Robertson Quay, the shops were replaced by apartments. Nice ones, Quinn noted. Not like some of the government flats they’d passed on their taxi ride into the city. Those had looked like they’d been stuffed full of people. He’d been in buildings like them before on one of his previous trips. Extended families crammed into two-room apartments sometimes not big enough for even one person.

Quinn had also been in buildings like those they were walking by now. Large apartments. Two, maybe even three bedrooms, and none with the feeling that the walls were pushing in on you. Families lived here, too, but seldom more than parents and one or two children. And often they were occupied by only a single person. These were the flats favored by the large ex-pat community. Brits, Aussies, Japanese, Americans, Canadians.

They were the people recruited by the large corporations to come and provide their expertise and to help spur on the continual Singaporean growth. Quinn had known people who’d lived in the area, but was unsure if they were here any longer.

“We’re getting close, aren’t we?” Nate asked.

Quinn nodded. “Just like we talked about.”

“No problem.”

The plan was to just do a walk-by, then circle around and return back to Clarke Quay.

They passed a footbridge, its structural design again more than merely utilitarian. Large, curving pipes created the illusion of an oversized cage surrounding the bridge. It was painted in bright colors, like something out of a child’s imagination.

But it wasn’t the bridge that caught Quinn’s attention. It was the building ahead and to his right.

“There it is,” he said.

He pulled a slender box out of his pocket. It looked liked a reduced version of a late-twentieth-century pager. It was a cell phone tracker. Orlando had programmed it earlier to home in on the module Markoff had been pointing them toward. The data on the display indicated they were getting very close.

He slipped the device back in his pocket, then pulled out his phone and switched it to digital camera mode. “Let me take a picture of you.”

Nate took several steps ahead. “Where do you want me?”

“Lean against the railing. I want to get the river in the shot,” Quinn said in a normal tone, smiling like a good tourist. “It’ll be nice. You can show your girlfriend when we get home.”

Nate moved into position. “How’s this?”

“Perfect.” Quinn aimed in Nate’s general direction, cheating the lens to the right, and taking in the building that, until a few minutes before, had only been a blue dot on a computerized map.

The structure appeared to be two separate buildings joined in the middle. The first two floors were common to both, but above the second floor, two towers—one at either end—rose up an additional nine floors. The towers didn’t take up the whole footprint of the second-floor roof, though. The remaining area appeared to be a large patio. Quinn could make out the tops of several umbrellas near the edge of the roof. Perhaps, Quinn guessed, there was even a pool.

“Got it,” he said, lowering the camera.

“You want me to take one of you?”

“Maybe later.” Quinn pushed a few buttons on the touch screen, e-mailing the picture to Orlando. He traded the phone for the tracking device in his pocket, then pointed at a vehicle bridge that spanned the river just beyond the building. “Let’s stop at that bridge. We can head back then.”

They began walking again. Quinn stayed on the river side so that Nate would be between him and the building. It would make it easier for him to look at the structure without being obvious.

“After dinner, I want to go over the presentation again,” Quinn said, maintaining character. “I want to make sure we’ve got it down before tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry,” Nate said, falling into the act. “We’ll do fine.”

“And the forecast numbers. We should call New York and make sure those haven’t changed.”

“I’ll send an e-mail as soon as we’re back at the hotel.”

“No,” Quinn said. “Call them.”

“New York’s still sleeping,” Nate said. “You know that, right?”

As they came level with the building, Quinn first glanced down at the tracker. As he’d expected, it indicated they were even closer now. He then let his eyes stray toward the building. “Right. Okay, send an e-mail for now. But I want you to call once someone’s in the office.”

“Sure. No problem. Anything else?”

A sign was mounted into the wall just below patio level between the two towers. It was a blue rectangle, and written on it in yellow letters was
Quayside Villas.

“You have the PowerPoint, right?”

“Yes,” Nate said. “For the millionth time. Why are you so uptight about this? It’s a killer presentation.”

“I’m uptight because this could mean a fifty percent increase in our sales,” Quinn said.

Below the sign was an open atrium stretching the height of the first two floors and ending at a glass door about fifty feet in. It was impossible to tell from where they were, but Quinn assumed it was security controlled. That would have been consistent with the other buildings like it he’d seen.

“So what do you want to get for dinner?” Nate asked.

“Are you changing the subject?”

“Absolutely. The presentation’s ready. What I’m most worried about is what I’m going to put in my stomach.”

The path forked ahead. To the left, it headed downhill, passing under the bridge, and to the right, it went around the side of the Quayside Villas building to the street. Quinn led them to the right.

Around the lower level were a couple of shops: a bakery, a laundry, a wine shop. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Quinn glanced upward, following the rise of the west tower. There was no way to tell where in the building Markoff ’s message had been pointing them toward without getting inside. But there was also no doubt the building was where he had placed his beacon.

Around the front was a small two-lane road that passed between the Quayside Villas and a hotel on the left.

“I don’t care what we eat,” Quinn said. “You can choose.”

“A girl in the bar was telling me about a great Japanese place downtown.”

“Japanese? Shouldn’t we at least try Chinese while we’re here? Or Indian?”

An offshoot of the road curved toward the front door of the Quayside, rejoining the road up ahead. The front door was glass again, leading into a lobby at the base of the west tower. Mounted on the window next to the door was a security pad for a keycard or something similar. There was also a push button that looked like a large, flat light switch. No doorman, though.

But this realization was short-lived. Ahead there was another glass door, this one leading into the east tower. Beside it was a glass-walled room, complete with a bank of television monitors and two security guards.

“I’m ready to head back,” Quinn said. “How about you?”

CHAPTER

THE PHONE RANG ONCE.

Twice. Three times. Four. Five.
She didn’t get the message,
Quinn thought. Six. Click. Quinn almost expected to hear the prerecorded Thai voice again,

but the line was live. “Jenny?” Another breath. “Jenny. It’s Quinn.” “What happened?” Though the voice was low and rushed, Quinn

knew it was her. “I didn’t get your message until too late,” Quinn said. “The call time you wanted already passed by then.”

“No...Steven. What happened?” Her voice was managed, not quite calm, not quite out of control. It was almost as if she was accusing Quinn of killing her boyfriend.

“I don’t know exactly. He was...he was dead before I even knew

he was in trouble.” “What do you mean?” Quinn glanced at Orlando and Nate. They were huddled around

the small hotel room desk, monitoring the call on the computer.

“A week ago, I was hired to do a job,” Quinn said. He then told her about being shocked that the body he’d been asked to dispose of belonged to his old friend. He didn’t fill in all the details, but it was enough, he hoped, to convince her he was telling the truth.

There was a long silence when he was through. “Whoever sent you the body must have killed him,” she said.

“Who was it?” “I don’t know,” he said. “Bullshit.” “Jenny, I don’t know. It was an anonymous client. It’s how it goes

in this business.” He could have given her Albina’s name, but he was only the middleman and had nothing to do with it.

She was silent for several seconds, then said in a trembling voice, “I knew it. When he didn’t come back I knew something was wrong. I just thought...I hoped...Oh, God.”

She could no longer hold it back. Quinn heard a loud sob, then the muffled noise of the phone moving away from her face so she could endure her agony without a witness.

It was half a minute before she came back. When she spoke, her

composure had returned. “Are you really in Singapore?” “Yes.” “What are you doing there?” “Trying to help you.” “But I’m not in Singapore,” she said. Quinn looked at Orlando. Silently she mouthed, “She’s still in KL.” “No, but Kuala Lumpur isn’t far away,” he said into the phone. “You know where I am.” “It’s okay. We’re the only ones who know.” “What do you mean
we
?”

“There are two others with me,” he said. “Friends I trust and work with all the time. They’re okay.”

“If you know I’m in Kuala Lumpur,” she said, her words sounding more guarded than they had before, “then what are you doing in Singapore?”

“We’re in Singapore because Markoff sent us here.” “What do you mean?” she blurted out. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Look, I’m going to come get you. I’ll

take the first flight in the morning. It won’t take long. We’ll get you out of there and to someplace safe.” The flight between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur was measured in minutes, not hours.

There was dead air for a moment. “No. I’ll come to you.” “That’s not such a good idea,” Quinn said. “Your boss is flying