The Deceived

CHAPTER

QUINN AND ORLANDO GOT JENNY INTO THE APART

ment, while Nate drove away in the taxi, with orders to abandon it as

far from their location as possible. They took her into the master bedroom and sat her on the bed. “How is it?” Quinn asked Jenny. “It hurts,” she said. “But I’ll be fine. You should have let me go. You

should have let me talk to him.” “Just relax. Let’s not worry about that right now.” From down the hall they could hear the front door open. “Quinn?” It was Ne Win. “Back here,” Quinn yelled. The old man appeared at the bedroom door, trailed a second later

by a younger man holding what looked like a medical bag. Ne Win was

also carrying a bag, though it was more of a canvas shopping bag. “You’re the doctor?” Quinn asked. Though the man looked scared, he nodded. “Then get the hell over here,” Quinn said. Ne Win pushed the doctor through the door. “Don’t worry. Dr.

Han good doctor. He just not have to make house call in a while.” Dr. Han quickly scanned his new patient. “What’s the problem?”

“Shoulder,” Quinn said. “Dislocated, I think.” “Right or left?” Dr. Han asked Jenny. “Left,” Quinn said. The doctor glanced at Quinn, then bent down to get a better look

at Jenny’s shoulder. As he began probing with his fingers, Jenny gritted

her teeth, barely holding in whatever cry of pain she wanted to let out. “I’ll need you to remove your dress,” Dr. Han said. Jenny looked at Quinn, then Ne Win. “Maybe you two can go make some coffee,” Orlando said. Quinn didn’t want to leave. He felt responsible. But he nodded and

turned for the door. “Quinn?” Jenny said. He stopped. “I know you were only trying to help, and that maybe you were

right, maybe I shouldn’t have gone there.” “You’re all right now,” Quinn said. “Everything’s going to be fine.” “No, it’s not,” she said, with more force than any of them expected.

“You don’t understand. Steven died trying to help me stop it.” “Stop what?” Her eyes grew intense, flickering wide open for a moment, then

half closing again as if she’d spent whatever energy she’d had left. “If you really want to help me, you’ll get me to the congressman. We’re his only chance.”

“His only chance?” Quinn said. “You listened to the tape, right? So you know,” she said. “Guerrero. We have to save him.” “Can I have a few minutes alone with my patient, please?” the doctor said. Reluctantly Quinn nodded. He wanted to hear more, but it could wait until after the doctor had left.

“Nothing to worry about,” Ne Win said to Quinn. They were both sitting in the living room while Dr. Han worked on Jenny. “Dr. Han is okay. He does a lot of work for me.”

“He’ll keep quiet?”

“Very quiet. He know if he doesn’t, he is not doctor for long.”

They fell into silence. At one point, Ne Win held out the canvas bag to Quinn.

“The data player.”

Quinn took it, then set it on the floor beside his feet. “Thanks.”

The old man rose and headed toward the kitchen. “You want something to drink?”

Quinn shook his head.

For twenty minutes, neither of them spoke. Ne Win slowly sipped his glass of water, while Quinn tried to make sense of everything. Why would she want to save Guerrero? He was the one after her. It was one of his men that had shot at her. It was his men that had undoubtedly killed her boyfriend.

Quinn looked over at Ne Win. “Why did you send Markoff to me?”

The old man looked at him. For nearly half a minute, neither of them even moved.

“I only did what he told me to do,” Ne Win said.

“What?” Quinn asked, not sure he’d heard the old man correctly.

But Ne Win remained silent.

“Are you saying Markoff told you to send his body to me?”

It seemed as though Ne Win was still not going to say anything, then he leaned forward. “He told me if anything happened to him, I should get word to you.”

It was almost as if the air had suddenly gained weight. It pressed down on him as if trying to collapse him.

Markoff.

He was the one who had wanted Quinn involved. It wasn’t just chance, or someone thinking Quinn should have been the one to bury his old friend. It had been Markoff from the beginning.

“Tell me what happened,” Quinn said.

Ne Win thought for a moment, then began to speak. “He came to me, much like you did this week. Need my help. I think okay. Markoff always fair with me. No problem help.”

“What kind of help?”

“A little equipment,” Ne Win said, then added, “and some manpower.”

“Manpower?”

“One guy. Markoff doing surveillance. Needed someone to help him.”

“The Quayside Villas,” Quinn said.

“He did not tell me where.”

“But your man did.”

“My man is dead. Like Markoff.”

Quinn paused. “I’m sorry.”

Ne Win leaned back in his chair. “Something happened and they caught Markoff. My man trail them, trying to see where they take him. He call me on the phone and tell me what was happening. I say to him to call me back when he knows where they go. While I wait, I get my other men together. But no call back.”

Quinn looked at the old man, letting Ne Win go at his own pace.

“For four days, nothing. I know they dead, but I keep looking, asking people who might have seen something. Most give me nothing. Finally one woman tell me about activity down at a storage facility for shipping containers. We go have a look.”

“That’s where you found Markoff,” Quinn said.

“Yes,” Ne Win said. “He already dead, two, three days.”

“What about your man?”

“He not there. One day later, his body wash up on beach.”

Silence.

“The message in the container,” Quinn said. “Was that there when you found Markoff, or did you write it?”

“Message already there.”

“Did you know what it meant?”

“No. But I figure it important.”

“That’s why you sent me the whole crate,” Quinn said.

A slight smile touched Ne Win’s lips. “Many times Markoff say how much he trust you. You his good friend.”

“Yes, he was.”

“When you and I work together, I see what he mean. You good at

what you do. You reliable, and you trust but with eyes open.” “I try,” Quinn said. “Whatever Markoff was doing he didn’t tell me, okay? I know

nothing about the Quayside. I know nothing about anything. I could

do only what he ask me to do. So I send him to you.” “Great. Thanks,” Quinn said. “It worked, yes?” Ne Win said. “You find Jenny. You save her.

Now you get her out.”

Quinn smiled weakly. Jenny’s words came back to him. We’re his only chance. We have to save him. Getting her away didn’t look quite as simple as it had a few hours earlier.

“I may need your help,” he said. “Sure. I can get you out of country.” Quinn shook his head. “No. That’s not what I mean.” The look in Ne Win’s eyes became guarded. “I give lot of help al

ready.” “You have,” Quinn agreed. “But I may need more.” He told the old man about what he’d found in the fourth-floor

apartment at the Quayside Villas. “Not possible,” Ne Win said. “Anyone running weapons here I know about. No one in Quayside. You’re wrong. It’s something else.”

“I agree. It is something else. It’s only supposed to look like it belongs to an arms dealer. What will the Singapore police think when they go in there? Or even the FBI or CIA?”

Ne Win tilted his head back as he sucked in a breath through his

nose. “They will believe what they want to believe.” “Right,” Quinn said. “Depending on how and why they find it.” The old man seemed to think about Quinn’s words for a moment.

“Yes. Depending on how and why. So you think it’s fake.”

“You said it yourself. Anyone running weapons in Singapore you’d know about, and you didn’t know about this. So, yes. I think someone has set it up to be found. Under the right conditions.”

“And what are those conditions?” Ne Win asked. “That’s where I might need your help.” “You want me to find out?” Ne Win asked, his tone doubtful.

“I want you to keep your ears open, sure,” Quinn said. “But no. I’ll try to find out what’s up. It’s what we do about it after where you might come in.”

Ne Win looked at Quinn for several seconds, neither of them

moving nor saying a word. Finally the old man nodded once. “Okay.” Dr. Han and Orlando appeared at the end of the hallway a few

minutes later.

“I think it was a temporary dislocation when she fell. Without an X-ray, I can’t tell for sure. It hasn’t really swollen up yet, but it should soon.”

“Thanks, Doctor,” Quinn said. He stood up and started walking

toward the hallway. “Hold on,” the doctor said. “You can’t talk to her right now.” “Why not?” Quinn asked. “I gave her something for the pain. Knocked her out a few min

utes ago. Sleep is what she really needs anyway.”

“Wonderful,” Quinn said. He was anxious to talk to her, but he also knew the doctor was right. Sleep was what she needed. Sleep was what they all needed.

“I should probably come back in the morning,” Dr. Han said. “We’ll call you first,” Quinn said. He wanted to stay flexible. “Whatever you’d like.” As the doctor headed for the door, Ne Win stood and started to

follow. “Call me as soon as you know,” Ne Win said to Quinn as he stood in the open door. “This is my island. I don’t like surprises like this.” As soon as Ne Win and Dr. Han had left, Orlando said, “What

was that all about?” “He’s going to help us.” “Help us what?” she asked. Quinn told her about his conversation with Ne Win. “So Markoff meant for you to be involved all along,” she said. “Looks that way.” “If he was alive right now, I’d kill him,” Orlando said. “Why?” Quinn asked. “He’s only been trying to help Jenny.”

She let out a soft, derisive snort. “Have you stopped to take a look at yourself lately? Have you seen what this has done to you? His death has consumed you.”

“Then why did you come with me?” he asked.

Anger flashed in her eyes, and she opened her mouth but stopped herself before any word escaped. After a moment, she said, “You know why. You’re just not letting yourself see it.”

He rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. Then, as if he was unsure if the words had actually escaped his lips, he said again, “I’m sorry.”

He felt her fingertips on his arm, moving slowly up and down, their very presence calming him. Then she moved to him, wrapping her arms around him and laying her head against his shoulder.

“I go anywhere you need me. It doesn’t matter why,” she said.

He placed his hands on her back and held her. For the first time he could remember, he was no longer alone.

They stood like that for several minutes, then finally Orlando leaned back.

“You should get some sleep,” she said.

“We both should,” he said.

She picked up the canvas bag with the data cassette player inside and carried it over to her computer on the table. “I need to get the tape going first. Make sure everything is running correctly.”

Once everything was connected, she turned on the computer, typed her password, then accessed a software application. Quinn wasn’t familiar with it, but it was easy to see it had something to do with audio.

“Since the tape is so damaged, I want to make sure we get it the first time. This will take a little longer than normal,” Orlando said. “But it’ll interpolate the damaged audio, then filter out any extraneous noise.”

“How long?” Quinn asked.

“No way to tell for sure. I don’t know how much is on this tape. But no more than ten hours. Should be done in the morning.” She yawned.

“Sleep time, I think,” Quinn said. “Which room do you want?” “Quinn,” she said. The look on her face wasn’t a happy one. “What?” “What the hell’s wrong with you?” She grabbed his hand and began pulling him toward the hallway.