The Collected Part 35

ISLA DE CERVANTES.

FROM THE HOSPITAL map, Quinn noted that the patient rooms were located along the back half of the first floor, and throughout most of the second. Those would be the areas with the highest concentration of personnel at this time of night, therefore places best avoided.

The second floor wasn't an issue. They had no need to go up there. It was the first floor patient wing that was the problem. The IT room was just down the hallway from it, near the far, rear corner building where, according to the map, a nurses' station was located.

He made his way across the building via a central corridor that led past several offices, radiology, and a medical lab. Two thirds of the way down, he needed to take a hall to the left, then another to the right that went all the way to the hall the IT room was located in. As he neared the first turn, he could hear the hum of a machine.

He peeked around the corner. About twenty feet away, right where he needed to turn again, an older man was heading away from Quinn while pushing a large motorized buffer across the tiled floor. He'd move the machine from side to side, then push it forward a few feet and repeat the dance. Quinn watched him, silently urging him to hurry up. Five more feet and he could sneak behind the guy and down the other hall without the janitor even knowing.

Just as he was about to make his move, someone stepped out from the hallway that he'd been targeting, the person's approaching footsteps having been drowned out by the buffer.

Quinn pulled back quickly out of sight and began retracing his steps down the hallway. As he pa.s.sed the lab, he checked the door. Locked. He did the same at Radiology.

Also locked. The next door was too far away. He would never make it, so he pulled out his picks again and quickly let himself into the room.

"Disculpe," a male voice called out.

Quinn closed the door behind him and did a quick scan. He was in a small outer room that opened into a larger one where a table for patients and the X-ray machine were located. He moved all the way into the big room and off to the side, out of view. On the wall next to him were several wide files sticking out of wall-mounted trays, presumably X-rays that needed to be viewed or filed away.

The outer door opened a few seconds later. "Oiga, oiga. Usted no puede entrar ahi," the voice said. The door closed. "Disculpe."

"I'm sorry?" Quinn called out in Spanish. He pulled a file from one of the trays and removed the X-ray from inside.

The man stepped into the main room. A security guard-just Quinn's luck. The guy was about Quinn's height, but at least fifty pounds heavier.

"You can't be here," the man said.

"I'm Dr. Chavez. Just picking up some records." Quinn raised the file a few inches so the man would see it.

The security guard's eyes narrowed. "I've never seen you before."

"That's not my problem," Quinn said, donning stereotypical doctor charm. "I've been here for a week. I'm the consulting surgeon from Puerto Rico. Dr. Fernandez a.s.sured me I would have full access to whatever I needed." The directory page he had ripped out had listed Dr. Fernandez as the hospital administrator at the top.

The guard looked unsure. "I wasn't told anything about that. You should have been given a badge. Where is it?"

"I don't know," Quinn said defiantly. "I probably left it in the office. Don't tell me I have to go get it."

"I'm afraid we have very strict rules about that here. I'll go with you. Once I see it, you'll be free to do whatever you need."

"This is ridiculous." Quinn frowned as he stepped by the man into the smaller room, but then he stopped abruptly and turned back. Gesturing at the other room, he said, "There was one other record I needed. Can't I at least get that?"

Predictably, the guard turned to look where Quinn was pointing.

Though he was big, the takedown when quickly. With an arm around the man's neck, Quinn cut off the flow of blood to the guard's head until he pa.s.sed out. He dragged the man to the back corner beyond the table and lowered him to the floor.

Never one to pa.s.s up an opportunity, Quinn relieved the guard of his badge and the ring of keys on his belt. He used a couple of electrical cords to bind the man's wrist and ankles in case he woke too soon. To ensure no one would hear him if he woke up and yelled, Quinn closed the door between the two rooms before exiting the other door into the hallway.

He hurried back to the end of the corridor and peeked around again. The janitor was much farther down now, still working back and forth. Quinn slipped around the corner and took the next hallway without being seen. He didn't pause again until he reached the hallway that ran along the far end of the hospital. The IT room was thirty feet to his left, with the nurses' station another twenty-five beyond it.

He took a look, and grimaced. As he'd feared, the station was occupied. Two nurses were talking to each other as they shuffled through a stack of files on the counter.

The best play was the old standby-act like you belong.

Before turning the corner, he clipped the guard's badge high up on his jacket so it would be clearly visible at a distance. Next he examined the man's keys, identified the three he thought would be most likely to let him into the IT room, and proceeded.

At first the nurses gave no reaction, but as he neared the door to IT, first one looked over at him, then the other. He smiled and gave them a friendly wave. Once they saw where he was going, they smiled back and returned to their conversation.

Quinn gave the doork.n.o.b a quick twist, checking to see if it was locked. It was, so he slipped one of the three keys into the slot. No go. Number two, though, worked just fine.

As he opened the door, he glanced back at the nurses, but neither seemed to even realize he was still there. He stepped inside and was enveloped by the hum of servers and routers. The room was about thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide. There was one row of machine racks along the back wall, and two more down the middle. Against the wall that ran adjacent to the hallway was a long workbench.

At first Quinn thought maybe he was alone. The workbench and the area he could see around the racks were empty. He walked farther in, looking between the rows, and finally spotted a young guy with a ma.s.s of curly hair sitting at a computer station in the back corner. He was wearing headphones, and his body rocked forward and back as it kept time with whatever music he was listening to.

Moving in behind him was a piece of cake. The kid didn't even know he wasn't alone until Quinn's arm wrapped around his neck.

As soon as he pa.s.sed out, Quinn laid him on the floor, then picked up the phone and dialed 4-2-5.

__________.

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA," Orlando said.

Quinn was standing several feet away, in a spot where he could keep an eye on the IT room door. "What is it?"

"A flag."

He hurried over. "What kind of flag?"

"One that's going to let someone know if I set it off."

"Hospital security?"

"No. This is third-party stuff, outside." She glanced down at the guy on the floor. "Don't think Mr. IT there or any of his colleagues know anything about it."

"Attached to Romero's files?"

"Not exactly," she said. "There are no Romero files. Everything must have been removed. There's nothing even in the backups."

"Then a flag on what?"

"Thought I'd give the hospital's normal search function a try, just in case my program missed something. I checked the code first so I'd know how effective it might be. That's when I found it. It's set to go off if anyone searches the name Javier Romero."

"Can you tell who gets notified?"

"A Gmail account. Probably a dummy address that forwards it on."

"What does it tell them?"

"The parameters of the search and the IP location of the computer used."

Quinn thought for a moment. "Can you manipulate what information it sends?"

She looked at him with distain. "Of course."

He grinned. "How about you try this. Grab an IP address from a room in a nearby hotel, then do the search using 'Javier Romero' and 'current location.' That should get a response."

Orlando stared thoughtfully at the screen for a moment. "If we want to guarantee a response, we should add your name to the search."

"Great idea," he said. "Do it."

CHAPTER 46.

Ja.n.u.s 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!" Ja.n.u.s 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 impa.s.sive.

"Hood and cuffs," Ja.n.u.s 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. Ja.n.u.s and another guard visited Berkeley's cell. After that, it was Lanier, then on to the last two, Quinn and Curson.

Ja.n.u.s 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 Ja.n.u.s'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 Ja.n.u.s standing there, panting like he'd been running.

"A prisoner is gone," Ja.n.u.s blurted out.

"What do you mean, gone? Dead?" Harris asked, knowing Ja.n.u.s'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 h.e.l.l did that happen?"

"The vent, I think," Ja.n.u.s 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," Ja.n.u.s 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," Ja.n.u.s 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!"