He said, “Do you have a laboratory on site?”
The hospital did indeed have its own laboratory. It was located on the first floor between the in-house pharmacy and a CT scanner suite.
Quinn’s knock on the locked door was answered by a woman in a white lab coat. Though she was probably in her early thirties, the pinched look on her face made her seem as if she was at least a decade older.
“Dr. Montero called,” Quinn said in Spanish. “I believe you’re expecting us.”
The only things that moved were the woman’s eyes, as she first scanned him and then Nate before moving out of the way so they could enter.
Though the room wasn’t huge, it was impressive. Half a dozen workstations were split up long the walls, with four more taking up space on an island that ran through the center. The area between stations was filled with various pieces of equipment, the purpose of most known only to the specialists who used them.
There were four other lab workers present. Three were so engrossed in their work they took no notice of the new arrivals, while the fourth merely glanced up before looking back at his computer monitor.
Still silent, the woman who’d opened the door led Quinn and Nate across the room to an empty station far from the others. As Quinn had requested, a microscope — a Keyence VHX-2000—was sitting on the counter. A better machine than he’d hoped for.
“Here,” the woman said in English.
She pressed a button and the monitor next to the microscope came to life. She then demonstrated a few basic functions and started to leave.
“Wait,” Quinn said. “How do we capture a picture?”
She frowned, but showed him what to do.
“We’ll also want to take the images with us. You wouldn’t happen to have a spare thumb drive, would you?”
She stared at him as if he were crazy, but Quinn held her gaze, smiling. After a moment, she rolled her eyes, walked across the room to one of the stations, and pulled open a drawer. When she returned, she placed a black thumb drive on the counter, and looked at Quinn, her eyebrow raised. It didn’t take a genius to know she was asking if she could go.
“If we have any problems, we’ll let you know.”
She didn’t look happy with this response, but with a grunt Quinn guessed was a good-bye, she returned to whatever she’d been working on.
Quinn pulled out the microfilm canister and Nate moved in behind him, creating a wall that would prevent anyone else in the lab from seeing the microscope’s monitor. After a few aborted tries, Quinn finally got the first frame under the lens.
“That’s fascinating,” Nate said.
Quinn looked at the monitor. On the screen was a big blob of white, with a hint of black encroaching at the top. The microscope’s current magnification setting was much too strong. As he began reducing the power, black moved in from all four sides, creating blurry lines and squares. When it was evident he had the entire frame of microfilm on the monitor, he fine-tuned the focus, sharpening the image.
Just like he’d noted when he’d looked at the frames with the magnifying glass, the horizontal lines were made up of dozens of black squares. He took a picture, then moved the film to the next frame.
“How many shots are there?” Nate asked.
“Twenty-three.” Quinn took another picture and moved the microfilm again. “Eleven of them are like this.” He nodded at the screen. “The other twelve look like they could be photos, but we won’t know until we decode them.”
He worked his way through the rest of the documents, and started in on the colored frames.
As he was about to move from frame nineteen to twenty, Nate said, “Whoa, whoa.”
Quinn sat back and raised his fingers off the keyboard.
“What’s that look like to you?” Nate asked.
Quinn examined the screen.
“Right there.” Nate circled the upper right corner of the monitor. “See it?”
“Looks like part of an ear.”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
“Probably just the encryption. It could be anything.”
“It looks pretty real to me.”
Though it was purple and gray, it did look real — like the outside ridge of an ear near the base, with a hint of the lobe at the bottom. Since there was no way to know for sure, Quinn continued working his way through the rest of the photos, neither he nor Nate seeing anything else that looked familiar.
Once he had all the images saved to the thumb drive, he switched off the monitor and put the microfilm back in the canister.
At any other time, his next step would have been to give the images to Orlando, and she’d have them decoded in no time. But that option wasn’t open to him right now.
There were a few other people he thought might be able to handle it, but he wasn’t sure how much he could trust them. This wasn’t just some job. This had been personal to Peter, and, if it was connected to the whole Romero thing, it was personal to Quinn, too, so he had to be very careful about whom he involved.
Perhaps he could try to decode the images himself. The gear they’d had on the jet that had taken them to and from Duran Island was now in a locker in the hospital’s basement. Orlando’s bag would be there, and in it would be her laptop. He might not be as quick as she, but with a little trial and error, he thought he could figure out which program to use and how to work it.
He put the drive into his pocket and stood. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 19
Morten’s phone rang softly on the nightstand. As always, he had activated the cell’s DO NOT DISTURB function, so that the only calls that got through were from Griffin.
He picked up his phone and grunted.
“I apologize, sir,” Griffin said. “I know it’s late there, but there’s been a development.”
“What is it?” Morten was using the least amount of energy possible.
“I’m being ignored by O & O.”
Morten rolled onto his back. “What do you mean, ignored?”
“They haven’t contacted me since I requested the forensics search of the Virginia home, and they’re not returning my calls.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. Call Stone directly. Tell him to fix the problem.”
“I’ve tried to get ahold of Director Stone as well, even routed the call so it looked like I was phoning from CIA headquarters, but I was told he was unavailable. I think I should probably get involved personally now. Bypass O & O completely.”
Morten thought for a moment. Having Griffin move into the field instead of using a government-run third party such as O & O could expose Darvot if something went wrong, but then again, not putting a lid on this problem could be even worse.
“All right,” he said. “Just be careful. And only use your team if you absolutely have no choice.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
CHAPTER 20
Quinn had fallen asleep in the chair by Orlando’s bed. On the rolling table next to him was her laptop.
He’d worked late into the night, trying to figure out how to decode the images, but it wasn’t nearly as clear-cut as he’d hoped. When he had set the computer to the side, he’d told himself he would rest his eyes for a few minutes, but ended up falling deep asleep.
The glare of the early morning sun through the window woke him. He covered his eyes and squirmed in his chair, attempting to get out of the light’s direct path.
“Too bright for you?”
At first he wasn’t sure where the voice had come from. It had been no more than a whisper, like the lingering wisp of a dream.
He looked toward the door, blinking both sleep and the afterimage of the sun away.