Day Zero

Chapter 1

Jericho Quinn used the back of a bloody hand to wipe windblown spray from his eyes. Behind him, the growl of a single-engine airplane brought a familiar twist of concern to his gut. He turned from his spot at the steering post of an open aluminum skiff to watch a newer-looking Cessna Caravan emerge from a line of low, boiling clouds to the south, on the other side of the Yukon River. Quinn nudged the throttle forward and leaned against the console, bracing himself against the constant chop brought on by a fresh breeze that worked against the current of the mighty river. Water hung in droplets on his thick black beard. A tangle of wet hair escaped a camouflage ball cap, framing the portions of his face not covered by the beard. Even after a long, lightless winter in the north, he was deeply tanned — a trait inherited from an Apache grandmother — and chapped by wind and weather. His knees ached from the constant bouncing on the river — one of the several new pains to which he’d resigned himself over the past half year.

The ripping blat of the approaching aircraft drew his attention away from his aches. Even the most experienced bush pilots steered clear of weather like this. Quinn tamped back the nagging uneasiness in his belly and coaxed the skiff around to cut the current diagonally. A hundred meters away, in the lap of rolling hills, low and covered in willow, white birch, and spruce, a tumble of weather-worn buildings spilled from the fog. It was Asaacarsaq in traditional Yup’ik, but to the United States Post Office it was known as Mountain Village.

Behind Quinn, standing at the stern of the little skiff, a big-boned Eskimo leaned back to watch the airplane pass directly overhead, less than five hundred feet off the water. The big man shook his head in amazement. His name was James Perry, but Quinn had known him since high school and had never called him anything but Ukka. When Perry was nine, his grandfather had given him the Yup’ik nickname, Ukkatamani — “a long time ago.” It was the Eskimo equivalent of “once upon a time.”

Quinn looked back over his shoulder from the steering pedestal while he turned the boat in a slow arc. “You see something in the water?”

Ukka’s eyes were locked off the stern. “Never know,” he said, cocking his head to one side in concentration. He was a broad man, standing an inch over six feet and weighing in at nearly two hundred and fifty pounds. “We’ll have to get in close if we see one so I can stick it. You can’t just shoot ’em out here. Freshwater doesn’t float them as well as seawater… so they sink fast.” He glanced up. “I ever tell you about the time my grandfather caught that beluga whale with a harpoon from his kayak down by Alakunuk?”

“You have not,” Quinn said, smiling to himself.

Five months of stories had made it easy to see why James Perry’s grandfather had called him “Once Upon a Time.” No matter his nickname, Ukka certainly held the short weapon like he knew how to use it. When he wasn’t bringing in his family’s winter supply of meat, he made his living as a village public safety officer. In the Alaska bush, a VPSO was often the only law out here on the rough edges of the world. Ukka carried himself with the attendant swagger of a man in charge.

Like Quinn, Perry wore rubber knee boots and a blood-smeared orange float coat against the rain and wind-driven spray of his open boat. Beside him, in a slurry of rain, river spray, and fish slime, lay a mound of white Styrofoam football floats and green gill netting. A heavy rubber tub at the transom held a shining heap of the catch from their last drift — forty-six Chinook salmon.

Perry and the others in settlements along the Yukon were not the Eskimos of the icepack whose life revolved around heading out on the ice for polar bear or hunting the bowhead whale from skin boats. They caught seal and loved good whale muktuk when they could get it, but the Yukon River Eskimo were people of the salmon. When the fish arrived, everything else took a backseat.

“That guy’s an idiot,” Ukka shouted over the sound of the skiff’s motor. He gnawed a piece of black, wind-dried meat with one hand while he clutched the wooden shaft of a harpoon in the other. “Man makes the rules. God makes the laws. You can break one and maybe you survive. Break the other — like flying in this shit — and it don’t turn out so good.”

The plane overflew the village, and then dipped a wing, banking toward the gravel runway a mile to the east. Quinn watched until it sank out of sight beyond the tree line, and then shot a glance over his shoulder at his friend. “Was there another flight coming in today?”

“Not that I know of.” Ukka mused over his seal meat. “Everything was supposed to be weathered in all the way to Bethel. Must have cleared up some down there.” He turned to scan the churning vee of water off the stern and took another bite of his black meat. “Sure you don’t want a hunk of this? Tastes like chicken.”

Quinn had learned the hard way about his friend’s palate. To James Perry, even the clams, shrimp, and other stomach contents of a freshly killed walrus, flavored with nothing but seawater, also tasted like chicken.

“Think I’ll pass,” Quinn said, “My doctor says I should stay away from fermented seal meat.”

“Suit yourself.” Ukka licked his lips. Dark eyes darted toward the airport. “You think we should be worried?”

Quinn groaned, thinking through the possibilities. “It’s probably nothing,” he said. But his gut told him otherwise.

Quinn was a hunter by nature, not wired to hide behind anyone, least of all his friends. Yet, that is exactly where he’d found himself for the past five months — badly wounded, wanted for murder, and so helpless he could do little but depend on friends to protect him.

In order to stay safely hidden while he’d healed, Quinn had had little contact with the people he cared for the most. His ex-wife was getting used to a new prosthetic leg, he knew that much. And their seven-year-old daughter, Mattie, had just lost a front tooth. It killed him that he wasn’t there to watch her grow up, but he realized he never really had been. Middle East deployments, long investigations, the heavy responsibilities of work had taken him away from home since she was a baby. That was the chief reason Mattie’s mother was now Quinn’s ex-wife.

On the brutally long winter nights, Quinn had sat with James Perry and his family watching the news while Hartman Drake, the new president of the United States, slowly but surely pushed the country toward ruin. The double assassinations of both the President and Vice President sent a shock wave through the American public not seen since September 11th. Near panic allowed newly appointed President Drake and his cronies to chip away at personal privacy and curtail press access, on the grounds of the need for tighter security. Taxes were slashed but welfare went up. High-level leaks from the White House led blogs and political news shows to place blame for the killings at the feet of the Chinese government. Diplomacy was kicked to the curb in favor of bellicose saber rattling with the US spoiling for a fight.

Hartman Drake, the bowtie-wearing former congressman from Wisconsin then Speaker of the House, had been thrust into the presidency. Quinn was certain Drake had something to do with both the President and Vice President’s deaths. And he was equally certain the man was a terrorist. Drake had admitted as much, right after Quinn had put a bullet through the bottom of his foot — a big reason Drake wanted to see Quinn very dead.

Quinn was under no illusions that he was the only man in the world who could save the day. He knew his old boss, Winfield Palmer, would have others working on some sort of coup, but it went against everything in his makeup to sit on the sidelines while others did the dirty work. He was built to run toward the sound of gunfire — and if this new airplane carried the sort of people he thought it did, he might get his chance to do just that.

He moved his left arm, feeling the familiar tightness in the long scar that ran diagonally along his ribs. Considering that the wound had been made with a full-size Japanese sword, it was a wonder he was even able to stand. It was pink and raw and would be for many more weeks.

Quinn peered through the line of fog at the willows that separated Mountain Village from the airstrip, flexing his hands against the steering wheel. He was still far from completely healed. It would be at least another month, maybe two, before he’d be back in true, fighting shape. But deep down, he hoped this unscheduled arrival would force his hand.

A chilly wind stiffened from upriver, prompting Quinn to pull his head down, turtlelike, into the collar of his bright orange float coat. He watched a milling crowd of villagers and other fishermen come in and out of view in the fog as he neared the processing plant. A half dozen skiffs crowded along the steep gravel bank, working their way forward when a spot opened up on the docks of the drab blue building where they could offload their catch. Even in the flat light, Quinn could see huge Chinook salmon — called “kings” by Alaskans — flashing silver-blue as they were passed from boats to waiting plastic tubs.

Willing himself to relax, Quinn breathed in the sweet scent of fir and willow as they mingled with the odors of boat fuel and fish. He’d spent so much of his life in sandy, war-torn deserts that he couldn’t help but smile at the freshness of the Alaska bush. All but the closed-mouth grin and crow’s feet disappeared behind his beard.

He’d been little more than bandages and bones when he’d arrived in the village, wounded and sick, but five months of work and Perry’s good cooking had added nearly twenty pounds and a fresh outlook on life. Even with the added weight, the baggy float coat his friend had loaned him still swallowed Quinn up like a child wearing his daddy’s clothes. Far from the tactical colors he was used to, the combination life vest and raincoat was meant to facilitate a quick rescue if he fell overboard and into the bone-numbing water. Perry, the practical Eskimo that he was, reasoned that the water was so cold that the bright colors would aid more in body recovery than in saving anyone’s life.

Quinn’s rough-and-ready life in Air Force Special Operations as a combat rescue officer, and then later as a special agent with the Office of Special Investigations, or OSI, piled on top of the injuries he’d sustained from years of boxing and riding motorcycles to make him feel decades older than his thirty-seven years. A life of dangerous work and play had seen him endure hour upon hour of physical therapy. But hunting, hauling nets, lugging tubs of fish, and just living away from the clamoring city, had produced better results than any rehab he’d ever experienced. His movements were still slower — from one too many beatings. He’d lost some range of motion in his left arm, but an active winter of helping Ukka run traplines and bringing in moose, firewood, and fish worked wonders.

As his body had begun to heal, Quinn added exercise to the chores — push-ups, pull-ups, skipping rope, and a run up Azachorok Mountain above the village at least once a day. After he was well enough, Perry sparred with him in a makeshift boxing ring in the family living room. The matches were good natured but fast paced. Ukka’s wife rooted for him, while his daughters cheered for Quinn. Invariably, at least one of the men got a bloody nose. At first, it had been Quinn, but as time progressed and he began to regain his legs and at least part of his reach, Ukka felt the sting of his gloves more and more.

Firearms and fighting were both perishable skills. Perry hand-loaded .45 ammo so they were able to practice shooting out at the dump a couple of times a week during all but the coldest days of winter. More than anything, the training helped Quinn’s mood.

Less than fifty meters out, Quinn eased back on the throttle, pointing farther upriver to let the current push him toward the crowd of milling boats that jockeyed for position at the fishery plant. Everyone on the beach at the present moment held a commercial permit. Their own fish, they’d take to fishing camps up and down the river, away from the village itself, where they’d cut, smoke, and dry it for the winter. Even now, the smell of burning alder from their smokehouses hung along the crumbling riverbank, mingling with the fog.

Closer now, he could see the round faces of the villagers, family groups working to offload their boats. Colorful kuspuks, the thigh-length hooded blouses favored by Eskimo women, peeked out from blood-smeared rain gear and fleece jackets. Some were dressed in rubber boots and gloves, while others wore soaked cotton hoodies and muddy tennis shoes. Many worked with bare hands, pinked by the frigid water. Wet and cold, they all smiled because the fishing was good.

The single wiper blade thwacked back and forth on the small windscreen atop the steering post of the open boat. The wiper did little to stay ahead of the rain and spindrift blown off the great river. Quinn peered over the top as he drew closer to land, scanning for threats as much as picking where to dock.

“I wouldn’t mind seein’ a fat seal out here,” James Perry said from the stern. Quinn glanced back to see the big Eskimo aim his spear at an imaginary target in the wake of the skiff. It was not unheard of for seals or even the occasional beluga whale to make the seventy-five-mile journey up the Yukon from the Bering Sea, as far as Mountain Village or even beyond.

At five feet long, the harpoon was relatively short, not nearly as heavy as the big ones used to catch bowhead whales. Yup’ik Eskimos rarely said they’d “shot” a moose or “killed” a whale — preferring to describe the act as “catching.” A length of half-inch steel rod was fixed into the business end with a polished brass barb that toggled at the point. The barb was sharpened to a razor’s edge and as big as a crooked thumb.

Ahead, eight other skiffs jockeyed for position along the muddy gravel, lining up for their turn at the wooden docks. Bowlines crossed. Aluminum gunnels banged into one another in a happy riot of mud, rain, and the beautiful catch of salmon — the lifeblood of the Yukon.

Beyond the thick stands of willows, the new airplane’s engine gunned as the pilot taxied to the parking apron. Ukka stepped to the steering console beside Quinn, passing him the harpoon as he grabbed the wheel. “Better let me take over,” he said. “People here like you, but they won’t be so quick to let us in if a gus-sak ’s drivin’ the boat.” His face darkened as he looked at Quinn, squinting over round cheeks. “You’re armed, right?”

“Of course.” Quinn let his elbow tap the Colt 1911 in the holster over his right kidney. As an agent with OSI, there had been very few times he didn’t have a sidearm. Lately, as a fugitive, those times were fewer still. Opposite the pistol, a Severance hung from a Kydex sheath on his left side. It was as much a tool as it was a weapon; Quinn found uses every day for the heavy seventeen-inch blade.

Ukka leaned around the windscreen of the steering pedestal to shout at his two daughters. Both in their teens, the girls sat on Yamaha ATVs halfway up the bank, waiting to accept the load of salmon. They were dressed in blue cotton hoodies that bore the “Strivers” mascot of their school. Their forest-green Hellys hung unbuttoned to vent the heat while they worked.

“You girls bring your Hondas down here closer to the boat,” the big Eskimo said, eyes darting back toward the airstrip. Quinn had learned early on that in the Alaska bush, all ATVs were “Hondas” no matter the brand, just like every soft drink was a “Coke” in the South.

“We’ll give the girls the fish,” Ukka said. “They can take care of getting them weighed and recorded while I go see what’s up.”

Quinn hated hiding in the shadows while someone else did his dirty work. But they had planned for this — going over and over the possibilities during the long winter nights in the Perry home while they listened to Molly Hatchet on Ukka’s vintage stereo system. Quinn had always known he couldn’t hide out forever — and in reality, had never planned to.

Up the bank, the girls gunned their engines and began to slosh their way down the steep gravel.

Quinn stowed the harpoon along the side rail of the skiff and took several deep breaths of the chilly air to clear his head. Logic said this new aircraft was likely nothing to worry about. Unscheduled planes had sometimes landed in Mountain Village over the course of the last five months. But his gut told him this was different. And if he’d learned anything in his thirty-seven years, it was to trust his gut.

His parking spot assured, Ukka passed control of the skiff back to Quinn and then hopped off the bow into the shallows by the bank. No sooner had his feet hit the gravel than the throaty burble of a boat prop in reverse caught Quinn’s attention. He turned to find a shiny new aluminum riverboat bearing down on them from upstream.

“Gussaks,” Ukka hissed. He gave the bow of his skiff a mighty shove, turning it outward, toward open water.

Three men crowded under a canvas cover peered out through a foggy windshield. Quinn could see at least one of them had a gun — and if one did, they all would.

Quinn kept the skiff at idle. Parallel to the bank now, it was still nearly beached. The hull crunched softly against the gravel bank, nudged by the waves.

The driver of the new boat appeared to be unaccustomed to maneuvering a boat at all, let alone working a river as large as the Yukon. He struggled in the strong current, constantly throwing the engine in and out of reverse in an attempt to bring it under control. Too far downriver on his first attempt, he gunned the motor and made a quick circle to try again.

On the banks, people stopped with fish in their hands to watch the debacle, grinning at the hapless driver’s problem of simply bringing the boat to shore.

He was finally able to bring it to heel in a small eddy of slower current thirty feet out. The swinging door in the center of the walk-through cabin swung open and a middle-aged man stepped to the bow. Baggy rubber knee boots covered half his khaki slacks. A tight, muscle-mapping turtleneck showed he spent a good deal of time in the gym. The skiff’s bow dipped in the water at the added forward weight and the man had to grab the brow of the canvas cover to steady himself. Dark eyes that had surely seen plenty of the world methodically scanned the crowd.

A second man, younger than the first by a decade, but dressed the same and every bit as fit, emerged behind him and stepped to the rail. This one wore a black wool watch cap snugged down over his ears. Both men carried MP7 submachine guns on slings.

The older man cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. He held the submachine gun barrel up, elbow resting against his hip, as if it might release a string of fire into the air at any moment.

“My name is Rubio.” He addressed the people along the bank in a deep, pharaohlike voice. “I am here representing the government — and I’m looking for a man named Jericho Quinn.”

Chapter 2

Rubio paused, letting his words sink in. Quinn sized the men up in a heartbeat. Rubio had introduced himself not as an agent, but as a representative of the government — a contractor. Quinn had worked with many during his deployments to the Middle East. With the US involvement overseas winding down, many of these companies had come home to roost and landed lucrative private security contracts on American soil. Some were salt of the earth — former special operators who’d moved on to ply their very special skill sets in the private sector for exponentially more money than they were making wearing the uniform. But some were little more than thugs in khaki slacks and black T-shirts. Unable to cut it in their old units, they were still highly trained and capable of dishing out all manner of death and destruction, then ducking behind a convoluted corporate bureaucracy whose ethics stopped where the bottom line began.

Rubio and his men looked straight through the villagers gathered along the bank. Their fingers were far too cozy with the triggers of their weapons for Quinn’s taste. Drifting now, the new boat crossed directly in front of Ukka’s open skiff, less than fifteen feet away. Quinn’s Apache heritage and heavy rain gear would make it difficult for them to differentiate him from the rest of the villagers at first glance.

Along the river’s edge, people froze in place, nets, buckets, and even fish in their hands. All stared at the ground avoiding the question. Quinn had made many friends over the last few months, but he was also certain there were a few who would be glad to see him leave the village. Thankfully, none of those were on the bank at that moment.

“Let me be clear on this,” Rubio barked. The cadence in his voice made Quinn guess he’d spent time in the military. “Hiding this man is not an option. I know he’s here. Your guilty looks are enough to tell me that. Jericho Quinn is dangerous, wanted for murder.”

Skiffs’ bottoms scraped gravel, motors chugged, and the Yukon gurgled along, but no one on the bank said a word.

Rubio screwed up his face like he was going to spit.

Ukka started to move, but Quinn caught his eye, giving a slight shake of his head. The two had ridden motorcycles, boxed, and chased girls through junior high and high school. There was zero doubt the man would die for him.

Quinn had just made up his mind to raise his hands when Rubio spoke again.

“Listen up!” he barked, lips frozen in a dismissive sneer. “I tried to play nice. Now, I’m going to shoot one of you muktuk-eating sons of bitches every thirty seconds until someone digs the—”

“That’s enough of that.” Quinn stepped forward, hands well away from his waist.

“It’s him!” the younger agent yelled — and opened fire.

Quinn dove beneath the gunnels as bullets thwacked into the aluminum steering pedestal, stitching their way up to shatter the glass windscreen. The fickle Yukon current nudged the boat sideways, just enough to keep Quinn from taking any rounds on the first volley.

Trapped between the bank and the shooters, Quinn crawled on his hands and knees toward the steering console. Bullets continued to stitch the side of the boat as he reached up and shoved the throttle all the way forward. The aluminum gunwales provided some concealment but no real cover, and he watched as dots of light appeared with each new bullet hole in thin metal. Mired in the shallows, the prop ground against a slurry of gravel and mud before Ukka gave the boat a mighty shove and pushed it away. With only Quinn and the salmon on board, the little skiff jumped forward, chewing up the distance to Rubio’s boat before he or his partner could adjust their aim.

Rather than try to avoid them, Quinn held his course, bracing his shoulder against the aluminum pedestal as the bow took the other boat in a direct broadside, riding up to put Ukka’s skiff nearly vertical in the water. Metal shrieked and motors roared as both props cleared the surface.

Rubio staggered to the side, arms flailing as he teetered against the forward rail. He was smart enough to let the MP7 fall against his sling, giving him both hands to hold on. Regaining his balance, Rubio launched himself over the bow and onto Ukka’s skiff like a boarding pirate. He brought the machine gun up as his rubber boots hit the slanted deck just forward of the steering post.

Thrown forward by the crash, Quinn met the new arrival a half step in, surprising him with two quick shots to the chest from the .45. Rubio was wearing a vest, but the blunt force of two 230-grain slugs shattered his collarbone. He backpedaled instinctively in an attempt to get away from the pain, toppling over the bow rail into the waiting river.

The rubber boots filled instantly, dragging him along with the current. Rather than relaxing to simply remove the waterlogged boots, the man thought he was strong enough to fight against the unbeatable current of the mighty Yukon. The boots acted as a sea-anchor, towing him sideways in the swift water. A frantic gurgle caught in his throat as the Yukon tugged his head below the surface.

With Rubio no longer a threat, Quinn focused on the others in the skiff. Pistol up and ready, he chided himself for being so focused on the new airplane that he’d missed the threat right in front of him.

Welded together in a sort of twisted tee, the two boats caught the current and began to spin downriver. A great gash had opened up along the front quarter of Ukka’s boat below the waterline. Gallons of brown water gushed through the ripped metal. Dead salmon bobbed in the rising brown water around Quinn’s boots.

Stunned by the sudden death of his partner, the younger man regained his senses and sent a wild volley from the MP7. Quinn dove sideways, splashing to the relative safety behind a thick plastic tub full of drift net to avoid another string of fire. Frigid water rushed beneath his float coat, soaking him to the skin.

Fortunately for Quinn, the younger agent fell victim to dependency on the machine gun and used spray-and-pray tactics. Quinn, with only eight rounds, had to be more judicious and actually aim.

Peeking around the corner of the steering pedestal, he put two rounds in the youngster’s left shoulder, outside the vest. He knew his shots were on target, but as he’d expected, in the heat of the fight, the kid didn’t even know he was hit.

Regaining his composure after the crash, the driver of the other boat threw his motor into reverse in an effort to free it from the rapidly sinking skiff. The yank of the larger vessel sent Quinn sliding backwards in a soup of fish, fuel, and river water. His shoulder slammed hard off the unforgiving aluminum transom, knocking the .45 from his grasp. The younger agent fell directly on top of him.

Quinn was keenly aware of the MP7 wedged between them, digging into his ribs. It was sideways, for now, but the kid still had a good hold and worked feverishly to wrestle it away. The .45 was lost and useless somewhere under a foot of brown water.

On his back and nearly submerged, Quinn felt a low growl grow in his belly. Quinn gave the kid a vicious head butt. The blow brought a torrent of blood, but failed to get him to release the grip on the gun. Fear and adrenaline caused the kid to kick into high gear, flinging himself into the fight. The head butt was no more than a stunning injury, but soon he’d feel the effects of blood loss from the bullet wounds in his shoulder. His face just inches above the water, Quinn wondered if it would be soon enough.

Quinn’s legs trapped the young contractor’s body against his, heels hooked behind the small of the young man’s back. Snaking his left arm through the MP7’s sling, he jerked the kid in close. It constricted his movements, but wasn’t quite enough for a proper choke.

Rising water lapped at Quinn’s ears, and he had to crane his neck to stay above the surface. In a matter of seconds, the river would be above his face and do the kid’s work for him.

Quinn held what he had while his right hand searched desperately under the surface, shoving aside dead salmon and coils of gill net. The Severance was on his left side, useless for the moment. Now with just his nose above the water, his fingers wrapped around the wooden shaft of the harpoon just as the silhouette of the boat driver appeared on the bow above the younger shooter. Backlit by the gray clouds, he loomed above for a split second, MP7 in his hands. The man shouted something but water lapped around Quinn’s ears, making it impossible for him to make out the words.

Quinn was vaguely aware of pistol shots, and at first thought the boat driver may have shot directly through his partner. Instead, the man toppled over the side and into the river.

Way to go, Ukka, Quinn thought. Bucking his body upward to create the needed space, he drove the point of the harpoon through the young contractor’s ribs.

The kid’s eyes flew wide as he tried to make sense of what was going on. Blood covered his teeth by the time Quinn had swiped the MP7 out of the way and dragged him sloshing onto the bow of the other boat. His rattling wheeze said the shaft of the spear had gone through the vest and pierced a lung. Quinn used his hand to try to seal the foaming wound as best he could. The bullet wounds on the opposite shoulder were not life threatening in and of themselves, but taken together, shock and additional loss of blood only sped up the inevitable brought on by the harpoon.

“What’s your name?” Quinn asked, cradling the young man in his lap.

“Lane…” The kid said, choking on his own words. He looked up, blinking terrified eyes. “We came to kill you… and you’re trying to save me?”

“You’re too far gone to save.” Quinn gave a slow shake of his head. “But I’ll sit here with you while you die.”

“Thank you…” His face tensed at a sudden shot of pain. Tears welled in his eyes. Quinn had seen many men die and often thought how they looked like little boys the nearer they got to that moment.

Lane’s pulse grew faster as he fell deeper into shock. More blood oozed from the wound around the shaft of the harpoon. Quinn leaned in so the kid could hear and understand him. “How many on the plane?”

Lane swallowed. He didn’t have long. “Five, counting the pilot, I think…” His body began to shake uncontrollably. “They’re… picking us up.” A wave of pain brought on a twisted grimace. His words came in short, panting breaths. “This… is so… wrong…” The boy gave a rattling cough, and then fell slack in Quinn’s arms. Pale blue eyes stared up blankly at the mist.

Ukka had commandeered his cousin’s battered skiff and now motored up alongside the two wrecked boats. He sat on an ice chest at the stern, working the tiller to keep the boat steady in the current. Quinn pulled the earpiece out of the dead kid’s ear and took the radio off his belt. He grabbed the MP7, checked the chamber, and then slung it around his neck.

Ukka held up his hand. “Don’t forget the harpoon. It was my grandfather’s.”

Quinn looked back over his shoulder at the dead contractor. “The barb’s going to make it tough to pull out.”

“He can keep that for his trouble,” Ukka said, frowning. These men had attacked his village and he felt no sorrow for them. “It comes off anyhow. I can make a new one.” Quinn gave the harpoon a quick yank, freeing it from the body, and hopped over the gunwale and onto the deck of Ukka’s new ride.

The big Eskimo threw the boat in reverse, and then turned to take it upstream, free of the drifting wreckage of the other two vessels. “You know the plane that just landed is full of another hit team,” he said, once Quinn was on board.

“No doubt,” Quinn said. “The kid told me five more.”

Ukka’s lower jaw pushed forward and stayed there, the way it did when he was angry. “We need to haul ass up to the village. That first bunch didn’t care much who they shot — and my family is back there.”

“I appreciate your help.” Quinn nodded, shaking his head. “Seriously, James, I am sorry about bringing these guys down on your family.”

Ukka pushed the throttle forward, bringing the boat up on step. He pointed it toward the bank a half a mile downriver, well below the fish processing plant where they would be closer to his house. “I ever tell you about the time I left my good friend out to die on the tundra?” He raised his voice to be heard over the drone of the motor.

“No,” Quinn answered. “I have to admit, you’ve skipped that story.”

“That’s because I don’t do stuff like that.” Ukka twisted the throttle and laid on the gas.

Inside the pocket of Quinn’s float coat, safely wrapped in a plastic Baggie and barely audible above the sounds of wind, water, and the outboard engine, his phone began to chirp.

Far from anything close to a “smart phone,” the little Hershey Bar — size device was a prepaid “burner.” It was difficult, but not entirely impossible, to trace, given the right set of circumstances. In the five months since he’d had the phone, Quinn had received a grand total of three incoming calls. Considering the fact that men were trying to kill him at that very moment, the timing of this fourth call was no coincidence.

Chapter 3

Tang Dalu stood outside the security zone and watched his wife work her way toward security screening with the snaking queue of passengers. The Chinese man was thirty-nine years old and dressed for travel in gray cotton slacks and a short-sleeve white button-up shirt. He was short enough that he had to stand on tiptoe in order to keep an eye on his wife. Her name was Lin. They had been married for eleven years — long enough for him to know, even from nearly a hundred feet away, that she was crying.

Hers was a silent, anguished cry, manifested only by glistening red eyes that seemed ever on the verge of tears — and the periodic shudder of frail shoulders.

Tang had wept too, in the beginning, great choking sobs that wracked his chest and threatened to detach his lungs from his throat.

He could not eat. He could not sleep. He could not bring himself to touch his wife. The sadness was too much to bear. At first, he’d thought he might die. Then he’d watched the light vanish from his wife’s wide brown eyes and he feared he might have to live forever to witness her despair. She’d depended on him, on his position — and he had let her down.

Allah, it turned out, was not nearly as merciful as he had once supposed.

Only the man from Pakistan had saved him. Lin had never been devout, but she had listened to the man’s message and he had saved her as well. In her misery she did not seem to care.

Tang craned his head as he watched her move to the front of the line. He could feel his jaw tighten as a TSA agent ordered her forward with a dismissive flick of his fingers. All around her other agents barked orders at passengers to remove their shoes and empty their pockets. Keep it moving, slow down, stop right there, step forward, quickly, slower, this not that.

Do it my way.

Bewildered or just plain numb, passengers plodded along like sheep. If they wished to fly there was no alternative but to submit to the will of the officious security agents who squawked and scolded like so many angry blue jays, steadfast in their own moral superiority. Such power always brought oppression — and under oppression the weak had no choice but to give in to despair or fight back. The man from Pakistan had taught him that.

Though Tang had been born to Hui Chinese parents and raised under the tenets of Islam, he had never heard of Ramzi Yousef. The man from Pakistan had explained that in 1994 Yousef had smuggled nitroglycerin and other components on board a Philippines Airline flight from Manila to Tokyo. Using a simple Casio watch as his timer, he’d assembled his bomb in the bathroom while in flight. He’d placed the bomb under a seat in the life vest compartment and then gotten off the plane in Cebu. The device had exploded on the way to Tokyo, blowing a Japanese sewing machine maker in half and ripping a hole in the floor. Security technology had progressed since then, but as the man from Pakistan explained, so had the technology of making bombs.

Tang felt the knot in his stomach grow as Lin put her camera bag on the X-ray conveyor. To her right, in an adjacent line, a red-faced passenger began to argue with his TSA overlord about a water bottle filled with vodka.

Most of the security staff on scene converged around the sputtering drunk, leaving Lin to pass through the scanners without a hitch. Relief washed over Tang as she retrieved her camera bag from the belt on the other side of the X-ray. She turned to wave, a hollow look of resignation weighing heavily on her sallow face.

The detonator was in.

Chapter 4

Quinn pressed the phone tight against his ear, straining to hear over the wind and roaring motor.

“Hello,” he shouted.

“ ‘Mariposa’ hasn’t called in.” The caller started right in without introduction — par for Quinn’s former boss, even though he hadn’t spoken a word to the man in two months. There was a tense note of despair in the man’s voice that Quinn had never heard before.

It was Winfield Palmer, national security advisor to the recently assassinated president, Chris Clark. A West Point alumni and confidante of Clark, Palmer had served with him in various posts from their military academy days, including director of national security and then national security advisor. As such, he’d recruited Quinn as a blunt instrument, a sort of hammer to be employed when more diplomatic or traditional means failed.

Now, under the new administration, Palmer was unemployed and followed everywhere he went.

Living under constant surveillance, he had resorted to layers of security with his communication — proxy servers, shadow e-mail accounts, remote log-in to computers located in various safe-sites around the world, burner phones — and, of course, code. Mariposa, the Spanish word for butterfly, was the code name he’d chosen for Emiko Miyagi, Quinn’s martial arts instructor and friend. The name signified something beautiful and delicate. Miyagi was one, but certainly not the other.

“How long has it been?” Quinn asked.

“Five days,” Palmer said, uncharacteristically silent.

Both Quinn and Palmer knew Miyagi was 115 pounds of highly skilled badass warrior woman. Quinn, a more than talented fighter himself, had tasted defeat at her hands each and every time they had sparred. If she hadn’t made contact in five days, she was in serious trouble.

“Maybe she’s close to something?” Quinn offered.

“Maybe,” Palmer said, hollow, unconvinced. “She gave me a name last time we spoke. I have ‘Sonja’ looking into it now.”

“That’s good,” Quinn said, nodding to himself. “She still has resources.” “Sonja” was Palmer’s code name for CIA agent Veronica “Ronnie” Garcia. Apart from hair color, the buxom, sword-wielding fantasy heroine Red Sonja was a perfect ringer for Garcia — who also happened to be Quinn’s girlfriend. At least she had been, before he’d dropped off the grid. Quinn was smart enough to know that girlfriends needed care and feeding — and he’d been around to do neither for nearly half a year.

“Maybe she can get us something to go on,” Palmer said. “I don’t mind telling you, though, I’m worried.”

Behind Quinn in the boat, Ukka shouted from his position at the tiller. “Nearly there!”

Quinn gave the Eskimo a thumbs-up to show he understood, and then turned back to the phone. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Things are heating up out here.”

“Anything that I can do?” Palmer said, more out of habit from the old days than any ability to actually help. Even with his little ad hoc resistance movement, as a private citizen in suburban Virginia, there was nothing he could offer Quinn in Alaska beyond good wishes.

“No,” Quinn said, careful to not to use military trigger words like negative and affirmative that might trigger closer scrutiny from the NSA. “Looks like I’m burned, though. They’ve sent what looks to be contractors.”

“Contractors?” Palmer said. “That’s not good.”

“Yeah, well,” Quinn said, “they’re three down from when they started. Watch yourself. Looks like the gloves are off.” Quinn ended the call. He made certain the phone was on silent — a ringtone at the wrong moment could get him killed.

Twenty meters away, Ukka took the skiff out into the current to make a wide turn back toward the bank. The white crosses in the cemetery on Azochorak Hill ghosted in and out of the fog above them. They were coming in downriver, about a quarter mile from the village proper. Quinn traded his float coat for a more neutrally colored Helly Hansen raincoat he’d found in the borrowed skiff. The jacket was tattered and stunk of fish and mildew, but its olive green would be far less noticeable against scrub willow or even the open tundra. He slung the MP7 over his shoulder and stuffed the cell phone and the dead man’s radio in the pockets of the raincoat. He stood at the rail, ready to jump and run as soon as the bow touched gravel.

Cut, broken, and bruised to the point he could barely walk, let alone run, Quinn had come to Mountain Village one step ahead of US authorities. The marshals had taken him off their Top Fifteen wanted list for all of about ten minutes, until someone in the new presidential administration had caught wind of it and insisted he be made a priority. Thankfully, a deputy named August Bowen, an acquaintance of his from his boxing career at the Air Force Academy, had been assigned the case. Bowen had been in Japan and knew much of the truth about Quinn, so he dragged his feet as best he could. Still, Top Fifteens were worked by many hands. Quinn had to keep his wits about him to keep from getting captured — which under the present administration would surely mean a speedy trial and quick backroom execution.

He’d made too big a splash in Japan to stay there, leaving a wide and lengthy trail of bodies in his wake while looking for the assassins responsible for shooting his ex-wife. Even with friends in Japanese law enforcement, security footage of his face had already made it onto every news feed and blog in Asia, branding him the murderer from the US who typified the Japanese view of American bloodlust and gun craziness.

It killed him that he was too banged up to follow leads to Pakistan. He’d lived much of his life gutting it out through the pain. But this time was different. Miyagi took him to a doctor in Japan who asked few questions and patched him up well enough to travel. When Quinn argued or tried to do too much, she reminded him that “though a concentrated mind could pierce a stone, it was a long process.”

Fellow OGA “Gunny” Jacques Thibodaux pointed out the reality that “that which does not kill us makes us weaker for the next thing that tries to kill us.”

Quinn had needed a place to hide out, to heal from the many wounds he’d gotten in Japan — both physical and mental. His friends in the tiny Yup’ik Eskimo settlement of Mountain Village provided exactly what he’d needed.

He’d made the long trip by oceangoing car hauler from Tokyo to Seattle, just one step ahead of Interpol. A barge going up the inside passage had taken him to Anchorage, where he’d caught an Era flight to the bush. He’d not chanced seeing his parents or his daughter, or going to any of his old haunts. They were all certainly being watched.

Once he arrived in Mountain Village, Ukka’s wife and mother-in-law had tended to his wounds with traditional herbs as well as antibiotics they got from the clinic and school by feigning illness themselves. Of course, nothing went on without everyone eventually finding out in a close community like Mountain Village, called simply “Mountain” by locals. Soon, the entire village became accessories to the crime of harboring a fugitive. Few knew what he was wanted for, or his real name, but they knew he was wanted by the United States government, and that alone was enough of a reason for most to hide him.

Ukka threw the skiff into reverse just before they scraped gravel. Quinn hopped to a clump of willows, using them to keep his feet on the slippery mud and vegetation along the eroding cut bank. Gnarled limbs and bits of wood from upstream littered the area from the recent “breakup” when thousands of tons of ice melted enough to crack and give way ahead of the pressure of meltwater building upstream. Great, frozen slabs scoured the riverbed as they were shoved downstream by the tremendous pressure that built up behind them.

“Ukka,” Quinn sighed as he watched his friend jump to the bank beside him. “I’ll never be able to repay you for—”

“So help me, Jericho” — the Eskimo shook his head — “you’re gonna make me cry. And if I start crying, the next thing you know, I’ll be picking berries and cutting fish with the women.”

The Eskimo’s cell phone played the snippet of “Old Time Rock and Roll” that he used as a ringtone. He dug it out of his float coat.

“This is James,” he said.

He listened intently while Quinn scanned the hillside above them. Quinn switched on the dead contractor’s radio and stuffed the earpiece in his ear. He was tempted to say something cavalier, but thought it better to keep the new crew guessing as to what had happened to their river-based compatriots.

Ukka’s face went white and he ended the call.

“That was my neighbor,” he said. “Two of those bastards are heading for my house.”

Chapter 5

Veronica “Ronnie” Garcia looked away from the image on her computer and rubbed her eyes with a thumb and forefinger. A leaning tower of manila folders that she should have been analyzing sat precariously close to the edge of her desk. Each was striped and marked according to their classification level. She nibbled on the lipstick-stained straw sticking out of her cup of Diet Dr Pepper, taking a moment from the tedium of scanning the monitor for the last three hours.

Sliding down to let thick, ebony hair fall over the back of her chair, Garcia looked around her cubicle. Apart from the purple stapler and a Far Side calendar, the only other decoration was a photo of her with Jericho tacked to the door of the overhead cabinet. It was early in their relationship, on a trip to Virginia Beach they somehow had been able to wedge between missions. Her canary yellow swimsuit accentuated long legs and a multitude of curves. The color was a perfect complement to her rich, coffee-and-cream complexion. Jericho wore blue bathing trunks and a rare smile, big enough to show his teeth.

Garcia’s chair creaked as she leaned forward to touch the photo with the tip of a red fingernail, tracing the lines of Quinn’s bare chest and the many scars that mapped his body. She thought of something her Russian father used to say — “The way a man fights is the way he does everything else” — and that made her miss Jericho all the more. She kissed her finger, and then pressed it to Quinn’s bearded face. If they ever did have kids, the poor things were doomed to being hairy gorillas. Of course, you had to be in the same time zone to conceive a child, so even if they’d considered such a thing, the notion of it was as far as they would get.

For all practical purposes, she was alone in the bullpen. The girl that sat in the cubicle to her right had already gone home for the day, and Nathan, the tall, blond drink of water who occupied the stall to her left was off picking up copies at the communal printer, which happened to be next to the desk of the tiny brunette who was his latest conquest. He would be gone awhile.

Garcia took another quick sip of her Dr Pepper, and then turned back to the computer monitor. Resting an elbow on her desk, she began to scan the screen again while she pondered how odd it was that an intelligence agency that was so steeped in secrecy and compartmentalization would have a communal printer. Government cutbacks bordered on the bizarre. There were so many things about the present administration that were absurd. The new president had clamped down on everything and everyone with all the paranoid efficiency of communist East Germany. Garcia herself had been given the names of five people in the agency on whom she was to provide “vetting overwatch.” She was certain her name was on at least two other agents’ lists. Overzealous, even heavy-handed government employees were rewarded rather than constrained. Jericho Quinn and anyone else who’d ever stood in the way of the new administration were being hunted down, or, as in Ronnie Garcia’s case, sidelined to a life of busywork.

Citizens followed like sheep because President Hartman Drake, a victim of a terrorist attack himself if you believed the papers, gave them what they wanted — free health care; snarky, populist sound bites; and the drumbeat of war with anyone who dared cross American policies.

But not everyone marched in lockstep. A sizable underground had sprung up in the aftermath of President Clark’s death. Quinn, Garcia, and others who had worked directly for the former president’s national security advisor, Win Palmer, knew the incoming administration was behind the assassination of Clark and the Vice President. There was just no way to prove it, yet.

Garcia clicked her mouse, switching screens. Her breath caught in her throat when the image loaded. She looked away, blinking to clear her eyes, then back to check again.

It was highly pixilated from being enlarged several times over, but it was definitely the needle in the digital haystack she’d been searching for. Dr. Naseer Badeeb, the mastermind of a plan to bomb the wedding of the former vice president’s daughter, stood chatting with a man with a heavy black beard. But neither of these men were the most important find. Garcia clicked her mouse, enlarging the photo as much as she could without losing it completely. It was impossible to prove without enhancing the image, but Garcia was certain the young man standing behind Badeeb was Hartman Drake — the President of the United States. He was younger, in his early teens, but there was no mistaking the condescending sneer and vaporous look in the boy’s eyes.

“Way to go, Miyagi,” she whispered, full lips trembling slightly as they formed the words. In the right hands, the photo could finally be something — something that could end this mess and bring Jericho home.

Lost in thought over how to proceed, Garcia nearly jumped out of her skin when her group supervisor walked up behind her and cleared his throat.

“Thought we agreed you wouldn’t put that up until I went home for the night.” Bobby Jeffery nodded toward the photo of Garcia and Quinn standing in the surf at Virginia Beach.

“So apparently,” Ronnie sighed, “keeping a picture of one of America’s most wanted fugitives is against CIA office policy.”

“Apparently,” Jeffery said. “Not to mention I have to keep all the straight guys in the office from trying to get a snapshot with their cell phone of you in your yellow string bikini.”

“It’s not a bikini,” Garcia scoffed.

“Well, give the guys here five minutes with Photoshop and it’ll be less than that.”

Garcia put the photo in her lap drawer and spun in her chair to face her boss. She wanted to get rid of the image on her way around but decided it would look too guilty. She left it up, as if it was routine.

“I appreciate it,” Jeffery said in his easy Georgia twang. If voices could grin, his did. As far as bosses went, he was likeable enough — a little aloof, but Garcia knew she shared that same quality.

He stood at the opening to her cubicle, his conservative striped tie hanging like a crooked noose around an unbuttoned collar. He was only a few years older than she was, but the way he kept his wireframe glasses low on his nose gave him the look of a favorite uncle.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Garcia said, gathering her wits. She forced herself not to shoot a look toward her computer screen. An image of the sitting president associating with a known terrorist was enough to put any good CIA agent on the guilty edge. “What’s up?”

“I’m not sure,” Jeffery said. “But something, that’s for sure. I just got a priority call from our friends over at Fort Meade.” He gave a noncommittal shrug, but his eyes stayed locked on her. “Some ID guy wants to have a chat with you.”

Garcia forced a smile.

“They asked for me by name?”

Jeffery nodded. “Afraid so.”

Stationed at Fort Meade in the offices of the National Security Agency, the Internal Defense Task Force was a government bureau formed by the new administration to root out moles and terrorists inside the government. Considering the assassination of the two top leaders in the nation under the very noses of the FBI and Homeland Security, this expansion of government was an easy sell to the American public.

Of course, Garcia could see the irony in the formation of such a unit by the President, who was now the highest-ranking mole in the government.

Other intelligence and enforcement agencies spoke of IDTF in hushed tones, if they spoke of them at all. Like the devil, if you admitted their existence, ID agents seemed to appear out of nowhere. Garcia wasn’t alone in thinking of them as vicious Orwellian dogs from Animal Farm — with President Drake as Napoleon.

Much like Winfield Palmer had organized his team using OGAs or Other Governmental Agents, the IDTF had handpicked its operatives from the NSA, CIA, and FBI, choosing, it seemed, those most bent on getting ahead in their careers at all cost.

Though rank-and-file citizens believed something with the innocuous name of Internal Defense Task Force was akin to a government Internal Affairs, that job fell to various OIGs or Offices of Inspector General. In reality, the IDTF was more like an American version of the Stasi, who had considered themselves the “Shield and Sword” of East Germany. Even agents within both the ultrasecret NSA and CIA saved a particular reverence toward those in the IDTF.

Ronnie remembered a CIA instructor at Camp Peary pointing out that in their heyday, the KGB had employed 1 agent for roughly every 5,800 Soviet citizens. The Nazis had 1 Gestapo operative for every 2,000 citizens in countries they controlled. But, using full and part-time operatives, the Stasi had 1 agent for every 6 East Germans.

The IDTF’s organizational chart was classified, but they and the administration that created them were both in their infancy, so she assumed the new bureau was yet in the middle of empire building. It would not be long before they were up and running at full strength. There were plenty of people in government willing to stomp others to a bloody pulp in order to get ahead, as well as those who just enjoyed seeing other people squirm. Recruitment wouldn’t be all that difficult.

Jeffery put a hand on the small of his back and arched, looked up at the ceiling to stretch. “Listen,” he said, “these guys are as much about witch hunts as anything. You have to watch what you say. Understand.”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

“Anything you want to tell me about?”

“Nothing I can think of,” Garcia lied. “Probably just another routine bunch of questions about my old boyfriend.”

She nodded toward the lap drawer where she’d put Jericho’s photo and then kicked back in her chair, trying to look relaxed. Inside, her gut was doing backflips. She’d taken an endless number of precautions, but obviously that was not enough. With offices at NSA and who knew how many agents on the CIA payroll, the IDTF had fingers in everyone’s pie.

They might not yet be as well staffed as the dreaded East German Shield and Sword, but at least one of them had focused on Garcia. Considering what she was a part of, any sort of scrutiny would be a bad thing indeed.

Chapter 6

Former Oregon governor Lee McKeon used the back of a slender hand to rub the skin of his furrowed brow. He ignored the quizzical looks from David Crosby, the President’s disheveled chief of staff. The Veep was being vocal at yet another meeting in the Situation Room. No surprise there, considering nothing would ever get accomplished if it were otherwise. POTUS ran meetings in the Cement Mixer — but this particular POTUS had had a difficult first five months negotiating the pitfalls and intricacies of his new job.

President Hartman Drake was a fireplug of a man, barely five-seven, but broad shouldered and narrow hipped. He never missed an opportunity to take off his suit jacket to display thick arms that bulged against a starched white shirt. He had full hair and an easy smile that endeared him to voters of both genders, but especially the women. He’d used bow-tie bluster and sex appeal to bluff his way through Congress — but that was the bush league. McKeon saw he needed a considerable amount of help not to destroy everything they’d worked for now that a series of highly choreographed events had made him commander in chief.

The worst part was that Drake was completely numb to the fact that he was doing such a poor job.

McKeon hadn’t thought being vice president would be so agonizingly difficult to stomach. He stood over six and a half feet tall with a gaunt face, narrow shoulders, and a bony, knock-kneed build. Though his name was Scottish in origin, his face held the dark complexion and East Indian features of someone from the subcontinent. Amber eyes narrowed with a hint of the almond shape of his Chinese birth mother. A self-proclaimed Chindian, he introduced himself as someone of Chinese and Indian descent. The world knew him to be adopted by a wealthy couple from Portland. According to his birth certificate, he’d been born in Salem, Oregon, in the good old US of A. His tall and gangly appearance brought a picture of Abraham Lincoln to the minds of the voters. He was willing to court wealthy donors and spout populist sentiment, but more than that, he possessed a certain magnetism, a soothing way that drew people to him and made them feel as if he had nothing but their best interest at heart. It had taken him to the governor’s mansion the year of his fortieth birthday.

He’d needed a little more help to become the vice president — as had the new commander in chief. But his father — the real one, not Old Man McKeon — had paved the way for that to happen long before Lee McKeon was ever born — while he was still known as Raza Badeeb.

Dr. Naseer Badeeb had been placing children from his orphanage in the remote Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan into American families for two decades. These children, well indoctrinated to hate America for the beast that it was, grew up in quiet suburban homes, went to school, got married, and moved up in society. The children always went to extraordinary families who saw to it they received outstanding educations. Many rose to the highest levels of government. The doctor was no longer around to enjoy the success of his labor, but he’d known intuitively how to prepare things so they would come to fruition later. McKeon had once heard his father say that the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. It broke his heart that he’d never really gotten to know the man. But that only doubled his resolve to carry on his father’s legacy.

“What are my options?” the President asked, kicking back at the head of the long table and gazing at the myriad of television screens on the walls as if he was watching the Super Bowl instead of attending a high-level intelligence briefing from his National Security Council. Known as the NSC, these advisors included the Joint Chiefs, the secretaries of defense, state, and treasury, the director of national intelligence, and the national security advisor. All were men, all white, and all, but for the Secretary of Defense Andrew Filson, were brand-new appointees. A new man sat quietly in one of the royal blue high-back chairs along the wall. Only McKeon and the President even knew who he was.

Secretary Filson sat to the President’s immediate left, across the oak table from McKeon. He was a pinch-faced man who glared at his cup as if he was angry at the coffee.

“You know my views, Mr. President,” Filson said. Usually a man to bounce around the room when he spoke, the Secretary of Defense stayed glued to his seat, as if he was afraid someone might steal it if he got up. “I say we waterboard the shit out of them until they tell us what we want to know.”

Drake nodded thoughtfully, like that might actually be something he’d consider with so many eyes and ears in the room. The depth of this man’s stupidity made McKeon’s head hurt. The Hell’s Angels’ adage “Two can keep a secret — if one of them is dead” held doubly true amid the vaporous political alliances of the White House. Security precautions only lasted as far as the door. In a place where leaked insider information was the coin of the realm that lead to multimillion-dollar book deals, the President’s body language, let alone his spoken word, was a potential land mine.

“The Pakistanis want them back,” Air Force three-star Greg Tolliver spoke up, stepping in front of Filson’s proposal with one almost as outlandish.

“That would make trouble for me diplomatically,” Tom Watchel, the Secretary of State, said. He rested the flat of his hands on a black leather desk blotter in front of him.

The President laughed out loud. “And that’s why we’re having this meeting, Tom,” he said. “So we can all be certain and shield you from diplomatic damage.”

The Sec State appeared to shrink in his chair. “Of course I meant us, Mr. President. We, I mean to say, the United States would be damaged. These men blew up a train in…” He shuffled thorough a file folder in front of him, hunting for a particular note.

“Urumqi.” McKeon helped him, feeling impatience more than pity. For a Secretary of State, this man was sorely undereducated in world geography. “The train was leaving the northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi.”

“Yes, of course.” Watchel nodded. “Urumqi.” He closed his folder. “Beijing demands to put them on trial for terrorism.”

“What do I tell the Pakistanis?” Drake asked. “These guys blew up a… what, some kind of a store there, right?”

McKeon blinked away the look of frustration on his face. “It was a café, Mr. President.”

Drake gave a flip of his hand. “That’s right. Anyway, the point is, Pakistan wants them for trial too. And their bombing was first.”

“That’s true,” the Sec State said. “But the café was closed when it blew up so no one was killed.”

“But the building was destroyed?” Drake said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well.” Drake put both hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, staring up at the acoustic ceiling. “Seems to me it would be a step in the right direction if Pakistan actually put a terrorist on trial.”

Watchel nodded. “It would,” he said. “But—”

Filson pounded his fist on the table, sending a little coffee tsunami over the lip of his mug. “We should not be in the habit of turning over terrorists to anyone. These men have a great deal of valuable information rolling around in their heads.”

“Mr. President.” Watchel made a last-ditch effort to bolster his case. “China is in a… how do I put this… in a bit of a spot at the moment. Chen Min is a very unique leader.”

Drake cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t forget,” he said. “If you’re one in a million in China, there are only three thousand more just like you.”

McKeon groaned inside himself.

“Mr. President,” General Tolliver said. “There is no doubt that the Chinese, specifically Chen Min, will view it as a slap in the face if we turn the prisoners over to Pakistan. But Pakistan will feel the same way if we give them to China. The question is, who do we need right now?”

“Let me see,” Drake said, screwing up his face in thought. “Do I piss off a son of a bitch Chinaman who’d like to eat our guts, or the Pakistanis, who, at least in lip service, are our allies?”

“With all due respect, Mr. President,” Secretary Watchel said. “Chen Min does not appear to be a rash man. He leads at a time when the Chinese are swollen with nationalistic tension. If we were to turn these men over to anyone other than China, Chen Min might have no other choice than to step up his rhetoric.”

The President pushed back from the table and got to his feet, forcing everyone else in the room to stand out of protocol.

“Listen,” he said, looking at the line of digital world clocks that ran along the far wall. “I have to shoehorn in a meeting in the Oval Office before I get my ass to the gym. It’s leg day,” he added. “And a guy can’t miss leg day. I’ll leave the rhetoric to you, Tom. I have to be honest, though, the Pakistanis seem to have more value in this fight than the Chinese. Work me up a brief of possible outcomes if I decide to hand the prisoners over to President Kassar.”

McKeon smiled inside himself. Despite Drake’s stupidity, things were working out just as his father had imagined.

Chapter 7

Knee-high beach grass rose up from the muddy bank. It grew quickly in the short Arctic summers and covered the hillside above the Yukon. Village women used the stuff to weave decorative baskets during the long winter nights and the sweet, wet-hay scent was prevalent in every home that had a basket maker. Quinn breathed in a lungful as he sprinted up the hill.

Rather than hiding, he had always found it more tactical to fight through the objective. Quinn’s father was not much of a talker. The senior Quinn had expressed the notion most succinctly when he’d sat Jericho down at the kitchen table before his first deployment to the Middle East. “Attack back, son,” his old man had said, dispensing serious counsel. “If you think you’re going to be captured, fight your way through it. I’d rather you die in that initial assault than find yourself in the hands of this enemy.”

Quinn knew then, and certainly learned later, that it was sound advice. And it still held true with men like the ones who’d come for him in Mountain Village. No badges, no agency authority, they had no intention of arresting him. These men had demonstrated that when they shot into a crowd of Eskimo families just to get him. These were contractors sent in with one mission, to kill Quinn and take back proof of his death.

Quinn tucked the MP7 he’d taken from the dead contractor tight against his side and dove into the willows, running for Ukka’s house, nearly half a mile away.

Ken Proctor shoved the slender Eskimo woman across the room to his partner, a stocky little Italian pug everyone called Fico.

“Take care of Mama,” Proctor snapped. He grabbed the woman’s teenage daughter by her black hair and wound it around his fist, dragging her backwards to the front door.

The terrified girl’s entire body shook so badly her teeth chattered. “Mom?” she whimpered.

“It’s all right, Kaylee girl,” James Perry’s wife said. Her voice was tight, but under control. “Daddy and Jericho will be here soon. They’ll take care of these guys, no problem.”

Fico gave her a backhand across the face, splitting her lower lip. Blood poured down the front of her shirt.

She glared back at him.

“Oh, that’s just precious,” the broad-faced Italian said. “You’re all angry at me now. Don’t go giving your little girl hope.” He leaned in and ran his tongue up the side of her cheek, then raised an eyebrow as if passing judgment on how she tasted. “Seems I read somewheres that your Eskimo men liked to loan out their women to visitors.” His lips pulled back into a cruel snarl and he prodded her with the barrel of his pistol. “Well, I’m a visitor, ain’t I? How about you show me a little of that northern hospitality I read about?”

“I don’t really think you can read.” Christina Perry wagged her head, eyes narrowed in defiance.

“Maybe you’d rather loan me your daughter.”

She spat in his face, earning her another punch. This one broke her glasses, gashing her nose in the process. She didn’t make a sound. Instead, she turned to wipe her face against her shoulder, leaving a bright swath of blood across the cloth of her kuspuk.

She sat perfectly still, panting, trying to make sense of what was happening around her — and then Proctor ran a hand down Kaylee’s thigh. Eyes flying wild, Christina jerked away from Fico and sprang toward the door.

“You are a dead man!”

Proctor released the girl and smashed Christina in the side of her head with his pistol, knocking her back onto the couch. Fico gave her another cuff across the ear for good measure, but it was a useless blow. She was already unconscious.

“Someone needs to teach these bitches a lesson on how to treat a man,” Fico said, rubbing the back of his hand where it had impacted with her jaw.

Proctor tossed his head in disgust at his partner’s inability to control a prisoner. He was frankly not surprised. The Italian hothead was just the sort of man his boss was looking for — if they could only control him. He was recruited in Kosovo after he’d been fired from another security job, and found a new home with The Oryx Group. It was a private contractor firm specializing in gray-area heavy work in the rough edges of the world.

Ken Proctor’s Special Forces training — if you left out the part about him getting booted for insubordination — made him a natural for Oryx. Fico’s coarse demeanor and general distaste for anyone who didn’t think exactly like he did made it seem like he would be a good attack dog — until his emotions got in the way. Proctor reported the erratic behavior to his superiors after Fico’s hatred of all things female had nearly cost them their last mission in West Africa. The boss pointed out that Oryx was the perfect place for misogynistic killers, reminding Proctor that if they were all well-adjusted family men, they’d be fighting for God and country instead of the almighty dollar. The problem of Fico was shoved back to him as team leader.

Proctor gave the Eskimo girl’s hair a cruel yank, taking out his frustration and trying to put Fico’s ineptness out of his mind.

“You must be losing it,” he said to his partner. “What do you think she weighs? A buck ten soaking wet? Just keep her quiet until we get Quinn, then you can teach her whatever lessons you want.”

Fico ran a hand over the unconscious woman’s knee.

“Get on with it then,” he said. “We’ll be just fine here. I’ll see to this one.”

Proctor got a better grasp on the quivering Kaylee’s hair and dragged her backwards through the front door. Once outside, he stood on the raised porch and pulled the girl in close so she was in front of him. Quinn’s dossier said he’d been a special operator, but that was with the Air Force so there was nothing to worry about. He’d probably get a call on the radio any minute that the guys down at the river had taken care of things. Still, Proctor took the precaution of using the quaking girl as a human shield.

There were two snowmobiles and two pickup trucks in front of the house, but anyone approaching would have to cross fifty meters of open ground before they made it to the vehicles.

Proctor switched on the voice-activated mike clipped to his collar, then pressed the barrel of his pistol to the back of the girl’s head. He hauled her neck back so she had to look up at the sky. Her sobs grew so violent her entire body shook and he found himself holding most of her weight just to keep her on her feet. Proctor groaned inside himself. He’d been a soldier once. How in the world had it come to pulling girls’ hair?

“Shut up!” He yanked her head from side to side, taking his frustration out on her.

“Van, Perkins,” he said, tilting his head enough the mike would pick him up over the stupid girl’s bawling. “Haul ass down to the river and find out what happened. Watch yourselves. I’m sure every house in this shithole town has a gun in it.”

“We’re at the river now,” Perkins came back. “It’s—”

Someone else spoke, causing nothing but a garbled squelch to come across the radio.

“You two stop talking at the same time,” Proctor said. “You’re stepping on each other.”

“Wasn’t Van,” Perkins came back. “He’s standing right beside me.”

“It was me,” another voice carried across the radio, low and slow.

“Quinn?” Proctor pulled the girl closer as insurance. His head snapped around as he scanned the area in front of the house.

“I borrowed Lane’s radio,” the voice said. “He was finished with it.”

“Van… Perkins…” Proctor clenched his teeth. “You two double-time it back here.”

“Too late for that,” the voice said. “I’m here… now.”

“Listen, you son of a bitch,” Proctor spat. He yanked the girl backwards so her entire body arched. “You show yourself or I’ll—”

Kaylee threw her legs out from under her, letting her dead weight yank her out of Proctor’s grasp, completely exposing him to Quinn’s shots. The first round hit him just below the nose, the second, above his left ear as he began the corkscrewing fall peculiar to those who are already dead on their feet.

“I know,” Quinn whispered to himself, mimicking Proctor’s cadence. “‘Show yourself or you’ll kill the girl…’ ” He surveyed the scene for a ten-count before rolling out from under the rusted pickup nearest the house.

Eyes on the front door, he bounded up the steps to put an arm around Kaylee and shoo her quickly off the front porch.

Like any good cop, Ukka was diligent about practicing hostage drills with his family. His wife and each of his children knew that when they heard the word now, they should do their best to drop out of the way and give any rescuer the best possible shot. Kaylee had been a little late on the uptake, but the training and role-play had paid off. When she did move, Quinn had been ready to carry out his part of the bargain.

“Your mom?” he whispered, squeezing the girl’s shoulder, but watching the house.

“That guy hit her really hard.” Great sobs wracked her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe.

“But she was still alive when you left?”

The girl nodded.

“How many in there with her?”

“Just one,” Kaylee sniffed. “The guy who had me called him Fico. He said he’s going to…” She started to cry again. “He’s going to do awful things…”

“Run to your auntie’s house,” Quinn said. “There are more of these guys down at the river and they’re probably coming this way. Work your way around behind the school. That’ll keep you out of their way. I’ll go take care of your mom.”

“Okay.” Kaylee sniffed. “Where’s my dad?”

“He’ll be with me,” Quinn said, as a shattered scream tore from the windows of the Perry home.

Chapter 8

Ronnie Garcia’s group supervisor turned to go, and then spun at the last minute, Colombo-style.

“You know,” Bobby Jeffrey said. “Why don’t you just call it a night? Get out of here. Go home, go to a bar, go for a run or whatever it is you do when you’re not guarding the nation’s secrets.”

Garcia’s heart was in her throat, but she smiled broadly, trying to keep it light. “I’m always guarding the nation’s secrets, Bobby,” she said. “You know that.”

“I’m serious.” Jeffery looked over the top of his wire glasses. He tugged at his tie to loosen it even more than it already was. “They didn’t order me to hold you, so I’m ordering you to haul ass. I’ll talk to this ID guy. You and I can discuss what to do about it in the morning.”

Ronnie took a deep breath. Jeffery had the face and demeanor of a man she could trust, with a reputation as a supervisor who took care of his people. A fifteen-year veteran of the Clandestine Service, he’d been yanked off what had to be a juicy counterterrorism assignment on the Pakistan Desk, and moved to be a group supervisor in Regional and Transnational Issues — Russia and Central Asia — just weeks after the new president took office. It was still important work, but pulling him off the major case was the equivalent of benching him.

A consummate spy, he kept his cards close, even among friends. He’d never say it out loud, but he seemed to know there was a movement against the new administration, and considering Ronnie’s association with the former national security advisor, he was smart enough to know she would be a part of it.

“Okay,” she said. “If you’re going to order me.” She logged out of her computer, then pulled the security ID card out of the slot in her keyboard and looped the lanyard around her neck. It was difficult to look nonchalant with her gut gurgling the way it was. Still, she didn’t want to look as though she’d just been caught looking for evidence that could bring down the presidency. “I’m not going to argue with my boss when he’s trying to get me to leave the office.”

She threw on a thin linen jacket to cover the butt of a Kahr 9MM. The pistol rested in a flat inside-the-pants holster that peeked above her light wool gabardine slacks and pressed against the fabric of a silk blouse. It was small enough that she hardly knew it was there. The light jacket made sure no one else did either. Reaching under her credenza, she grabbed the leather backpack that contained her credentials, some makeup, and most important, her prepaid cell phones. Giving the dial on her desk safe one last spin, she turned to leave.

Jeffrey stepped to the door of her cubicle, blocking her exit. She gave him the most relaxed smile she could muster.

“So.” She batted her eyelashes. “You’ll let me know what’s going on tomorrow?”

“Sure,” he said, “if they don’t cart me off to the gulag.” Jeffrey sighed, stepping out of her way. The lines around his eyes said he was only half joking. “But I have a feeling you already know what they want.”

He touched her shoulder as she slipped past. “Watch yourself, Garcia,” he said.

She gave him a tight chuckle. “Relax, Bobby. You act like you’re sending me on some suicide mission.”

Jeffery opened his mouth to speak. Then, thinking better of it, he turned back to his office door.

Ronnie Garcia’s cubicle was located in the OHB, or Old Headquarters Building, on the grounds of the George Bush Center for Intelligence. It was the iconic CIA building, made famous in movies and spy books with its huge seal of eagle, shield, and compass on the granite floor, portraits of past directors, and the memorial wall to fallen agents. Having patrolled these halls for years as a uniformed CIA security police officer, Garcia was intimately familiar with every inch of the entire campus. A relatively fast-rising star only months before, she was still low on the general pecking order when it came to seniority in the Clandestine Service and had to park in the hinterlands of the sprawling, mall-like parking lot to the north of the OHB. It was interesting to her that the closer spots were already vacant and the farther she walked — out to where the worker bees parked — the more cars were still in the lot.

She walked fast, low heels clicking on the warm pavement, but not so fast that she would look like she was fleeing the scene of a crime.

It was hot for June, not as humid as it would get later in the summer, but plenty uncomfortable for a girl who had to wear a jacket because of her firearm. Still, it was better than the uniform and ballistic vest she had to wear in her previous job. She pushed the auto-start button on her key fob. A half block away, wedged between a Lexus sedan and a beater Subaru, her black Impala flashed, and then roared to life.

“That’s pretty smart,” a male voice said from behind her. “Start it from a distance to check for an explosive device.”

Ronnie turned to see a man she didn’t recognize leaning against the hood of a dark blue Jeep Cherokee. He was tall, thick boned enough that he might have played college ball three decades before when he’d been in college.

“My mechanic told me it’s good for the engine to let it run,” she said, looking the man up and down. She didn’t recognize him. And while she didn’t know everyone at Langley, years in uniform at her previous job made her aware of most of faces that belonged.

“Still pretty smart,” the man said. “Unless someone rigs a tremble switch or pressure device under your seat — or, heaven forbid, has a radio detonator—”

He looked tall, even lounging against the Jeep — Ronnie guessed around six-four. He wore a gray off-the-rack suit that was rumpled as if he’d lived in it for three days in a row, but his shoes were polished to a high, military gloss. Dark Oakley Half Jacket shades perched on top of dirty blond hair that was long enough to be tousled by the breeze.

Ronnie gave him a suit-yourself shrug and walked on toward her car. It was broad daylight and she had been through enough violent confrontations that it took more than some creepy guy in a bad suit to scare her. Still, she was realistic and felt happy to feel the tiny Kahr under her jacket. A violent encounter wasn’t out of the question, even in the CIA parking lot.

“Miss Garcia,” the man said when she’d made it two steps past, “I wonder if I could have a word.”

Ronnie spun, staring him down.

“How do you know my name?”

He pushed away from the Jeep and held up a black leather credential case, open to reveal a frowning photo of him wearing what looked to be the same wrinkled suit.

“Glen Walter,” he said. “Internal Defense.” Ronnie caught the shadow of a sidearm on his right hip inside the suit jacket when he returned the credential case to his breast pocket. He smiled. “I actually came here to see you.”

Ronnie checked her watch, swallowing back the surprise that this man had known exactly where she parked and when she would be walking to her car. He was IDTF all right. “Well, Mr. Walters, it’s after five. You caught me on my way home.”

“It’s Walter,” the man said. “No s.”

“Whatever.” Ronnie shrugged again. “Anyway, I’m on my way home. This is a weird time for a meeting.”

“I suppose,” Walter said, his face holding a crooked half smile. “But it’s important to take care of some things right when they come up. Don’t you think?”

There was a decided hint of the South in his voice. Maybe one of the Carolinas, Ronnie thought. He had an overly sweet way of talking that seemed calculated to put her off balance.

“Okay…” She half expected him to pull out a silenced pistol and try to assassinate her. “How about you get to the point then,” she said, not one to dance around a matter for any length of time. “Because I’ve had a long crappy day.”

“Sure.” Walter shrugged, leaning sideways on the Jeep again and folding his hands. “I can appreciate that. How about I save us both a lot of time and tell you how this will go. I’m going to ask you a couple of very specific questions — for the record. I’m pretty sure you’ll refuse to answer them, or, if you do, your answers will be a pack of lies. After you lie to my face, I’ll read you a short statement from the Espionage Act, you know, 18 USC Title—”

“I’m familiar with the Espionage Act,” Garcia said. Smugness was a quality she could not abide, even for a minute, from a man with the authority to arrest her on the spot.

“I’ll just bet you are,” Walter said. “Anywaaaay…” He drew the word out as if to chastise her for the interruption. “After I admonish you about your responsibility regarding the act, I’ll ask you those same little questions one more time. You’ll look me right in the eye and lie… again.” He gave a halfhearted shrug, still leaning against the Jeep. “And we’ll be right back to where we—”

“Maldita sea!” Ronnie cut him off with her go-to Cuban curse before she lost all semblance of self-control. “Look, Mr. Walters, if this is about Jericho Quinn, I’ve already told investigators from the US Marshals and the FBI everything I know.”

“It’s Walter, no s,” he said. “And just like I predicted, there comes your first lie.”

“We are done here.” Ronnie turned to walk to her car.

“We may be done here, Miss Garcia,” Walter said, again much too smugly for Ronnie. “But we’re not done. I wouldn’t be leaving town anytime soon.”

Ronnie spun. “I don’t know what it is you think you know—”

“That’s true.” Walter smiled his half smile, cutting her off. “You don’t know what I know. Anyway, as you said, we’re done here.”

Agent Walter stood up from the Jeep. He gave a flip of his hand, as if he was bored with the conversation, and summoned a black Town Car that had been waiting down the aisle. A moment later, he was gone, leaving Garcia standing alone in the parking lot under a hot evening sun, wondering how much this guy did know about what she was doing for Jericho Quinn.

Chapter 9

Quinn was moving before the scream trailed away into a mournful, gurgling cough. He stepped over Proctor’s lifeless body and shoved the front door open at the same instant Ukka charged in from the back hallway.

Both men stopped in their tracks at what they saw.

A squat contractor with dark curly hair lay on his back, glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling. The dead might leak, but they didn’t bleed very long, and the growing pool of blood on the living room floor revealed he’d not been dead more than a few seconds. Ukka’s wife, Christina, stood over him, a bloody skinning knife in her hand. A broken piece of what looked like ivory or bone, about the size of a child’s baseball bat, lay on the ground beside the man’s demolished skull. It was an oosik, the penis bone of a walrus, often found as decoration in Alaska homes. Christina had evidently used it to cave in the face of her attacker before grabbing a skinning knife off the table and virtually gutting him.

The mournful scream Quinn heard had been that of the dying man.

Ukka put a big arm around his wife and gently took the knife out of her hand.

“You okay?”

“I smacked him in the face with the oosik,” Christina said, small shoulders trembling. She looked up at him weakly, fighting shock.

“I know you did, sweetheart,” Ukka said, shooting a glance at Quinn. “He was a bad man. You did the right thing.”

Fico’s sidearm lay on the ground beside him. He was too far gone to lift it, but Quinn kicked it out of the way just in case.

A strained voice crackled over the radio. It was Perkins, one of the men who’d gone to scout the river.

“How about a SITREP up there?”

Quinn started to answer, but decided against it, listening instead.

“Proctor!” the voice called again. “What’s going on? We heard shots.”

There was a long pause, followed by another voice, presumably the pilot, letting them know he was coming to their location, down by the fishery plant. The man called Perkins cut him off, ordering radio silence.

Quinn sighed. It was too late for that. He had what he needed to know.

Ukka’s cell phone began to ring. He listened for a few moments, a smile spreading over his wide face as he ended the call.

“Chantelle says there’s nobody left to guard the plane.”

Quinn checked the magazine on the MP7 while he thought. “I don’t think these guys are actually affiliated with any specific agency. None of them have badges or any kind of credential — but they still have the backing of the government. If any of them make it out of here, he’ll come back with reinforcements and slaughter the whole village. It won’t matter to them that I’m not here.”

Ukka’s daughter Kaylee had ignored the direction to go to her auntie’s house. Unable to leave with the sound of the scream, she’d come in behind Quinn and now sat on the couch, helping to console her mother.

Ukka pulled Quinn to the side so his wife and youngest daughter couldn’t hear. “It’s all good, man,” he said. “I had Chantelle do some work on the plane. If they try and make a run for it, they’ll never get off the ground. If we take care of them somewhere else, she’ll torch the plane at the end of the runway.” He waved his hand as if saying good-bye. “No one’s getting back to call in the cavalry.”

“That might work,” Quinn said, glancing at the couch. He nodded at the two women in the room. “Christina should probably see a doctor. And Kaylee might need a counselor after what these guys just put her through.”

“All my girls are tundra tough.” Ukka gave a solemn nod. “But you’re right. This is a lot to process. I’m proud of Christina, though. Not a good idea to cross an Eskimo woman when she’s protecting her home.”

“Or any woman,” Quinn said, thinking of his ex-wife and of Ronnie Garcia, wondering what they would do in such a situation.

“Maybe,” Ukka said. “But most women don’t know their way around a skinning knife like my wife does.” He grinned. “Or a walrus pecker…”

“That’s so wrong,” Quinn sighed. He let the MP7 fall against the sling at his chest and lifted the curtain to peer out the window at the vacant dirt street in front of the Perry house. “We better get going,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and Alaska will kill these guys.”

Chapter 10

The new president was a single man and, as such, had no one to push for the redecoration of the White House. Apart from a new leather desk chair and a couple of paintings staffers had spirited away from the National Gallery, the Oval Office was exactly as it had been under President Clark. Greens and whites ruled the day, as did paintings of Teddy Roosevelt and expansive Western scenes by the likes of George Catlin and John Mix Stanley. The former first lady had left everything behind, including the oppressive ghost of her dead husband that seemed to whisper in the halls to West Wing staffers that something was not quite right in the house.

Now, sprawling over the Oval Office furniture like the stain that he was, President Hartman Drake didn’t help matters at all.

McKeon stood adjacent to the President against the wall, next to the Remington Rough Rider bronze. He used long, slender fingers to rub exhausted eyes as he tried to clear the image of this idiot out of his mind.

Drake sat with his feet propped up on the Resolute Desk, leaning back in a plush button-leather chair. He cradled his head in his hands as if he owned the world — which, in fact, he did. His trademark bowtie, this one a conservative red-and-black stripe, hung open. His collar was still buttoned, as if everyone at the meeting had surprised him in the middle of changing clothes.

Across the room, Kurt Bodington, the director of the FBI, sat on one of the green sofas. He leaned forward with his elbows on both knees as if he was on the toilet rather than sitting in the Oval Office. Virginia Ross, the director of the CIA, sat beside him. Her ankles were crossed, her hands rested in her lap, like she was posing for a photo. More pear than hourglass, she’d recently lost a considerable amount of weight and wore clothes that were a size too large. The lacy cuffs of a white blouse hung from the sleeves of a voluminous blue suit that had once strained to keep her contained.

It had been obvious from the time McKeon and Drake took office that neither of these directors was particularly effective in their respective positions. And that was the only reason they were still in place.

A Japanese woman stood on the other side of the door from McKeon, hands folded at her lap. Her name was Ran. Japanese for orchid, it was pronounced to rhyme with the American name Ron but with a hard r, making it sound more like Lon or Don. In her early twenties, she had flawlessly smooth skin and a quiet presence that reached out into the room, touching anyone who dared look in her direction. She wore a cream-colored long sleeve blouse, unbuttoned enough to reveal the edge of a dark tattoo at her breast. McKeon knew firsthand that there were many more tattoos where that one came from. Director Bodington had unwisely attempted to shake her hand when he’d come in, but Ross had veered away from her as if she were poison — which was not far off. She worked as an aide — among other things — for McKeon and, to his wife’s chagrin, rarely left his side.

“Chris Clark left me a real mess,” Drake said, staring absentmindedly at his reflection in the windows that overlooked the Rose Garden. The man couldn’t walk past a silver tea set without stopping to admire his physique. “I need to know what Winfield Palmer had going with him.”

Bodington gave a concerned nod, as if he understood the gravity of the situation. He liked to paint himself as a big-picture man, but McKeon saw him as more of a paint-by-the-numbers stooge. The director of the most advanced law enforcement agency in the world was happy to do just what he was told and never dared to go outside the lines.

Virginia Ross spoke first.

“The national security advisor’s communications to the president would be privileged,” she said. “But I’m sure he left files. With the tragedy, it would be expected he’d turn them over to you for a seamless transition.”

Nearly half a year after the assassination of both President Chris Clark and Vice President Bob Hughes during the last State of the Union address, people simply called it “the tragedy.”

Unwilling to give his counterpart from the CIA too much floor time, Bodington spoke up before Ross could say more. “I have to be honest, Mr. President,” he said. “I never did understand the absolute power President Clark gave to Winfield Palmer. Sure, they were friends from their days at West Point, but the man seemed to have carte blanche in the intelligence community. He could override anyone and everyone with his special projects. The President took virtually every matter of state to the man as if he were some oracle or something.”

“They were friends, Kurt,” Director Ross said. “Surely even you can understand what that would mean.”

Bodington gave her a withering stare, then half turned in his seat, distancing himself.

“I know he had a pretty large network of agents working for him,” he said. “Half the time, they did little but get in the way of my people.”

“Right,” Drake said. “And we know at least one member of that network tried to kill me in Las Vegas.” He steepled his fingers under his chin, something McKeon had never seen him do until he’d become president. It looked asinine when someone like Drake did it, like he was trying to shoot himself under the chin — which, McKeon couldn’t help but think, was not an entirely bad idea.

“We believe that to be correct,” Bodington said, smugly like one child telling on another to his teacher. “Facial recognition from the Vegas security videos shows it was Jericho Quinn, an agent with Air Force OSI. He’s also wanted for the brutal murder of a Fairfax County police officer. He ran with a big Marine named Thibeau or something.”

“Thibodaux,” McKeon interjected. “Your report says Jacques Thibodaux.”

“Right.” Bodington turned to Virginia Ross. “And some Mexican girl from your shop.”

“She’s from Cuba.” Ross nodded. “I can’t speak for Quinn or the Marine, but Veronica Garcia is a good one. I wasn’t certain at first, but her heroism saved a lot of lives last year during the shooting at Langley.”

Bodington steered the conversation back to Palmer.

“He had quite a few working for him that we wouldn’t know about, but it seemed to me he was grabbing people from other agencies and repurposing them for his missions. No doubt without any oversight from Congress. I’ve seen him with agents from the Secret Service, a couple besides Quinn from Air Force OSI, and several CIA types.”

“But no one from the FBI?”

“Thankfully, no, Mr. President.” Bodington nodded. “My agents have more sense than that.”

Virginia Ross cleared her throat. “I have to say, Mr. President.” She shook her head as if to try to hold back some comment that she couldn’t quite contain. “I’ve already stated my opinion regarding Garcia. Though I have observed Winfield Palmer to be a steamroller with his programs — and often arrogant to the extreme — I have never known him to be anything less than a patriot. To think that he might be behind these attacks is, in my opinion, unthinkable.” She scooted forward to the edge of her seat and leaned in toward the Resolute Desk. “Mr. President, I would suggest a small task force, perhaps some of my agents, and some from Kurt’s shop. I am not privy to all the details regarding the shooting of the poor Fairfax County officer, but I am aware that it’s not a forgone conclusion Agent Quinn is the shooter. There seem to be numerous mitigating—”

“We’re not holding court here,” McKeon cut her off. “I’m sure that, as with most issues, there are multiple layers to everything that has happened over the last few months. But what we must not forget is that there are yet moles within the government and it is imperative to the President that we root them out immediately.”

“Thank you, Lee,” Drake said, almost dismissively. McKeon would have to talk to him about that. “I’d like each of you prepare a list of everyone you’ve ever seen with Winfield Palmer.” He raised an eyebrow at Virginia Ross. “And I’m not interested in your opinions. I just want names.”

“That bitch has flown straight off the reservation,” Drake said after the two directors had gone. “I thought she was one we could trust to toe the line — if only out of self-preservation.”

“As did I.” McKeon nodded. “But that does not appear to be the case. We should start thinking about a suitable replacement.”

The Japanese woman stood stoically at her post along the wall.

“She seemed like such an empty suit,” Drake went on. “What do you think prompted her little show of team spirit for Palmer?”

“Integrity, I’d imagine,” McKeon said.

“Well,” Drake said, “we can’t have that screwing up our plans. What’s your take on the Uyghur prisoners? Do you think turning them over to Pakistan will be enough to push Chen Min over the edge?”

“I do,” McKeon said. He shot a glance at Ran, who rolled her eyes. She could not stand Hartman Drake and begged McKeon to let her kill the man every night when they went to bed. “We cannot be too brash.”

McKeon knew his words were falling on deaf ears. Drake was the very picture of brash. Everything he did was flamboyant, from his colorful bowties to his firebrand speeches. McKeon’s biological father had dreamed of the day when one of his children — or the children he’d placed in positions of power — made it to the White House. It had taken years of patience and planning to make it happen. But it would take much more patience and planning to make it worthwhile. A sitting president, even one bent on the fall of the United States, had to work slowly. He could not, for instance, just hand the bomb to Iran, normalize relations with North Korea — or declare war on China. Everything had to appear to come from the outside. If he moved too quickly or acted outside the apparent best interest of the nation, there were still plenty of wary members of Congress who would bring impeachment charges in a heartbeat.

No, there were better ways to bring down a government, insidious ways that would see the American public clamoring for — even demanding — the very actions that would bring about their own destruction.

“Chen Min will rise to the bait. There is no doubt of that.” McKeon took a deep breath, too fatigued to rehash things they’d discussed ad nauseam. “Ranjhani’s plan will help us keep up the anti-China rhetoric with the public.”

“Another bomb.” Drake snorted, his dismissive tone rising to the surface again. His tone made McKeon consider letting Ran have her way. But he needed the imbecile for a while longer.

“A bomb, indeed,” McKeon said. “But not just any bomb. A simple explosion destroys only steel and bone. My father was a brilliant man. He knew that America was strong enough to fend off any outside encroachment of Islam. We have seen how good this country is at stopping attack after attack. But my father knew, and stated many times, when this country falls, it will be because it rips itself to pieces from within.”

Drake laughed to himself, as if he’d just thought of something funny. His feet slid off the desk and fell to the floor. Turning slightly, he took a moment to check out the reflection of his shoulders in the Rose Garden window. “I think my biceps might be shrinking. I have got to get down to the gym.” He glanced up. “Anyway, good thing we’re keeping an eye on Virginia Ross. We do have eyes on her, don’t we?”

“Yes,” McKeon said, suddenly more tired than he had ever been. With a partner like Drake, he might as well be doing this alone. “We have eyes on everyone we know of who had a relationship to Winfield Palmer. But the time for watching is over.”

“Damn, Lee.” Drake gave him a condescending grimace. “I’m surprised you ever got elected to public office. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you have a creepy way of saying things?” He grabbed a gym bag from under the desk and stopped to look at the Vice President. “Every time you talk about this thing we’re doing, I expect you to follow up with an evil laugh. ‘The time for watching is over… Bwahahahahah.’ I mean, shit, give me a break…”

Ran tensed at the insult. She took a half step forward. Thick veins throbbed at the base of her neck. Drake was so caught up in his own joke that he didn’t notice how close he was to dying. McKeon gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, stopping her. He mouthed the word soon as the President continued his mock laughter and walked past the Secret Service agent posted outside the door.

Chapter 11

Kim and Mattie Quinn made the perfect mother-daughter pair. Both wore blue ALASKA GROWN T-shirts and denim shorts. Their hair styled in classy, off-the-shoulder updos, the two were virtual twins but for the fact that Kim was a blonde and Mattie had coal-black curls like her father. Mattie also happened to have two working legs, where her mother sported a metal prosthetic limb where her left leg had been amputated above the knee. She was back to using a cane again for a few days while she grew accustomed to the newly fitted prosthetic.

Five months after a sniper’s bullet that was meant for Mattie had torn through her thigh, Kim knew that she had more swagger with one leg than she’d ever had with two.

Of course, it hadn’t started out that way. When she’d first come out of anesthesia after surgery, the look on Jericho’s face had told her the leg was gone. She’d hated him in that moment, a difficult thing to do with Jericho, though she didn’t let him know that. Considering the sort of work he did, it was not a hard case to make that her ex-husband was responsible for bringing the assassin’s bullet ripping into their family. But Kim knew that life was much more complicated than that.

Despair and grief over the loss of her leg was compounded by the fact that she’d chased Jericho away with the lines she’d drawn and then dared him not to cross. Neither of them had ever been good with ultimatums — but she’d given them anyway. For a week after the surgery, she’d felt absolutely alone and feared that without two good legs, she’d never be attractive to any man, let alone Jericho. It didn’t really matter. She’d kicked him out, driven him away with her wild fears about him getting killed. In her quiet, solitary moments, she told herself it would be better to have a little of him, than none at all — that Mattie deserved to have a father, and she deserved to have at least some semblance of a husband, even if he was gone more than half the time to godforsaken hellholes where everyone wanted to kill him. At least then, she had been able to call him hers. But then, he’d come around and her stubborn streak would rise up like some kind of bitchy dragon lady that she couldn’t control — sending him retreating back into the arms of his new girlfriend. It didn’t matter now.

Kim had just started to come to grips with that when the phantom pains began. They roared in like a river of molten lava, searing the bones of her missing limb and peeling back the toenails of the foot that was no longer even there. The docs had given her something to quiet the nerves and, in time, the phantom pain had retreated, but never quite disappeared.

Kim worked her butt off in rehab, learning how to walk on her new leg, enduring hours of painful stretching therapy. She walked for miles around the halls of the hospital, first with, then without the assistance of a cane.

Jericho was apparently good friends with the former national security advisor and Mr. Palmer saw to it that she had the finest in aftercare for an amputee. Sadly, years of war ensured that military hospitals received a great deal of experience in replacing lost limbs. At first, Kimberly Quinn had been welcomed at Walter Reed because she was a friend of the White House. Later, after the horrible accusations against Jericho, it seemed like the new administration wanted her there so they could keep an eye on her. She had to make this “new normal,” as they called it, work for her before she could do anything.

Surrounded by servicewomen who’d had bits and pieces of themselves blown off in war, Kim had remained quiet about how she’d lost the leg. All the other patients in her ward had lost limbs as a result of roadside bombs or mortar attacks. She’d always felt a certain amount of pride at being married — at least for a time — to a member of the military. Now, for the first time in her life, Kim found herself truly embarrassed that she was not herself a veteran wounded in the service of her country. She’d been shot at a wedding, for crying out loud. For weeks, she didn’t talk to anyone but her roommate, a female US Army corporal named Rochelle, who’d lost both legs in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

Then, a month after the shooting, Rochelle and four of her girlfriends, all amputees, cornered Kim in the gym with a dozen roses and a Wounded Warrior challenge coin. Kim had cried, protesting that she didn’t deserve to be grouped with these brave women.

“Are you kidding me?” Rochelle had said, standing there on her twin prosthetic legs. “You took a bullet intended for your own kid. You’re a wounded warrior if ever one wore a skirt. So strut that leg proudly. Wear shorts, go dancing, kick ass. I’m sure going to.”

The love and companionship of those women was like nothing Kim had ever experienced. More even than the surgery, they had saved her life.

They’d given her the confidence to get out, to do things like go shopping with her daughter.

Mattie ran ahead, completely unbothered by the shiny stainless-steel “leg” that stuck out from the hem of her mother’s denim shorts. She was happy to go to the mall, but happier still to be out with her mom. She darted back to hold Kim’s hand and check on her every few seconds. They’d returned from Alaska so Kim could spend the last two weeks at Walter Reed, being fitted for her new, computerized prosthetic leg. This one adjusted to her changes in gait as many as fifty times per second. Kim had been so busy with doctors’ appointments and physical therapy that this was their first day out together since coming back to DC.

“How about some supper at Johnny Rockets?” Kim asked, pointing Mattie toward the escalator around the corner from the Apple Store where they’d just spent the last hour picking out the perfect case for Mattie’s iPod.

“That sounds great, Mom,” Mattie said, skipping around the corner ahead. It did Kim’s heart good that her daughter didn’t try to coddle her — even if the extra exertion caused her to sweat through the armpits of her T-shirt. Her physical therapist had warned her that a prosthetic for an AK — above the knee — amputation would use far more energy than a normal leg. That, combined with the body’s loss of all the pores on the missing limb, meant the rest of her was likely to perspire more in an effort to regulate her temperature. The other girls in her ward called it “glistening.”

Mattie stopped in her tracks as soon as they’d rounded the corner.

“I forgot my new shirt at the Apple Store,” she gasped. Stricken, she grabbed Kim’s hand and spun her around, oblivious to how tricky such a move was on a prosthetic leg.

“Are you sure it was there?” Kim asked. “Maybe you left it somewhere else.”

“No.” Mattie shook her head. “I’m sure I had it there. We have to go and get it.” She clutched Kim by the hand and led her back the way they’d come, rounding a square support pillar and nearly running headlong into a startled man walking directly toward them.

He was about Kim’s age, in his mid-thirties, with a sullen flap of blond hair and an intense look she recognized from her ex-husband. He wore faded jeans and an unremarkable button-up shirt with short sleeves — loose, like the kind Jericho always wore to hide his gun. And this was the fifth time she’d seen him since they’d been in the mall. She felt a twinge of fear rising up in her stomach. Maybe living with Jericho for all those years had made her paranoid, but either this guy had the same taste in shopping as a seven-year-old girl, or he was following them.

Chapter 12

“Two of them are holed up in the Kwikpac building.” Ukka did a quick peek around the corner of the weathered plywood fuel shed where he and Quinn were hidden.

Seventy-five meters away, the image of a weatherworn clapboard building ghosted through the curtains of drizzle and fog. It lay at the base of the village on a narrow spit of gravel that made it easier for boats to come up on the riverside and offload their commercial catch. The icy winds that shrieked off the frozen Yukon through the long winters made it impossible to keep paint on any of the buildings in Mountain Village. The blue splotches the fish buyers had slapped on their building the previous summer were now little more than a scoured memory.

According to Ukka’s cousin, two of the contractors had grabbed a young schoolteacher named April John to use as a hostage when they’d come up from the river and dragged her into the fish plant.

While Ukka kept an eye on the Kwikpac building, Quinn lay on his belly, facing the opposite direction, making certain they weren’t ambushed by the still unaccounted-for pilot.

Ukka wiped the rainwater off his round face. “I think I saw some movement through the front window. It’s tough to tell in this fog.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “Use those hunter’s eyes of yours to watch our six for a minute. If there are only two accounted for in there, we still have a variable out here.” He maneuvered around so he could get a look at the fish house while Ukka took up the job of rear guard.

“Tell me more about April John,” Quinn said, watching the wide gray ribbon of the Yukon tumble along behind the Kwikpac building. He’d met her a couple of times over the last few months and knew she worked at the school. A sturdy-looking girl, she’d taken a moose during a late winter hunt that had filled the larders of a couple of village elders — but that didn’t mean she was equipped to handle being a hostage.

“She’s the kind of girl who’d beat a guy to death with a walrus pecker if he crossed her,” Ukka said. “She’ll not be one to boohoo to her captors, if that’s what you mean. They’ll have to tie her up or knock her out to keep her from fighting.”

“Good.” Quinn gritted his teeth, thinking through his options. “That gives her a chance—”

“Wait!” Ukka hissed, his voice a tense whisper. “I got movement five houses up from the fish plant. Looks like a boot sticking out from under Myrna Tomaganuk’s house. I’ll lay odds it’s the pilot.” State policy said village public safety officers were supposed to be unarmed, but he’d grabbed his favorite hunting rifle before leaving his house. It was a Winchester Model 70 chambered in 30.06. It was battered, and even a little rusty around the base of the Leopold 3X9 scope, but Quinn had seen the man use it to shoot a moose in the eye at over a hundred yards.

Quinn glanced down at the submachine gun in his hands. He had two extra magazines in his pocket and the Severance sheathed on his hip. These guys had obviously done their research and believed he’d come to the hostage. With two of the contractors barricaded with their backs to the river and the third hiding under Tomaganuk’s home, ready to blow his brains out when he approached, a frontal assault was impractical.

The nearest armed backup were the Alaska State Troopers stationed in Saint Mary’s, nearly an hour away by truck over a bumpy, pothole-filled road. It was more swamp than road this time of year. Even if they knew what was going on, the troopers would never get there in time to help. In some ways, the absence of law enforcement made Quinn’s next moves that much less difficult.

“Okay,” Quinn said a moment later, mulling through the specifics of his plan. “You know that cute Samoan girl from Mountain View you used to horse around with back in high school?”

Ukka looked at Quinn as if he’d lost his mind. “Yeah, but I don’t see—”

“Remember how you had to sneak out of her bedroom window and tiptoe out the back alley to get past her father and two humongous brothers to keep them from killing you?”

Ukka groaned. “I sure do.”

“Think you can pull off that same level of stealth and work your way over to Myrna’s house? I need you to take care of the number three guy.”

Ukka nodded. “I can shoot his nose hairs off if you want me to,” he said.

“Outstanding.” Quinn had seen the big Eskimo in enough sticky situations to know he could stalk up to a dozing grizzly if the situation warranted.

Quinn flicked open his ZT folding knife and reached for a length of water hose coiled around an old truck wheel that was bolted to the rear of the fuel shed. He cut a piece about a foot long, then returned the ZT to his pocket before blowing into the tube to make certain it was free of obstructions.

“What the hell kind of plan are you pondering here?” Ukka’s cockeyed grimace was clear evidence of his doubts. “Looks like you’ve decided to attack them with a blowgun.”

Quinn tucked the length of hose in his waistband behind his back. He tapped the magazines in his pocket, then the Severance in the sheath at his hip before taking up the MP7 again. “It’s okay if you make a little noise when you take out the pilot,” Quinn said. “In fact, I need those other two to be looking in that direction in five minutes. Can you do that?”

“Five minutes?” Ukka said, still shaking his head slowly. He peered down at Quinn through narrowed eyes.

Quinn pointed a knife hand toward a ratty copse of willows fifty meters upriver from the fish house. “River’s moving fast,” he said. “I should be able to drift down there in much less time than that, but you better give me five minutes to make sure I’m up on the back dock and ready to go.”

Ukka’s mouth hung open. “You’re going to swim down the Yukon River breathing through a piece of garden hose?”

“Float would be more correct,” Quinn said. “You don’t swim in the Yukon.”

“No shit.” Ukka rolled his eyes.

“I’m open to better ideas,” Quinn said, not relishing the thought of the frigid water.

Ukka sat completely still, just looking at him. Over the last five months in the village, Quinn had learned that Eskimos did a lot of talking using nothing but their eyes — and Ukka’s eyes said Quinn had gone completely insane. Finally, the big man spoke.

“I’m getting cold standing out here in the rain,” he said, “and I’m a damn Eskimo. You know that water was ice a couple of weeks ago, right?”

“I know,” Quinn said.

“You’ll be lucky if your muscles aren’t too cramped to hold a gun after you been in the river two minutes — let alone fight those other guys. And that’s if the current doesn’t carry you all the way down to Alakanuk.”

Quinn shrugged. “Like I said, I’m open to another suggestion. But it better be quick because these guys seem to be pretty rough on their hostages.”

“Just go then,” Ukka snapped.

“Outstanding.” Quinn put a hand on his shoulder. “Start shooting in five minutes. I’ll see you inside the Kwikpac in six.”

Waves of heavy fog drifted in from the north, providing intermittent concealment as Quinn worked his way along the muddy road behind a row of gray wooden shacks, broken snow machines, and four-wheelers. Everyone had sought shelter inside when they’d realized what the government contractors were up to. Faces pressed against foggy glass windows, wide brown eyes flicking messages from stoic faces as they wished him luck. Village dogs, chained to plastic barrels or old vehicles, barked from the stress in the air, but stopped when they recognized Quinn as a regular.

Cresting a small hill on the road that led out to the airport, Quinn figured he’d made it far enough past Myrna Tomaganuk’s house that the pilot hiding beneath it wouldn’t be able to see him. Stooped at the waist, he moved quickly in a diagonal line down the gravel bank toward the churning water of the Yukon. The area on the upriver side of the willows was steep and he slid the last ten feet as if standing on ball bearings, landing with a splash in the sloppy gravel soup where current ate away at the bank. June in western Alaska was equivalent to spring in the lower forty-eight. A stiff breeze that had felt bracing while they’d been out fishing, now whipped the surface of the river into a frothy chocolate chop. Just three weeks before the area had been a sheet of solid ice. Shattered logs, some as long as a tractor-trailer, littered the river’s edge. Great portions of land from upriver, complete with Medusa-like root-balls and moss-covered bank had been scoured away by slabs of ice during the recent breakup and bobbed in the eddies like small islands.

Quinn kicked off the rubber boots and stashed them in the willows, hoping he’d be alive to come back and get them later. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t worried about the Xtra Tuffs dragging him to the bottom. In calm water, they would have merely filled and become neutrally buoyant. But the Yukon was anything but calm, so the boots would yank him around as they worked with the current like small parachutes around his feet — likely pulling him to the middle of the river and a watery grave.

The lower Yukon had seen three drowning deaths since breakup in this season alone. Two were men out getting logs and one was a little girl from Emmonak, another Eskimo village downriver. Like many of the children in bush Alaska, she’d lived all of her nine years surrounded by lakes and streams and one of the largest rivers in the world, but had never learned how to swim. The bodies of all three had been carried off by the current to be found hung up on some snag, miles away from where they’d drowned. It was foolish, he knew, but though Quinn didn’t fear death, it filled him with a certain cold dread that his bloated corpse would be tossed around by a river, then impaled on a bunch of deadfall for days while the ravens pecked away. He shook off the thought. Picturing his own death was a bad start to any operation.

He wished he’d had on his hiking boots. The Lowas might have slowed down his kicking ability underwater, but he’d spent many hours swimming in boots during training and as a combat rescue officer, or CRO, in an earlier Air Force life. And when he reached the fish house, a fight in boots would certainly be more pleasant than one in bare feet — but it couldn’t be helped.

His teeth already chattered from the effects of near constant adrenaline coupled with the chill of a nonstop drizzle. Barefoot and dressed only in his long merino wool sweater and khaki pants, he waded quickly into the water with the length of hose clutched in his hand. Employing the MP7 while navigating the Yukon’s persistent current would be foolhardy, so he left it slung over his back to keep the sling from becoming tangled with any submerged deadfall and debris.

Frigid water lapped at his belly, driving the air from his lungs as surely as a hammer to his chest — but easing the ever-present ache in his kidney. He folded his arms tight and clenched his muscles, much like the grunt of the Hick maneuver fighter pilots used to counteract the effects of g-forces in flight. Compressing blood to the core of his body around his vital organs, he gave his system a quick five count to get over the initial shock of the cold.

With water temperatures just fifteen degrees above freezing, Quinn figured he had maybe ten minutes before his hands began to cramp into unusable claws. The fish house was a little over half a football field away. Ventilating with a couple of deep breaths, Quinn slipped noiselessly into the swirling currents, his body a toothpick in the jaws of the mighty Yukon.

He floated more than swam, navigating with just his head above the water, conserving energy as best he could, tensing to keep blood and vital warmth in his core. Rather than fighting the unyielding grip of the huge river, he used small strokes, adjusting his direction of travel instead of trying to make speed. The current was far faster than he could possibly swim and his puny efforts would do nothing but make him tired and colder than he already was. Quinn had learned as a small boy that, in the wilderness, a man is merely a hairless, clawless bear — weak and inconsequential without his wits. There was nothing like floating nearly naked in a river the size of the Yukon to drive that point home.

Roughly two minutes after entering the river, Quinn rounded the new barge docks and leaned toward the bank. Thirty seconds later, he grabbed the transom of an aluminum skiff that was tethered alongside the fish house.

Rain pattered on the surface of the river.

Arms shaking with cold, Quinn tucked the length of hose back into his belt in case he was discovered and needed it to slip away underwater. He grabbed the wooden rungs of the newly built two-by-four ladder on the wooden dock that ran the length of the Kwikpac building, adjacent to the skiff. Still half in, half out of the water, he waited, his head just below the bottom of the dock. Another minute of intense shivering and Quinn wondered if he’d even be able to haul himself up the ladder at all, let alone fight.

Water dripped from his eyes as he glanced down at the Tag Aquaracer on his wrist. Six minutes since he’d left the fuel shed. He felt sure the men in the building directly above him would be able to hear his chattering teeth, even over the constant slosh of the river. Clenching his jaws in an effort to stop the noise, he prayed for Ukka to start shooting soon.

Chapter 13

The humorless government machine that was TSA prodded Tang along as it had his wife, demanding he stand just so in order to scan his body for weapons. He had no doubt that the chemical sensors would scan his camera bag, but the portion of the device he carried was small and innocuous by itself — barely five ounces of material.

He made it through security with little more than a condescending nod from the harried TSA officers.

Ma Zhen called their plan the Honey Plot, pointing out that it took twelve bees, each bringing in a small droplet of nectar at a time, to produce one teaspoon of honey. Like Tang, Ma was Hui — Muslim Chinese. He was also a gifted bomb maker.

The five members of Tang’s group would each pass through security with only a small portion of the device. That meant five chances for discovery, but the minuscule amount of contraband made the odds that any individual would be caught extremely low.

Tang and Ma Zhen and a half-Uyghur man named Hu all carried PETN, a powerful, but low-vapor explosive secreted away in specialized Ni-Cad camcorder batteries. The batteries had been sealed by the man from Pakistan to Ma Zhen’s specifications. Earlier that day, they had laid out all the components on the bed at the hotel. Tang had marveled at the workmanship of the batteries. They even had enough juice to power the camera for a few minutes if officials wanted to make certain they were operable. These were not batteries from some backroom workshop. The man from Pakistan had contacts in the manufacturing company or possibly even a government. They had now proven they could hide small quantities of PETN and were certainly good enough to conceal the powdered metal carried by Gao Jianguo, the fifth and final member of the team. He was a thuggish brute with a sloping forehead that hinted at the diminished capacity of his brain. He spoke of jihad in vague terms that made Tang wonder if he even knew what the word meant.

Tang stopped just past the screening checkpoint long enough to put on his belt and replace his wallet and wristwatch. A hundred feet from the gate, he could see the forlorn face of his wife as she sat facing the window, staring blankly at the plane that would see them out of their despair.

Ma Zhen sat alone on the row of black chairs behind Lin. He stooped forward, making notations in a small notebook. He was always writing something, as if he knew he should be in a university taking notes rather than masterminding the destruction of a commercial airliner.

Ma was a young man with thick, black-framed glasses and the large goiter of one who’d missed some vital element of his diet when he was a child. When he was just seventeen, Ma had seen his father and grandfather dragged into the street and executed by Chinese troops for the crime of nonviolent protest against majority Han Chinese encroachment in the traditionally Muslim Hui regions of Xinjiang. According to the man from Pakistan, both of the older men had been scholars, learned but quiet souls who espoused compromise and believed in a peaceful solution to all things.

After the murders, Ma’s maternal grandfather — a man with only two fingers on his right hand and copious scarring on his neck and face had taken him aside and taught him the ways of bomb making. Ma had excelled at chemistry and physics and so was able to build on the concepts the old man taught him, making devices that were smaller and far easier to conceal. They were also much more powerful. His mother passed away from grief the following year, her dying wish that he would avenge his father.

The man from Pakistan had found him while he was still in mourning. Ma had seen the opportunity to be a dutiful son and followed without question on the path that had led him here, with Tang and the others.

Exhausted all the way to his bones, Tang dropped his camera bag on the floor and collapsed into a seat beside his wife. There was no consoling the poor woman, so he did not even try. He let his gaze wander down the wide terminal hallway past the shopping kiosks and milling crowds. The final member of their group, Hu Qi, would clear security soon and be along with his portion of the explosive for the device. Fifty meters away, the dimwitted Gao slouched in front of a slot machine. Tang watched as the muscular stub of a man dropped coin after coin into the machine, pressing buttons and spending money as fast as he could.

A strange sense of peace fell over Tang as he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Soon, they would all board flight 224 for Los Angeles with all their portions of the device — and none of them would ever need money again.

Chapter 14

Trailing streams of frigid water, Quinn hauled himself up the ladder the moment the methodic flat cracks of Ukka’s Winchester began to moan across the surface of the river. Feet shuffled on the plywood floor above, tromping to the uphill side of the fish house as the men inside moved to see what was happening, surely hoping their cohort had bagged their intended target.

Quinn took a moment to flex his hands open and shut in an effort to make certain they still worked before he moved at a crouch across the back receiving deck. Unfortunately for him, one of the contractors, a young man with sharp features and beard as dark as Quinn’s, was savvy enough to periodically check over his shoulder during the sound of gunfire.

Quinn was far too cold to give up the ground he’d gained by jumping back into the water to escape. He was unlikely to survive it anyway. Instead, he raised his rifle and charged straight ahead, bent on attacking through the other man. The bearded contractor followed suit, firing his own weapon as he closed the distance.

Jericho’s first two rounds went low, jerked downward by his still shivering muscles, but the third round caught the startled contractor on the point of his knee, tearing through muscle and bone.

It was possible to fight past any number of horrible wounds during the intense heat of battle, even one that would eventually prove fatal, but a shattered kneecap was difficult to ignore. The contractor stumbled forward, flailing out with his gun hand in an attempt to catch himself. His leg hinged the wrong way, folding backwards as if he’d been felled by an axe.

Quinn was vaguely aware of April John lying in an unconscious heap in the far corner of the room beside a stack of rubber fish tubs. He couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead and, for the moment, it didn’t really matter. He put the wounded contractor out of his misery with two rounds to the face as he turned to acquire the second man.

Apparently intent on the shooting outside, this tall brute of a guy had taken a moment to register that they were being attacked from the river. He was completely bald with deep lines in his forehead that made him look like he had two snarling mouths, one below and one above his deep-set eyes.

The big man’s size belied his speed and agility. He bolted forward, drawing a pistol as he moved, intent on blowing Quinn’s head off.

Still fighting the effects of hypothermia, Quinn was a fraction of a second late bringing his own weapon around from finishing off the first contractor. Again, he pressed forward, closing the short distance between them to the bald guy with his shoulder, reaching him just in time to shove the pistol out of the way. A volley of shots hammered into the roof. The rattling clap of gunfire was deafening in the small enclosure, making Quinn, who still had what felt like half the Yukon River in his ears, feel like he had a barrel over his head. He could tell the big guy was yelling something as he fought, but couldn’t make out what it was.

He’d somehow managed to swat the pistol away, but the bald giant now had him trapped in a tight clinch. Struggling for breath, Quinn drove his knee repeatedly into the bald man’s groin. It appeared to do little damage, but at least kept him from snapping Quinn’s back.

The cold water had sapped Quinn of more of his strength than he’d realized. Reflexes and muscles that had served him so well in past conflicts refused to obey. The bald man’s hand snaked up, snatching the barrel of the MP7 and attempting to twist it sideways. He couldn’t quite bring it around to shoot Quinn, but drew the sling tight enough to restrict the blood flow in his neck.

Seeing stars, Quinn pummeled the man’s ribs — to no effect. He abandoned thoughts of using the rifle, his hand flailing instead for the Severance at his side. The blade slid from the Kydex sheath with a satisfying click. Quinn lashed out, left-handed, across the man’s thigh, slicing flesh, but missing anything that might have ended the fight.

The contractor howled in pain, shoving Quinn backwards as if he was on fire, but hanging on to the MP7’s sling. Quinn stumbled back and down, allowing the sling to slide over his head. Grimacing at his stupidity for giving up the weapon, he swung the Severance’s heavy blade in time to knock the rifle out of the big man’s hands. It skittered across the plywood floor.

Ignoring the flashing blade, the contractor rushed forward with a furious roar, driving Quinn backwards against the unforgiving edge of a stainless-steel cleaning table. Quinn pushed upward at the last moment, catching the hard edge against his buttocks instead of his kidneys. He rolled backwards, lying on the table to plant his bare feet in the belly of his attacker, shoving him. It bought him the split second he needed to regain his balance. Razor-sharp fillet knives, abandoned on the table by the fish processers, clattered to the floor.

The contractor was on him again in a flash, swatting away the Severance before Quinn could bring it to bear. Quinn rolled out of the way, ducking under the other man’s arm as it fell in a devastating blow that sent Quinn reeling backwards, past a wash rack and into a tub filled with a slurry of water, crushed ice, and gutted salmon. The snot-slick fish broke his fall but made it impossible to regain his feet with any speed. Swimming in dead fish, Quinn hooked a ten-pounder through the gills and flung it at the bald contractor.

The big man sneered, staring down at an apparently defeated target. His eyes darted around the room. The rifle was fifteen feet away in a grimy puddle. The pistol was lodged under the cleaning tables on the other side of his dead partner. Instead of going for either of the guns, the contractor scooped up one of the long fillet knives that cluttered the cleaning counters.

Chest heaving, sweat and fish slime dripping from his nose, the bald giant hovered over Quinn.

“Now I’m gonna hand you your ass,” he growled.

Never much of a talker when he fought, Quinn answered by giving the man a face full of frigid water from the wash hose that hung down beside his tub of fish.

Startled by the sudden shock, the contractor stepped back, raising his hand to ward off the new threat. Steel flashed as he struck blindly with the fillet knife, lashing out to protect himself while he got his bearings.

As its name implied, the Severance was at its best when used as a hacking instrument. Its finely ground tip was, however, needle sharp and pierced the flesh between the contractor’s wrist bones as surely as an axe through soft cheese.

With the thick spine of the blade facing backwards, toward the contractor’s hand, Quinn yanked the man toward him, in the direction of his attack. Screaming in pain, the contractor’s eyes flew open as he tumbled into the fish tub, while Quinn twisted the Severance’s handle like a lever between the bones of his forearm. Even with nearly a foot of steel sticking out of his arm, the bald man was nowhere near finished. He lashed out with heavy boots, wrenching the Severance from Quinn’s hand and sending him sliding backwards across the floor. Unfortunately for the contractor, Quinn stopped sliding beside the MP7.

A quick burp of six 4.6x30 rounds to his chest and the frown on the bald guy’s forehead went slack. He collapsed back into the tub of dead salmon with a groan.

Quinn held the MP7 at high ready, giving the room a full scan for the first time since he’d charged through the door ninety seconds earlier. April John was unconscious in the corner, facedown on the plywood in a pool of grimy water and salmon blood. She had a bloody lip, and her hands and feet were bound with gray duct tape, but she was breathing.

Quinn checked both contractors to make certain they wouldn’t cause any more problems, and then moved to cut April John’s restraints. She drew back when he touched her shoulder, drawing her body into a tight ball.

“Get off me!” Her terrified scream was muffled in Quinn’s ears.

“It’s me, Jericho,” Quinn said. He laid a hand gently against her elbow to show he meant no harm. “They’re dead.”

She turned her head to look up at him, blinking terrified eyes. Blood and slime from the floor dripped from her round cheek. “Jericho? They…” She tried to sit up, but swayed in place. Quinn could now see the knot on her forehead from where she’d been hit, hard. “What happened? Where are they?”

“It’s okay now,” he said, still panting from exertion. “I’m going to cut you loose.”

The door opened behind him and he looked up to see James Perry silhouetted against the gray fog. The big Eskimo took a quick look around the room, and then stepped up beside Quinn. His face was turned down in a somber frown.

“Waqaa, cousin.” He gave the traditional Yup’ik greeting, voice drawn with pent-up worry. “You good?”

“Hey,” Quinn nodded. “I’m fine. Looks like they knocked April around pretty good, though.”

Kneeling, Quinn used a fillet knife to finish cutting away the duct tape on the girl’s wrists and ankles. He helped her into a sitting position with her back against the tubs.

Swaying when he tried to stand, he reached out to Ukka for support. The adrenaline dump from his coldwater swim and subsequent fight behind him now, he began to shiver uncontrollably.

April John’s two younger sisters poured in through the open door, scooping her up amid a shower of grateful tears and hugs for both her and Quinn. They whisked her away with a nod, getting her out of the place that had only moments before had been her prison.

“We got some bad news,” Ukka said, as Lovita Aguth-luk, his twenty-two-year-old niece, stepped through the door behind him. Dressed in a pink fleece sweater that was three sizes too big, she was a breath over five feet tall with long peroxide orange hair and a row of piercings festooning the top of each tiny ear. Her grandmother was from Kotzebue and she honored the older woman with a traditional Inupiat facial tattoo — three simple parallel lines, green and pencil thin, that ran from her lower lip to the bottom of her deeply tanned chin. On some women, such a marking might be considered a job stopper, but Lovita had the cultural background to make it attractive. Her fleece was grimy at the cuffs from fishing and gathering wood for the stove in her small shack in Saint Mary’s. Any money she got was spent on airplane fuel and there were few clear days when she could not be seen drilling holes in the sky between Mountain Village and Saint Mary’s in her ratty old Super Cub. She hauled whatever anyone would pay her to haul to support her flying habit and build time behind the stick.

“What is it?” Quinn asked, steadying himself on the cleaning counter. He wasn’t sure he could handle much more at the moment.

Ukka looked at his niece. “Tell him what you saw.”

“A plane full of these guys landed in Saint Mary’s about half an hour ago,” she said in a husky voice that sounded like she’d smoked two packs a day for twice her lifetime — which wasn’t far from the truth. She was trying to quit and now had a wad of punk ash — leaf tobacco and a type of burned tree fungus — snuff beneath her lower lip. “They were going from house to house looking for you when I left, but I’m pretty sure they’re getting ready to come this way.”

She handed Quinn a tall plastic tumbler full of hot liquid, placing it carefully between his trembling hands to make sure he didn’t spill it.

“How many?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “As soon as I saw them, I jumped in the Cub and headed this way to warn you.”

Quinn nodded in thanks. He started to put the mug to his lips but raised a wary eye. He knew Lovita had a stomach of iron. She’d talked all spring about her favorite dish, called “stinkhead” — a concoction of fermented salmon heads that had been left in a grassy pit for a period of days. An ardent traditionalist, it was impossible to know what sort of ancient hunk of mystery meat she might throw into a soup or stew.

“It’s coffee,” she grunted. “We need to hurry.”

Quinn took a tentative sip, grimacing at the syrupy sweetness.

Lovita gave a half smile. She wasn’t much of a smiler, but when she did, it brightened the entire room. “I put lots of sugar in it to help your body warm itself.” She handed Quinn a roll of dry clothes. “We gotta go now.”

Nodding, Quinn handed the coffee to Ukka. Lovita turned her back while he slipped out of his sopping wet pants. She’d brought him a black wool sweater that zipped up the front and a fresh set of khakis.

“I didn’t want to go rootin’ around in your stuff for your tighty whities,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go commando.”

Quinn shot a glance at Ukka, who shrugged.

“I don’t know where they learn that stuff all the way out here,” the Eskimo said.

“I got satellite,” Lovita said, her voice even more gravelly than before. “Anyway, hurry up. I’ll step outside while you change.”

“I think she has a little crush on you,” Ukka said.

Quinn steered the subject in a different direction. “If they’re leaving Saint Mary’s now,” he said, pulling the sweater over his head, “they’ll be here in—”

“Ten minutes,” Ukka cut him off. “We know. That’s why we need to haul ass.”

Once Quinn was decent, Ukka looked over his shoulder and flicked his hand to summon his daughter Chantelle, who stepped through the door carrying Quinn’s Lowa boots and a rolled pair of wool socks.

“Lovita said she couldn’t find his underwear,” she said. “I could have brought his underwear if I woulda known.”

“Will you girls forget about his underwear,” Ukka bellowed. He looked at his watch. “It’ll take us five minutes to get to the airport. That’s cutting it pretty close.”

Lovita poked her head in behind Ukka.

“I’m going,” she said. “It’ll take me a minute or two to get the plane ready.”

Quinn dropped the boots on the floor and sat on an overturned fish tub to pull on the socks. He looked at the young pilot with a wary eye.

“The weather isn’t too low to fly?”

“We got no choice.” She shrugged, her neck disappearing down the oversize fleece like a turtle’s.

“She’s right,” Ukka said. “We’ll get rid of the bodies, then handle these new guys when they land. But who knows how many more are right behind them? It’s been a great visit, but you gotta get outta here before someone gets hurt.”

Quinn laced up his last boot and walked outside behind the others. Cold drizzle hit him in the face. Heavy curtains of fog obscured all but the base of the Azochorak Mountain to the west. The white crosses in the cemetery that had been visible when he’d entered the river were now gone.

Quinn took a lungful of air and let it out, able to see his breath. “You really plan to fly in this muck?”

Lovita nodded. “I can sneak out just off the deck and try to stay under the clouds.”

“Try?”

Lovita ignored him. “Weather’s better over past the Kilbucks.” Her voice was matter-of-fact as if she flew in this kind of soupy fog every day. “It’s not good, mind you — but it’s a damn sight better than this.”

Chapter 15

Kim Quinn saw the man with the flap of blond hair again as they exited the mall. He was standing next to the Metro entrance between the taxi road and the main thoroughfare of Hayes Street. Worried over why someone might be following her, she’d talked Mattie out of dinner at Johnny Rockets and decided to go straight back to their hotel room. Jericho’s parents were there — Pete Quinn would know what to do.

Kim tried to tell herself a life with Jericho had made her paranoid. But there was definitely something wrong. This guy had ignored her when she’d almost run into him. He hadn’t given her a second look — which was virtually unthinkable. Kim had always been proud of her legs. The one that she had left was well worth gawking over — and the metal one drew even more stares, even from polite people who were usually more startled than anything. The fact that this man hadn’t paid her any attention set off an alarm in her head.

Over the span of their marriage, Jericho had droned on and on about how she should trust her instincts. Go with her gut, he said. Her gut told her the man with the flap of blond hair was dangerous.

Pausing for just a moment outside the mall, she took Mattie’s hand in hers.

“Stay with me,” she said, leading her across the taxi and tour bus service road and weaving through the throng of summer vendors, lined up under umbrella carts, selling bottled water and WASHINGTON, DC T-shirts. The air was thick, but she didn’t know if it was humidity or dread.

She cursed herself for not taking a closer parking spot. Her pride had made her want to show off to her daughter, so she’d parked across the street in the larger Costco lot, hoping to demonstrate that she was tough and resilient.

The blond man didn’t move from his post by the Metro escalator, and made no secret of the fact that he was now staring directly at Kim. He must have taken the Metro tunnel out from the food court level of the mall and surfaced outside to wait.

Kim shot a quick glance up and down the street. She fought the urge to scream for help, realizing she was in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, and nothing had actually happened. The area around Washington, DC, was a busy place any time of year, but summer was the worst with visitors from all over the world pouring out of buses, taxis, and rental cars. Every ten feet she saw someone who looked like they might be working with the man by the Metro. There was a crosswalk to her right, halfway down the block at Fifteenth Street. It would be closer to where she’d parked the car across the street at the Costco lot. But the crowds thinned out down there. She made a decision to cross mid-block, staying with the herd for protection.

There were plenty of people here, she reasoned. No way anyone would try anything in the open in broad daylight.

Mattie kept quiet, sensitive to her mother’s mood. With Jericho Quinn as her father, she was much more accustomed to sudden violence that any seven-year-old should have to be.

Kim was sure the pedestrian light was the longest in history of mankind. A middle-aged man in a loose Hawaiian shirt asked if she needed help crossing the street and she nearly punched him out of panic. Realizing he was just being kind, she thanked him instead and assured him she was fine. The last word had no sooner escaped her mouth than a tan minivan squealed up to the curb and stopped directly in front of her.

The door slid open and two men jumped out to the sidewalk. Both wore absurd-looking clown masks. One grabbed for Mattie while the other planted both palms in Kim’s chest and gave her a rough shove, sending her sliding on her butt on the pavement.

The man in the Hawaiian shirt stepped in between the kidnapper and Mattie, shooing her behind him as he punched the other man in the jaw. He was strong, certainly no out-of-shape tourist, and the blow connected with a loud crack. He went to follow up, but the man who’d shoved Kim shot him twice for his trouble. He staggered, then slumped to the sidewalk.

“Mattie, run!” Kim screamed. She was on her feet in a moment, forgetting how difficult such a simple task had been in physical therapy. Swinging her cane like a baseball bat, she struck out at the gunman, impacting on the base of his skull. He squealed in pain and staggered into his companion. Kim swung again, but the aluminum cane was much too light to do any real damage and the kidnapper grabbed it in midair, yanking her to him and into his waiting fist.

Kim had never been hit so hard in her life and found it oddly liberating. She’d heard Jericho say punches didn’t really hurt until later and was astonished to find out how right he was. Instead of wilting like a battered woman, she launched herself against her attackers with the renewed fury of a mother protecting her child. She tore at the gunman’s eyes with her fingernails, screaming like a madwoman, intent on ripping his face off his body.

Nearly back to the doors of the mall, Mattie stopped in her tracks when she heard her mother’s cries. She had her father’s blood in her veins, so it was no surprise when she turned on her heels and ran back to help her mother.

The man with the blond flap of hair caught her as she came past and scooped her up in his arms.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he said, trapping her arms and legs so she could do the least damage with all her kicking and screaming.

“No!” Kim screamed, as the gunman hit her again, this time sending a shower of fireworks exploding behind her eyes. “Mattie!”

A distant roar seemed to fill the street, growing louder as Kim’s vision cleared enough for her to make out what was happening.

A Harley-Davidson motorcycle roared up the mall service road, scattering tourists and vendors. At the same moment a black GMC pickup jumped the curb, ramming the minivan and raking the gunman with a running board. The biker rode straight for the blond kidnapper, striking him with the front tire before he could throw a squalling Mattie into the minivan. She scrambled out of the way, running back toward the mall.

Six feet, two inches of extremely angry grandfather boiled out of the black pickup. Pete Quinn sent a massive fist crashing into the temple of the stunned gunman, felling him like a tree. He bounced the second man’s head off the hood of the minivan as the man on the motorcycle jumped off the bike and ran for the open door of the van. He was wearing a helmet, but moved with the same easy stride of Jericho. It had to be his brother, Bo.

The frantic driver threw the minivan in reverse, narrowly missing the downed Good Samaritan in the Hawaiian shirt, and then sped away down Hayes Street, fishtailing around the corner to disappear down Fifteenth.

Kim breathed a measured sigh of relief.

The sullen blond tried to push himself to his feet, but Jericho’s father put the toe of his heavy leather boot to good use, nearly kicking the man’s head off his body. As far as he was concerned, anyone stupid enough to grab his granddaughter would get no forgiveness in this world or the world to come.

The gunman’s jaw hung oddly to the side, half out of its socket, courtesy of the punch from the man in the Hawaiian shirt. He jumped up and attempted to run, but Bo grabbed him by the collar, yanking him into a devastating left hook that reset his jaw and crumpled him into an unconscious heap.

Once she saw Mattie was okay, Kim half knelt, half fell to the pavement beside the wounded Good Samaritan. Her damaged prosthetic splayed awkwardly to one side, but there was nothing she could do about that now. She put a hand to his chest, pressing against the bullet wound. He was still breathing but losing a lot of blood.

“Thank you,” Kim whispered. “For helping us.”

The man smiled, but grimaced when he tried to speak.

A crowd of onlookers began to gather, happy to form a circle around the commotion now that the apparent danger had passed. Several people called 911 at the same time, arguing about what happened and their actual location. There was a firehouse just blocks away and sirens blared moments later. An ER nurse coming out of Fashion Center mall stepped in and relieved Kim to care for the man in the Hawaiian shirt. Pete Quinn, Jericho’s father, helped her back to her feet.

“You okay?” He put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. His dark hair was mussed and the top button of his shirt had been torn off, but there was a glint in his eyes that said he’d enjoyed the scrap. He was broader than either of his sons, bigger boned, but he moved with the same purposeful intensity that Kim had always seen in Jericho. In all the years she’d known her former father-in-law, he’d always been in the shop or out working on the boat. They’d really never sat down to have a long conversation. To see him now, like this, was nothing short of mind-blowing.

Kim thanked him, panting so hard she could hardly speak. She fanned her face with an open hand. She’d just thought she’d been sweating before.

“I think my new bionic leg is toast,” she said, glancing down at the bowed metal that no longer bent correctly at her knee. She dabbed her lip, tasting blood. “Where did you guys come from?”

The elder Quinn shrugged. “Bo thought someone ought to keep an eye on you.” He’d never been one for much chitchat.

A shiver shook Kim’s shoulders. The world around her began to blur and ooze.

Pete Quinn caught her as she swayed.

Three Arlington Police cruisers rolled onto the scene. Unsure of what was going on, the officers approached with weapons drawn, eyeing Pete and Bo Quinn as hard as they did the downed kidnappers.

Jericho’s propensity to grow a heavy beard had come from his father. He’d surely shaved that morning, but already looked as though he’d gone a week. Bo, the younger and more wayward of his two sons, had bleached blond hair that was long enough to blow in the wind when he rode. He was more baby faced than his brother and father, but his life in a Texas motorcycle club that dabbled in the gray edges of the law had aged and hardened him.

Seven-year-old Mattie, clutching Kim’s leg, appeared to calm the arriving officers a degree. Two of them handcuffed the downed kidnappers, while one checked on the status of the man in the Hawaiian shirt.

The responding sergeant, a tall, clean-shaven man named Oldham, approached Pete Quinn, nodding politely at Kim. He looked like a man with an easy smile, but for the circumstances. “They were trying to kidnap the little girl?”

“That’s right,” Kim said, still feeling shaky. “She’s my daughter.”

“And you guys stepped in to help?”

“Correct.” Pete nodded. “I’m the grandfather.”

Oldham collected their IDs, stopping to peer back over at them when he read the names.

“Quinn,” he said, lips pursing in distaste. “You all related to the Jericho Quinn who’s wanted for the murder of a Fairfax police officer?”

Bo began to speak, but Pete Quinn held up his calloused hand. “We are,” he said. “But this has nothing to do with that.”

“My experience,” Sergeant Oldham muttered, still studying the two men, “is that this always has to do with that. And from where I’m standing, it looks like you have a lot in common with your son.”

Pete Quinn took a deep breath, mulling his words carefully before he said them. “Sergeant,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “Haven’t you ever had a relative that disappointed you?”

Oldham thought about that for a long moment. “Guess you can’t choose your relatives,” he said at length. “My bad. I’m going to need you to come down to the station and fill out some paperwork.” He looked at Kim. “And I’m gonna get a paramedic to take a look at you.”

Bo leaned in as Sergeant Oldham went to summon a paramedic. “The disappointing one — that’s me you’re talking about, right?”

“Pshh,” Pete said. It was his way of dismissing any notion as so utterly inconceivable it didn’t merit an answer. “I don’t know about that guy, but I’m proud of my family. When he comes back, tell him I had to make a call.”

Kim knew exactly who he was about to call — and she’d never wished for that man to be there as much as she did at that moment.

Chapter 16

Jericho’s cell phone began to vibrate seconds after he’d fastened the shoulder harness in the cramped backseat of the tiny airplane. The little yellow Super Cub was a tandem-seat tail dragger. Lovita sat in the single seat directly in front of his. In her baggy pink fleece with the large green headphones over her orange hair, she looked like a child pretending to be a bush pilot.

The rain had started to fall in earnest on the way to the gravel strip and beat against the outside of the airplane as if someone was pelting them with a steady barrage of pebbles. Quinn used the forearm of his wool shirt to wipe away the condensation on his window, scanning what was left of the eastern horizon for the other plane as he pressed the phone to his ear.

Lovita applied the brakes to keep the Super Cub from rolling forward, and then slowly increased the throttle until it shook in place. The little airplane groaned, straining to leap off the gravel strip. Lovita watched the handful of simple engine gauges, checking oil pressure and both magnetos. She spun the dial to reset her altimeter and checked the fuel level in the clear plastic tubes above each window on either side of her seat. Satisfied, she worked the stick between her knees in all directions, and pumped the rudder pedals back and forth. An identical set of controls in front of Quinn moved in time with her as if operated by some ghost.

The rag and tube construction of the Super Cub did little to block the deafening roar of the Lycoming engine. Quinn wedged the phone under the earpiece of his headset and leaned down as best he could in the cramped confines behind Lovita’s short seat.

He listened in horror as his father related the kidnapping attempt on Kim and Mattie. His stomach twisted tighter with each word. By the time he ended the call, he’d already reached a decision.

Lovita’s husky voice crackled in his headset. It sounded much too mature to be coming from the little girl sitting in front of him.

“That other plane just overflew Pitka’s Point,” she said. “They’re gonna be here any minute.”

“Can we steer clear of them?” Quinn asked, looking out the window at the white sheets of rain marching along the river.

“Maybe so,” Lovita said, releasing the brake. “But first we have to get in the air.” The plane lurched forward. Fat tundra tires bounced toward the end of the gravel strip as they picked up speed. The tail lifted almost immediately, leveling the plane and giving little Lovita a better view out the windshield.

“I need to make a couple of quick calls before we lose reception,” Quinn said, punching buttons as he spoke.

“Go for it.” Lovita added throttle and pulled back on the stick, causing the little plane to leap off the runway. One hand on the throttle, the other on the stick at her knees, Lovita worked the rudders at her feet, engaged in a sort of dance with the airplane as she committed it to the turbulent mixture of fog and driving rain.

Quinn felt his stomach fall away at the same moment Ronnie Garcia picked up on the other end of his call. He longed to talk to her more, but kept the conversation brief. There was still one more person he had to contact before he lost reception.

“We’re going to need that babysitter,” he yelled.

“The babysitter?” Garcia’s voice came back amid a crackle of static. “You’re certain about this?”

“Call my dad,” Quinn said. “He’ll explain.”

“I love you,” Ronnie said.

The phone went dead before he could answer.

Quinn punched in the second number as Lovita dipped a wing, banking the Super Cub to the right toward the razor-thin line of open sky between soggy tundra and trailing clouds. The plane lurched hard, buffeting as they flew through a band of turbulence where cooler air over the river gave way to warmer stuff over land. Rain splattered the windows, streaming backwards as they picked up speed. The Kilbuck Mountains lay ahead, and beyond them, the Alaska Range, and then the city of Anchorage — and somewhere in between, the other airplane.

Lovita cheated north, leaving the Yukon River and the sprawling settlement of Mountain Village. Breaking nearly every rule in the book, she nosed the little plane upward and into the clouds in an effort to avoid the other plane. The cell tower disappeared behind them in a shroud of gray mist. Quinn pressed the cell phone to his ear, knowing he didn’t have long before he lost reception altogether.

“Come on,” he said under his breath. “Pick up, Jacques.”

Chapter 17

Gunnery Sergeant Jacques Thibodaux dropped his carry-on roller bag on the chipped concrete porch and fished his house key from the pocket of his Marine Corps utilities. Two gallon jugs of milk and six flimsy plastic grocery bags hung from his massive left hand. The brim of his utility cover pulled low over his forehead, he clutched a stack of bills and credit card offers between his teeth. A black patch covered one eye, the wound courtesy of a gun battle in a Bolivian jungle alongside his friend Jericho Quinn. He was a big man with shoulders as wide as his own front porch and muscles that strained the seams of his MARPAT camo uniform. The black nylon rigger’s belt with a single red stripe signified he was a certified instructor trainer of Marine Corps Martial Arts.

The door swung open before he could get the key.

“Hey, Boo,” Thibodaux said to his wife. Her name was Camille, but he’d called her Cornmeal or Boo from the first time he’d met her when she was tending bar outside Camp Lejeune. She was a short thing, and at six-feet-four he had to lean down some to meet her. Snatching the mail out of his mouth with the hand that held the grocery bags, he winked his good eye and tilted his head so she could give him their customary welcome-home kiss without bumping the brim of his cover.

Camille didn’t move. Standing in the open door, she cocked her hip to one side — a hip that was nicely clad, to the gunny’s way of thinking, in stretchy black yoga pants. Her deeply tanned arms ran up either side of the threshold, completely blocking his entry. Black hair brushed strong shoulders. The Eagle, Globe, and Anchor on the chest of her faded green USMC tank top swelled and dipped in all the right places.

He’d only been gone three nights — some training down in Georgia for his new job in logistics. Sheer torture for a man used to the rigors and adventure of the field, the hours of convoluted PowerPoints and bone-dry lectures felt like some new form of enhanced interrogation. Being able to lay eyes again on the mother of his seven boys took his breath away.

He leaned in again, trying once more for their customary hello.

Instead of kissing him, she folded her arms, obscuring his view of the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, and threw him one of her patented pissed-off Italian looks. She was nearly a foot shorter than him, but standing inside the doorway made it easier to look him in the eye with him still out on the porch.

Thibodaux took a half step back.

“What?” he said. “Somebody die or somethin’?”

Eyes the color of black coffee narrowed under an even darker brow. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know.” Her accent was a fricassee of the Deep South spiced with just a hint of her father’s Mott Street Italian.

Thibodaux shook his head, rolling through his brain for some anniversary or birthday he’d missed. They’d just talked the night before. She hadn’t given him any indication then that she’d been mad.

“I really don’t—”

“Yes, you do, Jacques,” she whispered. “That’s the problem.”

“What?” He was begging now. “What is the problem?”

“I want to hear it from your own lips, Jacques Thibodaux,” she said. “It’ll be better for everyone that way.”

“Arette toi,” he pleaded. Stop, you. “Baby, I got no earthly idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

Her lips tightened into a terrifying line, the way they did when she banished him to sleep on the couch. “Jacques,” she said, scolding. “You have got to tell me the truth.”

“You’re killin’ me, here,” Thibodaux said, his gumbo-thick Cajun drawl thickening even more. “I swear on my mamere’s own grave…”

Camille’s face melted into a wide smile

“Just checking,” she said and leaned in to give him a peck on the nose. “Gotta keep what’s mine, mine.”

“Holy shit, girl,” he moaned, throwing his head back. “You scared my mule there.”

She raised a black eyebrow at his cursing.

“Come on,” he said, walking in to set the bags on the dining room table. “You owe me that one.”

“Maybe,” she said, peeking out the mini-blinds that faced the street.

Camille Thibodaux, the churchgoing member of the marriage, allotted her gunnery sergeant husband a total of five non-Bible curse words each month in an effort to keep her boys from picking up potty mouths. As long as it was in the Bible, any word was fair game. Which, Thibodaux discovered, actually gave him a pretty large lexicon to choose from.

“That van’s back,” she said.

Thibodaux shrugged. “I know,” he said. “Just try and forget about it.” He took the milk into the kitchen.

He knew what the van was all about — or had his suspicions at least. He even told Camille some of it. An OGA, or other governmental agent along with Quinn when Winfield Palmer had been in office, the change in the administration had forced him to return to his old unit. He returned from Japan as ordered and reported in to Quantico, but his command had been unsure of what to do with him. It seemed that anyone who’d had access to the former president was now damaged goods — even dangerous to be around. Gunny Thibodaux — the consummate warrior with more tours into forward operating areas in the hellholes of the Middle East than he had sons — which was saying a lot — had been relegated to desk duty.

Even there he didn’t really have a job other than organizing paper files that seemed to be pretty damned organized already. It was the clerical equivalent of breaking big rocks into little rocks. Still, Thibodaux tried to make the best of it, biding his time until Palmer, and the few he had working with him, hatched a plan to deal with this current administration. Thibodaux had little contact with Quinn, but Garcia and Palmer reached out to him on occasion, using the old-school method of leaving a chalk mark on the bench at the ball field where his oldest sons played when they wanted a meeting. It was all basic tradecraft from the Cold War era, fascinating stuff in his early training with Quinn and the enigmatic Mrs. Miyagi, but certainly not something he’d thought he would ever put to use.

Camille’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “Are you even listening to me, T?”

Thibodaux turned to see his wife had folded her arms again. After seven sons, her figure was still what his daddy would have called praline-scrumptious — a little curvier than she once was — but that was just fine with Jacques. The skin-and-bones things on TV looked about as appetizing as cuddling with a metal storm grate. Camille was, as Jacques liked to point out, built for comfort over speed.

“You know I’m listening, mon cher,” Jacques said, flinging his Cajun charm at her. He ran the flat of his hand over the top of the bristles of his high and tight haircut. “What was it you were sayin’?”

“You big, stupid son of a bitch,” Camille said, welling up with tears. Somehow, she could curse whenever she felt like it. She could have cursed him in her native Italian, but what was the good of cursing your husband if he didn’t understand how mad you were? Some things just couldn’t be picked up by context alone.

She threw her head back and stared at the ceiling, blinking away tears. “Sometimes you just make me want to scream.”

Jacques grimaced. He truly hated it when his sweet bride was angry — on so many levels. “I’m sorry, Boo. I swear I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“I’m telling you that van is parked back across the street again. It was here for a week, then left when you did. You get back from training and now it’s out there again. I can’t help it if that scares me.” She snatched a tissue from the table and blew her nose. “Sometimes I think you just don’t give a damn.”

Thibodaux took her gently by both shoulders, cocking his head to one side to try to make sense of what she meant rather than what she said.

“Of course, I give a damn,” he said. “I give lots of damns. In fact, I give more damns than anyone I ever even heard of. You know that.” He tilted her chin up with a crooked finger.

She put her arms around his neck and pulled him close. “I’m just tired,” she whispered. “You being followed everywhere, creepy men watching us like this — it’s a lot for a girl to take in. You know?”

Arms around her waist, he lifted her off her feet. “I hate it too,” he whispered, pulling her body against his and giving her back a little crack the way she liked.

He put her down and gave her a peck on the forehead.

Camille sighed, semi-appeased. “I’m sorry for the hissy fit.”

Thibodaux glanced at his watch. “I got an hour till I have to start making the rounds to go pick up the little bougs. We hardly ever get any time alone. What say you and me play a little game of Naked Twister?”

Camille took an elastic band off her wrist and looped it around her hair, pulling it up into a thick ponytail. “I guess I could pencil you in,” she said. “If you help me put away these groceries.”

“Sold.” Thibodaux grinned, opening the refrigerator door to put in all his plastic shopping bags at once.

“I see where our boys get their behavior,” Camille chided.

“I know,” Thibodaux said. “I was just foolin’ with you.”

“Not until you unpack these groceries, you’re not.” Camille turned away, carrying a carton of Minute Rice to the pantry. He gave her a little swat on the butt as she walked away, keeping up the illusion that he was the one in charge.

Five minutes later, Thibodaux followed his wife into the bedroom, hopping on one foot and then the other as he peeled off his socks.

Camille sat on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs and watching him undress. He rarely told her what he did when he was out of town, but she made it a habit of checking him over for new wounds and scars when he came home.

“When is the last time you heard anything from Jericho?” She asked.

Thibodaux shot a glance toward the window. He put a finger to his lips, and then leaned in closer, whispering. “There’s a good chance the guys in that van have listening devices. They might able to pick up some of the things we say, even inside the house.”

She raised an eyebrow, giving him a slow nod as she considered that information. “That being the case…” She looked down at the bed. “We should probably be careful then.”

“Hang on, now.” Thibodaux held up both hands, trying to salvage a few minutes with his wife before he had to pick up the boys. “I ain’t saying they can really hear us. I’m just thinking we should be careful when we mention you know who.”

“I see,” she said, not moving.

“Does this mean…?”

“Of course not.” She peeled off her shirt and fell back on the bed, giving the mattress a playful bounce. “Remember that crap hole apartment we rented when we were stationed at Camp Pendleton?”

He nodded, dumbly. After seven boys, the sight of her body still took his breath away.

“Well, do you recall how the neighbor’s TV was always so loud and how we could hear them talking about what to have for dinner?”

Thibodaux shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“If I worried about people listening in on us, I’d never have gotten pregnant with our first two boys. I think the neighbors left their TV turned up all the time so they didn’t have to listen to you jumpin’ my bones every minute of the day.” She patted the bed, talking out loud now. “Get your ass up here, Gunny Thib—”

The smaller of the two cell phones next to their bed began to chime. Jacques gave an exasperated sigh, but picked it up immediately. He rolled his hand in the air, motioning for Camille to make more noise to help camouflage his conversation.

Dressed in nothing but her grin, Camille began to jump up and down on the bed, squeaking the box springs and driving Thibodaux crazy in the process.

“Speak to me, beb,” the Gunny said, eyes locked on his bouncing wife.

“It’s happening,” Jericho Quinn said. “They’ve found me.”

“You okay, l’ami?” Thibodaux had to turn away so he could concentrate. The two men had known each other just over two years, but they’d bled and spilled blood together and were closer than brothers — even if Quinn happened to be a member of what he’d always considered the “pansy ass” Air Force.

The Cajun listened while Quinn ran down not only an attack on him, but on his wife and daughter.

“What can I do?”

“You know that thing we discussed?”

Thibodaux found himself shaking his head. “I remember,” he said. “But you might want to rethink that, Chair Force.”

“It’s already in motion.”

“You’re serious about this?”

“Dead serious,” Quinn said. “My dad and brother are with them now. Would you mind heading over and giving them a hand? You know, looking outbound. They need all the security they can get.”

“No problem,” Thibodaux said. “I just… I mean… Are you sure about this plan of yours?”

“I’m sure,” Quinn said. “Listen, I have to go. Sonja will have the particulars.”

“Okay,” Thibodaux said, “I’ll talk to Sonja then.” He made a face when he said Ronnie Garcia’s code name. He hated all the code names and beating around the bush. If something threatened him, he much preferred to walk up and shoot it in the face.

He ended the call and turned to catch his wife around the waist in mid bounce.

“What was that about?” She leaned forward off the edge of the bed to nuzzle his neck.

“It was Quinn,” he whispered. “Sorry, Cornmeal, but I gotta run.”

“Okay.” She stuck out her bottom lip. That was the great thing about Camille. She might pout a time or two every year, but then she sucked it up and did the Marine wife thing, supporting her man when he went off to fight.

Thibodaux pulled on his socks and stepped into a pair of jeans, wondering how much of this he should tell his bride. He decided on anything that might make the evening news.

“Some guys tried to snatch Mattie,” he said. “It was very likely an effort to lure our buddy out of the woods.”

“That’s awful.” Camille knelt on the bed, hugging a pillow to her bare chest. “Is she okay?”

“She’s scared,” Thibodaux said, “but safe. Bo’s there… and Quinn’s dad.”

Camille gave a low whistle. “I was just thinking…” Her voice trailed off.

“What’s that, cher?” Thibodaux stretched a gray T-shirt over broad shoulders and monstrous arms.

“I was just thinking that if they really knew Jericho, they’d know it’d be better to let him stay on the run.”

“You got that right,” Thibodaux said. He left out the part about Quinn sending his daughter and ex-wife to Russia in order to keep them safe.

Chapter 18

Ronnie Garcia set her leather backpack on the kitchen counter and activated the alarm on the panel inside the front door. She usually didn’t do it until later, when she was about to go to bed, but things were getting weird. Standing at the kitchen counter again, she stared at the lone goldfish swimming in the bowl near the cordless telephone. A crusted soup pan sat nearby where Ronnie had spent last night’s dinner watching, and sadly, chatting up the little bug-eyed fish while she ate on her feet.

Jericho had called the moment she’d walked in the door. She’d heard the urgency in his voice, but the fact that he was willing to send his ex-wife and daughter to communist Russia to keep them safe from the new administration said all she needed to know about his present state of mind.

Jacques had called seconds later, filling her in on the specifics of the attack on Kim and Mattie. He knew the plan and told Ronnie he’d brief them on what she was about to do.

She ran a hand through thick hair, rubbing her eyes with a thumb and forefinger as she thought through her course of action. A hot bath called her name, but there was no time for that. She had a call to make — and the sooner she made it the better. There was no way she could make it from her house — even on the burner phone. There was no way of knowing what someone might be able to pick up with infrared or laser listening technology.

Apart from letting her know how easy it was for someone from the Internal Defense Task Force to find out where she parked her car in the CIA parking lot, Garcia’s conversation with Agent Walter had twisted her gut into a knot.

A long run would help quiet her nerves. More important, it would give her the perfect opportunity to make her call.

Stripping off her street clothes as she walked down the short hall to her bedroom, Garcia rummaged through the pile of laundry beside her dresser until she found a reasonably clean pair of running shorts and a loose T-shirt. Barefoot, she sat on the edge of the bed and rummaged through her wallet until she found a business card to a local pizzeria with a coded phone number written on the back.

The IDTF and NSA had become bosom bedfellows under the new administration — so much so that she’d had to purchase two prepaid cell phones. Not wanting to burn her communication link with Quinn in the event this international call was hacked, she dedicated one of these “burners” to Jericho and the other to calls like the one she was about to make. Monitoring was always likely, but tens of thousands of people made international calls from the US each day. As long as the conversation stayed plain vanilla and no names or trigger words were used, Garcia hoped she could melt into the digital background noise.

Falling back on the bed, she took a moment to decipher the safety code she’d written on the card. It was meant to slow down anyone who might have been snooping around her wallet. Once she figured it out, she picked up the phone and dialed 01 to exit the US, 7 for Russia and the Skylink prefix, which acted as an area code for the Russian cell service, before punching in all but the last digit of the number.

A member of the Russia’s Federal Security Service or FSB, Aleksandra Kanatova was a spy Jericho Quinn had spent a considerable amount of time with, traipsing around South America while they looked for a missing Soviet-era nuke. Ronnie had seen her once, at a party near Miami where they had been hunting the same terrorist. They’d both been dressed in flimsy bathing suits so it had been easy to get a read on Kanatova, physically at least. Ronnie supposed the Russian was pretty if one had a thing for smallish redheaded assassins who were covered in freckles. Thankfully, Jericho Quinn seemed to prefer his killer girlfriends built a bit more on the robust side with a little more pigment to their complexions — and the hint of a Cuban accent.

Garcia laced up her running shoes and slipped the tiny Kahr 9mm pistol into a black leather fanny pack that blended in with her shorts. Skipping her usual stretch, she reset the alarm and headed out the door with the burner phone in her hand.

She put in a single earbud, letting the other one dangle. It was an unwise spy who cut herself off from the warning signs of outside noises when out on a run — or anywhere for that matter.

Garcia checked up and down the quiet residential street in front of her modest frame house. She was half surprised that she didn’t find Agent Walter’s black Lincoln Town Car parked half a block away. There were a couple of other runners out — the cute guy who worked at the Pentagon and a housewife from three doors down who was out jogging off the extra pounds her spandex shorts so prominently displayed. A small ganglet of three preteens rode by on their bicycles, heads ducked in an all-out race for the end of the block. She was a horrible neighbor and wouldn’t have been able to give the names of a single individual who lived around her — even under threat of torture. But she was an excellent spy and recognized them as people who did in fact live on her street. It was a quiet neighborhood with quiet people who kept to themselves, just like Ronnie. The houses were modest things, some decades old, some built on subdivided lots within the last five years. None were very large. These were not the Great Falls or Vienna, Virginia, homes of three-star generals and undersecretaries to the presidential cabinet. They were the plain brick and stick homes of the worker bees, close enough to DC to be within commuting distance and far enough away to be affordable before you hit GS 14 on the government pay scale. The warm scent of new-mown grass and blossoming flowers hung on the humid air. The lawns were manicured and the shrubs well-trimmed, but there were no sidewalks, so Ronnie ran along the edge, next to the gutter.

She entered the last remaining number into the cell phone, and then pressed send before breaking into an easy trot. She’d just reached a comfortable stride when she heard a loud click on the line, as if the connection was a stodgy throwback to the Soviet Cold War days.

“Allo.” Aleksandra Kanatova smacked her lips as she spoke, as if groggy from a deep sleep.

Garcia kept up her pace, glancing at her watch. A quarter after six in Maryland. She winced. It was after two in the morning, Moscow time.

“Zdravstvujtye,” Garcia said. She used the more formal greeting. Speaking Russian always made her think of her father, which caused her to smile. She hoped the sentiment carried in her voice. She spoke slowly, allowing the woman on the other end to wake up and grasp the gravity of her call. “I am calling on behalf of your friend from Argentina.”

Kanatova gave a heavy cough. Garcia thought she heard the scrape of a lighter. She envisioned the Russian in a drab flat with a weak, bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and flaking paint on the walls, smoke from the freshly lit cigarette swirling around her naked shoulders. Garcia didn’t know why, but she imagined all Russian spies slept naked and smoked a cigarette each time they got up to pee during the night.

Kanatova coughed again. Her voice was coarse and whiskeyed. “We were better acquainted in Bolivia.” She gave the preplanned phrase to assure her identity. “I trust he is well.”

“For now,” Garcia said, telling what little she knew. “He would like to visit.”

“Ah. I see.” Kanatova was smart enough to know Quinn would have called to make the arrangements himself if he could have, so she did not question the fact that he’d asked his girlfriend to do it for him. Paper rustled on the line as she turned the page of a notebook. “Will he be bringing any luggage?”

“Himself and two carry-ons,” Garcia answered.

“A large and a small carry-on?”

“That is correct.”

“I have been watching the news,” Kanatova said. “This was to be expected. I will make the necessary arrangements on this end.”

“I understand,” Garcia said. “I will call again soon to get the details.” She hung up, picturing Aleksandra Kanatova falling back in her rumpled sheets, blowing smoke rings in the darkness of her dingy flat.

Kanatova had already taken care of the visas for just such an eventuality — one for Jericho using the passport under the unofficial and, with any luck, untraceable alias, John Hackman, and two more for a Kim and Mattie Hackman. A softening of the rules and few hundred extra bucks made the visas good for multiple entries over a three-year period from the date of issue. But there were still things that needed to occur on the other end. Knowing someone like Kanatova would smooth the way for Quinn to travel quickly with his “carry-ons.”

Ronnie pulled the bud out of her ear and slowed long enough to shove the phone in the fanny pack along with her pistol. It made her stomach hurt to think of Jericho going to Russia with his ex-wife, even if it was just a place to stash her and keep her safe. It would have been easier if the woman was a flaming bitch, but Kimberly Quinn was fragile — especially since the shooting. Beyond that, she was the mother of Quinn’s child — and that frightened Garcia more than anything.

Ronnie decided a little tradecraft would help push the jealous thoughts out of her brain. She spun in her tracks halfway down the block to run back the way she’d come. A blue Ford Escape with heavily tinted windows had been matching her pace. It sped up when she turned, passing with both the driver and a passenger staring straight ahead as if she didn’t exist. It was called “conspicuous ignoring.” The nimrods may as well have had government surveillance written all over the vehicle.

Ronnie shook her head. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so sad. She turned back again, heading toward the nearby lake that was surrounded by jogging trails. This was going to be a long five miles.

Chapter 19

Vice President Lee McKeon took the buzzing cell phone out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID. It was blocked, as he suspected it would be. Calls that came in on this particular phone were rarely from anyone who wished to be identified.

Drake was still in the gym on the second floor of the residence, foolishly working on his physique when he should have been attending to important matters of state, but McKeon didn’t mind. It gave him some quiet time with Ran in the privacy of the President’s study. Thin shafts of light filtered through the drawn curtains. He would have rather sat in the Oval Office, but there were too many gawkers walking back and forth along the colonnade. And, as he discovered when they had taken over, the door to the Oval Office had a peephole so staffers could look in and see when the President was about to finish a meeting.

McKeon sat at the end of a leather chaise longue across from Drake’s desk. He’d kicked off his shoes and stretched out his long, somewhat bony legs to rest them on a Queen Anne chair he’d pulled around to use as a footrest. Though the West Wing staff, Secret Service, and Marine guards might not approve of the way the Vice President lounged around in the office while the commander in chief was away, there was nothing they could do about it as long as POTUS didn’t put his foot down. And if POTUS put his foot down, that foot would not remain in the presidency very long. McKeon would make certain of that.

Ran, the Vice President’s slender Japanese aide, lay stretched out on the couch beside him, asleep, with her head in his lap. He toyed with the collar of her silk blouse as he answered the phone, peeking at the dark green ink of a tattoo above her smallish breast. It hurt his heart to think that his wife would return from Oregon soon. He would have to do something about that….

“Peace be unto you, my brother,” the caller said, inhaling sharply to punctuate his words. It was Qasim Ranjhani, but neither man would ever speak the name aloud on the phone. Though their names and accents were miles apart, had the two men been standing side by side, people might believe Ranjhani was McKeon’s shorter brother. They were in fact, distantly related.

“And to you,” McKeon answered. “I assume you have important news to be calling me at this time of day.”

“In point of fact I do,” Ranjhani said, his voice clicking with Pakistani English. “Just moments ago, I received an interesting call from a friend with FSB.”

“Is that so?” McKeon nodded in thought. FSB — Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti — was the Russian Security Service, the modern offspring of the KGB. It made sense that Qasim would have a finger in that piece of Kremlin pie. “And what did this friend have to tell you?” McKeon asked. He ran his hand over the creamy skin on the nape of the sleeping Japanese girl’s neck.

“It was regarding the fugitive,” Qasim said. “The one from that business in Japan. It looks as though someone has booked him airline passage from Alaska to Moscow via Vladivostok.”

“Interesting,” McKeon said. That made sense, considering the sparse reports he was getting from the bumbling Oryx Group regarding their present mission. “When?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Qasim said. “He’s apparently going with his wife and daughter.”

“His ex-wife,” the Vice President corrected. “Priceless.”

“I keep forgetting they aren’t still married.”

“So does he, apparently,” McKeon said. “Do you know what I am thinking?”

“I believe I do,” Qasim said. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“Very well,” McKeon said. “Is there time to make it happen?”

“Only just,” Qasim said.

“I’ll leave it to you to make it happen.”

The Vice President used his thumb to end the call, and then sat staring at the phone for a moment.

The Japanese woman stirred in his lap. Taut muscles rippled under the sheer fabric of her blouse. She was curled into a fetal position, her wool skirt hiked up high on her thighs to reveal the heavy green-and-black shadows of the traditional tattoo that covered her legs like a pair of shorts. McKeon was certain she’d fallen asleep that way to tantalize him. She was a she-devil, of that there was no doubt. There was something about her that would surely drag him down to hell, singing all the way. The swell of a dagger was just visible at her waistline — a constant reminder of just how deadly she was.

She nuzzled his hip with her cheek, but didn’t open her eyes.

“Why do you not just kill him?” she asked.

“Drake?”

“Quinn.” She opened one eye, looking up at him.

McKeon shrugged. “To be honest, I thought we had — but the men I sent were not successful.”

“I would sort him out for you,” she said. “All you need do is ask.” Sorting out was Ran’s euphemism for killing. He’s seen her work. It was always bloody, the bloodier the better for her, but she spoke of it as if she were alphabetizing files or folding socks.

Sometimes, in his dreams, he saw her as he had the first time they had met, completely naked, short sword in her hand, the gaudy art of her full-body tattoo bathed in the blood of her victim. It was a terrifying image. Thankfully, she was on his side.

“He’ll be dead by noon tomorrow.” McKeon put his hand on the swell of her hip, in the little hollow just below her waist. His fingers brushed the dagger. “But, if you need a throat to cut, my wife returns from Oregon at the end of the week.”

Ran brightened at the notion of something to do. “I would have to sort out a couple of Secret Service agents to make it happen.”

McKeon let his hand run down to the back of her knee. “Sacrifices must be made.”

She grabbed his hand before he could move it any farther. “And what does Islam say about murdering your wife so you might take an infidel woman to your bed?”

McKeon let his head fall to one side, looking at this beautiful woman’s face. “Make no mistake,” he said. “My work here is not about my place in Islam. It is about my father’s legacy. I have no delusions about the fact that you and I are both going to burn in hell.”

Chapter 20

Tang Dalu stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows inside security, eyes locked on the plane he and his team would soon blow apart somewhere over the desert of eastern California.

He could see Lin’s reflection in the glass. She leaned back in her chair, pallid face toward the ceiling, eyes closed as if she was asleep. Tang knew better. His wife rarely slept anymore. Many evenings he had returned home from his work as a Qingyang City policeman, to find her sitting in the same chair where he’d left her when he’d gone. The cup of tea he’d made her for breakfast, the cake, all untouched. At first he had pled with her, begged her to eat, to see a physician for something to help her sleep. Then, he’d screamed until frothy spittle had flown from his mouth. He’d even slapped her, knocking her from her chair, telling himself it was for her own good, to snap her out of her stupor. She’d merely knelt at his feet, soft hands clutching pitifully at the pistol on his belt, and begged him to put it to her head and end her misery. To his shame, he’d struck her again, harder this time — because he had not known what else to do.

He had locked his gun away in the box beneath their bed and gone to sleep, leaving her to climb back in her chair and stare at nothing.

Even when the man from Pakistan had come and given them purpose, that purpose had only given her blank eyes something on which to focus. It did not help her sleep.

Tang watched the last few passengers pull their roller bags off the plane, milling with the waiting crowd that would soon take their place. A man with a heavy suitcase stepped around him to take a seat by the window so he could get better phone reception. In his haste, the man kicked over the camera bag that sat at Tang’s feet. Even through his misery Tang felt it deliciously ironic that a rude man would shove his way past the very object that would soon bring about his death.

Tang drew the bag closer with the toe of his shoe, holding it safely between his feet. Across the aisle from Lin, Hu Qi clutched his bag to his chest. They had decided against assembling the bomb in one of the airport restroom stalls. There was too great a chance that the hawkish TSA guards milling around in the gate area would decide to flex their inviolable muscles one last time during the boarding process.

Hu and Ma stood together, just outside the gate. Gao had put his last dollar bill into one of the slot machines in the middle of the terminal and now sat quietly, stooped over, head resting in his hands. Any talk was pointless. There were no more dreams to discuss, no more women to conquer, no more riches to seek — no more tomorrow.

Each man had long ago made peace with his decision. They waited quietly and thought about the things men think about when they stand on the bittersweet edge of death for a greater cause.

The gate agent called for their row, causing Lin to open her eyes. She did not smile, but looked at Tang and nodded, as if let him know that everything would now be all right. Tang hung his head, mired in a mixture of religious fervor and regret. He had never really made his wife happy, and now the only way to ease her misery was to watch her die.

The cell phone in his pocket rang as he bent to pick up the camera bag. He jumped a little when he felt the unexpected sensation. Other than the members of his team, only one person had the number.

“Yes?” Tang said, turning to face the window again. For some reason, it helped calm him to look at the skin of the plane he was about to destroy.

“There has been a change of plans,” Qasim Ranjhani said, breathing deeply through his nose.

“We are boarding,” Tang whispered.

“Well, stop boarding,” Ranjhani said, calmly, not realizing that what he asked was akin to ordering a man not to kill himself once the blade was half into his belly.

“But, sir,” Tang gasped. “We have prepared. We cannot abandon—”

“There will be no abandoning of anything,” the Pakistani said, voice clicking away. “You will all accomplish the same mission, but it must be tomorrow — and with much greater effect.”

“As you say.” Tang felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He glanced quickly at Ma Zhen, who was in the lead, just three away from the head of the line. Tang shook his head. He waved his hand, motioning for the young man to step aside. The others followed, heads bowed, eyes closed. Gao looked a little relieved, another problem Tang would have to deal with.

Ranjhani continued with his explanation. “The next flight to Alaska leaves in two hours. I have made arrangements for you and your people to be on it. I have booked you all on Global Airlines flight 105 from Anchorage to Vladivostok tomorrow morning. You will have to pass through Customs, but I have taken care of the necessary paperwork.”

“Of course,” Tang said.

“Believe me, my friend,” the Pakistani said. “Nothing has changed but for the time and place. You will all make a great difference.”

The others crowded around Tang by the time he ended the call. Lin slouched in a chair a few feet away. She had no stomach for petty details and wanted only for this to be over.

Tang explained their new orders.

“Tomorrow?” Gao said, his thick face twisting into a scowl. “I will need to borrow some money so I can eat.”

Gao was chosen to be their muscle. He was a depressed psychopath whose mother would be well taken care of after his death. It was only right that he keep his strength up. Tang dug a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket and shoved it at the frowning man. It was all the money he had left, but that didn’t matter, he had no appetite.

He was a bullet in a gun, with no will of his own — and bullets did not get hungry.

Chapter 21

Quinn had been so busy trying to connect with Ronnie and Jacques before he lost the cell tower that he hadn’t had time to notice how cramped the interior of the little Super Cub actually was until they were well away from Mountain Village.

Rain streaked the Plexiglas, buzzing with the growl of the 150-horse Lycoming engine as the plane wallowed its way through guncotton clouds. Hundreds of silver lakes ghosted in and out of the heavy mist, pocking the tundra just five hundred feet below.

Not one to balk at any sort of danger, Quinn had never really been comfortable in small airplanes. He’d jumped out of a few to get his wings as an Air Force Academy cadet, then later, during training as a combat rescue officer or CRO — the commissioned rank of the Air Force PJs. It was an odd reality that he felt more comfortable dangling under the canopy of his chute, held aloft by only a few dozen lengths of skinny cord, than he did cooped up in a tiny winged box over which he had no control. He supposed that was the problem. If he’d ever taken the time to learn to fly, he might have felt better about the whole notion. Placing his safety in the hands of another had never been easy — and now he’d turned his life over to a twentysomething girl who was addicted to punk-ash tobacco and appeared to be dancing to Queen behind the controls of the airplane.

Lovita’s small shoulders and peroxide-orange hair bounced in time to the music, just inches in front of him. Her green David Clark earphones had a large piece of sheepskin running along the top to cushion her smallish head, making her look like an elf wearing a ridiculous hat. Every so often, she gave in to the urge and belted out the notes with Freddie, causing her husky voice to buzz across the intercom into Quinn’s headset. She was amazingly good, though her voice was an octave lower than any member of the Queen ensemble.

Quinn shifted in his seat, trying to readjust in the cramped quarters. He tried to imagine someone as big as Jacques crammed into the tiny plane behind Lovita and realized such a thing would have been impossible. She was so close that it felt as though she was flying with her shoulders between his knees. She would have been wearing the big Cajun like a backpack.

The Piper was outfitted for search and rescue with thirty-gallon tanks in each wing and bubble windows that gave Quinn a better view than he really wanted out of each side of the airplane.

Saint Mary’s lay along the Yukon, nearly due east of Mountain Village, so Lovita took them north at first, avoiding the oncoming Cessna full of contract killers. Twenty miles up, she cut back to the east, crossing the squirming oxbows of the upper Andreafsky River. Low clouds pressed her down, just a few hundred feet off the deck. She had the heater cranked up to full, keeping the interior of the little plane relatively warm, but Quinn’s knees pressed against the outer walls, drawing in the moist chill through the thin skin of the airplane, and bringing back unpleasant memories of his recent swim in the Yukon.

His forehead against the bubble side window, Quinn was subjected to the dizzying view of thick willows and green swamps dotted with pairs of starkly white swans that had come north to breed. They were close enough he felt as if he could count their feathers. The plane passed over the occasional moose, lone bulls or cows with tawny twin calves. Traversing over the wider, meandering waters of the Chuilnak River, a monstrous brown bear that looked to be the size of a Volkswagen peered up from his fishing hole with a scolding, pig-eyed stare, reminding Quinn that he would not be at the top of the food chain should they have to set down out here.

Lovita’s voice crackled over Quinn’s headset, rough, like a mile of gravel road.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Quinn said, happy to take his mind off crashing in the wilderness.

“Are you some kind of secret government spy?”

Quinn chuckled, in spite of the situation. “No.”

“What’s it like?” Lovita asked.

“I said I wasn’t one.”

“Okay,” she said. “But that’s exactly what a spy would say.” Though a rich purr, her voice bordered on a monotone and with nothing to judge by but the back of her head, it was difficult to read her emotions. “You came to us looking like you’d been mauled by a brown bear. I know you were in the military. You look at things different from other people, and nobody else I know would have been able to fight their way through all those guys like you did.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” Quinn said. “Spies are all about gathering information and reporting it back up the chain.”

“But you are something else.” Lovita banked the plane gently to the right, drifting between two low hills that rose up through the fog. “Some sort of secret government operative?”

“How do you know so much about government operatives?” Quinn mused, half to himself.

“I watch movies,” Lovita said. “I told you, we got the Internet out here, and satellite TV, and books, and the mail, and everything.”

Quinn didn’t answer.

“My uncle said you’re worried about guys like the ones that came to our village going after your daughter,” Lovita said. “I thought government operatives were all single with no family ties.”

“Some are,” Quinn sighed. “But there are more with wives, husbands, and even big families.”

“Looks like people with no ties would have less to worry about,” Lovita said. The back of her head bobbed in time with her words.

“Or fight for,” Quinn said, thinking of Mattie and Ronnie and Kim and his brother and parents and a dozen other people he held dear. “It’s pretty difficult to go through life with no ties.”

“Maybe,” Lovita said. “Maybe so.” She dropped another hundred feet, close enough that Quinn could see individual rivulets in the small streams and ponds that crossed and dotted the soggy tundra below. She checked the clear tubing that displayed the fuel level on each wall over her window. “We’re golden on gas all the way to Anchortown,” she said, using the slang for Alaska’s largest city. “As long as we don’t have to do too much pokin’ around in these clouds. ’Course, I gotta warn you. I got five-hour fuel tanks and a three-hour bladder so we’ll have to make a stop somewhere.”

Two hours into the flight it became impossible to see the ground and, more important, the terrain ahead of the airplane, forcing Lovita to drop even lower. Quinn couldn’t help but think they’d be driving across the tundra if she went much lower.

“I was trying for Ptarmigan Pass,” she said, “but the weather looks bum up that way. I’m gonna cut south and take Lake Clark through the mountains. Lotsa glaciers so it might be a little bumpy.” Lovita shimmied forward in her seat, her attention darting from the gray mass of nothingness in her windshield to the bracket-mounted GPS at the corner of her console. Quinn knew enough about the geography of western Alaska to know they were flying through the northern remnants of the Kilbuck Mountains. The terrain would flatten again somewhat after that, before the sharp, glacier-filled teeth of the Alaska Range rose up to block their way to Anchorage.

Quinn leaned forward, focused on the small blue triangle that signified their position on the GPS. “Everything okay?”

“For now,” Lovita said, rolling her shoulders in a movement that reminded Quinn of a boxer preparing to step into the ring. “Those other guys are around here close,” she said. “I can feel ’em. I’ve hid out below the clouds as long as I can, but we got some big hunks of rock coming up. I’m gonna have to punch through the tops to keep from drillin’ a hole in some mountain. GPS says this is a good place.”

She added throttle and pulled back on the stick, pitching the nose of the little plane upward so it began a gradual climb. The cockpit sounded like the inside of a tin barn during a hailstorm. The clouds darkened at first, and Quinn found himself calculating the odds of flying headlong into the other plane, or even a bird. He was so disoriented in the foggy gloom, he wouldn’t have known otherwise until they augered into the tundra. Lovita appeared to be an excellent instrument pilot, but the Super Cub had no radar. No matter how skilled a pilot she was, not hitting something other than the mountains shown on the GPS was one hundred percent luck.

Quinn watched the hands on the altimeter climb through eight and then nine thousand feet before the clouds began to thin. Patches of hazy blue made more frequent appearances. Turbulence tossed the plane like a toy as it skidded through the top layer of weather at ten thousand feet.

When they finally popped through the clouds Quinn felt like a diver coming up for air.

Lovita kept climbing for a long moment, before diving back down into level flight. “This day is Super-Cubable,” she said, the ear-to-ear grin audible in her voice.

A sea of clouds stretched for miles in all directions, silver white under a brilliant sun. Craggy black peaks rose like islands around them and made Quinn wonder how Lovita had managed to avoid smashing into one during their time down in the muck. Far to the east, the Alaska Range loomed in a hazy line. Below, hidden under a blanket of clouds, was a maze of passes and peaks that made up the Kilbuck Mountains — but above, the Cessna was nowhere in sight.

“Hear that?” Lovita said, an hour later. The GPS said they were flying over the foothills leading into the western entrance to Lake Clark Pass.

Quinn strained his ears. “Hear what?”

“There’s nothing like flying a little airplane over mountains or ocean to make you hear all sorts of rattles and clangs in the—”

Her voice cut out. Quinn, who’d been scanning behind them, turned to see a blue-and-white Cessna Caravan cross their path from north to south, five hundred feet above and maybe a mile away.

A much larger and faster airplane than the Super Cub, the Caravan cruised the skies like a hunting shark, just waiting for the little Piper to show itself. It banked toward them immediately.

Lovita shot a glance over her shoulder. “What do you wanta do?”

“Not sure,” Quinn said, watching the plane grow larger as it bore down on them. “Unless they’re outfitted with jump doors, a Caravan’s not set up to open up in flight and shoot at us.”

With the closing speed of the two airplanes reaching nearly three hundred knots, the Cessna shot past seconds later, fifty feet off the little Piper’s left wing. Quinn’s head whipped around, watching it for as long as he could. At least three faces pressed to the Caravan’s windows stared back at him.

Both Quinn and Lovita looked back and forth in an effort to see behind them. The Cessna made a tight banking turn, falling in easily on the Super Cub’s tail.

“He doesn’t have to shoot us down,” Quinn said.

“He’s got three times our range,” Lovita finished his thought. “He can stay behind and wait until we land and then shoot us on the ground. I saw the way those guys were back in the village. They treat Natives like scum.”

“They treat everybody like scum,” Quinn said, mind racing through his meager options. “But you’re right. They don’t have to do anything but follow us and wait for reinforcements.”

Lovita reached above her console and scrolled through several screens on the GPS, nodding to herself as she spoke. “It’s a dead zone out here. No cell towers and radio traffic is no-go unless it’s plane to plane. Satellites are so low on the horizon this far north a sat phone call is even iffy.”

“Maybe,” Quinn said, twisting around again to watch the plane behind them.

Lovita picked up her iPod and put on another Freddie Mercury song.

“Do you trust me, Jericho Quinn?” she said, shouting above a throbbing engine and the loud music that now streamed across the intercom.

Quinn turned from where he’d been watching the plane behind them to stare at the back of her head.

“Yes,” he said. “I trust you.”

“Good.” She pulled back the throttle, slowing the plane a hair and allowing the Caravan to close the distance behind them. Freddie Mercury still wailed over the headphones. “Because we need to get them really, really close for this to work.”

Lovita waited until the other plane was almost on top of them, and then dropped the Piper’s nose, plowing back into the weather.

The brilliant sun winked out as clouds enveloped them again. Quinn’s stomach rose into his chest. His back pressed against the seat. He didn’t know if he should worry more about the planeful of contract killers behind them, or the hungry black rocks that lurked in the fog below.

Chapter 22

Tang boarded the underground train that would take them to the Alaska Airline gates on the other side of the airport. They had plenty of time, but he could not bear the thought of missing the flight and prolonging their agony even more than the Pakistani already had.

“Why would they do this?” Hu stood clutching a stainless-steel handrail as the train started to move. “At the last possible moment…” Oblivious to the other passengers now, he whispered what everyone else on the team was thinking.

Tang shook his head. He spoke in Mandarin, but kept his words broad. The number of Americans who spoke Chinese — or any other language — was small, but it was prudent to be careful. “I do not know,” he said. “But his reasons are surely important.”

Hu grabbed the rail with both hands and leaned a distraught face against his arms. His eyes glistened with tears. For a time, Tang thought the man might cry. He certainly deserved to.

Hu Qi had been a champion gymnast and still found time to study law at Zhejiang University. His coaches said he had a chance at the Olympics and his professors spoke often of his future in government. But those dreams were crushed when his father had been arrested for trafficking heroin. The man was a devout Muslim and never touched alcohol, let alone something as evil as heroin. The entire family knew the drugs belonged to Qi’s older brother, but the authorities had found them at his parents’ home. Any mitigating circumstances had been swept away when a routine blood test at the time of arrest revealed old man Hu had AB-negative blood, the same type as a deputy minister in need of a liver transplant. Both Qi and his elder brother had been tested as well. Qi was A-positive, but his brother, the real owner of the heroin, shared his father’s blood type. He was summarily arrested as an accessory.

A speedy trial found both men guilty of the capital offense of trafficking dangerous narcotics. In keeping with Yanda, China’s policy to strike hard against drug traffickers, both men were sentenced to death. With many such cases, the court might hand down a death sentence with a two-year probationary period — showing the seriousness of the crime, but demonstrating the mercy of the state if the condemned did not commit another crime during the two-year period. In the case of the Hus, all appeals were carried out with lightning speed, in order to ensure the deputy minister received his vital organ transplant before it was too late. Both men were executed four days after the original verdict was pronounced.

Hu Qi, little more than a boy, had waited in the shadows across from the prison and watched the nondescript white bus roll through the iron gates. This mobile execution van parked in front of the administration building, behind the prison walls, but in plain sight of the road. Qi was able to witness a chain gang of five men, including his father and brother, as they were ushered at gunpoint into the open back doors of this kill house to have their organs harvested for party officials and Chinese businessmen rich enough to afford them. A short time later, uniformed guards carried coolers of what were surely kidneys, hearts, and even eyes out the back, while the van exited the gate and turned up the quiet road toward the crematorium with what was left.

Hu Qi had withdrawn from the university at once to take care of his mother, getting a job digging graves at the cemetery where the ashes of his mutilated father and brother were buried. Somehow, the man from Pakistan had found him as well. He’d plucked the bitter young student from the life of misery with the promise of a chance to fire a killing shot at the regime that had destroyed his family.

Tang gathered his bag as the train came to a stop and the passengers poured out. The crowd clumped together as they waited for the escalator that would take them up to their gates. He turned to make sure Lin was still with him. She shuffled along behind, barely more than a shell anymore. She looked so much like their daughter, a fact that added even more anguish to Tang and surely pierced Lin’s heart each time she looked in the mirror.

Chapter 23

Quinn twisted in his seat, face pressed against the window, doing his best to keep an eye on the other plane. The Caravan drifted back and forth in the clouds behind them as if towed by an invisible rope. It was close enough he could almost see the sneer on the pilot’s face.

“Okay,” Lovita said. “This is where it’s gonna get a little hairy.”

Quinn looked forward to see nothing but gray fog. The instruments on her console said they were flying straight and level, but there was absolutely nothing to reference outside but mist and rain.

Lovita checked her GPS again and then reached down long enough to bring up another song on the iPhone connected to her headset. There was a flurry of drums and electric guitar as “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” started to play.

“Hang on to your lunch!” Lovita said as she added steady power. Hauling back on the stick, she began to sing along with Freddie.

The Super Cub nosed up into a near vertical climb as a rock face loomed up through the fog, less than a hundred meters in front of them.

Quinn leaned back in his seat, hands in his lap — helpless to do anything but sit there. He’d never been a screamer, and in any case, there was little he could do.

Lovita kept adding power until the throttle was all the way to the wall, putting the plane as nearly straight up and down as she could. The rock face grew darker as they closed in. Quinn could see the deep blue of a glacier and the black cracks and jagged teeth of its crevasses spilling over the peaks like froth running down the side of a glass.

There was no way to see what was going on with the plane behind them. He was only aware of the scream of the Piper’s engine, and then weightlessness as the little airplane reached the apex of its ability to climb. It hung in the air for a brief moment, before breaking to the right.

Black rock and blue ice flashed through the clouds as they fell, close enough to reach out and touch. Quinn hung from his seat belt, above Lovita now as she pointed the nose straight down, gaining back the speed she’d lost in the climb.

The sharp concussion of an explosion somewhere behind them caused the little Super Cub to shudder as Lovita leveled her out going away from the mountain, less than two hundred feet off the valley floor.

Quinn breathed for the first time in two minutes.

“That big Cessna may have had more range and speed than my little bird,” Lovita said over the blaring music, her husky voice an octave higher than normal. “But it couldn’t do what we can do at slow speeds.”

Quinn worked to slow his heart rate. He didn’t know many professional jet jockeys that would have tried such a maneuver in a plane like this. But Lovita knew bush Alaska. She’d probably made the trip through this particular pass a hundred times and knew each side canyon as well as the gravel streets of her own village. The hammerhead stall had taken them straight up the face of the mountain, leaving her just enough room to pull out and go the other direction while the larger, less limber Caravan had simply flown into the face.

Lovita banked to the left and back into the main pass. Raindrops streamed along the windows again and the world seemed to close in around them.

They were back on the deck again in no time, skimming the turquoise waters of Lake Clark, ghosting in and out of clouds.

“How are we for fuel?” Quinn asked, checking the indicator tubes on each wing. He could tell they were fine, but wanted to make sure Lovita’s head was still in the game after such a huge adrenaline dump.

Lovita’s shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath. She craned her head around to look back at Quinn. “We’re fine,” she said, eyes narrowed in a tight smile. It was the happiest face he’d ever seen her put on.

“Good,” he smiled back. “Because I really need to pee.”

“That’s funny.” Lovita’s tiny body shook with a nervous laugh. “I already did that a couple minutes ago.”

Chapter 24

Vice President McKeon had not moved from the lounge in the presidential study. Long brown fingers still stroked the Japanese woman’s hair as she rested her head in his lap. Her shoes lay on the plush cream-colored carpet. Her skirt had crawled farther up, revealing the dark images of a mountain demon tattooed on the smooth flesh of her thigh. Small toes curled and clenched, like a cat moving just the tip of its tail. McKeon thought it both incredible and frightening that such a skillful killer could have such beautiful toes.

Drake was still in the gym so they had the room to themselves.

Ran shifted her weight slightly, rolling on her back. She made none of the grunts and groans normal people made when they moved after long periods of being stationary, calling such sounds “victim noises.” All her motions — all of them — were done in silence.

“I do not see how you continue with this ignorant man,” she said. Her chest heaved in pent-up frustration.

“Drake?” McKeon continued to stroke her hair.

“I had a dream that you were in that chair,” she said, arching her neck to look toward the small passageway that led to the Oval Office and the Resolute Desk. “It would be a simple matter to sort him out and put you there.”

“In time, my dear,” McKeon said. “But not quite yet. I have too much to do without a new vice president to contend with, one who might not work together with me as he should.”

Ran looked up at him, her eyes, it seemed, penetrating to the back of his skull. “Drake is unpredictable,” she said, the hint of a Japanese accent in her flat voice. “He is much too soft and comfortable in his new position. I think it will be difficult to give up his seat of power now that he has it.”

“Ah.” McKeon smiled. “He does not know it, but that is all part of the plan.”

“What if he has plans of his own?” Ran asked.

“I am counting on it.” McKeon smiled again.

“And what of me?” Ran closed her eyes, as if she knew he needed some respite. “I will never cover myself with a veil.”

“It would be a crime to cover you,” McKeon said, wondering if he would go to hell for saying such a thing.

“But you believe all women should,” Ran said. “Is that not your ultimate goal?”

“I fear you would kill me if I tried to cover you.”

“Without question,” she said. “And so I ask again. What of me?”

“What of either of us?” McKeon said.

Ran closed her eyes again. “That is the only answer I would have accepted.” Her breathing slowed and for a moment, McKeon thought she might be asleep. She spoke again, changing the subject. “Do you trust this band of misfits Ranjhani has tasked with sorting out Jericho Quinn?”

“They are all more than willing to die,” McKeon said. “If that’s what you mean.”

Ran shook her head, half dozing. “I am Japanese, so I am intimate with death for an honorable cause. My father spoke with great reverence of Tokubetsu Kōgekitai — the Special Attack Squadrons — suicide pilots of kamikaze planes and kaiten submarines. I know full well that there are many besides the followers of Islam willing to give their lives in battle — or as you would call it, jihad. But from the descriptions given by Qasim, this group seems to be merely deranged.”

“Deranged or not, they are useful to our cause,” McKeon mused. “They share a common hatred of China, and that is enough.”

“Maybe.” Ran gave a soft sigh, thinking this over. “But the will to die is as fragile as life itself. I often wonder how many samurai who chose to commit seppuku changed their minds when the blade was a few inches in their belly…”

McKeon nodded. “That is why they had a second present to finish the job with a quick blow to the neck.”

“That is so…” Ran sat up suddenly, causing McKeon to flinch. He made a small victim noise, earning him a sidelong glare. “In any case, I am a patient woman, but I grow tired of endless meetings and the parade of politicians. A diversion would be good. Perhaps I should take care of your wife while she is yet in Oregon?”

“I need you here.” McKeon’s phone rang. “You will have the chance to do plenty of sorting out, in the near future. I promise.” He fished the phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear. “Yes…” he said. “She will be a good place to start.”

He patted the back of Ran’s hand as he listened to the caller. It was small and delicate for one who spoke so often of blood and death.

“No, I agree,” he said, drawing the hand to his lips to give it a silent kiss. “Pick her up right away. I’m keenly interested to hear how much she will tell you… By all means… Whatever methods you deem appropriate. You have the full support of the office of the President.”

Chapter 25

“She’s just coming back from her run now.” The man in black BDUs and a matching ballistic vest spoke into the voice-activated microphone pinned to his collar. He was on the heavy side, with a jowly face and wavy hair that had been slicked back with half a jar of pomade. “She’ll be rounding the corner toward you in less than two minutes.”

“Copy that, Joey,” Agent Glen Walter said, giving one last piece of advice before his team made contact. “Okay, boys. This is sure to make the ten o’clock news. Make it look professional.”

Her code name was Fable — and she had zero doubt that any of the five men and women jogging around her in the loose diamond formation would take a bullet on her behalf. The same went for the agent on the twelve-speed race bike ten yards ahead and the young man in the armored Suburban that crunched slowly along the road behind them. It was getting dark, and though CIA Director Virginia Ross’s Rockville neighborhood was upscale to the point of old-money snobbishness, the protective agent in charge of her detail hated it when she ran so late in the evening.

Adam Knight had been with her for the past three years and he was still as doting and overprotective as a young father with a first baby. Rarely letting her out of his line of sight, even at state functions, he often looked as if he wanted to taste her food before she ate it, just to be on the safe side. The tragic assassination of both President Clark and the Vice President had, she supposed, taken its toll on every agent charged with the protection of government officials.

Still, Ross had to live her life. She had an agency to run — and a body that wasn’t getting any younger.

She’d never been a skinny woman, but eight months earlier her doctor had pointed out that she was lugging around the equivalent of a bushel of corn in extra body weight. To get rid of that burden had meant lots of walking at first. Later, when half that bushel had gone the way of the dodo, her fifty-four-year-old knees had been able to take her on long and glorious — if ploddingly slow — runs. She’d always been bottom heavy. Thankfully, her deceased math-professor husband hadn’t minded what he called her “butt to boobs ratio.” One could not put in what God had seen fit to leave out and she would forever be built like a pear, no matter how much she exercised. But the good Lord didn’t say that numbers in her husband’s ratio had to be quite so large.

Ross wasn’t oblivious to the stress living her life caused her protective detail. As a sort of moral trade, she made it a habit to get to know them all personally, along with the names of their spouses and significant others. She couldn’t keep their kids straight, but forgave herself for that since she had trouble keeping up with the names of her own nine grandchildren.

Three blocks from home, Ross picked up the pace, catching a smile from the tawny woman jogging next to her. Wiki was her name, a broad-shouldered Maori woman of twenty-nine. She’d spent time as an MP in the Army before joining the CIA’s Protective Division. Most of the men and women on Ross’s detail had military service — and while some clandestine agents thought of the protective folks as the knuckle-draggers of the agency, she’d come to respect their dedication and that no-BS swagger that earned them the reputation of knuckle-draggers in the first place.

More academic than spy, Ross had grown up on an Iowa farm seeing the value of hard work and the good in her neighbors. In college, she talked her way out of trouble and into a political circle of friends that got her plucked from a career as an economics professor at Dartmouth to become the US ambassador to Chile before she was forty years old. A knack for being in the right place at the right time had put her in line to be director of the CIA under the president prior to Chris Clark’s administration. She’d done well her first few years, putting her mark on the agency and, to her way of thinking, making it better. Then, both her husband and her youngest daughter had passed away without any warning, sending her into a nosedive that surely bled into her professional life. It had taken her the better part of two years to dig her way out of that one, never quite having the energy to resign, but believing Clark would name a replacement at any moment. The fall of a very bright star was a notable, and often celebrated, event in DC. When otherwise brilliant people stumbled, the difference was drastic. The press and others who wanted the job circled like sharks.

Things looked as though they might be getting better. Cogent thoughts began to work their way back into Ross’s head. She took an active interest in life again, and dreaded the thought of being replaced. She knew Winfield Palmer had President Clark’s ear and had spoken to him several times about it. He seemed happy enough with her performance to let things remain status quo long enough that if she did leave, it would be on a positive note.

Then Hartman Drake had taken over. Ross didn’t quite know what to think about him. It would take some time, she thought, time to learn exactly what he was all about. In the interim, she’d keep running, climbing out of her personal funk, and leading the agency as best she could until he fired her.

Just off her right shoulder, she saw Adam Knight lift a small microphone to his lips, calling ahead to the residence no doubt, to let them know that “Fable’s arrival was imminent.” She’d not chosen the code name herself, but Ross liked it. She was a woman in a business traditionally dominated by men with code names like Renegade, Lancer, and Rawhide. Fable let her pretend an air of femininity in the testosterone-infused world.

Panting now, sweat soaking the front of her green Dartmouth T-shirt, Ross glanced over at Wiki, who loped along easily beside her. Ross’s feet, carried by somewhat stubby legs, hit the ground twice for each one of the young agent’s lengthy strides. Long, graceful arms seemed always ready to reach out and catch her or stop some oncoming threat. It was impossible not to notice the black fanny pack cinched tightly round the young woman’s waist and the beige radio wire that led to her flesh-colored earpiece.

“Race you the last block,” Ross said as they rounded the corner on the homestretch to her house.

“Feeling energetic are we today, ma’am?” Wiki said, saying “energetic” in the particularly pinched nasal New Zealander accent Ross found endearing.

She had bowed her head to pick up the pace when the agent on the bicycle slid to an abrupt halt and began to shout,

“Gun front! Gun front!”

Adam Knight bolted into the lead, yelling, “Ambush! Ambush! Ambush!” into his lapel mike.

Ross caught a fleeting glimpse of men standing in front of her house half a block away. She couldn’t see any guns, but trusted her detail. An instant later, Wiki enveloped her. The protective agent used her own arm as a fulcrum, jamming it into Ross’s solar plexus while at the same time grabbing her by the back of her collar and bending her forward at the waist. They ran together toward the Suburban.

Ross’s driver screeched in next to the curb. The forward agent had already thrown his bike to the street and stood with pistol drawn beside the open door, scanning for threats beyond the obvious. Wiki shoved Ross in the backseat — nearly ripping her T-shirt off in the process — and then piled in beside her. Adam Knight jumped in the front passenger seat and slammed the heavy armored door. He beat on the dash with the flat of his hand.

“Go, go, go!”

Once Ross was in the relative safety of the armored Suburban, the driver threw the vehicle in reverse, accelerating backwards away from the threat. Per protocol, he abandoned the agents on the ground to fight their own way out.

Still on her belly, Ross was thrown forward, smacking the front seats. She slid into the armrest with Wiki piling up behind her as the driver suddenly let off the gas and cranked the wheel, spinning the SUV in a quick 180 to head toward the safe site, the Rockville Police Station less than three miles away.

Ross tried to raise her head to get a peek at what was going on, but Wiki leaned on top of her, pressing her down.

“The truck’s armored,” the agent said, her Kiwi accent stronger from the stress of battle, “but I don’t know what sort of weapons they have, ma’am. Let’s keep our coconuts down, shall we for now?”

Knight snatched up the microphone clipped to the console. “Rockville PD, Rockville PD, Fable Limo,” he said, his voice much calmer than the sweat on his upper lip made him look. He shot a backward glance at Ross while he waited for a response. “You okay, ma’am?”

“I’m fine,” Ross said. “What—”

The dispatcher cut her off.

“Fable Limo, Fable Limo, go ahead for Rockville PD.”

“Possible compromise at Fable residence,” Knight said. “We’re four minutes out, en route to your location.”

“Ten-four, Fable Limo,” the dispatcher came back. “You are clear on this end.”

As detail supervisor, Knight would have made it a point to liaise with nearby police departments and hospitals in the event their assistance was ever needed. The detail often ran drills, but they were dry runs that Ross only read about. She’d never taken the time to participate in one.

“What did you see, Adam?” she asked, still pressed down against the seat.

Knight held up his hand and continued his radio conversation. “Fable CP, Fable CP, Limo,” he said, trying to raise the command post at the residence. He cursed when there was no answer.

Brian Shumway, the agent who’d been on the bicycle, came across on the radio. His voice was breathless, but in control. “No idea what’s going on, boss,” he said. “I’m not getting the CP either — by radio or cell.”

“Tell me what you do see,” Knight said, still tapping the dashboard with his open palm, willing the Suburban to go faster.

“I count three white males,” Shumway said. “All with MP5s standing in the front yard. Barb and I have good positions about half a block out, but these guys aren’t doing a damn thing. They know we’re here, but they don’t seem to care.”

“Okay, sit tight,” Knight said. “PD will have SWAT heading your way.”

The CIA had footed the bill for a series of heavy concrete bollards to reinforce the fenced parking area behind the Rockville Police Department. They’d also paid for the steel-wedge barrier that had to be lowered to enter or exit the lot in a vehicle. Knight used a remote that looked like a garage door opener to lower the barrier when they were fifty yards away.

“PD, PD, Fable Limo,” Knight said as they spend into the parking lot, the barrier coming up behind them. “Arrival. Arrival.”

“Ten-four, Fable,” the dispatcher said. “Chief’s at the back door to bring you in.”

Ross adjusted her sweaty T-shirt and tugged at the legs of the shorts. They were fine for running, but seemed much too immodest to be wearing during an attack. She often ran in public, but wasn’t accustomed to being thought of as the director of the CIA dressed only in gym gear. Stress made her chuckle at the thought.

Knight got out of the car first, checking the surroundings to make certain they were clear before opening Ross’s door.

Disheveled or not, Ross was a professional. She put on a pleasant face for the chief as they hurried toward the open back door to the PD where the lanky man waited to greet her. He was not smiling, a fact that made both Adam Knight and Wiki stop in their tracks.

A second man Ross did not recognize, with dirty blond hair and a high forehead, stepped out from behind the chief. Rumpled as if from an all-night drinking binge, he held up both hands to say he came in peace. A cadre of three other agents, all stodgy and overfed-looking things, piled up behind the man in the wrinkled suit.

“Glen Walter,” he said. “ID Task Force.”

Ross cringed at the mention of the IDTF. She shrugged the protesting Wiki off her arm and stepped around Adam Knight. If someone had taken over the police department to ambush her, there was little any of them could do about it at this point. The fact that this was an IDTF man made her think things were even worse than that.

“Virginia Ross,” she said. “What can I do for you, Mr. Walters?”

The man’s face pulled into a half smile as he extended his hand. “It’s Walter,” he said. “There’s no ‘s.’ Madam Director, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

Knight drew his weapon and pointed it at Walter. “You step back until I figure out exactly who you are.”

Walter raised his hands again, giving a nod to Knight’s pistol as if this sort of thing happened to him all the time. “It’s a touchy thing to serve an arrest warrant on someone when they have the luxury of a protective detail.”

“You don’t arrest a sitting director of the CIA,” Knight snapped. “Not without the President getting involved.”

“Believe me,” Walter said, still smiling a sort of smirky half grin that made Ross’s stomach sink with dread. “I wouldn’t get within ten miles of something like this without making sure all the piddly work was done up front. I’ve already taken the liberty of providing a copy of the warrant to the PD.”

Ross looked at the chief, who gave her a solemn nod. “It’s legitimate, ma’am,” he said.

“I assume those are your men back at my house,” Ross said.

“They are,” Walter said.

“Well, call them off right now,” she said. “Before we have a blue-on-blue shooting.”

“Good idea,” Walter said. Ross thought he might be from Florida or maybe Louisiana. Walter nodded to a shorter man with thinning blond hair. “Go ahead and call Benavidez.” He let his eyes play up and down Ross’s body, shaking his head. “Forgive me for saying so, but you’ve lost a heck of a lot of weight from your photographs.”

Knight, who was on the phone with CIA general counsel, stopped talking and turned to Walter. “I don’t care if you’re the President’s favorite nephew. Talk to the director like that again and I’ll kick your ass across this parking lot.” He wasn’t pointing his pistol, but he’d not gone so far as to return it to the holster in his fanny pack.

“It’s fine, Adam,” Ross said, knowing he was a half a breath away from shooting the ID agent. “Stand down.”

“A courtesy call wouldn’t have worked?” the protective agent snapped. “You’re a presidential appointee, ma’am.”

Walter gave an insolent shrug. “The United States government isn’t really comfortable giving courtesy calls to suspected spies.”

Knight held the phone away from his face a bit so the general counsel rep could hear the conversation.

“You’re arresting her for spying?”

“Violation of the Espionage Act,” Walter said, almost as an afterthought. “I’m not at liberty to get into specifics. I will say it’s a pretty serious charge, considering you’re the director of what is arguably the world’s most powerful intelligence agency. I don’t understand how a woman of your standing could—”

“Shut your mouth,” Knight said, stepping in between them again, daring the ID agent to make a move.

Ross put an arm around his shoulder. “Calm down, Adam,” she said. “There’s no doubt that this is a bizarre situation, but if he’s got a warrant, we don’t have a choice.” She turned to Walter. “I’ll go with you,” she said, “but I’ll have to call the President first.”

“Oh, Virginia,” the gloating agent said. He shook his head like she was a small child that just didn’t understand the reality of the situation. “Do you really think I’d be here if he didn’t already know?”

Chapter 26

Garcia felt the phone buzz in the pocket of her running shorts and replaced the tiny bud back in her ear. She’d only planned to do five miles, but being followed gave her the extra adrenaline to run the entire ten-K loop through the park. Besides, her ex had often reminded her that running would keep what he called her “ghetto booty” from getting any larger than it already was. She preferred to think of herself as having breeder’s hips, but deadbeat son of a bitch or not, her ex happened to be right — at least on that aspect of her booty.

“Hello,” she said, slowing her pace some so she could hear over her own breathing.

“Garcia?” Winfield Palmer said.

“Yes, sir.” Ronnie slowed to a walk, confident there was an unmarked car a block or so away that she was driving crazy with her changes in pace. She owed Palmer her job — and more. As national security advisor to President Clark, he’d seen her for what she was, and plucked her from the obscurity of being a CIA uniformed officer and thrown her in to work with people like Quinn and Thibodaux. It was dangerous work, but, as Jacques often pointed out: What was the fun of livin’ if someone wasn’t tryin’ to kill you?

“Can you talk?” Palmer asked. Not one to check in and chat with subordinates, he didn’t really care if she was busy. He wanted to know if the line was secure.

“We’re okay,” Ronnie said. “I do have a tail, but the phone is good and I’m out on a run.”

“Outstanding,” he said, deadpan as if his news was anything but good. “An ID team just arrested Virginia Ross.”

Ronnie stopped altogether, leaning forward with her hands on both knees as if she was catching her breath. “The director?”

“Afraid so,” Palmer said.

“When?”

“Five minutes ago.”

Garcia put a hand on her head, walking in a slow circle while she gathered her thoughts. She wondered how he’d found out about it so fast, but then remembered she was talking to Win Palmer, the man who had contacts inside virtually every agency in the government.

“What did they charge her with?”

“Spying,” Palmer said. “Listen, I’m doing some research of my own, but I’m under a pretty fine microscope here. Is there any way you can use some of your contacts to dig into this? Find out where they’re holding her.”

“Why Ross?” Ronnie mused out loud. She didn’t voice it, but she wondered why Palmer was suddenly so interested in the director of the CIA.

“I had to talk the President out of replacing her a couple of times after her daughter died. But she’s a good woman. I’m thinking the new administration asked around and heard she was the same old stuffed-shirt bureaucrat. That’s why they kept her on. Look at what the taxpayers are getting for their buck. He’s kept Andrew Filson in place as Secretary of Defense because he’s a warmonger, but replaced the Sec State with Tom Watchel, one of the most self-serving dilettantes I’ve ever met in Washington. Last time he was on Meet the Press he kept calling North Korea North Dakota. Every other cabinet member and high-level position is being replaced with empire-building yes-men who care more about their careers than running the government.”

“From my lowly viewpoint,” Ronnie said, “that’s not much of a change in the status quo.”

“Touché,” Palmer scoffed. “I’m still trying to figure out their endgame. There are too many checks and balances in place to allow them to do anything drastic right away. Congress, the courts… and even the military would nip any overt action in the bud. But, they’re moving slowly to keep public opinion on their side. They’ve had nearly six months to lay the groundwork for whatever it is they plan to do.”

“What about the commission?” Garcia asked, referring to the bipartisan Rand Commission, chaired by Chief Justice William Rand of the Supreme Court.

“Don’t even get me started on that,” Palmer said. “Not on the phone at least. Can you get rid of your tail long enough to do some checking on Ross?”

“Of course,” Garcia said, jogging again. “Any word on Miyagi?”

“Just find Ross for me,” he said, avoiding the question. Anyone who knew Palmer well knew he had a soft spot for the Japanese woman.

“Will do, sir.”

“Ronnie,” Palmer said before she could end the call. He always called her Garcia and the personal touch caught her off guard. There was a catch in his voice she’d not heard before. “You watch yourself.”

“I’ll do some checking and get back with you,” Garcia said. She’d be careful, but if the IDTF had killed a woman as tough as Emiko Miyagi and carted the director of the CIA off to jail, there wasn’t a whole lot for her to depend on but dumb luck.

Chapter 27

Ronnie bumped her front door shut with a hip and twisted the dead-bolt lock. She reset her alarm on the panel just inside, next to a framed photograph of her Russian father and smiling Cuban mother. She kicked off her shoes and peeled away her sweaty shirt and sports bra, grateful for air-conditioning and the chance to have a shower. Her confrontation with Agent Walter had made her feel dirty and being followed all day by people who surely worked for him made it even worse.

She set the fanny pack with her gun and phone on top of her bedroom dresser and stepped out of her running shorts. Naked, she caught a glimpse of herself in the closet mirror and laughed out loud at the bruises that mapped her body. Her defensive tactics instructor at Langley was no Emiko Miyagi, but he was a skilled practitioner of Krav Maga and jujitsu. The daily sessions allowed her to work off some aggression, but turned her forearms, ribs, and thighs into mottled purple punching bags — with bruises dark enough to show through even on her dark complexion. She’d inherited her father’s long sprinter’s thighs along with his broad shoulders and keen eye for his surroundings. From her mother she’d gotten a bawdy sense of humor, the full-figured curves that required a sports bra a small man could use as a two-room tent, and her tendency toward the ghetto booty. Garcia had always thought she had the sort of body that teetered between female boxer and hooker, depending on what she wore. Jericho seemed to appreciate it — and she was comfortable with that.

Garcia leaned in closer to the mirror on her dresser and pulled her hair back. The tiny lines around her eyes showed in horrifying detail that she was on a collision course with her thirtieth birthday. Her chosen career had a way of smiling on attractive and intelligent women in the early days — and then sneaking up when they weren’t looking to turn them into old and spent intelligent women well before their time. She let her hair fall and sighed. There was nothing she could do about it now.

Unwilling to be far from her pistol under the circumstances, she carried it into the bathroom and put in on the counter, within reach from the shower. Over the past year and a half she’d killed half a dozen people, been blown off the side of a mountain in Afghanistan, stabbed in the back by a psychotic little kid, and shot at more times than she could count. Keeping a gun next to her shower curtain was a far cry from needless paranoia.

Ronnie liked her showers hot enough to pink her skin. She stood for a long time with her hands on the wall, letting the water scald her back and chase the stiffness of defensive tactics class out of her joints. The pinpricks of pain were her way of relaxing and doing penance at the same time.

She washed her hair before the hot water ran out, never knowing when she might have the chance again, using the laurel conditioner Jericho said he liked. She turned off the shower and stood dripping in the tub for a long moment, thinking about Jericho and wondering how he was. Wrapping a towel around her head like a turban, she spread another towel along the edge of the tub and sat on it, still soaking wet. She took her time shaving her legs — another task she might normally put off for a week or more since Jericho was out of town — and hummed “Drume Negrita” — “Sleep My Little Black Baby” — a Cuban song her mother used to sing to her at bedtime.

The handprint on the mirror didn’t catch Ronnie’s eye until she was standing at the sink brushing her teeth. Spitting, she glanced up, thinking at first that she had to be imagining things. Out of instinct, she forced herself not to stare directly at the thing, instead scrubbing her teeth as if she wanted to start a fire by friction.

High in the right corner of her bathroom mirror, not far from the ceiling, the perfect imprint of a man’s palm stood out clearly against the condensation from her hot shower. Jericho had sometimes left little notes for her with his fingertip on the glass so the words would show up in the steam — but as far as she knew, he’d never climbed up on her counter. Whoever had left this handprint had likely caught himself while accessing the air vent above the medicine cabinet on the wall adjacent to the vanity.

Fighting the urge to throw on a robe — which would broadcast the fact that she knew she was being watched — Ronnie replaced her toothbrush in the holder beside the sink and reached for a tube of face cream from the cabinet. Piles of laundry and dirty dishes testified to the fact that she was a horrible housekeeper, but even that didn’t explain the tiny chips of paint on the counter. They had to have been knocked loose when someone had reattached the vent to the ceiling.

In general, Garcia was not a prudish sort of girl. She was perfectly content with her body and had never been uncomfortable on a clothing-optional beach. CIA operatives had to go through several iterations of training designed to snuff out as much of the natural embarrassment reflex as possible. Long surveillances often called for the use of a soda cup urinal while another agent sat just a few feet away. There was nothing quite as embarrassing as strip-searching a fellow classmate to look for contraband, and ordering them to lift and separate the various folds and crevices of the human body. But all that said, the thought of some sleazebag peering at her through a hidden camera in her own bathroom added a whole new level to the term “creepy.”

She did her best to ignore the air vent, taking the towel off her head and wrapping it around her torso, tucking it under her armpit. Agent Walter had likely sent in a black bag team while she was away on her run. They wouldn’t know that her normal routine was to walk around naked until she was completely dry, so covering herself now with the towel wouldn’t raise any alarms. Ronnie seethed inside at the thought that these pervs had actually put a camera in her bathroom. There was not a lot of useful intelligence to be gained from watching someone shave her legs and pee.

It took just a moment for the shock of finding the camera to wear off and Ronnie’s sense of self-preservation to kick in. Fighting the urge to flip the bird at the vent, she decided to use the camera to her advantage. She let the towel fall to the floor, thinking, “Get a load of them apples, you sick bastards.”

She spent the next five minutes standing in front of the mirror and putting on makeup as if to go out for a night on the town. She went so far as to hike up one foot at a time, resting it on the vanity counter so she could touch up the paint on her toenails. That would give them the show they were looking for. The more radical hormones they had flowing through their brains, the less likely they would be thinking straight when she did what she planned to do next.

Chapter 28

A block away from Ronnie Garcia’s house, backed into the driveway of a vacant house, IDTF agent Gene Lindale hit the button on the driver’s seat of his forest green Ford Expedition to lay it back as far as it would go. He shot a glance at his partner, a bruiser named Kevin Maloney.

“This ain’t bad duty,” Lindale said, peering at the open laptop computer on the console between them.

“This is dope!” Maloney grinned. “I hope we get to arrest her ass before this is over.”

“Yeah,” Lindale said. “I could give that a thorough pat down…”

Before being tapped for work in the Internal Defense Task Force, both men had been agents for Homeland Security. Both their files had noted severe Giglio issues. That is, they were both known to be liars. In Giglio v. the United States, the Supreme Court had decided that defense counsels and juries in any trial where such liars testified had to be made aware of that fact. Such a record made it virtually impossible for a federal law enforcement agent to do his or her job. When they’d come aboard, the supervising agent, a guy named Walter, had told them not to worry about it. He didn’t expect them to spend much time on a witness stand.

“Looks like she’s going out for a drink or something,” Lindale said, rubbing his eyes. The dim light from the computer screen gave the men’s faces an eerie, otherworldly glow in the darkness of the vehicle. Dark tint on the side windows made them invisible to nosey neighbors.

“Look at that,” Maloney said, leaning forward so he could get a better look. “She carries that little pistol in a holster that hangs from her bra. I’ve heard about those.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” Lindale chuckled. “Don’t want to get my fingers shot…” His voice trailed off. “What the hell is she doing?”

The men watched as Ronnie Garcia walked to her kitchen wearing only jeans, a black sports bra, and a pistol. She knelt in front of her oven, screwdriver in hand, and opened the oven door to remove both metal racks so she could lean inside.

“You think she’s going to gas herself?” Lindale mused.

“It’s an electric oven, dipshit,” Maloney said. “So I’m thinking no.”

A moment later, Garcia backed out of the oven and set a metal plate on the linoleum beside her. She went in again and, after a moment wrestling with something at the back of the oven, brought out a desert tan duffel bag.

“You need to put the panel back on, sweetheart,” Lindale said to the computer screen.

“You just want to see her bend over one more time.” Maloney rubbed his eyes again. “How do you suppose that bag keeps from burning up in there?”

Lindale scoffed. “Does this bitch really look like a Suzy Homemaker to you? Even if that plate isn’t some sort of heat shield, I’m betting she doesn’t do a hell of a lot of baking—”

“I’ve lost her,” Maloney said a few moments later. He moved the computer mouse so he could click through a screen menu. “Did we put cameras in the garage?”

The garage door rumbled open in answer to his question, throwing a shaft of light onto her driveway. Garcia’s black Impala backed out a moment later. She turned west, thankfully moving away from the green Ford.

Maloney punched a speed dial number in his cell phone. “Mr. Walters… Sorry, I mean Walter,” he said when the other end picked up. “You wanted us to tell you if she moved.”

Chapter 29

Ronnie took a meandering route through the neighborhood to make the guys following her earn their money. If they knew her at all, they’d know it was a normal habit for her to throw in an alternate route or two when she went anywhere. If she didn’t, they might smell a trap. She headed south on I-270 meandering back and forth across all six lanes, again making the guys in the green SUV behind her work for their pay. Slowing at every exit, she kept them guessing as she scanned the businesses along the service roads, looking for the specifics she would need for her plan to work.

She found exactly what she was looking for on the outskirts of Bethesda and took the exit for a little convenience store that Jericho would have called a “stop-and-rob.” Ronnie pulled her Impala under the bright lights of the awning beside the gas pumps. Ahead of her, a kid who looked like he might still be in high school fueled up a Kawasaki Ninja sport bike. She couldn’t help but smile at him. Every motorcycle she saw reminded her of Quinn. She’d known how to ride before she met him, but she’d never loved it the way she did since that first time riding with him on a rented Enfield Bullet high in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan.

She swiped her credit card at the pump and topped off the fuel in the Impala. Might as well make the guys in the green Expedition believe she was about to go for a long drive.

Chapter 30

Blue sky, marred by only a thin line of halfhearted clouds over the distant Chugach Mountains, greeted them when Lovita brought her little Super Cub out of Lake Clark Pass. CAVU, they called it — Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited. She turned back to the north, skirting the mudflats on the western edge of Cook Inlet, staying low to avoid notice by other aircraft the contractors in the Caravan might have been able to contact. The city of Anchorage lay like a pile of reflective glass blocks on the flat delta below green mountains on the other side of the inlet. A steady line of commercial jets, both passenger and cargo, lumbered over the silver-brown water toward Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport at the end of the point. Like any other day in Alaska, it was impossible to look any direction for long and not see some kind of airplane. Small aircraft were the station wagons, taxis, and cargo vans of the wilderness — which started just a few minutes from the city of Anchorage.

Quinn’s phone chirped as soon he had a signal. He stuffed it under the seal of his headset, pressing it down as best he could to avoid the engine noise.

“Jer?” It was Kim. Everyone else knew not to use names on the phone, but he couldn’t blame her. She’d not signed up for this kind of work

“Hey,” Quinn said, half yelling. The fact that she was able to talk to him gave him more than a tinge of worry. “I thought you’d be on a plane by now.”

Silence.

“Hello?” Quinn said.

“I’m still here,” Kim said. “Are you okay? Jacques said there was some trouble out there.”

“I’m fine,” Quinn said, making a mental note to talk to Jacques about the information that was passed on to his ex-wife. “Everything’s fine.” Saying it twice had always been necessary with Kim.

“I don’t want you to worry,” she said, “but my leg was reinjured during the attack this afternoon.”

“Reinjured?” Quinn pressed the phone tighter to his ear.

“I feel okay. It’s just a big bruise really, but the doctor is worried about blood clots if I fly.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “What about Mattie?”

“She’s with your parents,” Kim said. “They are on the way to you now.”

Quinn gave an audible sigh of relief. “We’ll get you over as soon as you’re able to fly,” he said. “I’m not happy leaving you here with all that’s going on.”

“Yeah,” Kim said, her voice faltering, the way it did when she was about to get mad. “And I have to tell you, it scares the shit out of me to send Mattie over with someone I’ve never met. Promise me she’ll be all right.”

“Of course,” Quinn said. He fought the urge to snap back.

Kim laughed, changing the subject. “I never saw your dad fight before. I can see where you get it.”

Quinn smiled at that. “Nope,” he said. “I get that from my mom. She’s way meaner than he is.”

He promised to check in as soon as they got to Vladivostok — if they got to Vladivostok — then ended the call.

From the air, Cook Inlet resembled a giant beetle jutting up from the Gulf of Alaska with the Knik and Turnagain Arms forming two antennae that pointed north and east respectively. Lovita cut across the muddy tidal waters of the Knik Arm, losing altitude as they neared Birchwood, a small public-use airport. As its name implied, it was nestled among thick stands of white birch that blanketed the lower elevations between water and mountains north of Anchorage.

Quinn asked her to circle twice before entering the pattern, unsure if there would be a welcome party bristling with weapons to mow them down as soon as they climbed out of the plane. Quinn still had the MP7, as well as a .45 Ukka had tucked in his hand before they departed Mountain Village, but they would be sitting ducks as soon as they were on the ground.

Judging everything as clear as it would ever be, Lovita touched down on 1 Right, the gravel strip that her balloon-like tundra tires preferred to the adjacent asphalt runway.

Once the Super Cub came to a bouncy stop, Quinn grabbed his small duffel, including the MP7, out of the back and squirmed his way out of the tiny cockpit after Lovita.

No one shot them so he relaxed a notch.

He reached to shake her hand. “I owe you,” he said.

She pushed her way past his hand and threw her arms around his neck, giving him a trembling hug, all the tension and emotion of the flight bleeding out of her now that they were relatively safe. When she finally let go, she stepped back and looked at him, but said nothing, communicating in the way of her Yup’ik people with her eyes.

“You’re an incredible girl, Lovita,” he said. “A friend for life.”

She nodded, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world, and then took a few steps away from the airplane so she could light a cigarette.

“I got a friend who lets me use the apartment in her hangar when I come to the big village.” She pointed with her cigarette toward the line of metal buildings across the taxiway. “She’s got a dusty old bed and pretty comfortable couch. We can stay there tonight.”

“When are you going back?”

“I gotta make a Costco run tomorrow morning. My friend has an old car she lets me use too. I can take you to the airport.”

She took another drag off her cigarette and let it dangle in her lips while she checked her cell phone. “I need to call Ukka and tell him we made it in.”

Quinn couldn’t help but think of how small she was, like one of Mattie’s seven-year-old friends pretending to smoke.

“Good deal,” he said. “I need to make a couple of calls as well. Tell Ukka I’ll get with him in a few minutes.”

Quinn walked to the rusty hulk of an old fuel truck, still scanning for an ambush as he walked. When none came, he dropped his duffel on the asphalt and dialed Ronnie Garcia. He hadn’t spoken to her since he’d asked her to make the call to Aleksandra Kanatova and wanted to be certain everything was in motion.

He got nothing but voice mail. Two calls in quick succession was his signal that it was important, so he tried again. He got her voice mail again. He listened to the entire thing this time, happy, at least, to hear the familiar hint of a Cuban lilt in her voice. Exhausted, Quinn shoved the phone back in his pocket and walked toward the hangar. He couldn’t help but worry that his plan was coming unraveled right before his eyes. If Ronnie wasn’t answering, she was in trouble — and if Ronnie was in trouble, they were all in trouble.

Chapter 31

Gene Lindale found a discreet place to park one lot over from the convenience store and backed into the shadows against a graffiti-covered fence. He and Maloney watched as Garcia chatted up a guy fueling his motorcycle at the pump ahead of her.

“What do you suppose she’s saying to him?” Lindale muttered, half to himself. The dash lights cast a green, otherworldly glow on his face.

“I don’t really give a shit,” Maloney said. “I just wish she’d go home and take another shower.”

“You got that right,” Lindale said, watching through binoculars now. “She paid at the pump. Wonder why she’s going inside.”

Lindale panned the binoculars, watching Garcia through the window as she browsed up and down the aisles. The shop was well lit and the shelving was low, so it was easy to keep track of her. She paused at the magazine rack long enough to flip through a couple. Instead of buying anything, she made her way to the counter, where she waved at the clerk like she knew her, then picked up a key chained to a toilet plunger, presumably to the restroom, before walking out of view toward the back of the store. A moment later, the kid with the bike went inside as well. Like Garcia, he loitered up and down the aisles until he apparently found what he was looking for.

“That’s no coincidence,” Lindale said. “That kid just went for the same magazine. She just passed him something.” He looked at his watch. “And anyway, where the hell is she at? How long does it take a girl to take a piss?”

Maloney cracked open his door. “I’ll go around and check to make sure she didn’t slip out the back.”

“You do that,” Lindale said, his voice muffled by his hands holding the binoculars. “Watch yourself. Big-ass girls like that can fight. Take my word for it.”

Five minutes later, Lindale began to worry. Maloney was MIA and Garcia had yet to show her face. The stupid kid was still inside the store, buying cigarettes and killing time talking to the clerk, who was old enough to be his grandma.

Lindale tried to shake off the worry. Maloney was probably taking a leak himself. But even if that was the case, he should have been back by now. Something just wasn’t right. Lindale unbuckled his seat belt, deciding to go inside and talk to the kid — and if Garcia came out and saw him, so be it. It would be a lot better to get burned than to lose her. Lindale pitched the binoculars on the passenger seat and opened his door. His left shoe had just touched the pavement when he heard a faint scrape of gravel in the darkness behind him.

Ronnie padded up, quickly reaching the driver of the green Expedition before he had time to turn around. Putting her full weight against the door, she slammed it hard against his exposed shin, letting it bounce before she slammed it again. She heard the satisfying crunch of bone a millisecond before his scream rose from the space between the door and the SUV’s interior. In the middle of turning when she’d come up behind him, the man fell toward the vehicle. Ronnie helped him along, using the heel of her hand to slam his head sideways, bouncing it hard against the doorpost. She leaned in, lifting the sidearm from his belt as he slid to the ground, writhing in pain from the shattered leg.

Squatting beside him, she snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Cell phone!”

Eyes clenched, he threw his head back, wailing, “You broke my leg, you bit—”

In his agony, he’d forgotten he was still clammed between the open door and the Expedition. She gave it another slam to get his attention, catching him across the ribs and pinching his right arm above the elbow. He retched. Spittle dangled from his chin as if he might throw up.

“You need to talk nice, postalita,” Garcia spat. “Now, where’s your cell phone?”

He shoved it to her, his head lolling in the direction of the stop-and-rob. “Maloney?”

“Is that your little girlfriend’s name?” Garcia said. She leaned inside the Expedition and yanked the wires out of the radio. “He’ll live… but he’ll be singing with the soprano section of the choir for a while.” She looked down at the laptop on the center console. “I assume this is what you were using to spy on me.” She shook her head in disgust. Standing, she snatched the man’s credential case from his jacket and flipped it open. “Seriously, Agent Gene Lindale, what’s with all this following me around shit? I’m a federal agent too, you know. Sneaking around like this is a good way to get yourself killed.”

“I… I’m with ID,” he groaned.

“Yes.” She nodded. “I can smell that.”

He retched again, head hanging toward the pavement. “You got no idea how much trouble you’re in now…”

“Oh, I know.” Ronnie gave him the sweetest smile she could muster. “I’m royally screwed.” Garcia squatted low on her haunches so she could look Lindale square in the face. “But you know what, Gene? I got no patience for guys who hide a camera in a girl’s bathroom. I mean seriously, my computer, my phone, even my kitchen table. I do a lot of work there so that I can understand. But what kind of valuable intelligence did you think you were going to get from spying on my toilet?”

She threw his keys over the privacy fence and crushed his cell phone under her heel. Spitting in disgust, she gave the door one last slam for good measure. At this point, breaking another bone or two wouldn’t dig her in any deeper.

Back at her Impala, she grabbed the duffel and two bungee cords from inside and dropped the keys in the front seat, leaving them for the kid. She’d left an envelope inside the store with the signed title to the car and ten one-hundred-dollar bills in exchange for the keys to the Kawasaki. Using the bungees to fasten the duffel to the back of the bike, she threw a long leg over the seat and hit the ignition.

The green Ninja gave off a bright metallic glow under the stark lights of the fuel bay. It felt incredibly powerful beneath her, just a little bit out of control — which, under the circumstances, was just what she wanted.

Chapter 32

Garcia peeled out of the parking lot, half from nerves, half from jubilation at doing something that made her feel closer to Jericho. She took the bike around the block, cutting behind the stop-and-rob to get back to the highway. The ID agents wouldn’t be able to do much but lick their own wounds for the moment, but it wouldn’t be wise to take any chances and let them see which way she’d gone. She’d not only hurt them physically, but she’d damaged their pride. The sort of men who would put cameras in her bathroom would take that personally — and she’d seen firsthand how the emotions associated with revenge could give a man strength to stand on a broken limb as surely as any crutch. There was no doubt that she’d made a couple of enemies for life. Get in line, she thought. Seemed like that list grew longer every day.

Ronnie hadn’t ridden without a helmet in years, preferring to keep her head more or less round and brains in place. It couldn’t be helped for now. And, whatever the ID agents’ endgame had been, it was likely just as bad as — or worse than — getting her face smeared on the asphalt. Virginia didn’t require a helmet, but they did require eye protection and the kid had given her a pair of Wiley X goggles to go with the bike. Unfortunately for Garcia, the state of Maryland had strict helmet laws and she wouldn’t hit Virginia until she crossed the Potomac.

Wind whipped at her hair, taking her breath away and buffeting her chest as she hit the southbound entrance ramp back onto I-270. Leaning forward, she tucked herself in behind a semitruck, far enough back to avoid most of the turbulence that would flip the bike around like a toy. She prayed she wouldn’t run into any state troopers until she hit Virginia. Any officer who stopped her would call in the stop and Lindale had surely dragged himself inside the store to call in the cavalry by now. The IDTF would cast a wide net enlisting every sworn officer and informant to help them find the dangerous Hispanic woman riding a green motorcycle.

Traffic was creeping along at its normal glacial pace when she hit the Beltway, causing her to do a lot of stopping and starting. Every driver who caught her eye seemed to be scolding her for being a scofflaw.

Garcia felt like an enormous stone had been lifted off her chest when she crossed the river and entered Virginia without being stopped. She took the exit just before Highway 193 and meandered through the back streets until she found an Embassy Suites in Tysons Corner.

A false ID and credit card from her go-bag got her past the desk clerk with no problem. Palmer had always stressed the necessity of having identification her agency didn’t have on record. Too many agents had lost their lives over the years because some moles gave up a list of cover identities. Thankfully, Palmer had been in a position to have documents made that were completely real but for the names associated with them.

Garcia began to feel the aftereffects of conflict and the fatigue brought on from her ten-K run as soon as the desk clerk slid the room key across the counter. Her stomach growled, demanding to be fed. She grabbed a bowl of instant ramen and a Diet Dr Pepper from the snack store. She debated on an ice cream bar, but decided she’d best stay at her fighting weight.

The room was freakishly clean compared to how she normally lived. There were no piles of clothing on the floor or dishes in the tiny stainless-steel sink.

“Give me time,” she muttered under her breath. “I’ll wreck it.”

She tossed the go-bag on the bed and went through the contents while she waited for a coffee cup full of water for the ramen to heat up in the microwave.

Jericho had taught her never to step out her door without at least four things — her sidearm, a knife, a light, and something to start a fire. EDC, he called it — Every Day Carry. With those four items you could get any of the other bullets, beans, and Band-aids that might become a necessity.

Ronnie reached under her blouse and pulled the Flashbang holster and Kahr PM9 from where they hung suspended comfortably from her bra. She put the gun on the wooden nightstand beside the bed, and then took out her wallet, folding knife, LED flashlight, and Zippo lighter and set them beside the pistol.

Inside the go-bag, there was a Browning Hi-Power, because if she needed the bag, things were floating south in a hurry and a second gun was always faster than reloading. The Browning ate the same 9mm ammo as her diminutive Khar, but carried thirteen rounds in the magazine and one in the tube — a real plus when things got sticky. Jacques Thibodaux, whose mantra was “Don’t go to a gunfight with a handgun in a caliber that doesn’t start with at least a four,” turned up his nose at the puny 9mm. But her hands were on the smallish side for being such a big girl in other places. She reasoned that it was better for her to hit with a 9mm than miss with a .45. Besides, the Browning just felt good and the inside-the-waistband holster made it possible for her to carry it concealed as long as she had on a loose blouse — two of which were also included in the go-bag. Jericho had insisted she include a fixed blade in her kit, so there was a wicked little two-finger thing his knife-maker friends in Anchorage had given him called the Scorn — along with extra magazines for both pistols. In addition to the weapons, she had a wound kit, two more flashlights — you could never have too many of those — a small pair of binoculars, a pair of jeans, comfortable running shoes, a baseball cap, a pair of polarized Oakley sunglasses, a Windbreaker, extra socks, and two pairs of underwear. Four thousand dollars in rolls of twenties and hundreds and another burner phone rounded out the contents of the bag. There had been five, but a thousand had gone to the kid with the motorcycle.

Satisfied she had what she’d need for the short term, she mixed the ramen and sat back on the bed to drink her diet Dr Pepper. She’d lost count of how many nights she’d spent in business hotel rooms just like this one — during training, on missions, interviews, polygraphs, and clandestine meetings with contacts. It was easy to wake up and have no idea where you were. Cookie-cutter designed, they were all virtually the same — with nice furniture, heavy blinds, and the lingering odor of someone else’s cologne.

The ramen did little to take the edge off her adrenaline-stoked hunger. She pulled back the sheets and fell back on the bed. Hands behind her head, she closed her eyes and thought about ordering room service.

Her eyes flicked open at a sudden thought. What if the IDTF had somehow installed cameras in this room? She knew the notion was absurd. It had been a last-minute decision. She hadn’t even known where she was going to stay until she rode into the parking lot. But the feeling of being watched was a hard one to shake. The flashing green light on the smoke alarm in the center of the ceiling caught her eye. Smoke alarms had a built-in power source. They were the perfect place to hide cameras and listening devices.

She stood up and double-checked the latch over the door, hoping that would make her feel better. It didn’t. Jericho had often accused her of having a panic button on her back that made her agonize over little things whenever her head hit the pillow.

She considered another shower, but shoved the thought out of her mind. Getting naked again today was not an option. In the end, she leaned a chair against the door and then climbed into bed wearing all her clothes. Worrying over Jericho, she glanced at both pistols in the dim glow of the nightstand clock as she fell into a fitful sleep. Her panic button was working overtime.

Chapter 33

Virginia Ross found herself shoved unceremoniously into the backseat of a black Suburban. It was nearly identical to the armored one her protective detail used but for the fact that instead of tinted bulletproof glass, this one had blackout material fixed to the windows.

“Curtains,” the director mused, as Walter slid in the backseat beside her. “I half expected to have a black bag pulled over my head.”

Agent Walter chuckled. “We’re not heathens, Director Ross.”

“Well,” Ross said, crossing her hands in the lap of her gym shorts. “Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”

“In due time,” Walter said. “In due time.”

He sat in silence throughout the rest of the trip, looking at his phone and ignoring her completely.

It took them the better part of an hour to get wherever they were going. The driver kept the air conditioner on its coldest setting for the entire trip. Ross folded her arms across her chest in an effort to keep from shivering. Wearing nothing but her damp T-shirt and thin running shorts, she was freezing by the time they came to a stop.

Walter didn’t even look up.

“Are we just going to sit here all night?” Ross asked, looking forward to even a brief moment of warm outside air.

Walter groaned, stowing his phone back in the inside pocket of his wrinkled gray suit.

“All right,” he said. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t be too excited.”

Ross had been inside prisons before, but her knees nearly buckled at the sound of the heavy metal door slamming shut behind her. She’d been witness to several… intense interrogations, the memory of which only added to the fear roiling in her chest. A second door, identical to the first one, formed a small mantrap prior to the main receiving area visible through a tall, slender window. It began to rumble open as soon as the first door slid closed.

Walter and another man, younger and blond with bad acne, flanked her, each holding an elbow as if there was anywhere else she could go. A shadow behind the dark tint of a huge window — presumably the control center — buzzed them through another door. A long, polished hallway with tiny windowed cells running the length of both sides stretched out in front of her. She recognized Brigadier General Tim Crutchfield in one of the cells. An Army advisor to the Secretary of Defense, he’d given an interview with Rolling Stone magazine about his views on the new administration — and disappeared shortly after. She slowed to look, but his head ducked away from the window when he saw Walter.

They picked up the pace and Ross was ushered through another door along the far end of the hall and into a sprawling interrogation room. At least twenty by twenty feet in size, it was surely designed to make the prisoner feel insignificant. It worked. Ross had to concentrate to keep her feet when they led her into the room. Along with being big, it was blindingly bright with glaring light that made it difficult to tell where polished white tile ended and painted walls began. This door had no window, but it was impossible not to notice the cameras at each corner of the ceiling. A stainless-steel table sat in the center of the room, with brushed metal chairs on either side. There was no bunk and the only other furnishing was an institutional combination sink, water fountain, and toilet sitting in the open along the back wall.

The stark lighting and clinical lack of privacy sent a wave of cramps through Ross’s gut.

“Have a seat, Virginia,” Walter said, dismissing the acne-covered man with a nod.

“I prefer to stand,” she said. The door slammed shut and she jumped in spite of herself. Folding her arms across her chest, she paced back and forth, wishing she had the skills to beat the hell out of the man on the other side of the table. She was at least five years his senior and had always been a writer over a fighter, even in her prime.

“Please sit,” Walter said again. He dropped a thick manila folder on the table between them. “It will make this so much easier.”

“I expected you to take me to some black-site ship out at sea,” she said, mustering the cool that had gotten her the job of CIA director in the first place.

Walter gave a smug nod. “Why’s that? Is that what you order your agents to do with spies?”

“You and I both know I haven’t violated the Espionage Act,” Ross said. “Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?”

Walter picked up the file again, flipping through it. He glanced up now and again to study her, and then went back to the file. After a full five minutes, he tossed the folder aside as if it didn’t matter anyway.

“Well, I’m tired.” He flopped black in the chair. “So I’m going to sit even if you won’t.” He folded his hands on the table in front of him. “You’ve made some pretty bold statements in favor of enhanced interrogation.”

“Desperate times,” she said. “The nation is under attack.”

“So it is.” Walter nodded.

Ross put both hands flat on the table, leaning over it. The sureness in her voice belied the turmoil inside her.

“Is that your plan with me?” she asked. “Enhanced interrogation?”

Agent Walter leaned back, resting his hands on his stomach, eyeing her. “That depends,” he said. “Please sit down.”

Ross sighed, deflated. Her fingers trembled as she pulled back the chair and sat. She was a professor, an expert in foreign affairs and world economies. In the past decade she’d become an expert on espionage. While she’d approved the use of harsh interrogation methods and even sent her agents into missions that put them at risk of enduring such treatment, she was in no way wired to withstand such abuse herself. But then, she remembered, if torture was administered correctly, no one was.

“Depends on what?” she whispered.

“On you.” Walter leaned forward, elbows on the table. He rested a smug face in his hands and smiled that horrible half smile. It made her, a grandmother, want to kick his teeth out. “Tell me what you know.”

Ross’s mouth fell open. “I’m the director of the Central Intelligence Agency,” she said. “I know virtually everything.”

“Fair enough,” Walter said. “We’ll narrow it down some. Tell me what you know about Winfield Palmer.”

Ross nodded. So that was it. She’d seen the way both the President and Vice President had glared at her when she’d taken up for him.

“I’d imagine he’s looking for a job,” she said, forcing a smile.

“You know,” Walter said, “you guys took ugly interrogation techniques to all kinds of exotic levels — drugs, light, noise…” His eyes narrowed, peering right through her. “In my experience, you don’t need a bunch of fancy things to convince someone to talk. A wet washcloth and a can of Sprite work as good as any fancy waterboard.”

“I suppose,” Ross said.

“Tell me more about Palmer.”

Ross shrugged, seeing where this was going. “There’s nothing to tell. He was President’s Clark’s closest advisor and confidante.”

“But you were aware of his little stable of private agents?” Walter prodded. “His side work, so to speak.”

“I knew he borrowed assets from me on occasion, with the approval of the President.”

“Like Veronica Garcia?”

“She worked for him from time to time, yes,” Ross said.

“And now?”

“What do you mean?” Ross said.

“I mean does Veronica Garcia still report to Palmer?”

“She works for me,” Ross said.

“Who else works for Palmer?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are his plans as of now?”

“I told you” — Ross turned up her palms on the table — “I do not know.”

Walter toyed at the corner of the folder in front of him.

“Have you ever been punched in the mouth?” he asked.

“I…” Ross shook her head. What sort of question was this? “No, I can’t say that I have.”

Agent Walter took a long breath through his nose, as if considering her words.

“Ms. Ross,” he said. “I want you to take a minute and consider a couple of things. Chiefly, I want you to think of what kind of power I must have to arrest the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.” He chuckled. “I knew you would make this harder than it has to be…”

“I’m not trying—”

“You’re the nation’s top spy,” he cut her off. “You must know what comes next in this process.”

Ross felt as if her tongue were made of cotton. “I can assure you, I do not—”

“I’ll tell you anyway.” Walter held up an open palm to stop her. “We strip you of everything — clothing, sleep… and, most important for our process, we take away your hope. In time, you will tell us everything we need to know.”

Ross clenched her jaw, arms folded across her chest, clutching herself. She would not cry in front of this man.

“I’ll let you keep your clothing for a little longer,” he said, the crooked lips barely concealing a smirk. “As a courtesy to your position. We have to ease into these things…”

Fear gave way to anger and her head snapped up defiantly.

Walter cut her off before she could speak. “Director Ross,” he sighed. “You’ve signed orders for humiliation treatment dozens of times. Don’t pretend this is something that flies in the face of some newfound moral code.”

“I’m not a terrorist,” she spat. Her shoulders shook with rage.

“Well.” Walter shrugged. “We’re not a hundred percent sure on that.” He moved to the end of the table as if to pick up the folder. Without warning, he punched her square in the face.

The blow knocked Ross out of her chair and she landed butt first on the polished tile floor. A bolt of pain shot from her tailbone to her shoulders. Blood poured from her nose, running through the fingers of her cupped hand and covering the front of her T-shirt.

Agent Walter brushed the hair out of his eyes. He stared at her for a long moment, and then flicked his fingers toward the camera above the door, signifying that he was ready to be let out.

There was a mechanical buzz as the lock actuated. He pulled the door open.

“Now, you can,” he said without turning around.

Ross lowered her bloody hand, seething. Her lip was already beginning to swell. “Now I can what?”

“Say you’ve been hit in the mouth.” He shut the door behind him.

Virginia Ross used the chair to pull herself up. Once on her feet she began to tremble so violently she had to use the table to keep her balance. She’d been put in charge of the CIA because she was also an intuitive genius — and of one thing, she was certain. The IDTF hadn’t spirited her away to some black site where the rules of law could be thought of as gray at best. They had put her in a prison on American soil — and one of their agents had just struck her in the face. They never intended to let her leave there alive.