The Cleaner

CHAPTER 26

Somewhere an alarm was ringing, not a bedside alarm, but something more robust. More urgent. Quinn opened his eyes. It took him a moment to reorient himself. The bed he was lying on was harder and narrower than he was used to. And he was on his side; that wasn’t normal. Then he remembered. He wasn’t on a bed at all. He was sleeping on the couch in the suite at the Mandola.

He lifted his head and glanced at the digital clock sitting on the end table: 3:43 a.m.

“What’s that noise?”

Quinn looked toward the voice. Orlando was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, an oversized T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants serving as her pajamas.

Quinn sat up, focusing his attention on the alarm. It wasn’t coming from inside the hotel room, but rather from the hallway beyond.

“Fire alarm,” he said, suddenly alert.

He pushed himself off the couch and walked quickly toward the front door. As he did so, he sniffed the air, trying to detect any smoke. The air seemed as fresh as it had been when he’d gone to sleep. He placed a hand on the door.

“It’s still cool,” he said.

In the hallway beyond, Quinn could hear people running and calling to each other over the drone of the alarm. It was the panicked sound of people who had been ripped from their sleep into a dangerous situation.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Orlando said.

“Get dressed,” Quinn said. He’d had the same thought as she did. “And grab your stuff.”

His own clothes were draped over a chair near the couch. He pulled them on in record time. He then stuffed his new purchases into his backpack, pulled on his coat, and threw his bag over his shoulders, cinching it tight.

Moments later Orlando, now dressed, rejoined him in the living room. Quinn crossed back to the door and listened again. The alarm was still clanging loudly, but the sounds of movement and voices in the hallway were gone. He hesitated. There were only two possibilities. Either the fire was real or it wasn’t. And if it wasn’t, that meant this was a flush. Quinn wouldn’t even consider the possibility that it was just a false alarm. That would be too much of a coincidence. And believing in coincidences, like indulging in curiosity, was just one more thing on a long list of items that could get you killed.

So if this was a flush, that meant Borko suspected Quinn and Orlando were in the building but didn’t know where. Fire or flush, it didn’t matter. The solution was the same. Get out.

Quinn undid the deadbolt, then eased the door open. Only a crack at first, just enough to peer outside.

“It’s empty,” he said.

He pulled off his backpack, unzipped the flap, and retrieved the Glock he’d taken off of Duke.

“Here,” he said, handing the gun to Orlando.

She released the magazine and checked to see if it was loaded.

“I’m down a round,” she said.

Quinn pulled one of the spare mags for the SIG from his bag, and released one of the 9mm rounds.

“Catch,” he said as he tossed it to her.

He returned the mag to his bag, then slipped the bag over his shoulders. From his jacket pocket, he pulled out his own weapon.

Gun in hand, he gave Orlando a quick nod, then opened the door all the way and stepped into the hall. No smoke, no smell of smoke, no sign of fire at all. Only the two of them in the otherwise empty corridor.

There were two stairways, one at each end of the floor. Quinn had examined each soon after they’d arrived. The one to his left, the west stairwell, went from the top floor to ground level. The one to his right went all the way up to the roof.

Quinn motioned toward his right, then headed down the hallway; Orlando trailed right behind him, watching their back. Once inside the stairwell, they paused and listened for a moment. Someone else was on the stairs, maybe two people. They were several floors below, but Quinn couldn’t tell whether they were going up or down.

Quinn and Orlando went up.

The entrance to the roof was located three floors above their room. It took them only forty-five seconds to get there. Again, they paused, listening.

Steps. Perhaps four floors below, definitely heading in their direction.

“Hotel security?” Orlando whispered.

“Maybe,” Quinn said. But they both knew they couldn’t take that chance.

A sign on the door to the roof warned that an alarm would sound if it was opened. Quinn guessed it couldn’t be any worse than the alarm that was still ringing throughout the hotel. He pushed the door open, and, as promised, a second alarm went off. But it was merely an electronic bleep that could barely be heard above the din of the fire alarm.

Once outside, Quinn pushed the door shut behind them and looked around. The roof was a large flat space with vents and pipes sticking up here and there.

To their right was Leipziger Strasse. Quinn hurried over to the edge of the roof and peered down. Three fire trucks were parked in front of the hotel. Not far away, dozens of people were huddled together, trying to stay warm. A moment later Orlando was at his side.

“Who are they?” she asked, pointing to a group of three men standing off to one side.

Unlike most of the guests, the men were fully dressed in warm, dark clothing. Two of them seemed to be watching the building. The third was talking on a cell phone. They could have been with the fire department or hotel security. But where were their uniforms?

“Whoever they are, I don’t think they’re looking for a fire,” Quinn said. “Come on.”

He stuffed his gun into the pocket of his jacket, then headed to the east end of the roof. Unfortunately, the Mandola was a stand-alone building and didn’t butt up against any other structure. But the top floor of the hotel did boast luxury suites with open-air patios only ten feet below the roof. It was something.

“You first,” Quinn said.

Without a word, Orlando slipped over the edge and dropped to the patio below. As soon as she had scrambled out of the way, Quinn climbed up onto the elevated lip that surrounded the edge of the roof. He was just beginning to lower himself over the side when a voice called out, “Stop!”

Quinn let go.

His feet landed on the tiled deck of one of the patios, barely missing a chaise lounge. His pursuer was seconds behind him and knew exactly where he’d come down.

“He saw me,” Quinn whispered.

But it was unnecessary. Orlando was already on the move. She quickly climbed over the dividing wall onto the patio of the suite to Quinn’s left.

Quinn was closer to the one on the right. So he climbed onto the wall at the edge of the patio, then tight-roped his way onto the next deck. He got down and ducked out of sight just as a dark form appeared over the edge of the roof.

Quinn watched the form from his hiding place against the wall that separated the patios of the suites. The man was speaking into a phone.

“I don’t know,” the man was saying in German. “He went over the side, but I don’t see him.”

Quinn’s pursuer removed the phone from his ear and slipped it into a pocket. He leaned over the edge, peering intently at the patio beneath him. As he did so, a faint light from the street illuminated his features. Quinn placed him almost immediately. He was one of the two men in the photograph Orlando had taken, the photo of the men who’d put the information from Duke under Quinn’s door at the Dorint.

Above Quinn, Borko’s man swung his legs over the edge of the roof. He dropped down onto nearly the same spot where Quinn had landed. The wall that separated the patios ran diagonally from the retaining wall at the edge of the building up to the roof. Good for cover, but it also now blocked Quinn’s view of the man.

Quinn checked to be sure the suppressor was firmly attached to his gun.

There was a patio chair only a few feet away. Quinn reached over and gave it a push, then pressed himself tightly against the dividing wall as the chair scraped loudly across the tile.

Almost instantly he heard the man’s steps rushing toward the dividing wall. A moment later the man’s head popped over the top. He was looking deep into the recesses of the patio. Quinn crouched directly below him, unseen, gun in hand.

The man jumped up on the retaining wall, his left hand grabbing the diagonal wall between the suites to keep his balance. To his right was a drop of nine stories.

“You can stop now,” Quinn said in German.

His pursuer started to whip around, a gun in his free hand. “I’ll kill you before you have a chance,” Quinn said.

The man stopped, still gripping the dividing wall with his left hand.

“Drop your gun,” Quinn ordered.

The man remained motionless.

“Do it,” Orlando said.

The man jerked his head in her direction, nearly losing his balance in the process. She was standing only a few feet away from him on the patio they had all jumped down on.

“Careful,” she said. “It’s a long way down.”

The man looked from her back to Quinn, a rueful smile on his face. “So you found each other,” he said.

“The gun,” Quinn said.

The man opened his hand and allowed the pistol to fall over the edge of the building toward the sidewalk below. So this one wasn’t one of Duke’s incompetent recruits. He was obviously a pro.

“Am I staying up here?” the man asked coolly. “Or may I come down?”

“You can relax right where you are,” Quinn told him. “For the moment.”

“Now what? We just wait here until my friends arrive?”

“So they can kill us?” Quinn asked. “I don’t think so.”

“Why would we kill you? Those were not our instructions.”

“Right,” Orlando said.

“You don’t believe me?” The man started to reach into his pocket.

“Don’t,” Quinn said.

“I’m just getting my phone.”

Quinn thought about it for a moment. Then he nodded. “Slowly.”

“Bleiben Sie dran,” the man said into the phone. He held the instrument out to Quinn.

“Toss it to me,” Quinn said.

The man did so.

“What?” Quinn said into the telephone.

“Quinn?”

There was no mistaking the voice. “Hello, Borko.”

“I understand you are entertaining a friend of mine,” Borko said.

“And I believe you have one of mine. Where is he?”

“How should I know?”

Quinn hit the end-call button and tossed the phone back to the man, who just barely managed to keep it from flying past him over the side of the building. “I’m not interested in playing games.”

Immediately the phone rang. Before Quinn could stop him, the man answered, then held the phone out again. “He wants to talk.”

“Tell him to go to hell.”

The man repeated Quinn’s instructions. He listened for a moment, nodding, then looked at Quinn. “He says to tell you Nate is still alive.”

When Quinn had the phone again, he said, “Make it fast.”

“What Gregory just told you is true,” Borko said. “Your friend Nate is one of my guests.”

“Then let him go.”

“Turn yourself in to us, and I will.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

Borko didn’t reply immediately. “You know,” he said, breaking the silence. “You are a very talented individual. You’ve really surprised me.”

“Sorry I haven’t made myself an easier target.”

“That’s good. You are a challenge. Too bad we aren’t working together.”

“That will never happen.”

“Never?”

“Believe it,” Quinn said. “Let Nate go.”

“Are you going to let Gregory bring you in?”

“You know I’m not.”

“Then I think I might keep him for a little while longer. Until I’m sure you won’t be a problem.” Borko paused. “If you won’t turn yourself in, my advice to you is to get out of town. Forget about your friend. If that happens, once I am finished here, he will be free to go where he wants.”

“And my advice to you is to go fuck yourself.”

There was silence. Then Borko said, “If you need a little more motivation to leave us alone, you should have your girlfriend call home.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Quinn asked, unable to keep himself from glancing at Orlando.

But there was no answer. Borko had already hung up.

As Quinn closed the phone, he thought he heard something on the roof above them. Footsteps, still distant but getting closer.

Gregory smiled at Quinn. “We seem to have company.”

Gregory’s hand moved quickly to his side. Suddenly there was a knife in his hand. Quinn wasn’t sure whose bullet hit Gregory first, his or Orlando’s. With a look of surprise, Borko’s man sailed backward over the edge, arcing upward first, then plummeting into the darkness below.