“I only had a really good look of the man in front. He did have short brown hair. The other guy looked like he might have been darker, but he was in the shadows.”
That was more than enough for Roberts. “Open the door,” he ordered.
As they neared the top floor, Quinn said to Misty, “I want you to press up against the front corner. When the door opens, I’ll do a check. If it’s clear, I’ll let you know and you can get off.”
She nodded.
To Daeng he said, “Emergency stop button. I don’t want this going back down.”
Daeng’s nod was followed by the sound of the elevator’s bell heralding their imminent arrival.
While his two friends jammed against the side of the car, Quinn positioned himself in the middle, the Beretta pointed at the doors, ready to fire at the first sign of trouble.
The car crept to a stop and the doors started to part. The hallway appeared empty, but he remained tense and ready, knowing that someone could easily be hiding off to one side or the other. As soon as the doors were open all the way, he launched himself into the corridor, and twisted around so he could catch anyone who might be hiding.
No one was there.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Misty came first. Daeng delayed his departure only long enough to pull the emergency stop button before joining the other two in the hallway. The elevator panel buzzed annoyingly, but not so loudly as to attract the attention of the residents on the floor.
Quinn touched Misty on the back. “Do you know this building at all?”
“I’ve only been to Peter’s apartment.”
“All right. No problem.”
He scanned the hallway, looking for the entrance to the stairwell he knew had to be nearby, and finally spotted it off to the left, where the corridor they were in T-boned with another.
“This way.”
He ran over, carefully opened the door a few inches, and listened. Footsteps, more than one set, pounding up the stairs toward them. That option was off the table.
He spun around, scanning the hallway. There was really only one thing they could do.
“Stay close,” he said.
He sprinted to the left and began pressing doorbells. After pushing the final one, he moved into the middle of the hallway so he could react to whichever door opened.
“Yes?” A tired male voice came from behind the very last door.
Quinn hurried over. The door’s peephole was black, so he donned a friendly smile, knowing the man inside was probably looking at him. “There’s a water leak in the apartment below yours,” he said. “We need to check the plumbing in your bathroom and kitchen.”
“You’re not with the building,” the man said.
“Plumber.”
“You don’t look like a plumber.”
“Thanks, I think. Look, this will only take a minute.”
“I should call down and check.”
“All right. Call. I’ll wait.”
As he heard the man walking away, Quinn pulled out his wallet and removed a credit card-sized, carbon-fiber, lock-pick set. Within seconds, he had the door open.
They found the man in the kitchen, picking up a cell phone from the counter. He was probably in his fifties, and was wearing a robe over a faded green Yoda T-shirt. He also had the runny nose and watery eyes of someone with a cold.
“I’ll take that,” Quinn said.
The man jumped in surprise. “How did you…what are you…You can’t be in here! This is my home!”
Quinn lifted his gun, not exactly pointing it at the man, but close enough. “Give me your phone.”
Shaking and wide-eyed, the man held out the cell.
Once Quinn took possession of it, he said, “Why don’t you have a seat in the living room. The couch will be perfect.”
“Okay. Sure. Please, don’t hurt me.”
“No one’s going to hurt you.”
Despite his apparent illness, the man moved quickly to the bright white couch and dropped in the middle.
Quinn followed and squatted down so that he was at the man’s eye level. “I appreciate someone who knows how to cooperate. Thank you. Now, a simple question. Fire escape?”
“What?”
“I assume you have one.”
Quinn had seen a metal fire escape on the outside near the front of the building, but didn’t know where it would be for this back apartment.
“Oh, um, through the bedroom,” the man said. “Uh, first door down the hall.”
Daeng left the room and returned a few seconds later. “It’s there,” he said.
“Outside?” Quinn asked.
“All clear for the moment.”
“Okay. You two get going.”
Daeng put a hand on Misty’s back and led her out of the room.
The fear gripping the man on the couch seemed to grow tenfold. “What are you going to do? You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? I won’t say anything to anyone! I promise I won’t!”
“What’s your name?”
The man hesitated. “Philip.”
“Well, Philip, I think you watch way too much TV. No one’s going to kill you. What I am going to do is tie you up.”
“Sure, sure. No problem.”
“Do you live here alone, Philip?”
“No. My wife—” He stopped as if realizing he’d said more than he should have.
“Good. Then you’ll only have to stay tied up until she gets home.”
Philip looked relieved. “Right. Only until she gets home.”
Using some extension cords that Philip kindly directed him to, Quinn secured the guy to a dining room chair he repositioned next to the couch.
“If anyone rings your doorbell, don’t yell,” Quinn told him. “Those guys out there are a hell of a lot nastier than I am. Trust me.”
“I won’t say a word. I promise.”
Quinn rose to his feet. “I’m just telling you for your own sake.”
As if to underscore his words, a doorbell belonging to one of Philip’s neighbors chimed. Philip tensed again.
“It’ll be all right,” Quinn whispered. “Just remember, stay quiet.”
Not waiting for a response, Quinn entered the room with the fire escape and climbed outside.
Roberts left Girardi in the lobby to both cut it off as a potential escape route, and to monitor the elevator’s progress so he could report what floor it stopped on. Roberts, Moss, and Cruz, the fourth member of the team, then bolted up the stairs.
They were passing the second floor when Girardi radioed that the car had gone all the way to the top.
As far from the lobby as possible, Roberts thought. If this wasn’t the trio he and his men were after, he’d be surprised. When they passed the floor where the broken-into apartment was located, he ordered Cruz to check it out while he and Moss continued up.
Reaching the top floor, they paused at the stairwell exit and listened for anyone who might have been in the hallway beyond. All was quiet, so Roberts signaled for Moss to open the door.
The stairway exited into a junction between two hallways. Both were empty.
Moss looked at Roberts, silently asking for orders.
Roberts scanned one way, then the other. He hadn’t heard them on the stairs, and they hadn’t gone back down in the elevator — the car was still at the top — so they had to be on this floor somewhere.
“Did you hear that?” Moss whispered.
Roberts nodded. It was a male voice shouting in one of the apartments down the hallway they’d been facing. He motioned for Moss to follow, and moved toward the sound. It didn’t take long before he pinpointed it as coming from the last apartment. A few more steps along the hall and he could make out the words.
“Help! Help me! Please, someone, help me!”
Roberts nodded at the door and mouthed, “Lock.”
Moss knelt down and quietly picked it open.
Taking turns covering each other, they moved into the apartment and worked their way up to the edge of the foyer to get a look further inside. To the right was a large living room, and smack dab in the center was the shouting man. He was tied to a chair, his back to the door. To the left of the foyer was a hallway. Roberts signaled Moss to check it out.