The Collected

CHAPTER 46

Janus smiled as he walked down the hallway. Though he wasn’t fond of rising before daybreak, he did love waking up the prisoners. And since there weren’t going to be very many more opportunities, he wanted to relish each.

He let one of Romero’s security force open the door to the hallway they’d transformed into a cellblock, and then he stepped through. All was satisfyingly dark and quiet.

“Turn on lights,” he said.

Another soldier flipped the switches that illumined the corridor, and turned on the bulbs inside each cell.

“Wakie, wakie!” Janus yelled.

He moved down to the room that held the squat bald guy who’d upset Mr. Romero the night before, and pounded his fist against the door. “Get up! Time for more fun.”

He pulled up on the handle, releasing the bars that held the door in place, and gave it a yank.

“Up, up, up!” he ordered as he walked in.

The guy was already standing up, his face impassive.

“Hood and cuffs,” Janus told the guard who’d entered with him.

Once the prisoner’s head was cloaked and his hands were bound, he was led out of the room. Janus and another guard visited Berkeley’s cell. After that, it was Lanier, then on to the last two, Quinn and Curson.

Janus was surprised Curson had lived as long as he had. The shooter had put up a big fight when he arrived on the island, and had tried to escape when he was escorted to dinner with Harris. It had been Janus’s job to remind the man he had no say in anything anymore. One more beating and he was sure Curson would never get up again. Or, perhaps, this morning’s planned whipping would do the trick. That was, if he hadn’t already died in his sleep.

But first-Quinn.

“Wakie, wakie!” he yelled at the door to the cleaner’s cell.

As he did each previous time, he slammed his fist against it, then turned the handle and pulled the door open.

“Up, up, up!”

There was a loud knock on Harris’s door. He pulled it open and found Janus standing there, panting like he’d been running.

“A prisoner is gone,” Janus blurted out.

“What do you mean, gone? Dead?” Harris asked, knowing Janus’s English wasn’t always the best.

“No. Gone. Not in cell!”

A gentle poke, like someone in the back of his mind tapping a finger against a wall. One small error. “How the hell did that happen?”

“The vent, I think,” Janus said.

“The vent? What vent?”

“In the door.”

The vents in the doors weren’t even wide enough for a child to crawl through. “Impossible.”

“Come. You see.”

Harris moved into the hallway and pulled his door closed. “Which one is missing?”

“Quinn.”

Harris paused between steps. Quinn? Jesus.

He picked up his pace. “Show me!”

They ran through the old colonial fort, their footsteps echoing loudly off the stone. The door to the cellblock was open, a guard standing beside it. In the makeshift prison, four more guards were stationed in front of each of the occupied cells.

“I was getting them up for morning session,” Janus explained, now that they were no longer running. “Already had three out when found his cell empty. Put all back in and come get you.”

The door to Quinn’s cell was closed. Harris examined it. The vent cover was in place and nothing seemed out of order. There was, however, an odd scratch along the side of the door handle, thin but fresh. Had it been caused by one of the guards, or Quinn in his escape? Or had someone come in and let him out?

When he opened the door, the first thing he noticed was the rectangular metal frame lying on the floor. He looked at the back of the door and saw that it had been part of the vent. Kneeling, he put his hand through the hole and pushed on the slatted front half. With very little effort, the frame and slats popped out.

All right, but it still didn’t make any sense. Quinn couldn’t have crawled through it. And there had been nothing in his cell he could have used to reach the handle.

“Who’s looking for him? Please tell me someone is looking for him!” Harris demanded as he stood back up.

“Not yet,” Janus said nervously. “I came for you right away.”

“Check the fort first. If he’s not here, send everyone we can spare out onto the island! There’s no place for him to go, so he’ll be close. Find him!”

“Yes, sir.” Janus hesitated. “What about the others? And this morning? Mr. Romero will be-”

“Find Quinn first,” Harris ordered. “The rest can wait.”

The chaos lasted nearly half an hour before the noise in the corridor finally died down. None of the prisoners said anything for another ten minutes, each wondering if there was a guard standing just outside.

It was Lanier who broke the silence. “How did he get out?”

“Screw that,” Berkeley said. “Why didn’t he take us with him?”

“They said he went through the door vent,” Curson offered from farther down the hall.

“How could he do that?” Lanier asked. There was a thud and a bang. “If it’s the same size as mine, no way he could get through it.”

“I don’t know. I just know he’s gone,” Berkeley said.

“What if this is another trick?” Lanier said. “What if they took Quinn out last night and shot him? What if this is just them messing with our minds again?”

“Why would they need to do that?” Curson asked. “They whipped us. They electrocuted us. Don’t know about you, but my mind’s pretty messed up already.”

“I think they’re trying to give us false hope,” Lanier said.

No one responded to that.

“Hey, Jonathan,” Lanier said. “What do you think?”

Peter was stretched out on his bed, trying not to listen.

“Jonathan. You there?”

With a sigh, Peter said, “I’m here.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I don’t think anything.”

“Come on. You must have some ideas.”

“Sure, I have one,” Peter said. “Looks like we just got a few hours off.”

Harris’s cell phone rang as he was heading to Romero’s room to deliver the news. He looked at the screen. It was Ryan Porter, Romero’s point man on Isla de Cervantes.

“What?” Harris said.

“Mr. Harris,” Porter said. “Sorry to bother you, but just a little while ago someone used the database at Cristo de los Milagros Hospital to look for info on Senor Romero.”

Harris slowed his pace, surprised. “Who?”

“I don’t have a name, sir. They used the IT department’s log-in, but the IP is from a hotel a few miles away.” There was a pause. “Sir, one of the terms they used for their search is on the hot list.”

“What term?”

“‘Current location,’” Porter said.

Son of a bitch, Harris thought. Crap was piling up on crap now. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He needed to concentrate on finding the cleaner. That was the most immediate problem. “Just see if you can find out who-”

“Sir, they also included a second name in the search.”

A second name? He was almost afraid to ask. “What was it?”

“Jonathan Quinn. Does that mean anything to you?”

Harris froze where he stood.

“Sir?” Porter asked.

“Send the men to that hotel, find out who made that search, and eliminate them. Call me as soon as you know who they were.”