Act of Terror

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

Quinn laid the old Chinese woman’s lifeless body on her rude wooden bed. Shaking off the hollow pit of abject fatigue, he reached in the pocket of the Transit jacket for his phone and glanced up at Thibodaux as he punched in the number for Palmer.

The big Cajun stood, staring down at the gaping wound in the old woman’s neck, jaws loose again as if he might be sick. “I don’t reckon I was ever around a people so keen on cuttin’ one another’s heads off…”

“Do me a favor,” Quinn said.

“Huh?” Thibodaux looked up as if from a trance.

“Get Smedley back on the horn. Ask him to get his Osprey here on the double. We have to get out to that wedding.”

“She said, ‘he,’ ” Thibodaux mused. “Got any notion who ‘he’ is?”

“Could be anybody,” Quinn said, waiting for his call to connect.

Thibodaux grunted his agreement and went to work.

“Dammit,” Quinn spat. He got the fast busy signal that told him something was going on with the cell tower handling his call. He pressed redial but heard the same rapid series of beeps.

“Mine’s not going through either.” The big Cajun met his gaze. “I’m gettin’ zip.”

“Then we’ll deliver the message in person.” Quinn was already trotting toward the stairs.

Thibodaux still had the cell phone pressed to his ear as he ran beside Quinn. His face suddenly brightened. “It’s ringing.” He handed Jericho the phone.

Smedley picked up on the third ring. His phone was connected via Bluetooth to his Lightspeed headset and the lawnmower thump of the V-22’s Rolls-Royce engines was barely audible in the background.

“Smeds,” Quinn said. “It’s me, Copper. Where you been? Your phone wasn’t working.”

“Just dropped off a load of Castle Guards at the venue,” the pilot said, referring to the Secret Service detail. “The place is swarming with those sunglass-wearin’ dudes-and I gotta tell you, they all look like they’re itching to shoot someone.”

“Yeah, well, me too, Jared,” Quinn said. “Me too. So where are you now?”

“Setting down at the heliport by the ferry terminal. Why?”

“The moles must have a cell phone jammer on the island,” Quinn mused, as much to himself as Smedley. “I can’t get through to Palmer and your phone was in-op while you were over there.”

“Want me to get a message on the military frequency?” the major asked. “It was working fine.”

Standing at the Ducati now, Quinn paused to sort his thoughts. He was hurt and exhausted, dead on his feet. It was moments like this when he couldn’t afford to make snap decisions. But it was one of the great paradoxes of his life that in moments like this, snap decisions were all he had time for.

“Do you have someone on the ground out there you can trust?” he asked. With an unknown number of moles infiltrating the government, sending out an open message could have deadly consequences.

“I trust all my guys,” Smedley said. “Without a doubt.”

“Okay then.” Quinn paused. “Think for a minute. Do you know Tara Doyle?”

“Sure,” the pilot shot back. “I’d heard of her.”

“Did you trust her before today?”

There was silence on the line. “Roger that.” Smedley gave a long sigh. “From now on I don’t trust anyone.”

“I hear you,” Quinn said, twirling his open hand in the air above his head as he spoke, signaling Thibodaux to get ready to go. “I need you to get your bird over here as quick as you can.”

“The ball field where I dropped you off?”

“No time for that.” Quinn threw a leg over the Ducati. “It may already be too late. We’re just around the corner from Canal and Bowery. What do you need for clearance?”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Smedley almost shouted into the phone.

“Aren’t you the one that said you’d set her down in Times Square if I asked?” Quinn said.

“That’s cocky pilot bullshit and you know it,” Smedley said. “I can’t be held accountable for stuff like that.”

“Come on, Smeds. You know you’re itching for a reason to do this. What’s your wingspan?”

“I need thirty yards, give our take, just to have a few inches on either side. Fifty would be better.”

“Canal and Bowery should work then,” Quinn said, giving at best, an educated guess.

“Traffic in Chinatown is murder any time of the day.”

“Just bring her in,” Quinn said, starting the Ducati. “When the taxis see your giant gray pterodactyl swooping down on them, they’ll scoot out of the way like a bunch of canaries.”