Act of Terror

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Quinn left the rifle hanging on a sling around his neck as they approached the door. He and Garcia were dressed as natives, and a native without some sort of weapon in the high mountains would stand out.

Quinn banged on the heavy door, snow piling up on his shoulders as he stood, hunched over against the building wind. Garcia stood next to him, a scarf pulled piously over her head.

A short man wearing a wool hat and carrying a black Makarov pistol answered the door. He motioned them both inside the dark cave. Quinn explained that they were travelers who’d lost their way and needed a warm place to stay. The man kept the pistol pointed at Quinn’s chest, motioning them inside. He spoke irritated, rapid-fire Tajik, but Quinn spoke enough Dari, the Persian language of Afghanistan, that they were able to communicate.

He didn’t shoot right away, saying he needed to speak with his boss.

A second man, younger, but much taller than the first, appeared from around the corner and helped secure Quinn and Garcia’s wrists with plastic flex cuffs.

Both men shook their heads and muttered in amazement that their stronghold had even been found in the darkness, much less approached. They left Quinn and Garcia in a small holding room, not much larger than a closet, and slammed a dented metal door. The place smelled of sulfur and stale water.

“That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped,” Garcia said as she leaned back against the rough granite wall. A single bare lightbulb cast a dull yellow glow on the tiny room. She’d heard apocryphal stories of spies caught in worse jams and somehow managing to escape-but more often than not, they ended up an unnamed star on the Memorial Wall at CIA Headquarters. She found some solace in the fact that she was finally living her dream-and living it with the most amazing human being she’d ever met.

“They didn’t kill us first thing.” Quinn, who seemed a man always in motion, worked his hands under his butt and past his feet as he spoke. “And we got inside. That’s a win in my book.” He tipped his head toward the exposed lightbulb. “They must have some sort of generator inside the mountain. It would have to be vented outside. That’ll give us something to target when we get out of here.”

With his hands in front he was able to remove the five-fifty-cord laces on his right boot. The Haix P9s were high-tops and the lace was nearly three feet long. Garcia watched as he tied a six-inch loop in one end of the cord, and then ran the free end through the inside of the plastic flex cuffs before tying another similar loop. He looked up and grinned like a schoolboy as he put the loops over the toe of each boot and began to pedal his feet as if riding a bicycle. The friction of the five-fifty cord sawed through the cuffs in a matter of seconds. Once free, Quinn quickly replaced the lace in his boot. “Never know when I might need to run without my shoes falling off.”

“What about my cuffs?” Garcia said. She could see he already had a plan in the calmness of his eyes.

He reached inside the front of his pants. “These guys never do a good job searching the manly man areas.” He produced a red knife no larger than his thumb.

“The Swiss Army teeny-weenie knife,” she said, turning so he could cut her free. “Don’t leave home without it. You got any more surprises?”

Quinn chuckled, his usual enigmatic self. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise…”

The lock on the cell door was a crude, pot metal affair and fell easily to Quinn’s small knife blade. He peered out to find a long corridor cut into the mountain like a mine shaft. Bare bulbs, similar to the one in their room, hung on twisted wire along the stone ceiling. Water ran in inky black blotches down the curved walls. Every few yards, a thick timber beam had been knocked in place to help support the structure. Even with the bulbs, the tunnel disappeared into a vacant void at the far end.

As soon as he stepped into the hallway, he was met by children’s laughter coming from the depths of the corridor. He motioned for Garcia to follow him.

“Wish we had the gun now,” she said.

“Keep an eye on our six o’clock,” Quinn said as he tiptoed down the tunnel toward the laughter. “If we need a gun, I’m sure there’ll be one available.”

Another eruption of laughter stopped him short. He peered through a six-inch-square cutout in the wooden door to his left to see a group of seven boys seated on thick cushions watching an episode of M*A*S*H on a color television. Ranging in age from what looked like seven or eight to their early teens, the boys were dressed in blue jeans and wool sweaters. They sipped on cans of soda and chatted to each other in perfect English. Across the room, slouched against the wall with her head between her knees, was a brunette woman in a white robe. Her hands and bare feet were bound, her face a bruised and swollen mess.

Quinn moved from side to side to check out as much of the room as he could. Relatively satisfied there weren’t any guards inside, he took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Hey, guys,” he said as the startled boys turned to see who was interrupting their program. “How are things?”

“Who are you?” A dirty-blond boy with heavy freckles and an evil sneer stood up from his cushion. Maybe eleven, he didn’t appear the oldest, but the other boys stood back in respect as he spoke, deferring to him. “I haven’t seen you before.”

Quinn played a hunch.

“I’m from another school in Iraq…”

The boys glared at him through narrow eyes, chewing over the concept.

“Another school?” A pimple-faced teenager with a gap between his front teeth whispered, as if in awe of such a notion. A hushed buzz ran through the group.

“We haven’t ever heard of another school.” The blond boy in particular remained stone-faced. He stared at them with hard green eyes.

“We’ve come to take a look around and see how things are going,” Quinn added. He prepared to quiet the kid should he start to raise the alarm. “Are you well taken care of?”

“Dr. Badeeb tells us if we will have important guests,” the glaring kid muttered.

“ Wo Xin Chang Dan, ” Quinn said in Chinese, taking a gamble. He shifted back to English immediately. “I was once a boy just like you. American commandos killed my parents, but I was rescued and trained at just such a school as this.”

It worked. The group pressed closer, reaching to touch him. “Have you been to America?” A dusty boy no older than nine asked, haunting blue-gray eyes gleaming as if he’d just met a hero.

Quinn motioned Garcia up beside him. “We both have. This is my wife. She was trained in Chechnya.”

Ronnie spoke a quick sentence of Russian to illustrate her origin. The boys, pressed closer, instinctively hungry for friendly female companionship. Tears filled the younger boys’ eyes.

“You have a prisoner?” Quinn nodded at the woman in the corner. She stared back at him with a raised brow, as if trying to figure him out. “You have done well.”

“She has a good accent but isn’t useful anymore,” the green-eyed blond boy snorted. He leaned in and gave a conspiratorial wink. “She refuses to talk with us after the teachers cut off her lover’s head.”

“Too bad,” Quinn said, working hard to hide his disgust for the little tyrant.

“It’s okay.” The boy shrugged. “Dr. Badeeb gives us lots of music CDs and videos to watch.”

“Your English is perfect,” Garcia said, smiling as if she was really glad to meet him. “What’s your name?”

“Kenny,” the boy said, puffing his chest proudly. “I am small for my age, but I’m almost fourteen. Dr. Badeeb visited us a month ago and said I could go to America before winter is over. I cannot wait to go to the U.S. and begin to kill Americans. Have you killed many?”

“A few,” Quinn said honestly. “I hope to be going back very soon.” He took a step sideways so his back wasn’t to the door. “Learning some good English from the television, I see. What else do they give you to watch?”

Kenny ignored him, his own questions gushing out like a river. “Tell me about America. Have you met any others like us? We have watched videos of the actions at the CIA. Seth… he became Seth Timmons-was my teacher when I was a small boy. He died as a martyr. Maybe you knew him… Do you get to see others of us who have gone before? My sister was here-she is so very smart. Maybe you have met her.” The boy grinned, showing huge white teeth. “You’d know her if you had. We kept an oil company worker here from Abilene, Texas. He would not shut up, but that was a good thing. My sister talked to him day and night for weeks… before Dr. Badeeb had the man’s head sawed off.” The boy smiled, lost in the memory. “I was young, but Dr. Badeeb tells me stories about her. I remember her face. She loved to practice her accent.” Kenny grinned proudly. “She always told me she was going to go to America and be the queen of West Texas bitches-”

Quinn felt Garcia stiffen beside him. She opened her mouth to speak as the wooden door flew open.