National Security

CHAPTER 29

If given the choice, Quinn preferred quick, decisive movement over a lengthy deliberation. It allowed him the freedom to respond to gut feelings. More times than not, such action gave him the clear advantage. There was no doubt Dr. Suleiman had heard the pistol shot from outside the killing room. It was, after all, the fitting conclusion of his execution order. Jericho knew Suleiman was the professional, the one he would have to kill first, but when he sprang into the hall the chief veterinarian was gone.

The desk guard was on his feet, looking toward the double doors. Quinn put a quick double tap between his running lights. The startled man hardly had time to look up. His body spun to the ground in the particular corkscrew fashion of one who is brain dead before they fall.

Without a pause, Jericho rushed for the doors.

Dr. Suleiman met him in a head-on attack, crashing into him with the full weight of his body. The veterinarian was well groomed, but he knew how to fight. He smashed down with both fists in a well-delivered haymaker that sent the pistol skittering across the dimly lit room and out of reach.

Jericho crouched, springing forward like a lineman, using the strength of his legs to drive the Arab backward with the point of his shoulder toward a white marble support column. Flailing out with both hands, Suleiman dragged a tapestry off the wall, bringing the heavy woolen rug down on top of both men. Quinn rolled away, struggling to push free from the tangle of thick cloth. When he got to his feet, he saw a smiling Suleiman holding the thick dowel that had been used to support the tapestry. Five feet long and an inch in diameter, the wooden staff made a formidable weapon in the hands of someone who knew how to use it.

“I do not know who you are,” Suleiman panted, a fleck of spittle forming at the corners of his twisted mouth. “But I think you are no Kuwaiti horse buyer…”

Quinn stood facing him, slightly bent at the waist, arms loose at his sides, body quartered away. “I am a messenger,” he said in Arabic.

Suleiman raised an eyebrow, dropping his shoulder slightly. “What sort of messenger?”

Feinting with his left hand, Quinn drew Suleiman into a rushed attack. Rolling past the first blow, he caught the doctor on the point of his chin with a brutal upward strike from his elbow. Stunned, Suleiman let go of the staff with one hand but kept a death grip with the other, letting the end hit the ground. Quinn grabbed the man’s fist, and stomped hard on the angled wood, snapping the staff in the middle. The jarring shock caused Suleiman to release his hold on what was left of the weapon.

Quinn grabbed the wooden shard before it could hit the ground. It was two feet long and incredibly sharp on the broken end. Spinning, he drove the splintered point through the startled man’s neck so it came out each side like the handlebars on a motorcycle.

“That sort of messenger,” Quinn said.

Suleiman no longer a threat, Quinn was met by an empty marble room. Somewhere to his left, he could just make out the soft, eerie whirring of exhaust fans.

Where the building entrance had been sparse and utilitarian, the inner portion was palatial, complete with marble floors and stone pillars. More heavy Arab tapestries of rich maroon and gold draped stucco walls. A long, low table of rich mahogany surrounded by ornate brocade throw pillows occupied the middle of the vacant chamber. Quinn’s footsteps echoed off the arched ceiling, twenty feet above his head. A chessboard sat at the end of the low table. Squat pieces, testaments to Islam’s prohibition against statues of living creatures, sat lined up on the board and ready for play.

Quinn retrieved the Beretta from the floor and held it in tight against his waist. He scanned the room, searching for any sign of Farooq or his operation. It was a lonely but familiar feeling to be in such a hostile environment thousands of miles from home… wherever that was.

The whirring of the fans suddenly grew louder, as if a compressor had kicked on. One of the heavy, floor-to-ceiling plum-colored drapes directly across from the low table rustled slightly, jostled by an unseen wind as if a door had opened on the other side. Quinn prepared himself for an attack, but the movement turned out to be caused by an air intake located in the marble tile behind it.

Closer inspection revealed a glass window on the other side of the curtain. When he drew the heavy cloth to one side, his breath froze in his chest. His free hand slid into the pocket of his dishdasha.