State of Emergency

CHAPTER 1

Jericho Quinn twisted the throttle on his gunmetal-gray BMW R 1200 GS Adventure, feeling the extra horses he needed to keep up with the frenetic thump of D.C. traffic. Six cars ahead, the man he wanted to kill activated his turn signal, then moved a forest-green Ford Taurus into the left lane.

The big Beemer was a leggy bike, aggressive like a mechanical predator from a science-fiction movie. Tall enough to be eye level with passing cars, it flicked easily for what some considered the two-story building of motorcycles.

Even locked-on to his target, Quinn was watchful. Riding on two wheels required constant awareness — as his father constantly chided: Ride like everyone else is on crack and trying to kill you. In truth, though he’d been riding since he was a small boy in Alaska, each time he hit the street awakened an intense hyperawareness, like the first time he’d tracked a wounded brown bear, worked outside the wire in Iraq, or kissed a girl.

Following the Taurus in the heavy afternoon traffic took concentration, but every on-ramp and intersection, every car around him, presented a possible assault. The Brits called them SMIDSY accidents—Sorry, mate, I didn’t see you. There was hardly a summer growing up that Quinn or his brother, Bo, hadn’t been consigned to some sort of cast due to such encounters with absentminded drivers.

And still they rode, because it was worth the risk. When they were younger, he and his kid brother had come to the conclusion that miles spent on the back of a motorcycle were like dog years — somehow worth more than a regular mile.

Now Quinn tracked the little Ford like a missile, taking the left off 395 at the Pentagon/Crystal City exit, then the ramp to the Jeff Davis Highway. He stayed well back, leaving three vehicles as a cushion between him and his target, accelerating then tapping his brake in a sort of fluid Slinky dance. The Taurus moved into the right lane. Quinn glanced over his shoulder, then, with a slight lean of this body, took the right lane as well.

He wore a black Transit riding jacket of heavy, microperforated leather and matching pants against the humid chill of a Washington December. The Aerostich suit was waterproof with removable crash armor to guard against any asphalt assaults. Quinn’s boss had seen to it that the Shop, a subunit of DARPA — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — added level IIIA body armor for traditional ballistic protection along with a few other modifications like a wafer-thin cooling and heating system to bolster the suit’s amazing versatility. His Kimber ten-millimeter pistol, a small Beretta .22 with a XCaliber suppressor, and a thirteenth-century Japanese killing dagger, affectionately called Yawaraka-Te — or Gentle Hand — were all tucked neatly out of sight beneath the black jacket. A gray Arai helmet hid Quinn’s copper complexion and two-day growth of dark beard.

They’d come from downtown, outside the Capitol on Constitution Avenue, under the Third Street Tunnel and onto 395. Though it was lunchtime, rush hour in D.C. seemed only to ebb slightly during the business day and the low winter sun glinted off a river of traffic. The Taurus looked remarkably like eighty percent of the other sedans on the road and Quinn had to concentrate as he moved from lane to lane to keep from losing track amid the flow.

Knowing who was in the car made the hair bristle on Quinn’s neck. After a year of doing little but sitting back on his haunches and watching, he itched for the opportunity to make a move. Now it looked as though Hartman Drake had given him that chance. People accustomed to a diet of Kobe beef and champagne didn’t suddenly trade it all in for hamburger and tap water. The Speaker of the House of Representatives was certainly used to traveling in more style than the plain vanilla sedan. He had chosen the innocuous Taurus for a reason.

Agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations were well known in law enforcement circles as experts at handling confidential sources. Vehicle surveillance went hand in hand with that particular expertise. As an OSI agent and a veteran of multiple deployments to the “sandy-stans” of the world, Quinn had ample training in both disciplines. Now, as an other governmental agent, or OGA, working directly for the president’s national security advisor, he had plenty of opportunity to put these skills, and others more unique to his personality, to frequent use.

He reached up and opened the face shield on his gray Arai a crack to let in a whiff of crisp winter air. An airbrush of crossed war axes, dripping candy-apple blood, detailed the sides of the helmet. Along with the black leathers and aggressively beaked BMW 1200 GS, it brought to mind Frank Frazetta’s brooding horseback warrior, The Death Dealer. Quinn didn’t mind the comparison. His ex-wife would say he even worked at it.

The neatly spaced trees scattered among the hotels, apartment buildings, and holly bushes of Crystal City had long since given up their leaves. A stiff wind blew from the northeast, shoving Quinn’s bike like an unseen fist and threatening much colder weather. Thankfully, there was no snow.

“What are you up to, Drake?” Quinn whispered to himself, throwing a puff of vapor against the visor of his helmet. He had to suppress the urge to ride up beside the Taurus to shoot the driver in the face. The Speaker had ducked out on his security detail for a reason, and from what Quinn knew of him that meant he was up to something deadly.

Half a block ahead, the green Taurus bore right where the Jeff Davis Highway split to become North Patrick and Henry Streets with Henry continuing south. Quinn fell back two more cars, to merge in front of a black Mercedes coupe, easing into the slower rhythm of the narrow one-way street leading into historic Old Town Alexandria.

The American people might believe Hartman Drake still mourned the death of his devoted wife the year before, but Quinn knew better. He lacked the proof to accuse such a powerful man, but Quinn was certain the Speaker had been responsible for the poor woman’s death. Losing a spouse had gained him sympathy and given him an excuse not to attend the event that should have killed both the president and the vice president — leaving Drake, as House Speaker, the next in line of succession.

Ahead, the Taurus stopped at the intersection on a green light, waiting for a gaggle of well-dressed lobbyist types walking to Hank’s Oyster Bar for a Friday lunch. Quinn brought the bike to a stop, planting his left foot and feeling the familiar horizontal torque of the engine while the group crossed the street as if it belonged to them. Once they cleared the crosswalk, the Taurus turned east on King. Quinn fell in behind, three cars back now, biding his time.

Restaurants, tourist shops, ice cream parlors, and attorneys’ offices occupied the multicolored brick and stone buildings crammed in on either side of the shady street. Many were older than the United States itself.

Hartman Drake took a quick right on the last street before the Potomac River, then whipped into a fenced parking lot beyond a hedgerow and a line of leafless trees. Seldom seen without his trademark French cuffs and colorful bowtie, the speaker wore faded blue jeans and a brown leather bomber jacket. A baseball cap and aviator sunglasses rounded out his disguise. It was common knowledge around Capitol Hill that Drake prided himself on a trim physique and powerful chest. In his mid-forties, he worked out religiously every day in the House gym.

He paused for a moment at the car window to adjust the ball cap and sunglasses. For a moment Quinn thought he was looking for a tail, but soon realized the narcissistic peacock was merely checking out his own stunning reflection. His self-admiration complete, the Speaker retrieved an aluminum briefcase from the backseat before trotting across a park-like lawn, still green from the unseasonably mild winter.

Quinn bit his bottom lip. Drake was heading for the river.

Letting Drake make it ahead for a five-count, Quinn motored his GS into the same parking lot, across the street from the old torpedo factory turned art mall.

He dismounted, peeling off his helmet and kangaroo-hide riding gloves in time to watch Drake pass behind a hedgerow, then through a gap in a wooden privacy fence. Quinn’s cell phone began to vibrate in the inner pocket of his Transit jacket. He unzipped the jacket to give him quicker access to his weapons, but ignored the call, tapping the butt of the Kimber over his kidney, just to make certain it was there. The suppressed Beretta 21A hung in an elastic holster under his left arm. Yawaraka-Te rested upside down along his spine.

Gripping the helmet by the chin guard in his left hand, Quinn strode quickly across the lot, skirting a line of sports cars belonging to the boat owners at the marina beyond the wooden fence. So far, he had the entire parking lot to himself, but a rustle behind the shrubs told him that wouldn’t be the case for very long.

Though Quinn had loved a good scrap for as long as he could remember, he’d learned early on that there was a serious difference between squaring off with someone in a contest and the dynamic, kill-or-be-killed world of close-quarters battle. In simplest terms, combat was nothing more than brutal assault, with one party trying to crush the other.

A certain amount of posturing might precede the actual conflict, but when violence came, it came lightning fast on fist or blade or bullet. If the attacker knew what he was doing, it came from every direction and all at once. Fairness, rules, and linear time flew out the window.

When Quinn was still ten meters from the gap in the hedge where Drake had disappeared, an Asian man in his late teens stepped into view. His shaven eyebrows and short, Chia Pet — style punch perms identified him as a bosozoku—literally violent running tribe—the youthful street gangs who often acted as acolytes to the Japanese mafia. Along with a sullen sneer, he wore baggy red slacks and a white tokko-fuku, the knee-length Special Attack jacket worn by kamikaze pilots of World War II. Boldly embroidered Japanese kanji covered the coat and proclaimed ridiculous statements like: Mother, I have to Die! and Speed and Death are my Life!

The bosozoku planted his feet firmly in the center of the path, blocking the gap, and folded his arms across a thick chest. A six-inch knife blade glistened in his right fist.

Japanese youth gangs were relatively rare in the U.S., and Quinn was surprised to see one in northern Virginia.

Quinn slowed his advance slightly but did not stop, preferring to press the advantage of momentum and psychological force. Knowing Tokko-fuku couldn’t be alone, he whispered his familiar mantra to himself as he walked. “See one, think two.”

As if on cue, two more bosozoku filed through the gap behind their apparent leader. Each of the newcomers carried a wooden baseball bat and wore jeans and white T-shirts as if they hadn’t quite earned the right to wear a Special Attack coat. The last one in line stepped tentatively to Quinn’s right. The boy’s eyes flitted back and forth, shifting just enough to show he wasn’t fully committed to the attack.

Quinn would start with him.

CHAPTER 2

Katya Orlov was in love enough to let herself be dragged through uneven drifts of grimy snow along Zagorodny Prospekt. Her boyfriend, Wasyl, had suggested she borrow her mother’s Sberbank card. It wouldn’t be stealing, he’d assured her, merely a loan they would pay back after he got work aboard the fishing boat.

The columned entries of Vitebsk Station loomed before her, bathed in brightness against the dark night. Slush soaked through her tattered leather boots. She wore thin cotton socks and her American straight-leg jeans did little to protect slender legs from the cold. She’d thought of packing a few things, but Wasyl had said it wouldn’t matter. They could buy what they needed — and they would need little, for they were soul mates.

Rafts of evening commuters, recently disgorged from an outbound city train, flowed in a gray woolen sea. New snow hung heavy on the night air. The greasy smell of sausages and boiled potatoes drifted from the green kiosks up on the platforms inside the station. As a girl, Katya had thought Vitebsk’s stone breastwork and clock tower made it look like a palace. It was a fantastic place with interesting people — but she’d never met anyone as interesting as Wasyl.

Of course, her mother hated him. It was not because he was nineteen and handsome and three years Katya’s senior — but because he was Ukrainian and often spoke of taking her to Odessa. He was a man with dreams and a real plan to get her out of their drafty flat in Pushkin — where she would surely have to live with her mother forever unless she found someone to marry her. Wasyl promised they would travel by train, rent a berth where they could sleep in each other’s arms and eat eggs and fresh green salads. Once in Odessa they could stay in his rich uncle’s beautiful dacha on the Black Sea. Wasyl had a friend with a fishing boat who’d promised him a job.

It was perfect. All they needed was train fare — and perhaps a little sum more to tide them over.

“There,” Wasyl said, flipping a thick swath of black hair out of his face once they jostled their way through the doors and into the echoing marble main hall of the station. He pointed to a row of ATMs—bankomats in Russian — along the sidewall below a Soviet-era mural of dedicated factory workers and a sweeping Art Nouveau staircase. “We can get the money there.”

The damp heat of so many people hit Katya full in the face. A woman with two toddlers on a dog-leash tether fell in beside them, the little ones in tiny wool coats chattering between themselves. A bent and wrinkled babushka shuffled along beside them, pushing a creaky metal cart and working her way through the crowd toward the same bankomats.

A businessman in a sable hat and long black coat stood at the nearest machine and Wasyl crowded in front of the woman and her jabbering children to make sure he got to the next one first. He flipped his hair again and held out his hand for the Sberbank card.

Katya reached in the hip pocket of her jeans and handed it to him.

“The PIN?” Wasyl demanded, sliding the card in the slot.

“My birthday,” Katya said, the heavy weight of guilt suddenly pressing against her shoulders.

Wasyl sighed. “And exactly when is that again?”

Katya shook her head in disbelief. Surely a true love would remember such a thing.

“Tomorrow,” she whispered, heartbroken.

Wasyl did the math in his head and punched the buttons. The machine gave a faint pop.

Katya thought she heard a child’s worried cry. At the same instant a molten ball of flame erupted from the bankomat, cutting Wasyl, then Katya, in half.

Jordan Winters leaned against the train window and shut his eyes against the stark interior lighting. He felt the swaying rumble through exhausted bones. Night shift sucked. By the time he got home his kids had already caught the bus and his wife was headed out to her shift at the hospital. But jobs were as scarce as politicians with backbone and he was lucky to have work at all. To make matters worse, the Pontiac had lost a U-joint the week before, so he’d been forced to take the train and then the bus to and from work. That meant another half hour on each end of his trip if he made the connections just right. At this rate, he got to see his wife fifteen minutes a day and on weekends — if they were lucky and she didn’t have to cover for another nurse.

They made up for it by talking on the phone every day during his commute as soon as he got phone reception. Tuned to the timing of it all, his eyes flicked open the moment he felt the train shudder and began to slow.

“Good morning, bright eyes,” he said, glancing at the older man next to him who gave a rolling eye. Jerks blabbed in public on their phones all the time about much less important things. Trains going outbound from the city weren’t nearly as crowed as those packed with commuters heading in at this time of day, but they were still full enough you could read the paper of the guy sitting next to you, so Winters kept his voice at a respectful level.

“Hey, Jordy,” his wife said. She sounded hoarse. Her cold was getting worse. “How’s my man?”

“I’m fine,” Winters said. He gathered his jacket and moved toward the doors as they hissed open. “You’re sick. Why don’t you call in today?”

“I do feel like crap, baby,” she said. “But you know I can’t call in. I don’t qualify for OT if I take a sick day this pay period and heaven knows we need the money, honey.”

Jordan pushed his way along the packed platform, ducking and dodging the endless tide of morning commuters. He could smell the relatively fresh air of Market Street rolling down the stairway above as he passed the ATMs in the ticketing lobby.

“We don’t need the money that bad,” he lied. “I can pull an extra shift this weekend if I have to.”

He worked his way toward the escalator and what his buddies on the night shift called the “world of the day-worker.”

“I’d better not… ” Her voice wavered.

After fourteen years of marriage, Jordan knew that slight hesitation meant he had her. “It’ll be worth it to spend the day with you.”

“That would be nice,” she said, sniffling.

He sweetened the deal. “I’ll stop by that Czech bakery you like before I catch the bus and get you a couple of kolache. That’ll put meat on your bones.”

She giggled. He loved it when she giggled.

“It’s settled then. I…” He paused, one foot on the escalator, cursing under his breath. He’d loaned his last ten bucks to Cal at work.

Jordan pushed back from the escalator and through the crowd, past the guy playing his saxophone in front of an open case, toward the bank of three ATMs along the white tile wall. Most people were coming to catch the train so it was easier now that he’d turned around and wasn’t a salmon swimming upstream.

“Oh, Jordan… you really think I should?”

“No question about it.” He felt the thrill of getting to spend a few precious moments with his wife — even if it meant feeding her soup and fruit kolache.

With a new spring in his step, he made his way to the ATM just as the headlight from the next city inbound beamed out of the tunnel. Brakes squealed above the din of frenzied commuters, desperate to catch this particular train as if it were the last one on earth. Hundreds of people shoved and jostled their way from the stairs and escalators, flinging themselves into the bowels of the packed station.

Jordan chatted happily with his wife as he put his card into the slot, thankful to be going home.

“You just get better.” He began to punch in his PIN. “I’ll be there—”

A blinding flash of heat and light shoved the words back down his throat.

The initial blast all but vaporized Jordan Winters and everyone else within five meters. Commuters were blown from their expensive loafers and high heels. Their bodies, some intact, some in mangled bits and pieces, hurtled across the tracks in front of the oncoming train.

Above, at ground level, passersby felt Market Street rumble under their feet. A blossom of inky smoke belched from the dark stairwell, carrying with it the screams of the dying and the smell of the dead.

CHAPTER 3

Jericho Quinn had been steeped in conflict for most of his life. He’d made a conscious effort to excel at boxing, jujitsu, blade work, and the all-out brawl. The most accomplished fighters would call him an expert — and still, three against one was something he took seriously.

No matter what Internet self-defense gurus taught, a violent encounter against multiple attackers was no simple application of a few snazzy techniques. The slightest mistake could nick a tendon or slice a nerve — and end his career. A larger error could end his life.

“Sticks?” Quinn walked forward, speaking Japanese in derisive tones, as a medieval samurai might speak to a dog. He gestured to the bats with his helmet. “You think to stop me with sticks?”

The apparent leader, wearing the tokko-fuku, brandished the knife but kept his feet rooted, not fully realizing the posturing phase was over.

Still ten feet away, Quinn suddenly changed direction, picking up speed before the uneasy kid to the right realized he was the intended target. The startled bosozoku had thought he was working as backup and hardly had time to raise the bat before Quinn bashed the helmet into his face and sent him staggering backwards in a tangle of feet and misgivings.

Quinn spun immediately, crouching to keep his center low and fluid. Tokko-fuku and the second helper moved in a simultaneous attack, slashing wildly with blade and bat. Quinn stepped under a crashing blow from the bat, swinging his helmet in a wide arc as he moved, connecting with Tokko-fuku’s jaw then the second man’s knee. The leader growled, caught only with a glancing blow. The second was driven to his knees.

Tokko-fuku wasted no time pressing his attack, slashing out with the knife in a flurry of blows. At least two landed with sickening scrapes against the crash armor of Quinn’s thick Transit jacket. A wild swing caught Quinn under the eye, slicing flesh but missing anything vital. In the heat of battle, it felt more like a punch than a cut.

Quinn advanced, pushing Tokko-fuku back with the swinging helmet. He didn’t have time for this. Drake was getting away.

To his right, the kid with the bum knee stumbled to his feet, yanking a pistol from his waistband.

Not wanting to alert Drake, Quinn snatched the suppressed .22 from the holster under his arm and put two rounds straight up under the kid’s chin as he stumbled past. The wide-eyed bosozoku clutched at his neck, full of the horrible knowledge that he was already dead.

“Fool!” Tokko-fuku attacked again before his partner hit the pavement. Blood and saliva covered his teeth, dripping from a pink sheen on his chin. He screamed at his surviving partner, who cowered on the ground. “Get in the fight!”

Amazingly, the frightened boy sprang to his feet. Brandishing the bat, he rushed at Quinn with a stifled yell. Quinn got off three quick shots with the Beretta. Perfect for quick, silent work, the diminutive .22 had little effect on a deranged boy trying to redeem himself in front of his peer. The bosozoku crashed in, knocking the little pistol from Quinn’s grasp and driving him backward. Quinn moved laterally, ducking a flurry of strikes with the bat. He kept the scared kid between him and Tokko-fuku long enough to draw Yawaraka-Te from the scabbard along his spine. Horrified at the sight of the Japanese killing dirk, the kid dropped his weapon.

There was no time for mercy in an uneven fight. Quinn extended the blade as he spun, drawing it across the kid’s throat in a wide arc on the way around to face Tokko-fuku.

Wasting no time, the bosozoku leader feinted with the blade, edge upward, intent on delivering ripping blows for maximum effect. Narrow eyes searched for an opening.

Quinn gave him one.

Dropping his left shoulder a hair, he dragged his foot as if he was about to stumble. Tokko-fuku fell for it, lunging forward with his arm outstretched. Quinn stepped deftly to the right, avoiding the blade and letting Yawaraka-Te windmill in front of him. Three of the bosozoku’s fingers came off in the process. His knife clattered to the pavement roughly twenty seconds after the fight began.

For the first time, Quinn stood his ground, letting Yawaraka-Te’s point float inches from the bleeding Tokko-fuku’s heaving chest.

“Who sent you?” Quinn whispered. He had no time for a lengthy interrogation. Every second put Drake farther away. “I will ask you only once more. Who sent you?”

Tokko-fuku’s lips pulled back over bloodstained teeth in a maniacal grin. Shaved eyebrows and a false widow’s peak gave him a ghoulish, Kabuki-like appearance. Instead of speaking, he released a long, rattling breath. Rushing forward, he impaled himself on the gleaming blade, then, glaring hard at Quinn, twisted sideways as if wanting to inflict the most damage.

Quinn felt a sickening scrape as the dagger known as Gentle Hand grated on bone, then snapped. He stepped back immediately, withdrawing the blade to find three inches of steel remained inside the grinning youth. Gasping, Tokko-fuku stepped forward. The mangled remnants of his bloody hand clawed at the air as he fell.

Beyond the hedgerow a boat motor burbled to life. Quinn’s phone began to buzz again, more urgently this time, it seemed. He ignored it.

Quinn stood rooted in place, his broken dagger dripping blood. The entire event had lasted less than half a minute. He scanned the three dead attackers before turning his back on them. As the Chinese said, dead tigers kill the most hunters.

He made it through the hedge in time to catch the glimpse of Drake’s bomber jacket as he stepped into the cabin of a powerboat fifty meters away. An Asian woman with black hair piled up in a loose bun held the door, then followed him inside. Quinn didn’t get a good look at her face, but judging from the height of the cabin door, she was as tall as Drake. She was older, maybe in her late fifties. She’d surely been the one to station the young goons to watch Drake’s back trail, which meant she was likely also Japanese.

Focused on a rapidly departing boat, Quinn grabbed his BlackBerry. He had to find someone who could get eyes-on while he worked out how to follow. The phone began to buzz with an incoming call before he could punch in a number.

“Quinn,” he snapped without looking at the caller ID.

Fifty meters away, the boat backed out of her slip and onto the Potomac, headed south toward points unknown.

“I need you to come in.” The president’s national security advisor charged ahead as soon as Quinn picked up. In the mind of Winfield Palmer, if you answered, you were available on his terms. If you didn’t answer, he simply called over and over until you did. It was no consequence to him that you might be holding a bloody weapon or standing over a dead body. When he wanted to talk, the boss expected you to listen.

“Sir, Drake is on the move,” Quinn said, exasperated. “We need to get with the Coast Guard and have them track the ves—”

“No time, Jericho,” Palmer cut him off. “There’s been a bombing.”

Quinn stopped. “A bombing?”

“Listen, I’m attending a funeral,” Palmer plowed on. “Can you meet me at the Tomb of the Unknowns in half an hour?”

“I’ll be there,” Quinn said. He glanced down at the dead bosozokus at his feet. A knot of puzzled onlookers already gathered across King Street, staring at the broken killing dagger in his fist. “But I might need your help with Alexandria Police.”

Quinn ended the call, then used his phone to snap a photo of each dead man. He felt sure the Asian woman on the boat with Drake had hired them — making it a good guess that she was Yakuza. Maybe there was another way to find out who she was. Before heading back to the bike, he stooped to pick up Tokko-fuku’s severed fingers. Rolling them in a blue bandana, he shoved them in the pocket of his leather jacket.

Back on the BMW he turned on the FM radio, letting the horrific news of panic and death surrounding the dirty bomb flood the speaker in his helmet. Hartman Drake, terrorist mole, murderer, and Speaker of the House, would have to wait.

CHAPTER 4

Aleksandra Kanatova slumped against the wheel of her black Lada sedan and wiped the tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand. She was smartly dressed in a white down ski jacket, gray cowl-neck wool cardigan, and jeans snug enough to show off the round hips of her gymnast’s body. A stylish blue fox ushanka sat low over her ears against the cold. The splash of freckles across her tawny complexion made wearing makeup an afterthought.

At first glance one would say she was the icon of a young Russian professional. But something was not quite right. The clothes she wore were crisp and fashionable — but her fingernails were chewed down to sorry nubs. Golden green eyes that should have sparkled in the glow of streetlights held the damaged, sidelong stare of a young woman with a deep bruise on her soul.

Aleksandra’s grandmother was one of the few in generations of Soviets who had consistently read the Bible despite the atheist views of her government. She called Aleksandra a pretty whited tomb with dead men’s bones inside, ever chiding her for some unatoned sin. Babushkas were known more for their unbridled candor than their tact.

Aleksandra was well aware that she carried a heavy load of unresolved sins, but these were not the cause of her darkness. Her eyes had once shone as they should have, before Mikhail was dead. There was nothing she could do to bring him back, but such deep and abiding sadness was not a thing she could peel off like a dirty cloak and exchange for a new one. Death was final, and now, so it seemed, was despair.

The coffin-like cold inside the musty car and the heaviness in her heart pressed against Aleksandra’s chest and threatened to rob her of all auspices of control. She pounded on the steering wheel with both hands and screamed at the top of her lungs for a full minute. Then, drying her eyes, she squared her shoulders and cursed herself for such weakness.

The Lada’s fan had a difficult time keeping the windscreen free of encroaching frost. Aleksandra had to lean forward with her eyes just above the top of the steering wheel, to peer through the tiny oval of clear glass as she drove. With such a small view of the world, it was difficult to make sense of everything amid the flashing lights and glowing ice fog outside. It was chilly enough in the car to make her blue fox hat a necessity to keep her ears from freezing while she drove. Some men in her unit insisted that the sedan was in perfect order and it was she who frosted up the windows with her frigid heart.

Traffic on Zagorodny Prospekt had snarled to a standstill with gawkers and arriving politsia vehicles. A heavy snow poured from the blackness above the city as if from a sieve, choking arterial roads and slowing emergency vehicles. Mournful wails of the wounded — and Russian women were masters at wailing — mingled with the hi-lo sirens of arriving ambulances.

In well-practiced Soviet bureaucratic fashion, a roadblock had been erected even before rescue efforts had begun, as if it was a foregone conclusion that there was something to hide at the blast site. Two bleary-eyed politsia sentries in navy-blue waist-length parkas with curly gray Astrakhan collars and hats stood in the swirling snow. The shorter of the two, an Asian-looking woman with almond eyes and huge metal hoop earrings, held back while her male partner, a young man with the piercing look of a Cossack, stepped officiously in the middle of the street and flagged down Kanatova’s black Lada. His Astrakhan hat was thrown back on his head at a cocky angle. Both officers were more bone than muscle, and looked as if they wore the uniforms as a costume instead of a badge of authority.

Kanatova rolled down her window and extended the credential card identifying her as an agent of Federal’-naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, the Federal Security Service. The modern progeny of the heavy-handed Soviet KGB, FSB agents still commanded fear if not actual respect from local politsia.

Presidents Putin, Medvedev, and then Putin again had vowed to clean up corruption among the nation’s police forces. Judging from the two standing outside Kanatova’s sedan, their proposed housecleaning hadn’t made it as far as the St. Petersburg suburb of Pushkin.

“I was not aware the FSB employed beautiful actresses,” the young man said, in a foolish attempt at flirting. The smell of alcohol clung to his wool coat like an extra layer of clothing.

Aleksandra ignored him and pressed the accelerator, forcing his bejeweled partner to scamper out of her path.

With her petite figure and pouting lips, Kanatova felt she looked more like someone’s baby sister than a beautiful actress. Uncommonly rich mahogany red hair stood out in stark contrast to the golden green of her eyes. Evidently, many men preferred the baby-sister look. She heard it all the time from her male counterparts when they were trying to get her into bed.

It was no accident that Aleksandra found herself in St. Petersburg. Mikhail’s last report had mentioned the possibility of loose plutonium hitting the black market. Old Soviet ordnance popped up with great regularity now, and it was the job of her unit to track it down. More often than not, the weapons were rifles, or dilapidated shoulder-fired antitank missiles that were more likely to blow up the shooter than the intended target.

Mikhail’s find had been different. If he had been correct, the weapons that had gotten him killed were far worse than a few rusted RPGs.

When she was a child, Aleksandra’s uncle had told her frightening stories of Baba Yaga. Sometimes called the Bone Mother, this Slavic folk villainess was a wicked old hag who lived deep in the forest. Her house moved through the woods on gnarled chicken feet and was surrounded by human skulls. The Bone Mother was attended by a set of bodiless hands and her best friend and lover was Koshchey the Deathless, a bearded old sorcerer who rode naked on an enchanted horse calling down whirlwinds and stealing little girls. Sometimes the Bone Mother gave secret advice to children who were on quests — but more often, she simply ate them with sharpened iron teeth.

As frightening as the stories were, the Baba Yaga Mikhail Polzin proposed was far more dangerous.

Aleksandra slowed to allow an ambulance to pass. She glanced at the pile of folders on the passenger seat. Her willingness to use her looks along with her persuasive demeanor had netted her a sizable stable of informants from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok.

Information from this source said Rustam Daudov, a Chechen resistance leader, had been in Uzbekistan at the same time Mikhail was killed. Stories of Baba Yaga were rife among Chechen terrorists who considered such a thing the holy grail of weapons caches. And they were right to. Rustam Daudov would do anything to get his filthy hands on such a find. Aleksandra had put out feelers with every contact she could think of, offering twenty thousand American dollars for information regarding the terrorist’s present whereabouts. It was too big a coincidence that a killer of his prominence had been in the same city as Mikhail on the day he was murdered.

Days went by with nothing.

Then a college student had fallen dead of radiation poisoning at St. Petersburg Clinical Hospital No. 15. Local agents said he’d died of massive exposure, but there was no material found. Kanatova’s superiors had sent her to check the local pulse and see what she could learn. Reports had pointed first to the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute in Gatchina. A lonely widowed scientist there who seemed overly interested in Aleksandra’s freckled nose assured her the institute was missing no plutonium. He did, however, remember that a Chechen resembling Daudov’s description had been asking questions. The last he knew, this Chechen had rented a flat in the suburb of Pushkin, five blocks from Vitebsk Station.

Pitiful official estimates initially put the Vitebsk death toll at eleven. Accounting for traditional Russian understatement when it came to catastrophe, Aleksandra assumed the count would nudge upward exponentially in unreleased reports. It was only a matter of time before the media began to hazard all sorts of guesses and accusations. Unlike the past sensibilities of Pravda and the glory days of the USSR, Russia’s modern media had grown into a ravenous beast that had to be fed. The first releases to go out on the Internet said a train had derailed. A ruptured gas line had been the next blogosphere theory.

Five minutes after detonation, reports of a bombing in an American train station had ticked across the bottom of the television in Aleksandra’s hotel room. A moment after that, politsia radios buzzed with word of a bomb in Vitebsk.

Rescue workers in yellow reflective vests swarmed the area like ants. Some carried stretchers laden with mangled bodies out of the smoldering building. Vents of steam hissed here and there as fire crews worked to control secondary blazes. Aleksandra drove past a green commuter bus that lay knocked on its side like a wounded dinosaur, blown over by the initial blast that had torn the heavy wooden doors off the station. She shook her head at a pair of stockinged female legs protruding into the snow under the street side of the bus, their owner crushed like the witch from The Wizard of Oz.

Past the overturned bus, Aleksandra maneuvered around a queue of three ambulances and nosed the Lada up against a sooty, three-foot snowbank in front of an idling blue and white police truck. A stout man wearing a digital camouflage parka bearing the three stars of a senior politsia lieutenant waved his arms and shouted for her to keep moving. She turned the key to kill the engine as he stomped up to the car door.

Lieutenant Sergey Tarasov stopped short and his graying mustache curled into a full grimace when he recognized Kanatova. She was well aware of the krysha protection rackets he set up for the pimps and their prostitutes in St. Petersburg. Krysha meant “roof” in Russian, and the lieutenant provided such a shelter from government meddling as long as he was well compensated.

Russia was a land of workarounds where the shortest distance between two points often meant leveraging dangerous liaisons. Aleksandra’s knowledge of Tarasov’s criminal activities made him a possible threat — but it also allowed her a certain degree of control as long as she didn’t stretch him to the breaking point. And this she found vastly more important than the Russian mob paying a “police tax” to be left alone with their whoring ventures.

Kanatova adjusted the blue fox ushanka on her head and dropped her car keys in the pocket of her down parka. Deep snow crunched under her boots as she surveyed the riot of activity. A flick of her wrist signaled the snarling Lieutenant Tarasov to follow. He was a pig, a slob, and most certainly a rapist, but his rank might come in handy tonight. Aleksandra gave her head a shake as if she’d sneezed, annoyed at the very stench of the man. Hers was such a nasty business.

The five doors under the double-columned windows at the near end of the station were gone. Dark fans of soot and debris had spewed across the snow from each gaping hole as if some angry giant had taken a broom to the inside of the great hall and swept everything out into the street. A tangle of gray hair and blood-sodden wool was wrapped around a yellow traffic bollard beyond the doors, flung there by the blast. Closer inspection revealed pieces of charred limb embedded in the snow.

White goose down flakes sifted around flashing emergency lights. Heavy snow dampened the cries of the wounded — and gave the feeling of a garish snow globe of carnage. Aleksandra paused twenty meters from the demolished doors beside a woman’s high-heel boot. It was expensive, probably American, and made of black leather. A five-inch shard of shattered bone stuck from the boot top.

“Ah, yes,” the pig Tarasov said, sneering as he misjudged her reason for stopping. “This is most certainly close enough for your investigation. It is well and good to stop outside the real horror. The destruction inside the station is much more gruesome. It could be quite traumatic to one not accustomed to—”

Aleksandra pushed back the thick fur of her fox hat so she could glare up at the stupid man. He could have no idea of the blood and sorrow her eyes had seen. She said nothing, but reached instead to the pocket of her parka for a metal box the size of a cigarette pack. She stooped to hold the device over the mangled boot, playing it over the burned leather. A thin needle jumped across the illuminated face. Kanatova stood quickly, taking a half step back in spite of herself. Her heart pounded inside her chest. The cold air suddenly took on a bitter taste.

“You will get used to it, my dear,” Lieutenant Tarasov said, his false compassion congealing in the cold like sour milk. “If you think this poor piece of bone is bad, the interior would certainly be too much for your stomach.” Tarasov puffed up like a self-important toad. “I myself found a victim’s tongue stuck to a tile—”

“You have been inside the station?” Aleksandra’s head snapped up.

The lieutenant seemed to take her question as a sign of admiration. He shrugged. “Good citizens are in danger—”

“It is a simple enough question, Tarasov.” She held the metal box against his camouflaged parka. The black needle pegged to the right. “But I have my answer.”

“Someone had to oversee the rescue, my sweet.” He smoothed the corners of his mustache.

“Stop touching your mouth.”

“You are easily excited,” Tarasov chuckled. “I can appreciate that.” He took a step closer, putting a hand on Aleksandra’s shoulder, then letting his hand slide down to her breast. “May I call you Aleks? Do your friends call you Aleks or Sasha?”

Aleksandra closed the gap between them in a flash, bringing her hand from the pocket of her parka to shove it between his legs. “You will call me Agent Kanatova!” she hissed.

“Ahhh.” Tarasov raised a wicked brow. “ ‘Though she be but little, she is fierce.’ ”

“I would not quote dead Englishmen if I were in your shoes.” Aleksandra gave a little tug, letting the lieutenant feel the hooked blade she had at his groin.

“You would threaten me?”

“I do not threaten.” Aleksandra shook her head. “You are already cut. Give your leg a shake. If you do not hear a little thud, perhaps I have not yet removed anything important.”

Snow continued to sift down around them. She sniffed from the cold.

“What do you want?” Tarasov’s shaggy mustache appeared to wilt as a dawning reality chased away his bravado.

“I want you to shut your mouth and listen to me,” she said. “You must be decontaminated before you leave this site — you and everyone else who has gone inside.”

Aleksandra stepped away slowly, withdrawing the cruel-looking knife. Shaped like a talon, there was indeed fresh blood on the curved blade. She kept an eye on the pallid Tarasov as she took a cell phone from her pocket and punched in the number with her thumb. She’d given him too much to think about for him to try and hurt her anytime soon.

“This is Kanatova,” she said when the other party had picked up. “Polzin’s information was correct. Radiation is confirmed. Someone should tell the Americans.” She shoved the phone back in her parka.

“Wha… what are you saying?” Senior Lieutenant Tarasov attempted an angry stomp of his foot, but Aleksandra could see there was no commitment in it. He seemed scared to look down and see how much damage her knife had done. “Radiation? Do you think this is connected to the dead boy at the hospital?”

Of course it was connected, Aleksandra thought, gritting her teeth. What sort of idiot could possibly think a dirty bomb and a college student dead of radiation poisoning could be in any way unrelated? The problem was figuring out how. Instead of voicing her opinion, she nodded slowly, surveying the scene of mangled bodies and destruction. “There is much worse to come, I assure you,” she said, almost to herself.

“Worse than this?” Tarasov’s eyes flew wider under wild gray brows. “Worse than you cutting my… worse than radioactive?”

Aleksandra bit her bottom lip fighting the urge to chew on her already horrid fingernails. The chilly air suddenly grew more bitter and metallic. The smell of cooked flesh made her stomach turn flips. “Vitebsk Station still stands. Life muddles on for kilometers in every direction.” She looked directly at the lieutenant. “Oh yes, there are things much worse than this… ”

Tarasov tugged at the collar of his uniform. “You spoke of decontamination?”

“The teams are on their way,” Aleksandra said, taking out her phone again.

“What do you intend to do?

“Now?”

“Yes, now.” Tarasov’s hand trembled at the end of his powerful arm, an arm he would have been all too happy to strike her with two minutes before.

“I’m but a lowly civil servant,” she said. “I will call in for orders.”

Kanatova took shallow breaths. Falling snow helped to scrub the chilly air to be sure, but there could still be dangerous levels of radiation floating around her in the darkness. She’d made her next decision before she pressed the buttons on her phone. She knew Mikhail Polzin better than his own wife. She would naturally be the one to pick up this investigation. Her bones ached with dread at the daunting thought. The layers of Russian bureaucracy surrounding his death, stolen Soviet-era weapons, and the detonation of a dirty bomb would be like trying to walk a tightrope in the dark. It could be done, but one would have to be extremely careful — and extremely lucky. She had no time for such things. By the time she got the approvals she needed, it would be too late.

Growing up Russian had instilled in Aleksandra the value of the workaround. If something was against the rules, one found a way around that particular rule. If the bureaucracy of the Russian government would hinder her investigation, she’d simply go to America. They’d surely be neck deep in their own investigation by the time she arrived. Following their discoveries wouldn’t be difficult at all — the silly Americans paraded their best information on the television. CNN would indeed be her source.

CHAPTER 5

The angry grumble of a motorcycle engine, taken from the open road and confined to an enclosed parking lot, blatted off the walls of the concrete structure. Jacques Thibodaux rolled into the space beside Quinn with his red and black BMW GS Adventure. Jericho stood at the back of his own bike stowing armored kangaroo-leather gloves in a boxy Touratech aluminum side case.

Corps to the core, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Thibodaux was tall and broad as a mountain. The big Cajun was an accomplished mixed martial artist who fought under the name Daux Boy. His square jaw, combined with the black Aerostich Transit jacket, brought the image of Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator to Quinn’s mind. He wore a high and tight flattop, trimmed so precisely that the barber must surely have used a level to get it right.

A veteran of countless deployments, he’d still found time to father seven sons, the youngest of whom was just a few months old. Like Quinn, Thibodaux had been handpicked by Winfield Palmer as a blunt instrument on one of the Hammer Teams. A Marine to his very soul, he was now assigned to Air Force OSI, a branch of the service he and his fellow leathernecks generally considered bus drivers.

Neither Quinn nor the gunny wanted to keep the boss waiting, and three minutes later saw them trudging up the cordoned asphalt road between the Arlington Cemetery Visitors Center and the amphitheater overlooking the Tomb of the Unknowns. Row after row of some three hundred thousand white markers lay in ghostly perfect lines among the leafless trees on either side of the road.

“I gotta tell you, Chair Force,” the big Cajun muttered as he walked beside Quinn, his shadow all but blocking out the sun. “This place always gives me a case of the jumps.”

“It’s hallowed ground,” Quinn mused, thinking of the friends he knew who rested here. He often wondered if they might not be the lucky ones. “Sacred.”

“I reckon that’s it, l’ami,” Thibodaux said. “I get the same feelin’ when Camille drags me to church. Makes me feel all… I don’t know… mortal and shit. I hate it.” He shot a glance at Quinn. “So, you were followin’ numb-nuts again, weren’t you?”

Jericho nodded. He hadn’t mentioned the fight to anyone but Palmer, but the scabbed cut under his eye and slashed leather on his jacket were evidence enough.

“He’s the damned Speaker of the House,” Thibodaux said, ignoring the damage as if he expected Quinn to show up looking like he’d been dragged behind a truck. “Half the country holds him up as a hero for savin’ us from sleeper spies.”

“I know.” Quinn walked on without looking up.

“I guess the old man still says no to just killin’ the SOB.” Thibodaux’s wife was a devout Catholic and allotted him only five non-Bible curse words a month. For a Marine gunnery sergeant, his language bordered on crystalline.

“Not without more information.”

“How about he’s an orphan like the rest of the moles, with a history that’s a blank slate before he was fifteen years old?”

“That’s not the point.” Quinn shrugged. “Palmer agrees that Drake’s dirty. He assures steps have been taken to isolate him from anything that could compromise national security. He just wants to know what Drake’s up to — who’s controlling him — before we take any… permanent action. He’d like to take him down politically if possible.”

“Roger that.” Thibodaux nodded in agreement. “But this rat bastard is Teflon. We’d have to find him in bed with a dead woman or a live boy… ”

Ahead, Winfield Palmer looked down from near the top of the hill, at the base of the white amphitheater. Special Agent Arnie Vasquez of the Secret Service stood under the shadow of the marble colonnade, back a few feet from his boss but within arm’s reach. Quinn marveled at the way the former Marine made executive protection look easy. He knew from experience it was anything but.

As the president’s national security advisor, Win Palmer rated a small but full-time protective detail. As the president’s longtime friend and confidant from their days as cadets at West Point, he got the pick of the litter from the U.S. Secret Service — and he’d chosen Vasquez for his discretion as much as his skill at arms.

“Uurrah,” Thibodaux grunted as they approached.

Vasquez returned the greeting, giving a conspiratorial wink to his fellow Marine. He greeted Quinn with a polite nod. He was, after all, merely Air Force — a wing waxer.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Palmer said. His face turned down in a ruddy frown. He wore a dark suit with a conservative black and yellow striped silk tie. Slightly balding, with close-cropped sandy gray hair and arms folded across his chest, he could have been someone’s father, angry over some house rule infraction.

“The bombings are all over the news,” Quinn offered. “Hitting the U.S. and Russia simultaneously… makes things interesting.”

“Interesting is a hell of an understatement,” Palmer said. “The markets have taken a nosedive and banks all over the country have reported long lines of people wanting to withdraw their cash. People don’t feel safe — over a hundred thousand travelers have canceled airline tickets in the last hour alone. Congress is already talking about demanding X-ray body scanners at every port of entry.”

“How do you talk about demanding?” Thibodaux scratched his head. “My experience, you either demand or you don’t.”

“We’re talking about Congress,” Palmer said.

“Do we know where the material came from?” Quinn asked, eyes locked on the precise movements of the “Old Guard” 3rd Infantry soldier marching, machinelike, thirty yards away. Behind the ramrod-straight young man, carved on the front of the white marble tomb was the inscription: Here rests in honored glory, an American soldier, known but to God.

Palmer took a deep breath. “Maybe,” he said. He handed his smartphone to Quinn. “The Bureau got this from the security cameras in Helsinki. It’s dated yesterday.”

Quinn and Thibodaux crowded around the phone to watch a young woman move from the long queue of travelers and step through the metal detector. There was no sound with the video, but from the security screener’s reaction it was clear the machine had alarmed. The video blinked to show a change of cameras. In this view, the girl could be seen lifting her shirt and pointing to a piece of jewelry in her navel. The female security officer administering the secondary screening passed a hand wand over the young woman’s belly, then sent her on her way.

The video complete, Palmer resumed his explanation. “Preliminary reports say the bombs in both California and St. Petersburg were conventional Semtex salted with plutonium. Analysis points to material manufactured by the Soviets. The girl in the video came in from Helsinki yesterday. She died within hours after hitting American soil. According to the story she gave medical staff, she swallowed the material in condoms, believing it was cocaine.”

Quinn rubbed his face, feeling a sudden weariness creep into his bones. “I was in Helsinki earlier this year,” he said. “They have state-of-the-art radiation detectors. I’m surprised she didn’t set off the alarms.”

“Alpha and beta radiation would have been stopped inside her,” Palmer said. “Gamma would have been detected, but if she swallowed the material immediately before passing through customs… theoretically she could have made it into the U.S. before she became ‘hot’ enough.”

“Now hang on one damned minute.” Thibodaux grimaced as if he’d just eaten a bitter pill. “You mean to tell me this girl ate plutonium?”

Palmer nodded. “Sources inside the Kremlin tell us a college student in St. Petersburg died of the same sort of radiation poisoning. So far the media hasn’t gotten wind of it, but an art dealer in Manhattan was found dead in her apartment this morning. FBI confirms it was radiation and that she’d been to Helsinki.”

“I’m guessing she had a belly button ring,” Thibodaux said.

“That means more material out there for another dirty bomb,” Quinn said. “Odd. It’s as if they want the mules to be found — otherwise they could have just killed them when they off-loaded the merchandise.”

“Uncertainty spreads terror almost as well as violence,” Palmer said. “But that’s not the worst of it.”

Thibodaux gazed across the field of crosses, shaking his head. “There’s something worse than people eatin’ plutonium?”

“One week ago we received two encrypted texts from an agent in Uzbekistan. The first was five words long: ‘Contact made. Suspect Yaderni Renit.’ ”

Thibodaux’s head snapped around. “A portable nuke?”

Palmer raised a sandy eyebrow. “I had no idea you spoke Russian, Jacques.”

“As a point of fact, I do not, sir.” Thibodaux shook his head. “But I do speak threat. I can understand ‘Kill the Amercanski’ and ‘Let’s cut his ass’ in fifteen languages. Nuclear bombs fall into that category.”

“You said there were two texts?” Quinn prodded. He knew Palmer liked being prompted to ensure people were engaged in the conversation.

Palmer gave a deep sigh. “Looks like he was cut off mid-message. ‘Martel theory appears corre…’ ”

“Martel?” Quinn mused. “Like Charles Martel — the Hammer that stopped the Muslim invasion into Western Europe at Poitiers?”

“That’s the one. Charlemagne’s granddad,” the national security advisor said. “Code name for Russian agent Mikhail Ivanovich Polzin. Polzin was known for his belief in the existence of a powerful, man-portable nuke from the Cold War days. If he was correct as the text suggests, Baba Yaga has been found.”

“Baba Yaga?” Thibodaux tilted his head as if trying to call back pertinent memory. “Sounds familiar…”

“An evil witch from a Russian fairy tale,” Palmer said. “Intelligence sources back in the seventies picked up chatter about a Soviet nuclear device code-named Baba Yaga. Small and portable enough to be moved by a single man, it was thought to be double the power of similar known devices. Langley believes it to be as much as five kilotons.”

“You said we’re dealing with dirty bombs,” Quinn mused. “A man-portable nuke is another thing altogether. Does your agent in Uzbekistan have any more information?”

“Damned little, I’m afraid.” Palmer tipped his head toward a freshly covered grave in the distance. “I just presented a flag to his mother.”

Thibodaux released a captive breath.

They’d all lost far too many brothers and sisters at arms over the last decade.

“Cooper was a good man,” Palmer whispered. “Worldly-wise and innocent at the same time. His father’s a Virginia state trooper.”

“Wait,” Quinn said. “Are we talking about Riley Cooper? OSI, stationed at Manas?”

“He was one of mine.” Palmer nodded. “We used to hunt birds together when Riley was a boy… ”

Quinn gave a low whistle. “I thought I knew Riley Cooper pretty well. He was two years behind me at the Academy, but he beat me to OSI because I did Combat Rescue first. He graduated from FLETC in the OSI Basic ahead of me but came back to visit when we got our B’s and C’s.”

FLETC was the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center near Brunswick, Georgia. B’s and C’s were badges and credentials, presented at graduation from OSI Basic.

“I wish I’d known,” Quinn said, put out that Palmer hadn’t seen fit to mention the death of a fellow agent until now. “I could have attended.”

“The family requested a private ceremony,” Palmer said, sensing Jericho’s concern. “OSI will release a story this afternoon about him being killed by a roadside bomb.”

“Riley Cooper…” Quinn shook his head, processing it all. Of course there were others like him. Palmer had made it clear early on that he had a special arrangement with OSI. It stood to reason that other agents Quinn knew would be part of his unit.

“He wasn’t aware of you either,” Palmer said. “If that makes you feel any better.” He motioned for them to follow him up the steps and into the amphitheater proper, taking a seat on one of the long marble benches. A small crowd had formed outside, waiting for the changing of the guard that would happen every half hour, but they were alone inside the amphitheater.

Palmer glanced up from black, spit-shined shoes.

“At any given moment, at least a dozen credible threats against the United States fall across our radar. The Bureau and the CIA investigate the bulk of them with military Special Ops mopping up the pieces overseas. Our alphabet-soup agencies do a damn fine job of mounting a wall of defensive offense. But, as you know, some cases need less bureaucracy. Riley Cooper did jobs for me all over Central Asia. His father is my friend. I watched him grow up, so I knew I could trust him.” Palmer stared back down at his feet, rocking slightly on the cool stone bench. “He wanted to be an Olympic sprinter when he was a kid. Did he ever tell you that?”

“No, sir.” Quinn shook his head. Thibodaux sat completely still.

“He was so very talented,” Palmer went on. “When he talked about going to Virginia Tech, I was the one who convinced him to attend the Air Force Academy. I told him he could make a difference there.” He glanced up at Quinn, eyes brimming with the pain of a leader who sent young men into battle. “ ‘If they question why we died, tell them because our fathers lied… ’ ”

Quinn was all too familiar with the Kipling verse, written in the writer’s grief of losing his only son in World War I. “I knew Riley Cooper, sir. He was not only where he needed to be, he was where he wanted to be.”

“I told him he was cut out for something big,” Palmer said. “Saving the free world and all that.”

“Who knows, sir?” Quinn looked out at the distant crosses. “Maybe he has.”

“Maybe,” Palmer said, his voice tinny and unconvinced. “But one day, in the not too distant future, I owe his parents an apology.”

Thibodaux shuffled in his seat, uncomfortable seeing a superior showing so much emotion. “What was his business in Uzbekistan?”

Palmer nodded as if he realized it was time to move on. “Following a Russian agent when he was killed.”

“Martel?” Quinn asked. “Is he good for the murder?”

“Martel.” Palmer’s normally expressive face had fallen placid from sadness and fatigue. “His body and Cooper’s were discovered only a few yards apart. We have a little intel on him, but not much. Mikhail Ivanovich Polzin. Forty-one years old. Attended university in Moscow and joined the military shortly after graduation. Served as an army Spetsnaz troop and was eventually recruited for the Federal Security Service. We believe he worked Spetsgruppa V.”

“Vympel,” Jacques said, obviously impressed. “That’s my old man’s KGB.”

“We know he saw service in Chechnya,” Palmer said. “Other than that, he’s been off our radar for the last several years.”

“Until?” Jericho prompted.

“Until Cooper ran into him eighteen months ago in a Bishkek bazaar favored by black-market arms dealers. Some of our intel boys and girls think the Soviet Union lost track of as many as eighty Special Atomic Demolition Munitions — portable nukes — in the aftermath of its collapse. Hell, even Putin admits he can only confirm the security of their nuclear devices from the time he came into power. We believe Vympel is the unit within FSB charged with finding and retrieving these lost items.”

Thibodaux leaned forward to rest massive forearms on his knees. His Transit Leather jacket hung open to reveal a black AC/DC T-shirt. “So whoever killed Cooper and Comrade Polzin got their hands on a Soviet nuke?”

“We have to assume so.”

“What about the dirty bombs?” Quinn said. “Maybe it was nuclear material they found and not an intact device.”

“We considered that.” Palmer rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Cooper knew the difference between material for a dirty bomb and a portable nuke. Intelligence files regarding Baba Yaga during the Cold War noted a significant amount of plutonium was stored with her. Sources inside the Kremlin called it a package deal — Baba Yaga and her children.”

Quinn looked out across the field of crosses and sighed to himself. There were those who thought al-Qaeda already possessed a nuclear device. He was no such believer, knowing from firsthand experience that though jihadi operatives clamored for a nuclear weapon at every turn, if they had a bomb, they would have already used it. The hate they carried for the West was too great to hold off and posture. The posturing would come later, on the heels of their attack.

“I’m assuming you have some sort of lead,” he said, studying Palmer. “You’ve never been one to use your blunt instruments as investigative personnel… ”

“We have several in fact,” the national security advisor said. “But one in particular seems tailor made for you two.”

CHAPTER 6

Palmer leaned back, stretching as if he’d not slept in days. “Sources put a Venezuelan arms dealer named Valentine Zamora in Uzbekistan eleven days ago,” Palmer said. “That’s less than a week before Cooper sent the texts. Look up ‘sick bastard’ in the dictionary and you’ll find this guy’s photo.”

“Why don’t we just pick him up?” Quinn asked the obvious.

“We’re playing a little waiting game. Special Purpose Islamic Regiment of Chechnya has claimed responsibility for the St. Petersburg bombing. So far, no one is taking credit for San Francisco.”

Quinn nodded. More than a few jihadi groups would jump at the chance to work in concert with the Chechens toward a common goal. SPIR had no qualms about killing dozens of Russian schoolchildren if it furthered their purposes. It was well within reason to think they would move to dirty bombs if given the opportunity. If they couldn’t get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction, a weapon of mass distraction would do.

“First reports are saying the bombs in both California and Russia detonated near or in ATMs. They went off within minutes of each other, presumably loaded with the nuclear material smuggled in by the dead college students.”

“SPIR and al-Qaeda have plenty of ties to each other.” Thibodaux shrugged.

“They do,” Palmer said, “but the methods here suggest a high level of sophistication we’ve not seen from these organizations. We’re talking about groups who both hate us but can’t agree among themselves over their own brand of dogma. Someone with a certain amount of control over both is running the show here.”

“And you believe that person is Zamora?” Quinn mused, half to himself. Palmer wasn’t the type to blame organizations for bad behavior. He believed all terrorist acts could generally be traced back to a single despot pulling the strings. So far, he’d been proven correct.

“The Bureau suits have their eyes on a couple of Hezbollah possibles their agents followed out of Bishkek the day after Cooper was killed. One is an Iranian student named Naseer al-Karradi. His uncle is a nuclear scientist for the regime. Langley likes a Saudi merchant they tagged in Tashkent shortly after Cooper’s murder. They link him to a plan to get a Soviet man-portable antiaircraft missile into Manhattan.”

“They still got eyes on their suspects?” Quinn asked.

“Both Karradi and the Saudi are in the wind,” Palmer said. “Every asset in Asia and Europe is looking for these guys. We don’t know who’s allied with who or, more importantly, who has the bomb.”

“Why doesn’t the Bureau like Zamora as the coordinator?” Quinn asked.

“Profilers at Quantico believe he’s too unstable to carry out this kind of orchestrated action.” Palmer leaned back, looking skyward to stretch his neck. “To be honest, it’s hard to disagree. Everyone who’s met him says he bounces all over the place — erratic and flighty like a BB in a boxcar. But he was in Uzbekistan and he’s a killer. I don’t care what the Feebs say, this is too important to rule him out just yet.”

“Let’s go get him then,” Thibodaux said.

“I’d like nothing more than to have you jerk a knot in this guy’s ass, Jacques,” Palmer said. “But that wouldn’t get us very far. Interrogation won’t do us any good at all if the bomb is moved. If he does have it, chances are his people would move it the moment we pick him up. NSA is up on all the phones we know about, but he’s got access to some pretty sophisticated technology so who knows what we’re missing. We need to watch for a few days, see what we can learn. The FBI can look for their boy from Bishkek. Langley can follow theirs. I want you two to check out Zamora.”

Palmer reached into his jacket pocket to produce a folded piece of computer paper.

“I’ll send an encrypted file with what we have to each of your phones. But the small screen won’t do justice to the twisted sort of man we’re dealing with. Zamora supplies heavy weapons to the Zetas Cartel in Mexico, among others.” He handed the document to Quinn, who held it so Thibodaux could look as well.

Palmer looked away, apparently having seen enough.

“The dead girl was a student from the University of Matamoros. She wrote a thesis indicting the cartel’s cruelty toward regular citizens, so they kidnapped her and made a gift of her to Zamora.” He nodded at the photograph. “Informants in the cartel say he did this for no particular reason but to impress a sadistic girlfriend.”

In another venue the girl in the picture would have been pretty. The stark whiteness of naked flesh under the flash of the crime scene photo made even Quinn, who had seen more than his share of carnage, flinch in disgust. She was stripped of her clothing and bound to a wooden bedframe on a blood-soaked mattress. Someone had traced a sloppy outline of her body with gunfire, stitching the bed with a dotted line of bullet holes. Zamora hadn’t been any too careful with his aim, taking bits of flesh and shards of bone every few shots. One of the poor girl’s elbows was completely gone. Her left ear, the opposite knee, and right shoulder suffered the same grisly fate. A single gunshot to the center of her chest had finally ended her agony — presumably when Zamora and his girlfriend had grown bored with their game.

Quinn’s gut turned. The sight of any woman in pain made him associate the victim with his own daughter or ex-wife, so much so that he had to check himself when he was around them or become maniacally overprotective.

“I think I might throw up,” the big Cajun groaned. “I’m really gonna enjoy gettin’ my hands on this shithead.”

“Good to hear,” Palmer said, “because I want you in Florida in three days. Zamora likes to present himself as the globetrotting playboy — extravagant parties dripping with women and booze, expensive cars, ski getaways to the Alps on a whim. He hosts a track day in Homestead twice a year.” Palmer looked at Quinn. “Fancies himself quite the motorcycle racer, so this should be right up your alley. I’d like you both to try and get close to him. See if you catch anything that would indicate he’s got the bomb. If you don’t get anywhere, then we’ll pick him up as a last resort and… talk to him.”

Thibodaux bounced on his feet. Even his flattop seemed to stand a little taller. “Hang on now, sir,” he said. “You mean I actually get to follow Chair Force on a mission?”

During the last two major operations, the mountainous Cajun had been forced to stay behind while Quinn traveled overseas. He made no secret of the fact that as a Marine used to being the tip of the spear, he’d been more than chapped over such an arrangement.

Palmer chuckled. “Mrs. Miyagi says it’s about time you earned your keep.”

The Cajun darkened. “She would say something like that.”

Since they’d been recruited to work for Palmer, Emiko Miyagi had become the men’s official trainer and quartermaster. A more enigmatic woman Quinn had never met. Perhaps it was because Japanese was one of the five languages he spoke, but she’d seemed to have an instant affection for him. For whatever reason, Thibodaux brought little more than a resigned sigh of barely hidden disdain.

“Chin up, Jacques,” Quinn said. “She’ll eventually warm to you.”

Palmer rose from the marble bench to brush off the front of his suit.

“One thing,” Quinn said, standing along with him. He reached in the pocket of his leather jacket and took out a crumpled blue bandana. “Regarding that little roadblock I was telling you about in Old Town. If you could have these identified it might lead us to who the Speaker is working with.”

Palmer looked inside the bandana. “I certainly pick the right sort of man for these jobs.” He smirked. “But this is the last time you’re allowed to give me the finger.” He rolled up the bandana and slipped it inside the pocket of his suit coat, apparently unbothered that it contained severed human body parts. “Mrs. Miyagi will set you up with a race bike to help you cozy up to Zamora. I think you could use a little female help down there.”

Thibodaux’s head snapped around. “You mean to tell me she’s coming with us? Oh, this should be rich—”

“You misunderstand me, Jacques.” Palmer winked. “Not Mrs. Miyagi. I have someone else in mind. This one’s a killer, though — make no mistake about that.”

Quinn groaned. He knew full well who the boss would send. His gut tightened at the thought. Sadistic, gunrunning terrorists notwithstanding, it was this woman who was likely to get him killed.

CHAPTER 7

Valentine Zamora blotted his lips with a folded handkerchief and smiled sweetly.

“I’m sure we can reach some form of agreement that is… mutually beneficial,” he said.

His Portuguese was better than his Russian, which was the main reason he liked to do business in this particular backwater republic. Beyond the language, the added benefit of working in one of the poorest countries in the world was that officials were more easily bought. Mafia states, they called them. U.S. pundits ranked Zamora’s own Venezuela among such mafia states where the criminal enterprises were not only condoned, but intermingled with the business of government. From what he knew of his father’s drug empire, Valentine could hardly disagree.

Outside, a pleasant ocean breeze rustled feathery albizia trees, carrying their faintly sweet odor of tobacco, but the interior of the metal airplane hangar was stifling. The smell of jet fuel and burned engine oil hung heavy on the humid air. Monagas stood back a few steps beside a rusted single-engine Piper Cherokee that, amazingly enough, had flown in a few minutes before with General Alberto Kabbah and his aide, both of the Bissau-Guinean military. The men wore freshly pressed olive-green uniforms and sat on metal chairs behind a long folding table in the center of the hangar, as if holding court. The general wore a dress hat complete with gold scrambled eggs on the brim to befit his high rank and status. His chest held more varied medals than Idi Amin.

“Negotiations are a fluid thing,” General Kabbah said, taking a drink from a bottle of Aquafina. He had an annoying way of smacking his lips that made Zamora want to cut them off.

“Yes, they are indeed,” Zamora said, working to keep his voice low and even. “But need I remind you, General, that I have been doing business with your military for almost a decade? Your predecessor grew quite rich from our dealings before his… untimely death.”

Kabbah smiled, showing what looked like more than his fair share of teeth. Everyone in the country knew he had murdered his former boss to take the post of general for himself.

“Our arrangement is a win-win for you,” Zamora continued. “You are paid handsomely to look the other way when drug shipments arrive from South America. Then we pay you to look the other way a few moments longer while we put my merchandise on the same plane for the return flight. You are, in effect, getting paid double for an extra two hours of doing nothing.”

The drug flights coming to West Africa were from Venezuela and organized by Zamora’s father. The elder Zamora knew nothing of the return loads of illicit weapons or the extra risk involved, but the general did not need to be bothered with such trivial details.

General Kabbah replaced the lid on his Aquafina bottle, gave the annoying pop of his lips, then set the water on the table in a show of finality. He leaned back to fold his hands across a round belly. “Still—” He smacked his lips, giving a long sigh. “The risks are greater than they used to be. The World Customs Organization and Interpol snoop around more and more each year. I would hope that larger risk would bring a more substantial reward.”

“How much more substantial?” Zamora rubbed his chin, expecting this.

“Double,” the general said. “But you would have my personal guarantee the price would not go up during my lifetime.”

“I see,” Zamora said.

Kabbah nodded his jowly head. “And I would need certain assurances that I won’t end up in prison.”

“You may rest assured,” Zamora said. “I won’t let that happen.”

“Very well,” General Kabbah said. “If we are in agreement. You may resume shipments on return flights as soon as the first payment arrives in my account.” He gestured to his aide. “Major Bundu will see to the particulars.”

“After the money arrives in your account?” Zamora ground his teeth. He gave the slightest flick of his wrist.

Monagas stepped forward with an aluminum briefcase. Instead of setting it on the table, he made a motion of giving it to the general, then smashed it edgewise into the man’s face. Before Kabbah could react, Monagas drew a pistol from behind his back and shot him twice in the forehead. He pitched forward, slamming against the table, arms dangling at his sides.

A plume of blue smoke curled from the muzzle of Monagas’s pistol.

Major Bundu sat with his mouth agape, mesmerized at the pool of blood that blossomed from under the bill of the general’s fancy green hat on the white Formica tabletop.

“Now, Major… pardon me, General Bundu,” Zamora said. “You see how I keep my promises? Kabbah will never end up in prison.”

Bundu gulped but said nothing.

“Where I come from we have a saying.” Zamora stepped forward to push the aluminum case across the table. He gestured for the newly promoted general to open it. “Plata o plomo. It does not translate quite so poetically into Portuguese.” His eyes narrowed. “But I believe you understand the message. Silver or lead, the choice is yours.”

Bundu patted the unopened case with a trembling hand. “I am satisfied that whatever arrangement you had with General Kabbah’s predecessor will be quite acceptable to me.”

“So.” Zamora clapped his hands together and brought them to his face, top teeth against his knuckle. “I may assume you and your men will resume their noninterference immediately when it comes to my shipments.”

“You may indeed,” Bundu said.

“Very well.” Zamora smiled. “I’ll send a man in a few days’ time to see to the next load of merchandise— and I must warn you, I have a strict time line that must be observed.”

“I und… erstand… perfec… tly.” Bundu appeared to be having a difficult time swallowing.

“Very well,” Zamora said. “You will most certainly find something extra for you if things go well.” He watched as Monagas dug around on the dead general’s uniform until he found a medal he liked for his collection.

Bundu looked on in morbid fascination. He forced his mouth into a tight smile. “I can assure you, the price will never go up during my lifetime.”

Zamora had no sooner stepped from the stuffy confines of the metal hangar than his cell phone began to ring. All the joy from standing in the wind immediately bled from him when he heard the voice on the other end.

“Why have you not returned my calls?” The voice spoke in English but with the clipped intonation of the Yemeni Yazid Nazif.

“I have been extremely busy,” Zamora said. If not for the fact that Nazif held the key to his plan, not to mention the purse strings to three hundred and fifty million dollars, Zamora would have ended the call on the spot. Instead, he worked to gently explain. “There is still some work to be done on our prize to make it functional. But I have things well in hand. Did not the first step work out as I suggested?”

“It did,” the voice said. “Why did you not tell us of the Chechens?”

“I merely allowed them to take the credit.” Zamora shrugged. “It was the only way to get the timing correct.”

“Did you not consider the fact that they themselves would want the device?”

Zamora ran a hand through his hair. “Of course I did,” he said. He neglected to mention the fact that the Chechens had paid him handsomely to choose the target for the St. Petersburg bomb action. Now they were, in fact, clamoring for more of the same. If they knew about Baba Yaga, they would stop at nothing to get their hands on her.

Nazif’s voice was breathy, snakelike. “Need I remind you of our timetable?”

“No, you do not,” Zamora said, rolling his eyes at Monagas as he stepped out the door, wiping blood off his hands. “If you will recall, it was I who suggested such a ripe venue in the first place.”

“We have paid a great sum of money for this thing,” Nazif said. “And with such a large sum come certain expectations. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” Zamora said. “But things happen—”

“We have no interest in excuses,” Nazif said, and ended the call.

Bundu stepped out of the hangar just in time to see Zamora fling his phone into the weeds, cursing vehemently in Spanish. The Venezuelan stood there for a full minute, panting and glaring toward the sea. At length his breathing slowed and he looked at the newly promoted general.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” he said. “Go bring back my phone.”

CHAPTER 8

Since the days after 9/11, Pastor Mike Olson and his wife Deanne, had nurtured a dream. Death and fear and hate had no place in the world, particularly when it came to religion. An open-minded couple, they allowed all men the right to worship according to their own conscience while adhering strictly to their own beliefs. Deanne was an accomplished musician who ran the youth ministry at the Sacred Peace Interfaith Church. It had been she who’d first voiced the dream — a Peace Choir made up entirely of children of all ethnicities and faiths. What had taken over a decade to fully form was now just weeks from becoming a reality. Through a televised extravaganza they would show the world that children — and everyone — could come together through music, no matter their views about what God looked like or what He liked to be called.

Mike wiped a tear from his eye and sniffed. Deanne sat beside him and patted the back of his hand. They read the letter on the desk together for the third time.

“I just can’t believe it, hon,” the pastor said. He pushed a lock of blond bangs out of his eyes. “He’s paying the entire bill.”

Graying around the temples, Olson hadn’t changed his John Denver hairstyle since he’d graduated from the University of Texas in 1989. He’d gone on to get his master’s in divinity at UT as well and it was then that he’d met Deanne, the daughter of a local Presbyterian minister. She shared his goals in the ministry, and like him, wanted nothing more than a family. Though the good Lord hadn’t seen fit to bless them with children of their own, He had provided them with an outstanding youth group — and now this saint of a man, Mr. Valentine.

“The Erwin Center…” Deanne squeezed his hand. “Can you believe what we talked about all those years ago is actually happening? A choir of four hundred children from all over the world and now seating for over fifteen thousand. Oh, Mike, this could make a real difference. Mr. Valentine is truly an instrument in the Lord’s hands.”

CHAPTER 9

Emiko Miyagi reached across the seat of the fire-engine-red bike to hand Quinn the end of a ratchet strap so he could tighten it down to the wooden pallet for transport. Presumably in her early forties — though she could have been considerably younger — the enigmatic woman had her black hair pulled back in a stubby ponytail, exposing the nape of her neck. She moved easily, each action with a specific purpose but without apparent forethought. Hers was an egoless air. She wore formfitting jeans and a red three-button polo, open enough at the neck to show the hint of the mysterious tattoo above her breast.

Neither Quinn nor Thibodaux could figure out what it was. They caught no more than a glimpse of the thing during her beloved yoga sessions or defensive tactics when she was kicking the stuffing out of both of them, often at the same time. Neither was brave enough to stare at her chest long enough to ascertain the true nature of the tattoo.

She patted the small seat on the angular red bike. “Zamora rides a Yamaha R1,” she said absent any trace of a Japanese accent, though English was her second language. “It should help you get close to him if you ride the same motorcycle. I’ve done a bit of work on this one to coax out a little more horsepower, so watch yourself around the corners.”

She leaned across the bike to pull in the clutch and pressed the starter, bringing the R1 to life. The throaty roar sounded more like a pair of motorcycles running together than a single race bike. “It is not the fastest motorcycle available, but with your riding skill, you could beat him if you wish.”

“I should probably avoid that,” Quinn said.

Miyagi killed the engine, showing the hint of a smile from her normally placid face. The guttural howl of the uneven firing sequence from under the seat was enough to put a grin on a marble statue.

“Palmer-san believes Agent Trainee Garcia will provide the bait you need to draw this man in close enough to see if he has the device.”

“Yes,” Quinn mused, picturing Ronnie Garcia’s long legs and broad smile. “She’s definitely good bait.”

He hooked the strap to an eyebolt on the pallet and worked it tight before tying off the trailing end. Satisfied the Yamaha was secure, he looked up at Miyagi. Apart from her assignment to keep Quinn and Thibodaux trained and outfitted, she was also a defensive tactics instructor at the CIA training facility outside Williamsburg known as The Farm.

Garcia had been in training there for almost two months now, and she and Quinn had not parted on the best of terms.

“How’s she doing?” he asked.

“She works harder than most,” Miyagi said. “Though she does not need to. I suspect she is trying to impress someone. Her shooting has improved dramatically — and it was not too bad to begin with.”

Quinn gave a slow nod, thinking about the times she’d saved his life. He started to say as much when the BlackBerry on his belt began to buzz.

Mrs. Miyagi motioned for him to take it and excused herself.

“Daddy?” It was Mattie, his seven-year-old daughter.

Quinn melted inside each time he heard her voice. She had his dark hair and copper complexion, but Kim’s accusing blue eyes.

“Three more days!” she squealed.

“You’re funny, sweet pea,” he said. “Christmas is still over a week away.”

“I know that, silly,” she said, sounding more and more like her mother used to, all those years ago when they were young and happy together. “I know when Christmas is. I mean when you’re coming home. I have a big purple circle around December twentieth on my calendar.”

“Yeah,” Quinn sighed. He had to be in Miami on the twentieth. “About that… how would you feel if I celebrated Christmas with you a little later this year?”

There was silence, the rustle of paper, and a sniff.

“You okay, sweet pea?”

Fortunately, Mattie had not inherited Kim’s unforgiving nature. “I’m sad,” she said. “But you tell me what day and I’ll put a circle around it.”

“Let’s make it January twenty-fifth. One month. If I can be there earlier I will.”

“Okay,” Mattie sighed. “Will you be sure and be here?”

“Count on it,” Quinn said, hoping he wasn’t telling his daughter yet another lie. “Can you put Mom on the line?”

Mattie giggled. “She’s been on for the whole time,” she said. “You’re my bestie, Dad.”

Quinn heard a faint click on the line.

“You still there, sweetie?”

“She hung up.” It was Kim’s voice, quiet, brooding like a glowing ember in a steady breeze.

Unable to stand the nights of sleepless worry, she’d told him to hit the road not long after he returned from his first deployment with OSI. She still loved him, she’d said, still wanted to keep in touch, but as long as he carried a gun and put himself in harm’s way for a living, she couldn’t be married to him. As much as he loved her, as much as he wanted to quit and work as a greengrocer or a postman, Quinn knew he’d die if he did anything else.

When he’d given the broken thirteenth-century Japanese dagger Yawaraka-Te back to Miyagi, she’d simply said: “It broke doing what it was made to do — and so it is with you Quinn-san. The blade must cut, even at its own peril.”

Quinn waited for Kim to say something else, anything. She didn’t.

“How are you doing?” he said, craving a few more words in spite of himself.

“We’re fine,” she said. “My mom’s retiring this year so that will help out with carting Mattie around to orchestra practice and indoor soccer and everything else.”

“I don’t remember being that busy when I was seven,” Quinn said, a weak attempt at conversation.

“You were never seven,” Kim said. “Your dad once told me you popped out already grown up and ready to pick a fight with the doctor for putting your mom in such an unladylike position.”

Quinn sighed. “Guess you heard I can’t be there till later,” he said, sounding more sheepish than he would have liked. It didn’t suit him.

“I heard,” Kim said.

“I’m really sorry,” Quinn went on. The conversation was beginning to make his head hurt. “If it wasn’t extremely important, I’d blow it off.”

“I know where we rank, Jericho,” Kim said, her voice quieter now, but just as acid.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” she said. “But I gotta tell you, I don’t deserve to worry myself to death all the time and Mattie doesn’t deserve to grow up with a part-time father.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “I am sorry, though. Someday I’ll be able to explain.”

Kim sniffed. “Seriously, Jer,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. To tell you the truth, I stopped putting circles around important dates on my calendar long before we ever got divorced.”

CHAPTER 10

Professor Matthew Pollard leaned against the lectern with both hands and tried to identify the new couple sitting at the back of the amphitheater classroom. At six-four he was too tall for the lectern, causing him to stoop.

Given his own way, he would have been wearing an unbleached hemp shirt and a pair of surf shorts, but his wife — not to mention the dean of the College of Philosophy — insisted he dress like a professor. Wavy black hair was pulled back in a short stub of a ponytail. His neatly trimmed beard would have made him look “bad” if not for his easy grin and the slightly too-large academic corduroy jacket complete with suede elbow patches.

He flipped through a notebook, pretending to look at it while he glanced up at the two strangers.

They weren’t his students. Pollard knew each of the fifty-three moldable freshman minds in his ethics class by face if not by name. The man was in his mid-twenties, blond and shaggy. He was likely a local, wearing blue jeans and a faded Carhartt denim jacket — typical dress for winter in northern Idaho. The woman wore tight jeans and a fashionable black turtleneck, leaning forward, plump and partridge-like, on the back row of the small auditorium. She held a green jacket across her lap and looked toward Pollard from beneath a set of heavy black bangs. Her head tilted as if she wanted to give the impression of paying attention, but the contours of her bronze face were slack with boredom. She reminded him of someone he’d known long ago, someone from a time that he did his best to forget.

This particular class — he called it Who Are the Monsters? — was known for its heated, gloves-off debate. But the strangers didn’t seem the least bit interested in the subject matter of his class. They appeared to be focused solely on him, studying him like an insect under a magnifying glass. He tried to calm his racing heart. He was an ethics teacher now, nothing more.

A restless buzz ran through the students and he pushed the thoughts away.

“… going to give us our final today, Professor Pollard?” A tall girl slouching on the front row of seats rescued him. Dressed in a black knee-length canvas jacket festooned with lengths of bicycle chain, she asked the question the rest of the class was dying to have answered.

Her name was Katherine, but she preferred the name Crash. Of the students who showed up regularly, only this one seemed to grasp even a tiny shred of his message. Three-inch platform boots with gaudy chrome buckles, and a mop of coal-colored bangs that gave her the appearance of a baby face Hitler, belied her true intelligence. Pollard thought she might be a pretty girl if not for the fact she was running from any and all aspects of life she thought could be considered normal. A pierced tongue and the tattoo of a fishhook at the corner of her heavily rouged lips told the world she flowed an entirely different direction than the mainstream.

“As a matter of fact I am.” Pollard nodded, trying not to focus on the strangers in the back. “Remember our very first assignment?”

“Sure.” Crash shrugged, but sat up straighter as she always did once they started a discussion. “You had us define evil.”

“Okay, then,” Pollard said, beginning to pace back and forth on the raised platform behind the lectern. “We’ve read, discussed, debated, written papers… and read some more. Some of you believe you can now define evil. So now, a semester later, let’s drill down.”

He looked directly at Crash’s eyes. Despite her counterculture costume, they sparkled with inquisitive brightness. “Is it ever right to do something evil in order to achieve an end state that is good?”

Crash rolled her big eyes and tossed her pen on the desk. “Governments use that excuse all the—”

“Save it.” Pollard raised an open palm to shush her. “That’s your final. Give me between fifteen hundred and two thousand words on whether or not evil actions can be used for good purpose. Quote three sources from your reading this semester.” He smiled. “Only one of them can be me and you may not use Chuck Norris as a source.”

A boy with a buzz cut leaning against the side wall raised his hand. “Professor, how many pages does it have to be?”

Pollard sighed. “Go for word count, Royce. If you give me something that’s twenty pages long and huge font, I’ll move you into my own personal ‘evil’ category. Same goes for you overachievers who use those tiny, unreadable fonts so you can cram more in to a few pages. That, my friends is the pure epitome of evil. E-mail your papers to me by next Wednesday.”

The woman in the back stood and motioned for the man in the Carhartt jacket to do the same. There was no doubt that it was she who was in charge. She flicked her bangs, and made momentary eye contact with Pollard, as if she wanted him to remember her, then walked out with her apparent lackey close on her heels.

“Okay.” Pollard rubbed his beard, trying to get the image of the dark woman out of his head. “I’m expecting great things here… ”

He watched Crash as she gathered her books and shoved them in a backpack with a gaudy red anarchy symbol painted on the back. For all her posturing against “the man,” for all her outward trappings of rebellion, Pollard could see the goodness and intensity in her eyes. She’d grow out of her funk and become a doctor or a lawyer or some other high-powered professional. She was that smart and that good.

He, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. Oh, he might put on a good show, but no matter what sort of academic haircut and tweed jacket they stuffed him into, he would never be able to shake his past.

Matt Pollard knew all too well how to define evil. Something deep down in his gut told him the two visitors to his class had come to remind him of that fact.

By the time Pollard made it from his office to the parking lot, he’d managed to convince himself that the visitors were just curiosity-seeking locals. He’d grown to be an expert at rationalizing things away. He tossed his unbleached canvas book bag in the backseat of his silver-blue Prius and climbed in behind the wheel. He’d ditched the tweed for a fleece jacket made from recycled soda bottles and wore a Nepalese wool beanie against the overcast winter day. He was tall and fit, and apart from the rumpled clothing, he carried himself with a military bearing. He looked a decade younger than his thirty-seven years and could have passed for a student rather than a professor.

His cell phone rang before he made it out of the lot.

“Pick up,” Pollard said, activating the hands-free mike. He grinned when he heard Marie’s voice.

“How’s that sexy wife of mine?” Pollard pushed through a stale yellow traffic light and was surprised to see a white Ford Explorer shoot the red light behind him.

“I have Ellie lined up to babysit.” Marie’s honeyed voice purred from the dash speaker.

“That’s good… ” Pollard watched in the rearview mirror as the white Explorer fell into the flow of traffic two cars back. “Really good,” he mumbled.

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?”

Marie’s teasing yanked him pack to reality.

“Sorry, honey,” he confessed, an eye still watching the Explorer. “I really don’t.”

“Wow,” Marie laughed. She had to be used to him after thirteen years. “For a genius professor you’d forget your shoes if you didn’t stub your toes all the time.” Marie’s family sprang from Bremerton, Washington, and her easygoing Pacific Northwest demeanor came through even when she was miffed. “You know you have to guess now, right?”

Pollard tapped the wheel, thinking. The white SUV stayed glued to his bumper as he another corner.

“Listen,” he said, biting his bottom lip. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but someone might be following me.”

“Oh no, you don’t, Mr. Matthew,” his wife chided. “You’re not getting off that easy—”

“Seriously,” Pollard said, fighting to keep calm.

He took another right.

The Explorer followed.

“You’re a bona fide genius,” Marie said. “Lose them and get your butt home. Simon is getting on my last nerve and we have tickets—”

“I’m serious, sweetheart.” The white SUV maneuvered around the only remaining car on the road and moved up just inches behind the Prius.

“Maybe they just happen to be going the same direction.” Marie’s voice held a frightened edge.

“Maybe,” Pollard said, but his churning gut told him otherwise. His past was hunting him down. “I’m not far away, but I’ll make a block before I come home and see what happens. If I can’t lose them I’m going to call the police.”

Sweat beaded on his upper lip, hidden by his dark beard. He turned right again, a block before his street.

The SUV stayed on his tail, unwavering. He could make out the faces of the two earlier visitors to his classroom. The blond man wore a ball cap and sunglasses and leaned forward from the backseat. The woman sat in the passenger seat; her eyes still sneered with boredom. The driver was a smallish Hispanic man with a craggy face he’d never seen before.

Pollard swallowed hard. “Take Simon to the bedroom,” he said, feeling sick. “Lock the door and get my shotgun out of the closet—”

Nothing but dead air crackled over the speakers.

“Marie,” Pollard shouted at the silence. “Marie! Are you still—”

“Matthew? You sound absolutely flummoxed.” The voice was cold and soulless. “You have a beautiful wife, such an innocent child. Come home so you can formally introduce us.”

Pollard’s retched, his throat seared with acid dread.

He shoved the gas pedal to the floor and whipped the wheel sharply left, spinning the little Prius in the narrow residential street. Metal shrieked and groaned as the front fender careened off the tailgating SUV’s driver’s door, then slid down the side. He caught the glint of a cruel grin on the woman’s face as he sped past toward his wife and son.

CHAPTER 11

Pollard burst through the front door.

“Marie!”

A male voice answered him from the around the corner in the parlor where Marie kept her piano. “We’re all here, my friend,” it said. “Please, come join us.”

Pollard froze at the doorway when he saw the dark man with a thin mustache lounging on the love seat. His legs were crossed and a glowing cigar hung from his fingers. Marie sat in a matching chair to his right. She was tall and slender with short caramel-blond hair pulled back with a red polka-dot band. Her normally wide smile had fallen away and her lips parted in shock. Her chest shook with uncontrolled sobs as she clutched their squirming baby in her arms as if he was a life buoy.

A thuggish man with a crooked nose and broad shoulders crowded in between the back of the chair and the wall, towering over her, arms folded across a chest. A sparse beard did little to hide the burn scars on his lips and chin. The glint in his eye said brute intimidation was a favorite pastime.

The front door slammed as the man and woman from the SUV came in behind Pollard. He shot a glance over his shoulder and saw that a third man, the Hispanic driver, limped badly. His heart sank. Five to one were impossible odds.

“Matt…” Marie looked up when he came in the room. “Who are these people?”

Simon, just under a year old and teething, sucked on a peeled carrot. He was just beginning to take a few steps and stood on Marie’s knee, holding the edge of her chair.

Pollard’s face twitched with rage. “What are you doing in my house?”

The man on the love seat looked back and forth from Matthew to Marie. At length, he turned his body to face Marie, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

She coughed as the cloud of smoke from his cigar enveloped her.

“You must forgive me, my dear. I’ve been hopping from Africa to New York then Spokane… I must confess the last several hours have been a blur.” The man yawned, blinking as if he was about to fall asleep. He shot a glance up at Pollard, batting his eyelashes. “I am shocked your husband has not mentioned me. We were… Matthew, would you have called us friends?”

“Hardly.”

“Pity.” The man gave an exhausted sigh. “I would have called us friends. My name is Valentine Zamora. The man behind you is my associate, Julian Monagas. We had the good fortune to work with your husband some years ago.”

“You know these people?” Marie turned toward Pollard, eyes pleading to understand.

Zamora stood, reaching for the baby.

Marie screamed, but Monagas yanked her back by her hair.

Pollard roared, bolting to protect his family no matter the odds. Something heavy caught him across the back of the head, driving him to his knees. He pushed himself up with one arm, holding his head with the other, waiting for the waves of nausea to pass.

Zamora stood beside the love seat, an anxious Simon pressed to his chest. His actions were soft and gentle, but his face and words made it clear he had dispensed with all other niceties.

“I find myself in need of your expertise, Matthew,” he said, looking up at Marie. “Did you know your dear husband is a nuclear genius?”

Tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t move.

“It doesn’t matter.” Zamora shrugged. “There is often much we do not know about our loved ones. Pack a bag. You are coming with us.”

“My family?”

Zamora cocked his head to one side. “Do as I say and they will be fine.”

“I’m not leaving them.”

Zamora flicked his fingers, and Pollard heard the men behind him step away.

“There’s only one reason you’d need me, Valentine,” Pollard said. “I’m not going to help you blow anything up.”

“Oh, Matthew,” Zamora said, giving a weary sigh. “Let me see…. How shall I explain myself?” He bounced Simon to keep him calm, but looked down at Marie with a leering eye. “Some men prefer to see their women in a flimsy negligee, the delicate lace of underthings hiding just enough to enhance the mystery of the feminine form.” He glanced up at the dark woman who stood in the doorway behind Pollard. “Lourdes, darling, how do I like my women?”

“Naked.” She chuckled.

“Precisely,” Zamora said. “I despise mystery. I want to have all the goods exposed and on the table, so to speak.” He craned forward with narrowed eyes, staring at Marie but speaking to Pollard. “So let me be plain. You will help me do anything I ask or I will quite literally rip this lovely boy into tiny pieces.”

Marie choked on a sob.

“I know you, Valentine.” Pollard set his quivering jaw. Inside, his bowels churned. “My family has seen your face. No matter what I do, they’re as good as dead once we leave.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Zamora said, stroking Simon’s sandy curls. “You have serious trust issues, my friend.”

Pollard wracked his brain, searching for any alternative to what he was about to say. Tears poured in earnest from his eyes as he looked back and forth from his precious little boy to a baffled Marie. He ground his teeth until he thought they might shatter.

“Bullshit!” he sniffed, his voice harsh and cold. “You hate loose ends the way you hate mystery. You’re forgetting, I’ve seen what you do with witnesses.”

The Venezuelan’s lips turned white under his pencil-thin mustache. He rocked the baby back and forth. “You can’t be certain. It’s not worth—”

Pollard rose to his full height, fists clenched at his side. His shoulders shook with rage.

“Kill us all now!” Pollard demanded through clenched teeth. “We are all already dead, and I know it.”

Zamora’s flat-nosed thug, Monagas, gave a startled jerk, yanking Marie’s head back by her hair. Marie’s eyes bulged like they would pop out of her head.

Pollard could feel the three from the SUV loom closer behind him, but he didn’t care.

Zamora took a measured breath, clutching the baby close to smell his hair. At length, he dropped the burning cigar on the carpet and drew a black pistol from under his jacket. Finger on the trigger, he pressed it gently to Simon’s cheek, and then looked at Marie with a sickening smile.

“You see? No mystery here, my darling. You should speak to your husband. His attitude is about to make your child very dead.” The words dripped from his mouth like poison. “He seems to have lost his way.”

Marie’s lips moved, but she was too terrified to speak. Unable to turn her head because Monagas still had a fist around her hair, her eyes shot frantically between her husband and her little boy. She blinked bloodshot eyes at a heartbroken Pollard.

“Matt?” she pleaded.

He met her gaze, begging for her trust as he struggled to quiet his quaking legs. Marie’s was a world of playgroups and Pampered Chef parties. She knew little of his past and could not fathom such brutality. A brutality he thought he’d left behind, dead and buried.

He locked eyes with Zamora. His words spilled out in ragged, panting breaths.

“You’re an intelligent man, Valentine. Do you believe killing my son would force me to comply? You have me cornered. That makes me more dangerous than you could ever imagine.”

Someone attempted to grab his arm from behind— and got an elbow to the nose for his trouble. Pollard heard the snick of a pistol cocking near his head, but he didn’t bother to turn around.

Simon batted at the barrel of Zamora’s pistol with chubby hands, cooing, oblivious to the danger.

“Move the gun away from my son or shoot me now,” Pollard whispered, surprised at the sudden calm that washed over him. “Otherwise, I’m going to beat you to death.”

The room seemed to freeze as Zamora considered the situation. Grinning like a madman, he pointed the pistol at Pollard, his chest heaving with the first signs of real emotion.

Pollard met his stare with stony resolve. “It was a grave mistake to take away my hope.”

Zamora’s face twitched and then erupted into laughter. He shoved the pistol behind his back and pushed the baby toward Pollard.

“Take him,” he said, suddenly sounding fatigued. “I must admit, I forgot how well you play this game. I will leave some people to keep your wife company. You may speak to her daily via the Internet.” He raised a dark brow and flicked his hand toward the front door. “Provided you do your part and cooperate. Forget packing a bag. We’ll purchase what you need en route.”

Pollard’s shoulders slumped. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“Matt! You’re not actually going with him?” Marie gasped. “What is happening?”

Zamora nodded toward Monagas, who instantly released her hair.

Pollard handed her the baby and took them both in his arms.

“Apurate!” Zamora snapped his fingers. “As lovely as this scene is, my dear Matthew, you have a plane to catch. Say your quaint good-byes and let us be on our way.”

Marie’s shoulders quaked as Pollard held her to him, breathing in the smell of her and his child.

“You can’t help him hurt anyone,” she whispered, her voice soft against his neck.

“I won’t let it come to that,” Pollard lied. There was nothing he would not do to save his family.

“I mean it, Matt,” she hissed, regaining the iron will that had drawn him to her in the first place. “No matter what happens to us.”

Pollard kissed her long and hard, their tears mixing against moist cheeks. He held her shoulders firmly as he pulled away, looking directly into her eyes. He knew he’d probably never see her again.

“Trust me. Like you said, I’m a genius.”

Every word stuck in his throat. He’d brought this misery on his family. Valentine Zamora was evil, the exemplification of what he wanted his students to write about — but Pollard knew he had no one to blame but himself.

CHAPTER 12

Valentine Zamora stood on the Pollards’ front porch beside a pouting Lourdes. A wind chime made of colorful shards of pottery clanged softly over their heads. Together, they watched Monagas load the professor into the backseat of the white SUV. There was no need to tie him. He was restrained enough by his emotions. The fool would do exactly what he was asked now that his beloved family was in jeopardy. Love complicated things that way.

Jorge’s leg had been injured when Pollard had hit the SUV with his Prius, and he iced it while he waited inside with an inconsolable Marie and her baby.

Lourdes stomped her foot. She had a certain smell about her when she was angry. Though not unpleasant, it reminded Zamora of burning sugar. “You grow tired of me?” she snapped. “That is why you toss me to the side like a piece of garbage!”

He gave her shoulders a squeeze and looked down into the black depths of her gaze. When he was a young boy, Valentine’s Iranian-born mother would often warn him of Cheshm-Zakhm—the evil eye. The phrase literally meant to strike a blow with one’s eye.

Two years before, when Zamora had first met Lourdes Lopez, his mother’s warning was the first thing that had come to his mind.

He’d been at a bar near Bullhead City, Nevada, to discuss the need for certain firearms and explosives with a group of methamphetamine dealers looking to expand their territory. The bar — located well outside town — was a confusing rabbit warren of separate rooms and gaudy stages where all sorts of illicit behavior, labeled “special events” by the establishment, took place. Raucous laughter, cheers, and even screams sometimes wafted into the main barroom at each opened door. Assorted pieces of underwear, apparently donated by patrons in moments of abandon, had been nailed to every inch of the clapboard walls. The entire place stunk of sweat and stale urine. Zamora found it exhilarating.

While waiting for his contact, a series of muffled cheers drew Zamora toward a side room through the shadows behind the main bar. The whistling and applause grew louder as he approached. A deadly glare combined with a folded fifty-dollar bill got him past the fat baldy with a flashlight guarding the door.

The intense beam of a spotlight hit him full in the face as soon as the fat guy pulled open the door. As Zamora’s eyes adjusted from the darkness of the outer barroom, the stark image of a woman filled his vision. She faced him dead-on, wearing only faded blue jeans and a pushup bra of white lace that contrasted beautifully with the rich bronze and pink of her flushed skin. The muscles of her face twitched as he joined the chanting crowd in the packed room. Blue-black hair was cut short in a Cleopatra style with bangs straight across severely painted brows and eyes as sharp as straight razors. She trapped his gaze the moment he looked at her as surely as if her stare had been made up of steel jaws. Full lips, tinted with metallic green makeup, clenched tight in intense concentration. Her entire body quivered; her face ran with beads of sweat.

Straining less than ten feet from the door, she leaned forward, groping the air for him with long, tan arms. The tendons in her neck were drawn into tight cords.

“Take me,” she hissed through clenched teeth. Blood-red nails beckoned him closer. “Grab my hands, quickly!”

Entranced, Zamora had stepped to her. The strength in her hands still haunted him. She’d grabbed the lapels of his shirt, digging her nails into his chest. There was a smell… no, a taste of burnt sugar as she leaned in, straining to try and kiss him with trembling lips.

A frenzied cheer erupted from the mob of onlookers ringing the edges of the room.

It was only then, startled from his trance by all the yelling, that Zamora had even noticed the other woman. A blonde, she was similarly dressed in jeans and a bra but facing the opposite direction. Two shining steel hooks pierced floral tattoos over her shoulder blades, pulling the skin away from a gaunt body. Lines of blood ran from each set of wounds and down the naked flesh of her back. A length of sturdy chain connected her to an identical set of hooks piercing the back of the dark woman, the woman who now clutched his hands.

“Be still!” the dark woman gasped.

Helpless to do anything but obey, Zamora had frozen in place. Inch by agonizing inch, the dark woman had pulled herself toward him, using his weight as an anchor to pull the blonde toward a red line drawn in the middle of the tile floor.

The tattooed woman screamed as one of the hooks ripped through her flesh. She pedaled backward to keep the other hook from tearing, crossing the line and thereby conceding the contest.

And thus, with two stainless-steel hooks and a length of chain hanging from the smooth flesh of her back, Lourdes Lopez had fallen into Valentine’s arms. He had good enough looks — and, more important, enough money — that he was accustomed to taller, more refined women with the look of swimsuit models, but this creature with smallish breasts, powerful thighs, and a heavy brow had left the bar with him that night and followed him faithfully everywhere. Every day when he’d looked at her over the ensuing years, he had been struck by the darkness of her eyes.

Cheshm-Zakhm indeed.

Others might find her deep brow and the willingness to bite the heads off baby chicks frightening. To Valentine Zamora, such a multifaceted woman was intriguing — or at least she had been.

Now, on Pollard’s porch, he reached to stroke the back of her head. “I am in dire need of someone I can trust at this moment,” he said.

She shrugged him away. “Maybe this is only a convenient time to scrape me off your boots?” She shot a glance at the SUV. “My love, I beg you to let Julian stay here with the pitiful woman and her filthy whelp.”

Zamora put a finger to her cheek and turned her face toward him. “My darling,” he said. “Where I am going, I need Monagas with me.”

“I should be with you.”

“I know,” he said, but not feeling it himself. She was right. It was time for a much-needed break. “I need you here.”

Always one to respond to his needs above her own, she gave him a sullen nod. She sighed, staring out at the SUV and Pollard.

“You trust this weakling?”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Zamora said. “We have his wife and baby so we can control him, but he’s a brilliant man with two doctorates. His expertise in the U.S. Navy was in nuclear devices. He can and will do what I need him to do.”

“I hate babies,” Lourdes muttered under her breath, uninterested in any more specifics.

“Chin up, my darling,” Zamora said. “This should be great fun for you.” He waved at a despondent Pollard, who slumped in the SUV, leaning his head against a window, beaten. “When our professor is finished with what we need him to do, you may kill the woman and her child in whatever manner pleases you. I only ask that you keep them alive until that time.”

“Must I keep them comfortable?” Lourdes asked, pouting.

Zamora dipped his head toward the SUV. “Enough to speak to him online each day.”

“So I can have a little fun?” the dark woman brightened.

“Just don’t kill them.” Zamora chuckled, afraid to guess what she had in mind.

“Yet,” she reminded him, a quiet grin crossing her long face.

“See.” He gave her a pinch on the backside, hard enough to make her flinch. Anything else, she would have ignored. “I told you you’d enjoy it. Now, Monagas and I need to hurry. We have another surprise for the authorities to keep them guessing while we get Professor Pollard set. I think this might amuse you as well.”

CHAPTER 13

A misshapen sun squatted smugly on the horizon over Biscayne Bay, its December warmth pushing moist fingers of ground fog across the racetrack, streaked black from thousands of spinning tires.

Quinn leaned into the fifteenth and final corner of his fourth lap. It was shallow and relatively easy, but he felt the bike wobble when he caught a glimpse of Veronica Garcia standing beside Thibodaux along the fence. As in life, the bike generally went the direction the eyes were pointed.

He poured on the gas, putting the sight of the beautiful woman behind him to begin another lap. Cranking his head as far to the left as it would go, he pushed the purring Yamaha R1 hard over as he took the third turn, tickling his inside knee against the pavement. Emerging from number three, his head snapped quickly right, then left, as he slalomed through four and five before standing up to gain speed on the relatively long straightaway toward the next turn.

Riding in general and racing in particular were good metaphors for living. Quinn looked in the direction he wanted his bike to go, all the while focusing on the moment he was in. And the uneasy tension at seeing Ronnie Garcia translated directly from hand to handlebar to wheel.

The throaty brap of the R1’s cross-plane engine and the humming vibration of spinning tires against the track mere inches below his boots kept Quinn glued to the “now” of his ride. A healthy respect for Homestead’s hairpin corners forced him to think and look well ahead. The speed and turns he could handle. Veronica Garcia, however, might just get him killed.

Jacques Thibodaux leaned across the low rail, biceps bulging from the arms of a gray T-shirt, his back flared in a massive V. His eyes were glued to Jericho as he took a red and white Yamaha R1 around the eighth turn, a hairpin corner on the far side of the roughly U-shaped course.

Without turning his head, the big Cajun spoke to the buxom Latina woman leaning against the rail beside him.

“You ready for this, cher?”

The daughter of a Cuban mother and Russian father, Veronica “Ronnie” Garcia was fluent in the languages of both parents. Nearly thirty, she was tall with strong legs and the broad shoulders of collegiate softball player. A white tank top and matching terry-cloth short shorts displayed the delicious curves of her rich café latte skin. Black hair pulled back in a thick ponytail that matched her round Hollywood-starlet sunglasses.

The breeze toyed with her hair. “You trying to psych me up for battle, Jacques?”

“Hell yes, I am,” he said, putting on his best gunnery sergeant bark. “Take a stance and give me a loud, vicious, tigerlike growl… ”

She turned up her nose. “Seriously?”

“No,” he chuckled. “It’s somethin’ my drill sergeant used to yell at us. I reckon it don’t really fit what we’re doing. In my experience, lovin’ ought to be scream-your-head-off loud — killin’s best done quietly.”

The woman smiled, turning back to watch Quinn make another lap around the track. “How could a girl disagree with that?”

Garcia had worked with Jericho before in Western China and the mountains of Afghanistan — a mission that had almost gotten her killed. Her behavior and bravery — along with a helpful recommendation from the president — had earned her an appointment as an operations officer candidate in the CIA. Palmer had pulled her out of her training at Camp Peary for this mission, hoping she would be the type to catch Valentine Zamora’s eye.

Thibodaux watched as Quinn took another sharp turn at speed, dragging a knee. He swooped the bike through the gentle curve at the ninth turn, then popped it back upright on the long straightaway until the next set of corners. Even as a motorcyclist himself, the big Cajun found watching his friend hurtle around the concrete track at speeds well over a hundred miles an hour made his teeth hurt.

The throaty moan of Quinn’s Yamaha grew louder as he approached, then quickly faded as he sped away toward the first set of turns on his next lap.

“I wish our dirtbag would get his ass out here,” Thibodaux said, leaning his chest against the fence and rattling the chain link.

Garcia looked up with a sly wink. “You’re not the one with your boobs and butt cheeks hanging out of your clothes to bait him in. I should be the one whining.”

“You watch yourself, cher.” Thibodaux wagged a finger at her. “Valentine Zamora is a bad dude. You get a chance to read the file?”

Ronnie glanced up, leaning forward, both elbows propped against the fence. The muscles in her long legs showed almost orange in the early light. “I read enough. Sleazebag gunrunning playboy with ties to Hezbollah, FARC, and AQAP. Daddy is some muckity in the Venezuelan government who’d just as soon disown him. Mommy is an Iranian diplomat’s daughter and spoils him rotten. By eighteen, junior got himself kicked out of University of Texas for a couple of rapes…. One girl disappeared so he’s most likely a murderer too. Mommy convinced Daddy to pull some political strings and got charges dropped and him admitted to U of Oregon, where he promptly started his guns and bombs business supplying hairy, unwashed environmental terrorists on the West Coast.”

Finished, Garcia turned up her nose. “I shouldn’t complain about showing a little skin on such a beautiful morning. I’d take my shirt off just to catch this son of a bitch.”

“I got the best job in the world,” Jacques said to no one in particular.

“Anyway—” Garcia ignored him. “It doesn’t hurt my feelings to get away from The Farm for a few hours.” Her voice grew softer as she gazed across the infield at Quinn. “It’s not too bad seeing Jericho either. He and I never could seem to get our schedules to work out after he got back from visiting his daughter — so I’ve had nothing to do but hit the books.”

Thibodaux turned his head to study her. “Our buddy Mr. Quinn is a mighty private soul,” he said. “Just so you know, he’s never said a word about what happened between you two.”

Garcia shrugged, sighing heavily as Quinn roared past again in a red and white blur. “I’m pretty sure his ex-wife happened. He was on the phone with her earlier and it had to be, what? Two in the morning in Alaska?”

“Never can seem to make a choice between her and any other woman,” Thibodaux said. “Can he?”

“Yeah, well.” Garcia gazed out at the track. “That in itself is a choice.”

“Mmm.” Thibodaux gave an understanding nod. The way Quinn clung to the idea that he’d someday get back with his ex-wife bordered on insanity. “I never met the woman,” he said, “but he made a damn poor trade if you ask me.”

“Thanks, Jacques, but I—”

A high whistle came from the race bays behind them, underneath the stands. Thibodaux’s wrist brushed the butt of the baby Glock under the loose tail of his shirt as he turned. He carried a Colt Detective Special on his ankle in case things really went rodeo. In his experience, the fastest reload was another gun.

“Why are you so early?” A dark man with a tightly curly black hair and a scarred upper lip called from the shadow of the pits under the stands. He was thickly muscled with a bull neck and angry scowl. Strong arms swung stiffly from a loose, cream-colored guayabera shirt.

“My boss came out to run a few laps before they open,” Thibodaux shouted back, facing the newcomer as he approached. It was his job to act as Quinn’s bodyguard. With his towering height and his back as broad as a barn, it was an easy assumption for people to make. “Don’t worry, amigo. There’s still enough track left for everybody.”

Garcia leaned farther over the fence, arching her back slightly, pointing her tight terry-cloth shorts toward the new arrival.

The bull-necked man paused as if Jacques had just challenged him to a duel. “I am not your amigo,” he yelled back, picking up his stride.

A second man walked a few steps behind the first, wearing a bright green and yellow racing suit. The tight leather suit was built for sitting, not walking, and that, along with the protective hump on his back, made him appear to waddle. He raised a gloved hand to silence his companion when they were still fifty feet away.

“It is fine, Monagas,” he said. “This man is correct. There is plenty of track for all of us.” He was tall and slender, with a pencil-thin mustache and a heavy brow. His black hair was slicked back to reveal a prominent widow’s peak. His eyes were transfixed on Garcia.

“You can go home if you want to, Jacques,” Ronnie whispered, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder. “I think I can handle this one.”

“Smartass,” Thibodaux hissed under his breath. “This guy is a stone killer.”

She winked at him again. “Smart’s got little to do with what he’s looking at.”

Zamora strode purposefully up to Thibodaux. An entire entourage had followed him out of the tunnel, complete with two young men wearing green mechanic’s shirts pushing a Yamaha R1 identical to Quinn’s but for the fact that it was black. There were no fewer than fourteen women in the group, including a set of gap-toothed blond twins that Thibodaux suspected were from some British modeling agency. All of them but the mechanics dragged along as if they’d been pulled away at this early hour from an all-night party. Most wore shades. One, a short brunette wearing red spandex shorts and a yellow tube top, sported a fresh black eye. A redhead in a gaudy green halter-top carried a chartreuse motorcycle helmet that matched Zamora’s suit.

When the little procession was within earshot, Ronnie Garcia bounced on her toes and looked up at Thibodaux.

“One-twenty-six and change,” she said as Quinn brapped by in a red blur. “That’s his best lap yet.”

“He can do better.” Thibodaux leaned against the fence watching the parade of newcomers. “I’ve seen him.”

Zamora stood completely still, his eyes flitting back and forth from Garcia’s body to Quinn ripping around the track. “Very nice,” he said at length. “Very nice indeed.” He tilted his head, leaning toward the shorter man, who Thibodaux could now see had the flattened nose of a brawler and a deformed cauliflower ear to go with his thuggish scowl. “Monagas, what time is it?”

Monagas consulted a heavy Seiko dive watch on his wrist. “Seven-fifty-five, patrón. Do you wish me to show them out?”

Zamora raised a gloved hand, pursing his lips as if in thought.

The throaty rumble unique to the R1’s exhaust grew louder as Quinn came around again. Instead of slowing, he seemed to dig in, wringing a louder smoker’s howl from the Yamaha’s pipes as bike and rider shot past like a bullet aimed at the first turn.

Quinn took another easy lap, then pulled into the pit area, coming to a rolling stop beside Garcia. He stayed on the bike as he peeled off red and white Phantom gloves and red helmet that matched the red, white, and black panels of his leather race suit. Fingers of ground fog swirled around his boots in the long morning shadows. Quinn tipped his head toward Zamora, giving him a polite two-finger salute.

“I heard somebody rented the track for the entire day,” he said. “Thought I’d get a few laps in before you started. Warm it up for you, so to speak.”

He’d not shaved in two days and already the dark stubble of his beard combined with the rich bronze skin tone of his Apache grandmother made it hard to tell his origin. The fact that he was fluent in Arabic — and three other languages besides his native English — added to his ability to blend in in a multicultural place like south Florida. Still, with all his years in this line of work, he wondered if the contempt he held for a man like the one standing before him shone through in his eyes. He forced what he hoped looked like an easy smile and swung a leg over the bike to extend his hand.

“Impressive.” Zamora raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Your attractive lady friend said you ran a one-twenty-six lap.”

“I’ve been riding a while.” Quinn shrugged, grinning as if full of false modesty.

“I am Valentine,” Zamora said, stepping forward to shake hands.

“Quinn,” he said, taking the offered hand. “You know, it’s really all about the bike.”

“Twenty percent bike, eighty percent rider, some say.” Zamora nodded toward his flat black R1, then let his eyes play over Ronnie Garcia. She leaned backward against the fence, elbows on the top rail, her back arched, eyes closed to the sun. The corners of Zamora’s mouth turned up in a sly smile. “You have excellent taste, Mr. Quinn,” he said.

“Well, then.” Quinn saluted again. “You paid to have the track for you and your guests. We’ll leave it to you.”

“Good,” Zamora said, letting him walk past.

The blond twins stood along the chain-link fence at the head of the entourage, eyeing Quinn like he was a piece of meat. Garcia drew a jealous, gap-toothed smirk as she walked beside him while Thibodaux pushed the bike.

“One-twenty-six is a scant two seconds off the track record,” Zamora called out. “How would you feel about a little wager? If you’re a sporting man…”

Quinn turned, grinning. “Mister, I’ll be happy to take your money if—”

The mousy brunette’s cell phone chirped, bringing a crippling glare from Zamora. She cringed, rushing to silence the thing before it earned her another black eye. Another phone began to ring among the group, then another and another. Garcia shot a glance at Quinn as her phone began to ring as well.

She picked up.

“Well, go on,” Zamora said, flicking a hand at his entourage. “It’s obviously something important.”

The brunette’s hand shot to her mouth a moment after she put the phone to her ear.

Garcia’s lips parted in genuine surprise. She did her best to remain in character. “Some kind of explosion near JFK airport in New York,” she said.

“You think it was a bomb like the one in California?” one of the blond twins asked.

“Maybe a plane crash,” the other twin said, her voice breathy and shallow.

“Relax, my darlings. New York is a very long way away.” Zamora waved his hand as if brushing away a fly.

The brunette spoke through clasped fingers. “My auntie lives in New York.”

She drew another glare from Zamora, but this time she didn’t notice.

“Monagas will turn the radio to the news,” he said. “So we can find out exactly what is going on.”

Agreeable nods and nervous chuckles ran up and down the fence line.

“I’d still enjoy making that wager with you, Señor Quinn.” Zamora leaned against the seat of his bike, hands clasped across his lap. “But I’m afraid I won’t have much of a ride today. I have business ventures in New York I should see to.”

“That’s okay,” Quinn said, not wanting to appear too eager. “I’ll take your money some other time.”

Monagas stepped up with a cell phone. Zamora took it, putting a hand over the receiver. A sickeningly sweet smile crept across his face. His eyes flitted to Ronnie Garcia, lingered there, then moved back to Quinn. “I host an after-party at a villa near Miami.” He tossed a glance over his shoulder. “Monagas, please give our new acquaintance the address and details.” He turned back to Quinn. “You and your friends, please be my guests this evening.”

“I do not trust that one,” Julian Monagas said, watching the Americas leave. “You have important meetings tonight, patrón.”

“Duly noted,” Zamora said, swinging a long leg over his motorcycle. “And while I appreciate your advice, if I only invited people I trust, it would be a very small party indeed.” He bent forward, draping his arms over the handlebars, gushing with enthusiasm. “Did you see their faces when they heard of another bombing in the States? It was priceless, my friend, just priceless. Do you not see the brilliance of it all? While the Americans look one direction, our friends will hit them in another.”

CHAPTER 14

The air was cool and crisp when the baby-faced man with a curly head of black hair peeked out of the earthen tunnel to find himself inside a dust-filled barn five hundred yards inside the U.S. border, not far from the Mexican city of Miguel Alemán.

His coyote, the Mexican who’d helped him come across, called him the “Quiet One” because he tended to talk in a hoarse whisper — when he spoke at all.

The coyote had climbed up the ladder first, followed by a young couple and their two small daughters. Eleven other men, ranging from their late teens to well past fifty, rounded out the troupe. Each had paid two thousand U.S. dollars for the privilege of using the tunnel. All had agreed to be blindfolded before they went out to meet the waiting truck so as not to be able to inform on the tunnel’s location if detained.

Coyotes — also known as polleros or chicken herders — took a great many risks, but the return was good. Sixteen “chickens” through the tunnel brought thirty-two thousand dollars for two hours’ work. False documents, transportation within the United States, safe houses — those all cost extra.

“How long?” the mother of the little girls asked, spreading a cloth over a dusty bale of straw so her children could sit down and share an orange and some water.

“We just wait.” The coyote shrugged. “The truck will get here when he gets here.” He was a skinny, sunken-chested man, nervous and bouncy as if his neck were set on a spring. Going by the name of El Flaco, he was said to have a connection with the notorious Zetas Cartel — former paramilitaries from the Mexican Special Forces who’d decided protection rackets and narcotics trafficking were preferable to military discipline. Like the Sinaloa and other cartels, Zetas used tunnels to move drugs into Texas and guns back to Mexico. These same tunnels came in handy for smuggling illegal immigrants.

The Quiet One sat on the ground, leaning against a large wooden crate that lay on its side. A sliver of metal stuck out of the lid, so he slouched to keep it from poking him in the back. Still, he didn’t know how long they’d be there and it was preferable to leaning against nothing.

One of the little girls offered him a piece of her orange.

He took it with a smile. She couldn’t have been over six.

“What is your name?” she asked with the audacity peculiar to small children.

“Pablo,” the Quiet One said. “What is your name?”

“Beatrice,” the little girl said. “You talk funny. Where are you from?”

“Beatrice!” The girl’s father clapped his hands. “Stop bothering him.” He smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, my friend.”

Pablo waved him away. “It is fine. I’m sure I do sound odd to her. I went to school in Italy.”

“That explains the accent,” the man’s wife said, nodding to her husband as she peeled another orange. “I told you so.”

Pablo smiled and closed his eyes. Inside, his stomach churned. Was his accent really so noticeable that he could be undone by a small child and a witless woman? The squeal of a truck grinding to a halt outside roused him from his worries. So far, the journey had been dull and he hoped it stayed that way.

El Flaco climbed to his feet with a groan at the sound of the truck doors. He motioned for everyone else to stay put until he went outside to talk to his contact.

Before he took a step the barn door swung open and a man in a dark green uniform stepped inside pointing his pistol.

“Mierda!” Flaco turned to run but found a second Border Patrol officer waving at him from the back door. He hung his head in defeat.

Pablo was astounded to find that the arrest team consisted of only three Patrol agents — an older man with graying hair, a Hispanic man whose brand-new uniform screamed “rookie,” and a thick-hipped woman with frizzy blond hair. Seventeen against three seemed like bad odds. If it had not been for the trainee, he suspected there would have only been two of them.

The senior agent and the woman provided cover while the rookie acted as contact officer and went from person to person applying plastic zip cuffs behind their backs, then giving each a quick pat-down for weapons. The rookie brightened when he found Flaco’s pistol and passed it back to the female agent. The coyote’s head bobbed back and forth, alternately praying and cursing under his breath. Once searched, each prisoner was made to sit back down.

Pablo kept his face passive, but his mind raced to find a way out. Too much depended on his freedom of movement. Going into custody was out of the question. Leaning back against his crate, he began to work his restraints against the sharp metal shard that had poked him in the back earlier.

The senior agent holstered his sidearm and took off his green ball cap to run his hand through his silver hair. He nodded at the rookie. “I’ll call in for a bus. Cardenas, you and Stanton start getting names now. It’ll speed up the processing back at sector.”

The plastic flex cuffs broke, freeing Pablo’s hands moments before the female agent worked her way around the barn to him. She stopped directly in front of him, peering down across a small spiral notebook. She tilted her frizzy head and blinked large eyes as if seeing him for the first time.

“What is your name?” she asked in excellent Spanish.

“Pablo Mendoza,” he whispered, keeping his eyes wide and passive as he took note of her sidearm and the retaining strap on her holster. He’d watched her from the moment the rookie handed her Flaco’s pistol and knew it was still stuck behind her back in the waistband of her trousers.

“Where were you born?”

“In a village near Bogotá.” Pablo told the same plausible lie he gave everyone. Who in their right mind would admit to being from a country known for drug production and deadly cartels? Incriminating lies were so much easier to swallow.

“Colombia,” she said to herself, making a note beside his name in spiral notebook. “OTM.”

She was a tall woman, and her hips would provide her with a low center of gravity. Seated as he was, Pablo would need her off balance for his plan to work, even if his hands were free.

“Will they send me back to Bogotá?” he whispered, stuttering a bit as if he was frightened.

“Pardon?” She stooped, bending closer so she could hear him.

Pablo caught the woman’s legs between his own, clamping down like a vise. Locking his ankles, he rolled sideways, throwing his full weight against the startled agent. Already off balance, she toppled easily, landing flat on her face in the dust with a sickening thud.

Pablo was on her in an instant, straddling her back as if she was a horse. He grabbed a fistful of frizzed blond hair with his left hand, brutally pounding her head against the ground. His right hand went for the H&K pistol in her holster. He’d reasoned that as a law enforcement officer her sidearm would be in better working order than Flaco’s rusted thing. In this situation, he could not afford a single malfunction.

Stunned, the female agent put up little resistance and her H&K slid easily from her holster with a satisfying snick. He shot her once in the back of the head, not because she was an immediate threat but because he couldn’t shoot accurately at the others with her bucking and thrashing beneath him. The rookie was closest so he got the next two rounds, one in the vest, then a follow-up to the neck. Pablo spun immediately, throwing rounds at the senior agent who’d already dropped his cell phone and drawn his weapon. The agent fired as he fell, but the rounds went high and wide. Pablo shot again, striking him high in the ribs. The round hit his vest, but blunt trauma caused him to drop his pistol. Now Pablo had time to take careful aim and finished him with a shot to the head.

Flaco bounced on the floor, jerking against his bonds. His face a twisted shout, his mouth moved, but no sounds came out. The rest of the group had fallen to the dirt at the first sign of shooting, becoming the smallest targets possible. Little Beatrice and her sister whimpered next to their parents.

The coyote found his voice as Pablo kicked the pistols away from the dead Border Patrol agents.

“What have you done, señor?” Flaco whispered. “The Americans will hunt us down like dogs.”

Pablo raised a wary eyebrow. “Our contract was for you to get me into the United States safely with no law enforcement involvement.” He retrieved Flaco’s pistol, then rolled the dead woman before using it to shoot her once in the forehead.

Little Beatrice flinched at the shot and buried her face in her mother’s lap.

Flaco’s mouth hung open as Pablo’s plan began to dawn on him.

“So,” he said, nodding frantically. “You shoot them with my gun, then kill me with one of theirs to make it look like a gunfight.”

Pablo grinned. “You are smarter than I first believed,” he said.

“You should reconsider,” the coyote said. “If you do this thing, my people will come looking for you. They are very cruel and powerful.”

“Your people?” The Quiet One smirked. “You have no idea who I am.”

Flaco’s eyes jumped from person to person around the dark confines of the barn. “But what of all the witnesses, señor? Surely you would not kill them all. Even the little children?”

“Some things are too important for sentiment,” the Quiet One said, inhaling quickly through his nose to steel his resolve. “It is best I begin at once.” He retrieved the rookie agent’s pistol and a second thirteen-round magazine from the dead man’s belt. He had little time, but plenty of ammunition.

The idiots just sat there, trussed up like lambs for the slaughter, blinking stupidly.

Ibrahim Nazif, a Yemeni citizen educated from the age of fourteen at an al-Qaeda camp in Paraguay’s lawless Triple Frontier, smiled. He thought of what the blond agent had noted about him in her book. “OTM,” he chuckled to himself as he shot Flaco in the back of his bobbing neck and continued down the line, stopping only long enough to look each victim in the eye as he pulled the trigger.

OTM — other than Mexican indeed.

CHAPTER 15

Quinn shut the door of the black crew cab Silverado and tossed the keys to a Hispanic teenager beside the valet stand. The kid was so busy watching Garcia’s long legs spill out of the backseat that he missed the keys completely. Quinn had to admit, she looked incredible in a white wraparound sundress. A simple gold chain fell across high collarbones to rest in the cleft of her breasts. She winked playfully at the boy and looped an arm through Quinn’s, showing she belonged to him. Quinn caught his breath at the simple act.

Thibodaux shut the door and fell in behind the couple as they walked toward the sprawling Italian villa, shaking his head.

Quinn’s mind reeled at the thought of Garcia walking beside him. Over the years, as Kim had grown more distant and Mattie had gotten older, thoughts of them and the difficulties of trying to hold the family together had threatened to knock him off task. He’d become a pro at compartmentalizing during missions, focusing on the problem at hand, then allowing himself a moment of melancholy only when the shooting stopped and he was in a safe place.

He shook off the worry and steeled himself to Garcia’s touch as she snaked her arm around his waist, getting into character as his girl-toy. He could not dwell on the fact that he was standing next to one of the most amazing women he’d ever met. Dealing with a man as brutal as Valentine Zamora would require his full concentration.

Hanging torches lit a wide cobblestone walkway that led from behind the marble stand up a series of steps nearly thirty meters to the massive columns that comprised the front entrance to Valentine Zamora’s rented villa. The whiteness of the limestone structure appeared to glow against the dark green of the surrounding gardens and deep purple of the night sky.

Both men wore light khaki slacks and polo shirts, Thibodaux’s navy blue to Quinn’s black. The colors made them less visible if it became necessary to work among the shadows — urban camo, Jacques called it. The Cajun, supposed by Zamora to be Quinn’s bodyguard, carried his Kimber ten-millimeter in an inside-the-waistband holster over his right kidney, hidden by the tail of his polo shirt. The small Colt revolver still rested comfortably on the inside of his left ankle. Garcia carried no gun. Her weapons were more formidable than any bullet or blade. As the principal, Quinn went in clean. There would be plenty of killing tools available at such an event if he found one was needed.

“Twenty-nine dead in New York,” Quinn said as they approached the front door. He wanted them all to remember what they were dealing with. “Three times that wounded.”

“One-day missions suck,” Ronnie whispered. “If I didn’t have to get back to training tomorrow, I’d dearly love to help you nail this son of a bitch.”

Quinn thought about her leaving and didn’t know if he felt sadness or relief.

“Laissez les bons temps rouler,” Thibodaux said, clenching his square jaw as he reached for the brass doorknocker shaped like a lion’s head. Let the good times roll.

The gap-toothed twins greeted them under a heavy wrought-iron chandelier. Honey-colored clay tile and thick wooden ceiling beams accented the whitewashed walls of the spacious foyer. The blond twins wore black one-piece swimsuits with necklines that plunged well past their belly buttons, exposing enough cleavage that Thibodaux, who constantly worried that his wife had her very own spy satellite, hunted for a place to cast his eyes. Zamora seemed to have invited a great many similarly dressed woman to the party. In fact, though the interior of the house was exquisitely decorated in finely carved wood and tapestries, it was impossible to notice much beyond the female décor.

“Looks like you’re a bit overdressed,” Quinn said as the gap-toothed twins jiggled and flounced their way through the double doors to let Zamora know Quinn, and more importantly Veronica Garcia, had arrived.

“You say that to all your girls,” Ronnie said with the confident verbal equivalent of a shrug.

“How many guests you reckon are here?” Thibodaux grabbed a mojito from a passing waiter in khaki shorts and a white polo.

Quinn scanned the mass of people. “Maybe a hundred and fifty.”

A crowded great room, adorned with waist-high Tuscan vases and an eighteenth-century Italian fresco, separated the entry from a long covered porch. People milled here and there in knots of four or five under the pool-length lanai and at small round tables set around the cabanas on the other side of a long, rectangular pool. A covey of tittering girls soaked in the steaming Jacuzzi. Underwater lights flashed and swirled as guests dove and swam in the blue-topaz water.

The air was heavy with the smell of chlorine, sunblock, and alcohol. Stubby palmettos and sculptured hedges of holly and long-leafed oleander beyond the cabanas gave the entire area a jungle-like feeling, affording small, isolated pockets where couples could get away for a few private moments.

Zamora stood with four other men, one of them the ever-present Monagas, who kept back a few steps behind but within arm’s reach of his boss. Zamora wore a white linen sport coat with black slacks and matching shirt, open at the collar. The two men with him looked Hispanic. Shorter, stockier, and a decade older than Zamora, both spoke with the abrupt, animated gestures of men used to having things go their own way.

The Venezuelan’s head snapped up the moment the twins got to him. He excused himself immediately from the conversation and all but ran to meet Quinn and Garcia at the veranda. Cathy, the mousy brunette from the track, padded up behind him. She’d been dangling her legs in the pool and little puddles formed on the concrete around her toes. Arms folded across her chest, she kept one leg slightly ahead of the other as if she would have rather been wearing anything but the scrap of a bikini.

Monagas stood beside her. A disgruntled curl hung beneath the scraggly beard on his uneven upper lip.

Quinn forced a smile as Zamora took Garcia’s hand and pressed a kiss.

“I am overjoyed you decided to come, Mr. Quinn,” the Venezuelan said, stifling a giggle. He kept Garcia’s hand until Quinn threw an arm around her shoulder and tugged her away.

“This is a beautiful place, Mr. Zamora,” Garcia said, full lips parted slightly. She was very good at what she was doing.

“Call me Valentine, I beg you.” Zamora swept his arm around the grounds, narrowly missing Cathy standing behind him. He shot her a hateful glare, then smiled back at Garcia. “I have rented it every year of the past seven. It is modeled after a villa in Tuscany that I also rent during my trips to Italy.”

“You know,” Quinn said in spite of himself. “I’m in real estate. If you want, I could help you get into a place of your own so you don’t have to rent all the time.”

Zamora stared, his eyes narrowing to tiny slits. “I rent because I want to, Mr. Quinn. Not because I have to. It keeps me fluid.”

“He knows that,” Ronnie said, squeezing Quinn’s arm. “You should have heard him talking about you and your big entourage back at the track. All the way here he was Valentine this and Valentine that. You’d think he was your groupie.”

Zamora raised an eyebrow. Pleased. “Is that so?” Quinn shrugged, wishing he could drag the guy behind one of his manicured hedges and beat him to death.

“I have to finish an important business matter,” Zamora said. “Then you must let me show you around. Please enjoy the pool until then. Cathy, my darling,” he spoke over his shoulder without taking his eyes off Ronnie. “Please find Ms. Garcia a bathing suit.”

“It’s okay,” Ronnie said, opening her clenched fist to reveal the tiniest crumple of yellow cloth. “I brought my own.”

The corners of Zamora’s lips perked under his pencil-thin mustache as if he’d just spied his favorite entree on the menu.

“Most excellent,” he said. “Cathy will show you the changing room.”

Quinn gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Hurry back,” he said.

“You are a very lucky man,” Zamora said, watching the women walk away.

“Oh,” Quinn said. “I don’t know about that. I just have the one. You seem to have an entire harem.”

Zamora swept his arm again. “Pick any one of them. I won’t mind.”

“What about their dates?” Quinn asked.

“The only man here with a date is you, Mr. Quinn.” Zamora leaned in, confiding a secret. “And someone may try and steal her away if you are not very careful.” He stood back and clapped his hands together, holding them to his lips as if in thought. “Now, you must excuse me while I attend to the drudgeries of my business.”

Monagas remained a moment longer, giving them each a long up-and-down look. Scoffing to himself as if he couldn’t be bothered with speaking, he turned to join his boss.

“I’m feelin’ a need to whip that guy’s ass,” Thibodaux said as Zamora went to rejoin the men at the other end of the pool.

“Which one?” Quinn said. “Zamora or his thug?”

The Cajun shrugged, wagging his head. “I don’t know, either… both.”

“In time.” Quinn nodded. He consciously kept himself from staring at the Venezuelan for fear that his own disgust would be too obvious.

“There are way too many women here,” Thibodaux groaned.

Quinn frowned. “You’re not tempted, are you?”

“Hell no,” the big Cajun said. “Turn ’em upside down and they all look like sisters. My Camille is plenty enough for me.”

“She gave you seven sons,” Quinn chuckled. “I’d say that’s apparent.”

“What about you, l’ami?” Thibodaux looked down at him. “You can’t tell me Ronnie don’t tempt you a teensy bit. Aaiiee! I mean, she’s wearin’ that Bible dress and everything… ”

“Bible dress?” Quinn had worked with the good-hearted Marine for more than a year. Battle and blood had made them fast friends, but sometimes, he had a hard time understanding the man’s euphemisms.

Thibodaux tipped his head toward the departing Ronnie, sighing. “You know, a Bible dress.” He put his hands to his own chest as if holding up a particularly large bosom. “Lo and behold.”

“There is that.” It was Quinn’s turn to groan. In truth, he’d been battling the notion of Veronica Garcia all day long. Seeing her had brought back a flood of conflicting emotions. “I owe it to my daughter to try and work things out with Kim.”

“You mean the same Kim who bitched you out for saving her from a bunch of assassins?” Thibodaux shook his finger, scolding. “You know what you are, Chair Force? You are uxorious.”

“I speak five languages and I have no idea what that means.” Quinn scanned the crowd, arms folded across his chest.

“I accidentally made it when me and Camille were playing Words With Friends,” Jacques said. “But that ain’t the point. It means overly fixated on your wife.”

“Says the man two sons shy of a baseball team,” Quinn scoffed.

“Seriously, beb,” Thibodaux said. “One dude to another — you gotta stop frettin’ so much over the fair sex. It’s gonna get one of us killed.”

“I have an idea,” Quinn said. “You think we could focus on this little nuclear bomb problem instead of who I ride into the sunset with?”

“It’s your ride, brother.” Thibodaux shrugged. “Just pointing out some things you might be too… close… to… see… ”

The noise around the pool seemed to hush when Ronnie stepped out of the nearest cabana. Quinn closed his eyes, hoping to escape the sight of her.

“Good lord,” Thibodaux moaned. “You mean to tell me all that could be yours if you just said the word?”

“Shut up, Jacques,” Quinn said. “It’s not that simple.”

“Chair Force, you listen to me. There’s a lot of things in this life that’s complicated, but this ain’t one of ’em.”

Quinn gave a long sigh as Garcia padded barefoot across the pool deck, smiling at him as if they were lovers. Jacques had no idea what he was talking about. This was the most complicated situation in the world — and the swimsuit didn’t help matters at all.

Canary yellow, it stood out in warm contrast to her rich coffee-and-cream skin. On paper, Quinn was sure the thing had been designed as a modest one-piece with easily twice as much material as most of the suits around the pool. But the way Ronnie wore it made it anything but modest. The taut curves and swells of her body arced and dipped as if aching to escape the fabric. It covered everything — but hid absolutely nothing.

Ronnie did a pirouette to show off the suit when she got closer. It scooped low in the back, revealing a pale scar the size of a dime below her left shoulder blade, a reminder of another time when they’d depended on each other for their lives.

Zamora abandoned his poolside meeting as soon as he saw her, shoving aside anyone who dared get in his way.

“Come,” he said, taking her by the hand. “I want to show you the garden, though I must say, not a single flower is more vibrant than you.” He raised an eyebrow at Quinn. “With your permission, of course.”

Jericho shrugged, fighting the urge to split the Venezuelan’s skull. “Go for it,” he said. “I have plenty here to keep me occupied.”

“Remind me to pass you a slap if you let that get away,” Thibodaux said, eyes glued to the sight of Garcia’s swaying backside as she walked arm in arm with Zamora toward a garden of hanging flowers opposite the cabanas.

Quinn took a quick step back from the pool to avoid getting splashed by a team of piggyback couples wrestling for control of a volleyball. All six-packs and cleavage, these “beautiful people” were as much a part of the décor as the tapestries in the great room.

“Take a look over there if you can pry your eyes away for a minute.” Quinn gave a discreet nod toward the other side of pool. “Isn’t Farris bin Ushan supposed to be in jail?”

“You mean that kid that looks like a Yemeni Leave It to Beaver?” Thibodaux shrugged. “Sounds right.”

“I think that’s him hiding in the shadows over there ogling girls.” He nodded to the string of cabanas. “What’s the name of the Chechen bus driver from Grozny?”

“Are you serious?” Thibodaux said. “I have trouble remembering my own kids’ names in a pinch.”

“Come on. The Russians were looking at him for that most recent school bombing… ” Quinn pounded a fist into his palm, thinking. He wondered if it was the fog brought on by too much Ronnie Garcia or maybe too many years of boxing at the Air Force Academy — not to mention the countless other blows he’d taken to the head. In this business, the ability to remember names and faces was as crucial as knowing how to shoot.

“Beats me,” Thibodaux said. “I know who you’re talking about now—”

“Akhmad Umarov.” Quinn snapped his fingers, recalling the name. He watched as the Chechen and another man he didn’t recognize stood from a poolside table, leaving two cute blondes they’d been chatting up. The second was younger than Umarov by a decade. He wore tight, peg-legged jeans and a black, muscle-mapping T-shirt. Even from a distance, Quinn could see the kid moved with the gawky arrogance of someone thrust into a position of authority because of birth or association rather than talent. Passing the cabanas, Umarov and his companion walked quickly, as if they were late for an appointment.

Quinn watched as a compact woman broke from the game of water polo. She swam to the edge and did an easy hand press onto the deck. A forest-green bikini with a stylish white belt revealed powerful, if somewhat short, legs and the compact, muscular body of a gymnast. Intent on the departing Chechens, the woman took a quick moment to adjust the seat of her swimsuit and squeeze the water out of shoulder-length red hair before ducking down the path after them.

Quinn gave Thibodaux a jab with his elbow. “You enjoy your mojito and keep an eye on the Yemeni,” he said. “I’m going to take a walk and see what Akhmad and his friend are up to out there in the dark.”

“Watch yourself, l’ami.” The Cajun snatched a stuffed mushroom off the tray of a passing waiter and stuffed it in his mouth. “That jolie fille goin’ after him got a crazy look to her.”

“Come on, Jacques,” Quinn said. “You got that from watching her walk away?”

“I’ve done studies, l’ami. You can tell a lot about a woman from her ass.” Thibodaux winked. “And this one’s crazy.”

CHAPTER 16

Quinn moved as fast as he could without actually running, but with the milling press of partygoers and roving waitstaff it took him nearly a full minute to make his way around the pool and past the corner of the limestone pool house. A carbon dioxide mosquito trap whirred in the darkness at the trunk of a stubby palmetto. With every step Quinn took, the din of playful cries and splashing water behind him gave way to an intense buzz of hushed voices.

Thankful for his dark shirt and the ability to blend in, he stepped into the shadows, ears straining to pinpoint the sounds coming from the path ahead. A half dozen steps brought him around a tall oleander hedge to a sudden clearing. The muffled sounds of a struggle filtered through the foliage in the humid darkness.

Quinn took a series of measured sidesteps in a movement known as “cutting the pie” to bring the clearing into view without exposing himself too quickly. Three steps in, he saw the shadowed form of the woman from the pool lying flat on her back. Akhmad Umarov knelt on top of her, a mop of thinning hair across his eyes. For a moment, Quinn thought he’d happened on a clandestine meeting of two lovers, but another half step in brought the younger Chechen into view. He stood watching, his back to Quinn, a pistol clutched in his hand.

In a fluid movement, the woman trapped the Chechen’s hand and left arm against her chest. Hooking his left foot with hers, she bucked her hips with powerful legs. With nothing free to check his balance, the Chechen rolled away. It was a Brazilian jujitsu technique Quinn often used himself.

Covered in a layer of dirt and twigs, the woman delivered a series of kicks to the Chechen’s face. He groaned but didn’t cry out. Neither, it seemed, wanted to be discovered fighting.

The youngster with the pistol must not have wanted to get his hands dirty because he just stood there.

Quinn kept to the shadows. He was all about saving the girl when it was time, but stepping into the fray before he had all the players sorted out was a recipe for getting killed. Hundreds of police officers were hurt every year saving abused women when the enraged victim clobbered them with a frying pan for trying to take their man to jail.

In any case, this redhead knew how to handle herself.

Umarov rushed forward wildly through the kicks, throwing a straight punch. The woman easily sidestepped it, driving the plodding Chechen headfirst into the hedge. He spun quickly and was able to land a backhanded slap across the woman’s face.

Momentarily stunned, she fell again, landing on the ground with a muffled cry. Something bright, like a piece of the jewelry, glinted on the ground beside her. Umarov scooped it up with his free hand and put it in his pocket. Still on her back, the woman acted as if she wanted to scuttle away. The Chechen crawled after her with a whispered snarl and got a snoot full of her foot for his trouble.

The muscle-bound youngster with the pistol chuckled, and then grunted something Quinn didn’t understand.

Rolling away, Umarov came up on all fours with a sinister growl. “Haa-ha, Bulat!” He held up the flat of his hand in the universal sign for no, wanting to finish this himself. Embarrassed, the husky Chechen pushed the mop of hair from his face and reached behind his back to yank a knife from his belt.

Quinn felt a surge of adrenaline rush down his arms. He slowed his breathing to counteract the buzz.

Now it was time.

Quinn’s first reaction was to draw his pocketknife, but it was bad form to go around slitting throats at parties. Instead, he padded up behind the youngster with the handgun. Crouching slightly to lower his center, he gave a loud hiss. Bulat led with his head, bringing up the pistol too late to stop the underhand arc of Quinn’s forearm. Rolling as he struck, Quinn let his arm “die” with a sickening thud against the base of the kid’s neck, stunning the brachial plexus nerve and dropping him like a sack of sand.

Quinn kicked the kid’s pistol into the hedge and made it to Umarov in two steps. Grabbing a handful of collar and belt, he drove a series of brutal knee strikes to the Chechen’s ribs, smiling at the satisfying crunch as bone and cartilage cracked and separated. The knife flew from Umarov’s hand as he rolled away like a bowling pin. Quinn kept coming and delivered a snap kick to the side of his head, sending him sprawling into the oleander hedge. Growling but beaten, the Chechen grabbed his staggering companion and stumbled away, both plunging headlong into the thick foliage.

Quinn exhaled through his nose, feeling the white heat of conflict subside in his belly. He reached for the woman’s outstretched hand and helped her to her feet. She had a strong grip and was amazingly solid for such a small woman. What little light filtered through the tangle of leaves and palm fronds revealed a thin trickle of blood from her nose. Quinn pulled a blue bandana from his back pocket and moved to dab at the wound.

“Chert poberi!” She jerked away, slapping him hard across the left ear in the process. Before he could move, she delivered a savage snap kick to his groin.

Quinn exhaled fast, fighting nausea. He advanced immediately, giving the woman a straight jab to the nose. Evidently used to being punched, she let her head snap back to absorb the blow, then moved quickly to counter with a double palm strike to Quinn’s ears.

“Hey!” Quinn warded off the blow and grabbed a wrist, chiding himself for allowing the woman to surprise him. He brought her hand up and over her head, spinning her like a dancer to cross her arms and pull her in snug against his chest. Her skin was slick and wet from the swimming pool. Holding on, he couldn’t help but feel he’d grabbed a live electric wire. He had to lift her off the ground so she couldn’t stomp his feet and arch his back to avoid a series of vicious head butts to his nose. Chlorinated water dripped from her hair and he could feel it soaking through the chest of his shirt with the warmth of her body. In all his years of fighting, he had little experience holding onto a wet, half-naked woman — at least one who seemed intent on clawing his eyes out.

“They might have killed you,” Quinn groaned in her ear, still waiting for the nausea to pass.

“And you allowed him to escape.” She squirmed against his grip. The edges of her bare feet raked against his shins. Whoever she was, this one knew a thing or two about scrapping.

Quinn stomped his foot to help relieve the pain in his groin and tightened his grip around the woman, trying to decide what to do with her. “Who are you?”

“None of your affair,” she groaned. “Let me go. You are… breaking… my ribs… ”

Quinn let his grip relax a notch, expecting another attack for the favor.

“You fool,” the woman spat. “I had him, and your interference allowed him to slip aw—”

A crunch of footfalls on the path behind him made Quinn release the woman and spin on his heels.

It was Valentine Zamora with Ronnie Garcia tucked in close to his side. The goon, Monagas, followed directly behind him. Crickets chirped in the bushes. A lizard scuttled along the branch of a tree directly overhead, rustling the leaves.

The Venezuelan grinned broadly, nodding at the debris-covered woman and the dampened front of Jericho’s khaki slacks and polo shirt.

“I see you have made yourself quite at home, Mr. Quinn. Not the prize I would have chosen when compared to the lovely Miss Garcia, but a change is as good as a rest, as they say.” He rubbed his chin in thought.

Ronnie’s mouth fell open, her full lips pouting as only they knew how. She drew back and slapped Quinn hard across the face. It was an honest slap, full of true emotion — as if it was something she’d been wanting to do for a very long time. She launched into a string of Cuban curses that caused Zamora to giggle, shooting a knowing glance at Monagas.

Quinn stood and took it, watching the redheaded Russian woman flee toward the safety of the pool and crowds.

Zamora held up his cell phone. “I can stop her with one call, my friend.”

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Zamora.” Quinn gave a dismissive shake of his head. “Just let her go.”

Still deep in her staccato Cuban tirade, Garcia moved to slap him again. He caught her wrist in mid swing, pulling her close. He couldn’t help but think he probably deserved the second slap as much as the first, but Garcia yielded immediately. She stood quietly beside him as the playthings of powerful men were supposed to do.

The Venezuelan put his arm around Quinn’s shoulders, squeezing as if they were old friends. “Call me Valentine, I beg you. It seems we have common passions, my friend — fast motorcycles, beautiful women… getting exactly what we want.” He stared openly at Garcia, his eyes playing lustfully across the tight fabric of her yellow swimsuit.

Thibodaux appeared from the direction of the pool, puffing out his chest at the sight of Quinn so close to their intended target. Ronnie took the opportunity to pull away. She ran past Jacques toward the pool.

Good girl, Quinn thought. She’d be trying to identify the redhead.

Thibodaux stepped forward, big hands open at his side, ready for trouble.

“You okay, boss?”

Monagas moved immediately to interdict him.

Both Zamora and Quinn raised their hands, halting their men.

The Venezuelan giggled maniacally. “And it seems we each have devoted protectors.” He stepped back and tilted his head to let Monagas whisper something in his ear.

“He tells me you move like a boxer,” Zamora said.

“I’ve spent some time in the ring,” Quinn said. It was the truth. He’d won the Wing Open boxing tournament his senior year at the Air Force Academy and earned a broken nose for the effort.

Zamora sniffed, scanning up and down as if assessing him as a possible opponent. “I trust Julian above all others, you know. The Monagas family has served the Zamora household for generations, since Julian’s great-great-great-grandfather Monaghan came to my country from Ireland. Monagas is very good at what he does. I think he’d like to see what you’re capable of in the boxing ring.”

“I would enjoy that very much,” Quinn said honestly, giving the stocky Irish Venezuelan a dismissive glance. “But I don’t think my bodyguard would let me fight your bodyguard. It only confuses matters.”

“Not to mention the fact that you’d need a new bodyguard,” Thibodaux scoffed.

“I have seen Julian shatter a man’s cheekbone with a single punch.” Zamora looked back at Monagas. “However, I must admit, in this case I’m not entirely sure who I would bet on.” He sighed. “Such a shame. I wish we had time to get to know each other better. You are a very interesting man, Jericho Quinn.”

“Maybe we can have that race you talked about this morning.” Quinn kept his voice cavalier but felt his chance at a more substantial meeting slipping away. His gut told him this was the guy with the bomb, but a couple of Chechens and a Yemeni visiting an arms dealer hardly constituted proof.

“Another time.” Zamora shrugged. “I leave for Mar del Plata in a few days’ time.”

Now it was Quinn’s turn to smile. Maybe there was a chance after all. “Mar del Plata?”

“Pity.” Zamora nodded. “Beating you would have been a pleasure.”

“Well, my friend, Valentine.” Quinn wagged his head as if he’d had one too many drinks. “As it happens, I am on my way to Mar del Plata as well.”

“You can’t be serious?” The ever-present giggle rose like a wave on his voice.

“Indeed,” Quinn said, copying Zamora’s inflection.

“That is most excellent.” Zamora slapped him on the back. “What a pair we make, you and I.” His eyes were wild and glassy with alcohol. “But now I have to piss. Meet me at the bar in five minutes and we can talk this over. I will find you another girl since yours ran away.”

“I’ll be fine with Veronica,” he said.

“Suit yourself.” Zamora grinned. “But let me know if she begins to bore you again. I keep Cathy on hand for just such eventualities… ”

Thibodaux stepped closer as soon as Zamora and his thug were out of earshot. “I want to staple that guy’s lips shut every time he cackles like that.” The big Cajun shivered. “Gives me the damn creeps. You ask me, he ain’t sane enough to have the bomb.”

Quinn rubbed his jaw. His ear still rang where the red-haired woman and then Garcia had smacked him. “What, only stable people can have nuclear weapons now?”

“Hell no,” Jacques said. “That ain’t what I mean and you know it. I mean to say it’d be a miracle if he was able to get his hands on such a thing without blowing his own ass off.”

“Don’t forget about the Yemenis and our Chechen friends. A man-portable nuke would be as good a reason as any for them all to be here.”

“His daddy’s with the Venezuelan government,” Thibodaux said. “Everyone knows Iran and half the other bad actors in the world are allied with Venezuela. Maybe they’re trying to get in good with Junior. He is a damned arms dealer after all. Maybe they’re just some of his regular customers.”

“Maybe,” Quinn said. “Or maybe they’re sniffing around for the bomb.”

“Seems like Zamora’s more interested in beatin’ up women and ridin’ fast bikes.”

“And now that’s exactly what he thinks of me,” Quinn said.

“Lucky us,” Jacques muttered. He stared into the thick tangle of foliage. “You find out who the freckled gal is?”

“A Russian,” Quinn said, rubbing his jaw again. “And she was nyet too happy with me for breaking up the fight with Umarov. Could be SVR tailing Chechen terrorists. Whoever she is, she knows how to scrap.”

“Maybe so.” The big Cajun raised a thick eyebrow. “So, you gonna tell me what you meant about Mar del Plata?”

Quinn turned toward the pool. “I told Zamora I happened to be entered in the same little motorcycle race he is.”

“In South America?”

“Yep,” Quinn said.

“When?” A look of dread crossed the Cajun’s face.

“It’s still a week out.” Quinn kept walking.

“Whew.” Thibodaux smirked. “A whole damned week. That’s not so bad. I was afraid you were gettin’ us in over our heads.”

“There is one thing.” Quinn stopped, turning to face his friend. “When my brother and I rode it in Africa it took us over a year to get ready. This particular race runs over five thousand miles through the deserts of Argentina, Chile, and Peru—”

“Hells, l’ami!” Thibodaux spat. “You’re as crazy as Zamora.”

“Maybe.” Quinn shrugged.

“Seriously, a week?” Thibodaux said, the timing finally setting in. “Are you shittin’ me? That’s right after Christmas. Camille is gonna cut my cojones off with a butter knife.”

“Come on, Gunny, this is the kind of race where you mark all your gear with your blood type — just our kind of thing.” He stopped a moment, wiggling his jaw, then adjusting his belt. “You were right about that redhead’s tail end, by the way.”

“Crazy?” Thibodaux gave him a big grin, nodding.

“As a loon. How could you tell?”

“Well, l’ami—” The big Cajun looked around before leaning in closer. “Don’t tell her I said this, but from the angle I saw, that redhead looked an awful lot like my Camille.”

Quinn chuckled, moving again.

“Speaking of crazy,” Thibodaux said, walking beside him toward the riotous sounds around the pool. “You think he has it?”

“I do,” Quinn said. “But the question is where. I have an idea I want to run by you and Ronnie that might help us find out.”

CHAPTER 17

Valentine Zamora lazed in the deep end of the swimming pool listening to the young Chechen in the black T-shirt whimper like a stomped puppy. His slouchy friend Umarov had disappeared, leaving the poor man to take the full brunt of the Venezuelan’s rage.

Cathy floated to his immediate right, a milky white thigh grazing his. Her makeup had washed off, revealing the dark purple bruise under her eye. Her pale body shook as if she was about to freeze to death — but Zamora knew better.

Bulat Daudov lay on his stomach to Zamora’s left, close enough to reach out and slap. Tied belly-down to a heavy lounge chair with nylon ratchet straps, the Chechen’s chin hung off the end of the seat facing the pool. His legs were bent at the knees, secured to the back so his bare feet faced upward, naked and exposed to the night sky. His eyes were rimmed in red. Snot hung in strings from his nose to the tile.

On the far side of the pool, the Yemeni, Farris bin Ushan, stood fidgeting, sucking on his bottom lip. His face had gone pale.

Zamora leaned against the wall, arms stretched along the cool edge. He sighed, waving a fat cigar as he considered his big toe floating just above the surface. Blue shadows from the underwater lights danced across his angular face. Dear, devoted Monagas was at the head of the lounge chair, a three-foot length of bamboo cane in his fist.

The rest of the grounds were deserted. Zamora had announced the end of the festivities shortly after Veronica Garcia had gone, and his guests had departed obediently.

Zamora blew a cloud of smoke across the rippling surface of the pool. He sniffed, tapped a bit of ash into the pool, and then gave Monagas a nod.

An instant later the stiff cane whistled through the humid air. A ragged scream spilled from Daudov’s throat a half second before the bamboo slapped the bare soles of his feet. Monagas delivered three more blows, sending the young man twisting and thrashing to escape the torment.

Bastinado, or foot whipping, was a favorite form of torture among many cultures. The multitude of nerve endings combined with the small bones and tendons in the bottom of the feet made for a perfect target with maximum torment. The Iranian secret police were particularly fond of such beatings because they left few outer signs of trauma.

Cathy tried to swim away, but Zamora grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back. He wagged his finger in front of her face, chiding, then turned to stare at the moaning Chechen.

Across the pool, the big-eared Yemeni gulped, but said nothing.

“Oh, my dear Bulat,” Zamora sighed. “Monagas has not even broken a sweat. He relishes bastinado the way some love baseball. I do believe he could go on all night. Unfortunately the bones of your poor feet cannot.”

Striking like a snake, he grabbed the Chechen by the forelock and lifted his face to look at him eye to eye. His voice was low and soft, almost sweet, belying the ferocity of his movement.

“Tell me, where is your friend Akhmad Umarov? I saw him here with you tonight.”

Bulat coughed, gagging on his own words. “My… brother… will kill y—”

Zamora nodded again, bringing a whistling swat from the bamboo rod.

The Chechen screamed, jerking against his bonds.

“My brother,” he said, panting. Blood dripped from his mouth where he’d bitten through his tongue. “We want what you have… ”

Zamora snorted. “I know that. You may proceed, Monagas—”

“Wait!” the Chechen panted, clenching his jaw in anticipation of the next blow.

Zamora raised his hand.

“Yes, my friend,” he said. “You have something else to say?”

“I don’t know where Umarov is,” Bulat sniffed. “My… brother sent us… ” His words came in broken stops and starts. “I… I mean we… we were to find where you have it… then kill you.”

Zamora snorted, chewing on his cigar. “And how is that working out for you, my friend?”

The Chechen seemed to know that he was as good as dead. His body deflated as the will drained out of him. He turned his head to face Zamora, cheek against the bar of the lounge chair.

“I tell you the truth,” he whispered. “My brother will kill you—”

Zamora grabbed the Chechen and dragged him into the pool. The long chair planed in the water, hanging on the surface for a long moment, before shooting at an angle toward the bottom like a torpedo. A line of silver bubbles trailed in the flickering blue light.

“There now.” Zamora puffed on his cigar, blowing a cloud of smoke into Cathy’s horrified face. “My mother says one must periodically cut the head off a servant for the others to see. What do you think of that, my darling?”

He may as well have been swimming with a wet loaf of bread for all the excitement Cathy offered. Shaking like a naked fawn, her chin hovered just above the water. A lock of wet hair hung like a piece of dead seaweed across her face. She was too lazy or terrified even to brush it away. It took all his self-control to keep from shoving her head under and holding it there.

Instead, he turned to look at Farris bin Ushan. “Come join us,” he said, flicking his hand to motion the Yemeni into the pool.

Ushan was in his mid twenties, with short, dark hair. His black suit pants and a white long-sleeved dress shirt were wrinkled, as if he’d slept in them.

“His face looks too sweet to be that of a ruthless terrorist.” Zamora nudged the girl with his elbow. “Do you not agree, my darling?”

“I… I shouldn’t be here.” She tried to swim away again, but Zamora grabbed her ankle, tugging her back. He gave the inside of her thigh a cruel pinch between her knee and her groin. She cried out, but sadly, and went completely limp at his touch.

Zamora beckoned the young man closer with his cigar.

“I am sorry about her.” He looked over at the quivering girl. “As-salamu alaikum, Farris. I hope your stay in Florida has been a pleasant one.”

“Wa alaikum as salam.” Ushan nodded, putting his right hand to his breast. His eyes were fixed on the body of the dead Chechen at the bottom of the pool. “Most enjoyable.”

“Join us,” Zamora said again.

“I do not swim.” The Yemeni swallowed. His face twitched as his nervous smile grew larger.

Zamora’s face darkened.

“Get in the pool!” A cloud of cigar smoke erupted with his snarl, enveloping his head.

Ushan complied, walking down the steps fully clothed. His white shirt clung to his skinny chest.

“See?” Zamora smiled sweetly again. “The water is really quite nice. Come and let us talk.”

The pool grew deeper as the Yemeni sloshed his way toward them. Three feet away, only his head remained above the surface. He smiled, fanning his arms to keep his balance. Water sloshed at his absurdly large ears.

“I have no wire.” He sputtered. “Your bodyguard already conducted a most embarrassing pat-down.”

“Indulge me.” Zamora gestured toward the body of the dead Chechen at the bottom of the pool. “You no doubt understand that I would kill you very slowly if I suspected you were an informant.” He took another puff of the cigar.

“I am no informant!” Ushan said, forgetting to raise his chin. He took in a mouthful of water.

“I believe you,” Zamora said. “I could not help but notice you looking over some of the women here tonight.”

The Yemeni shook his head. “Surely you are mistaken,” he stammered.

“Perhaps so,” Zamora said. “But I think not.” He grabbed the tremulous Cathy by the arm and shoved her through the water toward Ushan. “You may consider this one a gift. Call her a consolation prize for not being able to pick up a better one at the party.”

Cathy’s mouth hung open. She blinked wide doe eyes. “Why?”

“Why not?” Zamora said.

The Yemeni licked his lips. “I may keep her for the entire night?”

“You misunderstand me.” Zamora waved his hand. “I do not want her back.”

Five minutes later saw Zamora standing naked in the middle of the great room, toweling himself dry. He saw no reason to go to his bedroom. All the members of his entourage had long since passed out in the cabanas. The entire villa was his suite.

He stepped into a pair of purple silk sleeping shorts, glancing up at Monagas.

“Make certain you tell the idiot to kill her when he is finished.”

“Yes, patrón.” Monagas lips turned up in a crooked smile. “Should I take care of him as well?”

Zamora fluffed the towel through his hair. “I am inclined to say yes, mainly due to his ears.” He sniffed. “Do they not seem excessively large to you, Monagas?”

The boxer nodded, his crooked lip turned up in a slight smile, scarred hands folded in front of his waist. “Indeed.”

“I do not trust him with those big ears. He hears too much and may decide to inform. And yet, it is his people who want the device… We had best wait on that,” Zamora said. “The Chechens are angry that I did not sell Baba Yaga to them. I do believe the fool Bulat on that account. They will try to kill me for it. I would very much appreciate it if you would stop them from doing that.”

Monagas smiled. “Of course.”

“And you may go ahead and take care of Umarov. I doubt Rustam Daudov would trust that idiot with any details, but see what he knows before you kill him.”

“As you wish,” Monagas said. “May I ask a question, patrón?”

Zamora nodded.

“Do you still plan to go to Argentina, considering the work that must be done on the device and the problem with the Chechens?”

Zamora slumped in a plush, high-backed chair. “Absolutely,” he said. “I have been planning my entry into the Dakar for many years. The professor has some work to do to make Baba Yaga viable again.” He giggled, taking another cigar from a silver case. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be anywhere near him in case he makes a mistake. What good is an investment if one does not live to spend the profits? Anyway, the race will be great fun, you will see. It will be like a carnival, especially if Mr. Jericho Quinn is there.” Zamora bit the end off the cigar and spit it on the floor.

“I do not like him,” Monagas grunted, stooping to pick it up.

“I haven’t decided if I do or if I don’t.” Zamora smiled. “But he has pleasant taste in women, doesn’t he? See what you can find out about him.”

His thoughts drifted to Cathy for a moment and he gave a long sigh, overcome with melancholy. Not for the stupid brunette, but because he wished he’d not been so hasty to leave Lourdes Lopez in Idaho. He felt the overpowering urge to call the fiery woman. He glanced at his watch and cursed. It was nearly midnight there and she would surely be sleeping… or torturing Pollard’s wife. In either case she would not want to be bothered.

CHAPTER 18

Marie Pollard sat in the corner on a lumpy mattress that had been thrown on the floor. It was clammy and damp and smelled of mildew. Simon slept next to her leg, rolled up in a striped beach towel — the cleanest thing she could find in the vacant farmhouse. A tamarack fire popped in the woodstove in the corner, helping the ancient boiler keep up against the chilly wind that rattled the windows and creaked at the walls. Marie had no idea what time it was. Ripped from everything she knew, she found it impossible to focus. Her eyes hurt when she breathed. She’d been crying so long her skull felt as if it were full of molten lava.

Lourdes straddled a kitchen chair that she’d turned backward. Resting her chin on bare arms over the backrest, she stared down with squinting black eyes at Simon. Marie tried to make small talk, to find some connection in their womanhood — but Lourdes only ignored her.

“Your baby is very ugly, Marie Pollard,” she finally said, using both her names as if they were one word. “You know that, don’t you?” She spoke without lifting her chin from the back of the chair, making her sound bored.

Marie bit her lip to keep it from trembling.

Lourdes arched her back, looking up at the ceiling. “I have never understood what people see in babies,” she said. “They are like insignificant worms at the bottom of a bottle of tequila. I drink them down without a second thought.”

Mercifully, Lourdes’s cell phone began to ring. Her eyes brightened when she looked at the number. The hint of a smile perked her lips. The frown came crashing back the moment she noticed Marie looking at her, but she couldn’t hide the girlish lilt in her voice. Turning, she walked down the hallway.

Marie let her head fall back against the wall, happy for a moment’s freedom from the woman’s hateful stares. It gave her time to catch her breath and take stock of the situation.

Lourdes and her two cronies had loaded them up in the backseat of a cramped four-door pickup that reeked of stale fish sticks and tobacco. None of the neighbors on their quiet street noticed a sobbing Marie and her little boy being trundled off to who knew where. She’d taken a rape prevention course with her women’s group at church the year before and the words of her instructor came back with the brilliant clarity of a bolt of liquid lighting. If you are assaulted and find yourself being forced to go to a second location, fight with all you have because that second crime scene will almost always be a murder scene.

Marie couldn’t fight. She wasn’t even sure where they were. She remembered headlights playing off a dense pine forest and drifted snow when they turned off the blacktop of Highway 95 at some point after they left Moscow. But terrified with worry over Simon, her brain had lost all sense of time and distance.

The two men hardly spoke to her at all. The one they called Jorge walked with a bad limp and swore under his breath at every step. He was in his forties, and had a sizable belly, which made the limp worse. Though he was injured, the other two seemed content to let him do the lion’s share of the work. He unloaded the truck. He brought in wood. Now, Marie could just make out his right shoulder around the corner of the far wall, where he hobbled around in the kitchen making pancakes.

A large television in the dining area flickered with the news. Marie didn’t know if he even thought about it, but Jorge kept the volume down, allowing Simon to get a little more sleep. He got cranky without a nap and she was terrified of what Lourdes would do if he launched into one of his crying fits.

Pete, the second man, slouched in a sagging recliner and killed zombies on his smartphone. Not far into his twenties, he wore his Carhartt ball cap turned sideways like some sort of farm-boy rapper. A tiny blond soul patch bristled under his bottom lip.

Jorge leaned around the wall. He’d used the tail of his checkered flannel shirt as a towel and it was covered in flour. “You think the kid will eat some pancakes?”

“How’d I know?” Pete muttered, entranced in the gore of his iPhone. “I look like a baby to you?”

“A little bit.” Jorge smirked.

Ignoring him, Pete leered at Marie, licking his lips. Before he could say anything Lourdes skulked in from the back room. Marie could feel the heaviness of her presence before she even rounded the corner.

“The worm will eat what we feed it or it will starve,” she said. “It makes no difference to me.” She carried a laptop computer with the screen half closed. Stooping down beside the mattress, she shoved it in front of Marie.

“Tell him you and the worm still live and breathe, Marie Pollard,” she said, flipping up the screen.

Marie found it hard to breathe when she saw Matt’s face. The image was jerky and pixilated from the connection, but it was Matt. He was pale and his beard already bristled like it needed trimming.

“Are you all right?” His eyes sagged with guilt.

“Yes.” Marie nodded, blinking back tears.

“Simon,” he said. “Can I see Simon?”

She turned the computer toward the baby. “He’s sleeping.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“We’re fine,” she said, whispering in spite of herself. “I don’t understand, Matt. Who are these people?”

“I’ll explain everything when this is over,” he said.

Lourdes grabbed the computer and slammed it shut. “That’s enough,” she said. “He knows you are alive.”

It felt to Marie as if the evil woman had just torn away her heart. She pressed her head against the wall, eyes clenched tight as Lourdes leaned in close enough she could smell the odor of her heavy powder makeup.

“Do not get your hopes up, Marie Pollard. You will never understand. Before this is over, I will find out if your little worm tastes better boiled or fried… ”

On the mattress beside Marie’s leg, Simon threw his head back and began to wail.

CHAPTER 19

“So,” Thibodaux said, craning his head to look at Garcia in the backseat. “They teachin’ you about surveillance at CIA school?” He sat behind the wheel across from Jericho, who looked through a set of binoculars. Both stared at the door to the eastern-most room on the bottom floor of the Green Flamingo Motel. Just a few yards beyond the end of the building the parking lot melded into the dark pine forest. The only streetlight in the lot was burned out and what little light there was leaked from the tattered blinds of the rooms themselves, making the lot and the motel itself the perfect place for someone who wanted anonymity.

“They do indeed,” Garcia said. Thankfully, she’d already wriggled into a pair of jeans and a dark T-shirt, but Quinn could still smell the faint jasmine odor of her skin wafting up behind him. “But role-playing is never like the real thing.”

“My uncle was a deputy sheriff in Terrebonne Parish,” Jacques said in the darkness. “He used to tell me stakeouts were nothin’ more than two people sittin’ in a stinking car with the collective urge to pee. I think he was right ’cause I’m feeling the need right now.”

“Well, you better use your Dr Pepper bottle,” Quinn said, his voice muffled against the binoculars. “I got movement at the room.”

Quinn watched as the Yemeni man they knew as Farris Ushan stepped out of the gaudy green door at the end of the rundown motel.

“What’s he doing?” Garcia put both hands on the back of Quinn’s seat.

Quinn passed the binoculars back to Garcia, his hand already on the door.

“He’s dragging a girl out of the trunk.”

Quinn was out of the truck and moving the moment Ushan shut the door to his room. Thibodaux trotted alongside him while Garcia held back a few steps acting as a rear guard.

“We’re in the U.S. of A now, Chair Force, and we got no warrant,” the big Cajun said, crouching as he ran. “Just checkin’, but are we gonna knock and announce?”

Quinn looked him in the eye. “What do you think?”

The beautiful thing about cheap motels was that most of their doors were routinely subjected to the boots, rams, or threshold spreaders of the local police. A sideways pull on the handle allowed Quinn to push this one open with hardly more than a shove. A little gentle persuasion tore the flimsy privacy chain out of the wall.

The Yemeni stood at the far side of the bed, towering over a bound Cathy with a leather belt in his hands. His head snapped up at the intrusion.

“Wha—?”

Quinn never stopped as he shouldered his way past the chain and bounded up on the bed to step over the cowering girl. He caught Ushan across a big ear with a brutal slap. Snatching the belt, he looped it quickly around the Yemeni’s neck and pulled it tight.

Garcia appeared at the open door, tiny Kahr pistol in her hand. Thibodaux, who scanned for other threats in the room, motioned for her to take the girl to the corner.

The Yemeni’s eyes bulged. The veins on his neck swelled red under the leather belt as if they might burst. When his head lolled, Quinn shoved him face forward onto the bed, patting him down for weapons.

He moaned when Quinn flipped him over.

“Where is your friend?” In reality Quinn knew of no one else, but it didn’t hurt to make the stunned Yemeni believe he did.

“Zamora gave me the girl.” Ushan shook his head, blinking. “I wanted her for myself, so I came here alone.”

“Where is the bomb?”

“Who are you?”

“The bomb, Farris.” Quinn drew back as if to strike him with the belt.

“What bomb?” Ushan worked his jaw back and forth, obviously stunned by the cuff to his ear.

Quinn gambled, throwing more cards than he actually had on the table. “I know Zamora has Baba Yaga.” He fell into easy Arabic. With his three-day growth of dark beard and copper skin, he could easily pass for someone from the Middle East.

Ushan’s eyes narrowed, trying to make sense of things. “Who are you?”

Quinn shot a glance at Ronnie, who attempted to comfort a hysterical Cathy in the far corner of the room. He shuddered to think what would have happened to her if they hadn’t decided to follow the Yemeni away from the party.

“I am the man who will cut out your worthless heart if you do not tell me what I want to know,” Quinn whispered, not entirely bluffing.

“If you want to kill me,” Ushan said, “you will have to get in line behind the Chechens.”

“The Chechens don’t have you here now,” Quinn said. “I do.” He acted disinterested, but took careful note of every word the Yemeni breathed.

“Yes.” Ushan smiled. “But you do not know this particular Chechen. He would—”

A loud whack, like someone hitting a softball, turned their attention to the door as it flew open. Quinn looked up to see a shotgun barrel pointing through the gap.

Thibodaux reacted immediately, bringing his forearm up under the barrel an instant after the first booming shot split the air inside the cramped hotel room. The Yemeni’s head burst, spilling onto the sheets. Grabbing the intruding shotgun’s fore end with his free hand, the big Cajun gave a hard yank and pulled the shooter, a balding man with a dirty blond beard, into the room. He used the butt of the weapon to smash the man in the face on the backstroke.

His lips pouring blood, the shooter rolled across the carpet, trying to access a pistol on his belt. Thibodaux held the shotgun to the side and used his Kimber to give the guy a double tap to the chest.

Quinn dove to the floor as more gunfire shattered the glass and tore the mini-blinds off the windows. Tires squealed in the parking lot. Car alarms began to honk and beep from the commotion.

Shotgun still in hand, Thibodaux did a quick peek out the open door. “Looks clear.” He turned back to Quinn. “You okay, l’ami?”

Quinn stood up, looking at Garcia. She nodded. “We’re okay,” he said.

Thibodaux pulled back the dead man’s shirt. He was bony and gaunt, and a crude eight-pointed star was tattooed on each skeletal shoulder, just above his collarbone. “Eastern Bloc mafia,” the Cajun said. “Could be Chechen. Tats are older, probably made in some Russian prison with ash and piss.”

“Not too much of a jump from Chechen Mafia to Chechen separatists,” Quinn said. “Guess this guy was right about them wanting to kill him.”

“Over the bomb?” Ronnie asked. “Do you think they saw us?” Ronnie stood up from where she’d used her own body to shield a hysterical Cathy.

Quinn set his mouth in a tight line.

“They sure enough saw him,” Thibodaux said, looking at the mess of blood, brain matter, and ears that had been Farris bin Ushan.

CHAPTER 20

Quinn turned on his phone while the plane from Miami was still rolling down the taxiway. There was a missed call from Bo.

He punched in the number and was relieved to hear his kid brother’s voice.

“Boaz Quinn,” he said, giving him the older sibling’s chiding tone. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for days.”

“What can I say?” Bo laughed. “My life of crime takes me places cell phones don’t work so well.” Quinn could hear the sun-bleached surfer attitude in his brother’s voice. Four years younger than Jericho, the unrepentant prodigal had left home after a not so stellar year at University of Alaska to start over in Texas. He’d landed on his feet, but square in the middle of a motorcycle club that dabbled in several lucrative, but not so legitimate, businesses. Not the academic that Jericho was, Bo was bull strong and incredibly smart. A natural leader, he worked and fought his way up through the ranks of his new club and found himself in charge in a matter of years.

“Your passport still valid?” Quinn asked. “Or did you have to surrender it to your probation officer?”

“Very funny,” Bo said. “As a matter of fact, I am clear to travel and free for the next few days.”

Quinn smiled at the thought of seeing his kid brother again, even under the circumstances of tracking down a nuclear bomb. “Have I got a deal for you,” he said. “I can’t talk about it on the phone, but how do you feel about Argentina?”

“He is walking toward baggage claim now,” a Japanese man wearing a tan golf jacket whispered. He stood in line at the Dunkin’ Donuts holding a newspaper under his arm. His black hair was moussed and combed up in the earnest businessman style. He ordered a coffee from the tired-looking black woman behind the counter as Quinn walked past, almost close enough to touch.

“I am interested in what an American OSI agent would be doing with a Japanese killing dagger,” a female voice answered over the earbud that was paired to the cell phone on his belt. “You know what to do.”

“Of course,” the Japanese man said. He tossed a five-dollar bill on the counter to pay for his coffee and fell in with the arriving passengers as they walked in small groups along the dimly lit hallway, past the ever-present construction that seemed to define Reagan Airport and down the escalator to baggage claim. For an international airport across the Potomac from the nation’s capitol, Reagan saw little traffic at this time of morning.

The Japanese man loitered near the carousel as if he was waiting for his own baggage. Quinn stood with his back to one of the large support columns inside the rail that separated the baggage area from the front walkway. His eyes were constantly on the move, flitting from one person to the next, as if sizing them up as potential threats or, the Japanese man couldn’t help but think, possible targets. There was no doubt in his mind that Quinn carried a weapon. As a government agent, he would have been allowed to fly with it — and men like this one did not walk around without weapons unless they were forced to do so. His black leather jacket was loose, so it was impossible to know if it was on his belt or under his arm, but he was definitely armed. Quinn’s demeanor, the predatory way in which he carried himself, spoke louder than any outline of a pistol under his clothing.

Truly dangerous men, the Japanese man thought, recognized others of their kind.

Quinn grabbed a camel-colored ballistic nylon duffel and turned toward the escalator to long-term parking. Following, but not too close, the Japanese man didn’t get on the escalator until Quinn neared the top. He’d already marked Quinn’s vehicle in the lot, and parked his own car nearby. It would be easy enough to follow him from a distance.

The Japanese man was halfway up the escalator, trapped between a large Sikh in a black turban and a group of Georgetown coeds dressed in droopy sweats, when Quinn met him, coming down the escalator on the other side.

Quinn spotted the tail at the baggage carousel. A compact Japanese man with neatly trimmed hair to match a military bearing loitered as if he had bags of his own, then left moments after Quinn without retrieving anything. Perhaps it was his earlier encounter with the bosozoku, but Quinn had become hyperaware of Japanese men.

With no way to know if the man sought to do him harm or just to test him, Quinn took three steps off the escalator, then turned to take the ride back down, meeting his pursuer face-to-face.

Both of this man’s hands were visible, one hanging loosely at his side, the other holding a Dunkin’ Donuts cup. It was a calm person indeed who could hold a cup of coffee at the same moment he intended to do violence. Still, Quinn kept a hand in his jacket pocket, fingers wrapped around the Beretta. In his other hand, he held his BlackBerry.

The man’s jaw hung open in mortified surprise when he saw Quinn, but his hands remained motionless.

“Sayonara dake ga jinsei, sa,” Quinn said, snapping a photo with his cell phone as he passed by on his way back down. It was a line from an old movie, certain to make sentimental Japanese women cry — and the man looked as if he was close himself. Life is nothing but good-bye.

Quinn dropped the phone back in his jacket pocket and nodded at the man, whose face now burned at his error. At the bottom of the escalator Quinn walked briskly toward the exit door that would take him to the taxi stands. He’d come back for his car later with a bomb tech. For tonight, a random taxi seemed the more prudent way home.

CHAPTER 21

Aquick 5K run under the leafless oaks and sycamores of George Washington’s old haunts raised Jericho’s spirits. Zamora’s girl, Cathy, hadn’t given them anything useful except that her boyfriend was a cold-blooded killer. They already knew that.

Garcia had returned to training, leaving Quinn feeling empty and mixed up. He’d kept the pace to a brisk six-minute mile in an effort to keep Thibodaux from broaching the subject of relationships. It had worked. The big Marine stayed right beside him through the entire run despite his massive bulk. He hadn’t liked it, but he’d done it, along with the hour of yoga led by their defensive tactics trainer and quartermaster, Emiko Miyagi.

Now, the enigmatic Japanese woman sat ramrod-straight at the edge of a high-backed wooden chair in her study. Small hands rested neatly in the lap of her faded jeans. The open collar of a robin’s-egg-blue shirt revealed the slightest corner of her hidden tattoo.

In point of fact, neither Quinn or Thibodaux knew much about the mysterious woman except that Palmer trusted her implicitly both in ability and devotion. She could have been forty or fifty. Flawless skin and extreme athletic ability made it impossible to tell her age. If she was younger, she had crammed a great deal of knowledge and skill into a short life span. She went by Mrs. Miyagi, but wore no ring and Quinn had never heard anyone mention a Mr. Miyagi. It seemed impolite to ask.

A flood of morning light reflected off the highly polished bamboo flooring in the study. Though numerous books on kendo, yoga, and the philosophy of combat lined the back wall, the room was sparse, with only a small center table and four identical wooden chairs. Contemplation and comfort did not, in Miyagi’s opinion, go hand in hand.

Sitting in the chair beside the woman, Quinn used a remote to scroll through a series of photographs that flickered across a flat-screen monitor in the center of the bookcase. Thibodaux stood, wearing a pair of Miyagi’s required fluffy maroon house slippers with his 5.11 tactical khakis.

Winfield Palmer was connected by video link, his face appearing in the bottom right corner of the monitor. He was able to view the same files from his remote office near Crystal City, a stone’s throw from the Pentagon.

“No word yet on the fingers you gave me,” the national security advisor said from behind his huge mahogany desk. “Or the photo of the man at the airport. I have a friend in the Japanese government who’s checking back channels, though, so I’m not giving up yet.”

“I appreciate it, sir,” Quinn said.

“As for your mystery woman at Zamora’s party,” Palmer continued, “NSA gave us everything they have on known female Eastern Bloc operatives. I had them prioritize from your description.”

A series of new photos began to flash on the screen. Quinn found the woman he was looking for less than ninety seconds into the search.

“That’s her there,” he said, hovering the cursor arrow over the headshot of a pleasant-looking woman in her twenties. She had emerald eyes and a splash of freckles across a smallish nose. Her particulars appeared under the official visa photograph. “She looks less world-weary than when I saw her and her hair is longer now, but it’s definitely the same person.”

“Agent Aleksandra Kanatova of the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti,” Thibodaux mused. “FSB. You were close, l’ami, when you guessed SVR.”

According to official policy the FSB, or Federal Security Service, generally worked within the confines of the Russian border, much as the FBI or Homeland Security operated in the United States. Like the CIA, the Federal Intelligence Service, or SVR, was supposed to handle missions outside the Russian Federation. In reality, the lines often blurred. Each agency had authority to act on orders directly from the Russian president to carry out actions up to and including directed assassination — and agents from both worried little about borders when it came to the security and intelligence needs of Mother Russia.

Quinn scrolled through the sparse NSA file.

“She comes by her job naturally.” Palmer’s voice crackled over the video link as he perused the file on his own. “Her father was a colonel in the KGB and her mother was a gymnastics coach, so they traveled a great deal when she was young. Looks like she was an Olympic hopeful until she shattered her wrist at sixteen…. Studied international business at Moscow University… ”

“International business.” Thibodaux smirked. “Another term for majoring in spy craft.”

Miyagi glared at him.

“Just saying.” He rolled his eyes.

“You’re right, Jacques,” Palmer said. A photograph of a much younger Kanatova appeared on the screen. She was standing on a rooftop restaurant somewhere in New York with the Empire State Building in the background. A rugged-looking man with a weathered face and wide grin stood beside her. He looked to be several years older than Kanatova. His broad arm draped around her shoulders.

“This photo is from eleven years ago. She speaks fluent English and German,” Palmer said. “CIA shows her working in Manhattan as a translator for two years right after college. She was likely already set up with FSB by this time.”

“Who’s the guy with her?” Quinn asked.

“Mikhail Polzin,” Palmer said.

“Hmm.” Thibodaux gave an understanding nod. “The agent who was killed with Cooper in Uzbekistan.”

“That’s right,” Palmer said. “We don’t have any record of him coming to the U.S., so he must have been active then. Polzin was believed to be her handler.”

“They seem pretty damned cozy,” Thibodaux said. He kept his head turned so he wouldn’t have to see Miyagi’s glare.

Quinn used his remote to scroll through the attached pages on the screen. “Doesn’t appear to be much else. She shows up in Chechnya for a short time as some sort of military liaison, then nothing.”

“The fact that she and Polzin were acquainted means something,” Palmer said. “On another matter, this race you’ve signed up for is causing me no small amount of heartburn. I may as well be buying a banana republic with the money we’re paying to get you in at the last minute and on the QT. The cover is that you signed up months ago but your paperwork got lost.”

“Thanks, boss,” Quinn said. “It looked like the best way to stay close to Zamora for a while.” He couldn’t help but feel a sense of exhilaration just thinking about the sand and heat and speed of the Dakar Rally. The wildness of it made him breathe a little faster.

“Border Patrol popped a Syrian with ties to al-Qaeda coming across from Canada near Niagara Falls. Documents in his car tie him to a shipping container that delivered, among other things Chinese ATMs manufactured by Shenzhen KVSIO, the same company that made the ATMs used in the first two bombings.”

“Is he talking?” Thibodaux asked.

“Won’t shut up,” Palmer said. “He swears someone is trying to frame him. The Bureau and Homeland are putting the squeeze on all the ports as we speak… ”

“But you think the evidence was planted?” Quinn nodded in agreement.

“It all seems a little too neat,” Palmer said. “From your report, I’m not willing to write Zamora off just yet. The Russians think there’s something going on or you wouldn’t have run into Ms. Kanatova. I’ve got to tell you, though — doesn’t it seem odd that he’d be off running a race like this if he was trying to move a weapon worth over a quarter billion dollars?”

“He’s a flake,” Thibodaux offered. “Bomb or no bomb, he’s gotta have the three A’s to be happy — adventure, approval, and…” He looked at a stoic Mrs. Miyagi before continuing. “… women.”

Palmer leaned back in his chair as the phone began to ring on his desk. “Keep me informed,” he said. “Emiko, I have to take this. If you don’t mind filling them in on the rest.”

Mrs. Miyagi bowed slightly in her seat.

“Of course.”

Palmer disconnected.

Mrs. Miyagi stayed in her high-backed chair. “Due to the short lead time involved, Mr. Palmer has ordered the KTM 450 rally bike you require, along with your support truck, to be flown south to rendezvous in the South Atlantic with a cargo vessel already en route to Mar del Plata. It should arrive shortly before you do, giving you time to clear Argentine customs before the race.” She handed Quinn a small device the size and shape of a dash-mounted GPS. “This will scan for gamma radiation. You can use it to interrogate Zamora’s vehicle and equipment. If he has the bomb with him, it should leave a signature and we can take appropriate action. Now, I understand your brother is to accompany you?”

“Yes.” Quinn took the handheld sensor and slid it in his jacket pocket. “He’s a wild child, but he’s also a competent mechanic. We’ll need someone we can trust handling that side of things.”

“Very well,” she said. “A contact from State who cooperates with Mr. Palmer will provide an unregistered sidearm for each of you upon your arrival.” She rose quickly, turned away as if to leave, then spun back with a sort of snap aggressiveness that reminded Quinn of a shark.

“I am to make you truly aware of what this device will do,” she said. Her dark eyes, multihued as mossy agates, flicked back and forth between the two men.

Though he’d seen plenty of devastation and heartache during his deployments to the Middle East, Quinn was not entirely sure he comprehended the magnitude of a nuclear detonation on American soil.

Miyagi saw it in his face and her eyes softened. In her mind, ignorance was better than swagger — so long as her students were willing to learn.

“It has become almost trite,” she said with her oval face canted a little to the side as it often was when she explained things. From anyone else, it might have come across as condescending, but Emiko Miyagi looked as if she merely wanted more than just her words to be understood. “Do you remember where you were on September 11, 2001?”

Quinn nodded. Thibodaux looked at the tatami floor.

Miyagi continued. “Nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists murdered almost three thousand people that day. Over six thousand more were physically injured, but we will never know the true human cost. The U.S. stock market lost almost one and a half trillion dollars in value that week — and, of course, we went to war.” She raised her hand as if to ward off a question. “I do not condemn the war. I am, as you have observed, perhaps as bellicose a woman as you will ever meet. I merely point it out as a consequence of September 11. The entire world changed that day.

“Those nineteen killed three thousand and changed so very much, but we have rebuilt and made ourselves, as Hemingway says, ‘stronger at the broken places.’ ” She sighed, slowly nodding her head. “But gentlemen, my people know something of a nuclear bomb. Even a small device will bring more destruction than we as Americans can imagine. Our economy is a fragile egg, ready to be crushed underfoot at any moment by the next catastrophe. If intelligence reports are true, Baba Yaga is capable of delivering five kilotons of destructive power. That’s a third the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima that killed a hundred and forty thousand and forced the surrender of the Japanese government.

“Now, imagine how this will change the world: A five-kiloton explosion would produce a firestorm over two square miles. If such a device were to be detonated in Lower Manhattan it would not only destroy the major buildings of the Financial District, but virtually everything from Battery Park through Chinatown and Little Italy all the way to SoHo. Great volumes of superheated air would shoot into the sky. Hurricane-force winds would drive the flames through the rest of the city. Police and fire rescue would be completely overwhelmed. National Guard would mobilize, but by then thousands more are dead or dying from radiation exposure. If detonated in the right location, tens of thousands would be gone within the week.

“I have explained the effects of such a device on New York,” Miyagi concluded. “Now think on this. A bomb such as Baba Yaga could be placed in Anchorage or New Orleans — in short, anywhere.”

Thibodaux breathed in heavily through his nose, clenching the muscles in his massive jaw. “Well,” he said. “I guess we’d better find the damned thing.”

Miyagi raised a delicate black eyebrow. “Yes, Jacques, you’d better, for there is no surrender.”

“That’s fine,” Quinn said. “Because I’m not the surrendering type.”

“And I don’t suggest you are.” Miyagi’s voice was strained, as if the weight of the world rested on her small shoulders. “But that does not matter. The people we fight now do not care if we surrender or not. They only want to see us dead.”

Quinn’s phone buzzed just as he threw a leg over his motorcycle. He tapped the Bluetooth device on the side of his helmet and answered.

“Daddy!” Mattie Quinn’s voice filled his helmet and his heart.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, leaning forward to rest across the tank and handlebars.

“Do you have my Christmas present yet?”

“That’s a surprise,” he said. In truth, he had no idea what to buy a little girl. Kim proved little help, seeming to enjoy letting him twist in the wind with his decision. “Do you still want to be a doctor when you grow up?”

“Not anymore,” she said. “Now I want to be a scientist or maybe a teacher… or a lawyer.”

“A lawyer?”

“No.” She giggled. “Mom told me I should say that to bug you. Really and truly, right this minute, I think I want to go into the Air Force.”

“Did Mom tell you to say that?”

Mattie sucked in her breath. “Oh no.” She giggled again. “But it bugs her when I do.”

Jericho grinned while his little girl shared her dreams and goals and wishes for Christmas. She might look like her mother, but sadly for her, Mattie Quinn was an awful lot like him.

CHAPTER 22

The SinFull strip club hadn’t changed décor since it was the Booby Trap in the late eighties. Aleks Kanatova sat in a corner booth and wondered if the carpet had ever been vacuumed. A black light hung on the wooden paneling made the tonic water in her gin glow an eerie blue. Cigarette smoke hung in swirling plumes and dance music vibrated the walls with a rhythmic bass thrum. The heady odor of desperation made it difficult to breathe.

Umarov had been sitting at the bar for nearly an hour, drinking vodka martinis and throwing lousy tips at a sullen pole dancer named Cinnamon — whose black G-string did a poor job of covering her C-section scar. The only other dancer, a roundish Latina in nothing but a flimsy open teddy and a pair of red stiletto heels, ate a Big Mac and fries at the end of the bar. There was a kitchen in the back, but Aleksandra made a mental note to stick with just her drink. It was a bad sign that the hired girls wouldn’t eat from the menu.

It was midafternoon and there were less than a half dozen patrons in the place. Cinnamon hung by one arm off the pole with all the charisma of someone waiting for a bus. In a city where titty bars were as plentiful as corner gas stations, the blue-collar customers seemed more interested in a European soccer game on the flat-screen television than in any of Cinnamon’s labored gyrations. Despite the seedy atmosphere, the bartender smiled a lot and chatted easily about local politics with the Latina eating the Big Mac — as if she wasn’t naked. From the bulk of his arms, Aleksandra guessed he doubled as the bouncer during the day shift.

Following the Chechen had been easy enough. During their struggle at Zamora’s party, Aleksandra had dropped a gold money clip from a belt pouch on her swimsuit, making certain it fell right before his eyes. Umarov was known to like shiny things and Aleksandra had correctly assumed he would pick it up if given the opportunity. The clip itself was plated, but three gold ten-ruble coins bearing the head of Tsar Nicholas II were brazed along its length. Inside the hollow coins and body of the clip hid the circuitry of an electronic tracker. Even when she lost sight of him, Aleksandra could read the signal on her smartphone as long as she was within a mile of the coins.

“Finally,” she mumbled to herself. The Chechen pushed away from the bar and staggered toward the long hallway leading to the restroom without giving her a second look. He smelled of alcohol and his lap was covered with dancer dust, the telltale body glitter that had surely gotten more than one husband in trouble after he’d stopped for “drinks” on the way home from work.

She counted to twenty after Umarov shut the bathroom door, then followed him down the hall. Between the soccer game and Cinnamon, no one gave her a second look.

Relatively sure no one else had gone in the men’s room, Aleksandra waited outside for another ten count to listen just in case. Daring was good; calculated daring was more likely to keep her alive. She heard nothing but the sound of a fan through the door. Satisfied, she took a last look down the hallway behind her and, seeing no one, tried the handle. As she suspected, it was locked. Operatives like Akhmad Umarov didn’t live so long by being careless while they relieved themselves.

Restroom locks were only meant to discourage accidental walk-ins and it took Aleksandra less than fifteen seconds to quietly slip the mechanism. Drawing an H&K P7 nine-millimeter from under the tail of her loose shirt, she pushed open the door.

Inside, she eased the flimsy wooden door shut behind her, twisting the lock again. The room was small and there was barely enough space for the single urinal squeezed in between the porcelain sink and two toilet stalls. The far door was slightly ajar, but the Chechen’s feet were visible under the edge of the nearest stall, his pants pooling in a wrinkled heap around his ankles. Aleksandra had to force herself to keep from gagging at the noxious smell that hung like a biological weapon in the small room.

The Chechen coughed, the universal signal to let someone know the stall was occupied, as if his odor wasn’t already indicator enough.

Pistol in hand, Aleksandra kicked open the stall door and pointed it at the Chechen’s face. There were few things worse than facing a determined woman with a gun while sitting on the toilet.

But it was Aleksandra who froze.

What she’d thought was a warning cough had been a death groan. Dark, arterial blood soaked Umarov’s gray T-shirt — but she hardly noticed. From the pattern on the tile floor it looked as though he’d tried to put up a fight — but that made little difference to her.

Above the Chechen’s left eye, on the greasy smooth skin of his forehead was the unmistakable imprint of a double-headed eagle.

Whoever hit him had been wearing Mikhail’s ring.

Aleksandra’s heart shivered in her chest. She’d seen no one else come or go from the restroom since Umarov had gone in and there were no windows—

She dropped instantly, spinning as she fell to shoot through the wall separating the two stalls. Working on a sudden dump of adrenaline, she heard no shots but watched bullet holes appear in the metal divider as someone — the man who’d killed her friend — returned her fire. He must have been perched on the toilet for her to have missed his feet when she first came in. She cursed herself for such stupidity. Instinctively, she grabbed the dead Chechen and yanked him down on top of her for cover, shooting around his flopping arm.

Her H&K carried nine rounds, including the one in the chamber — not enough to conduct the type of gunfight Americans called spray and pray. Aleksandra had already used six firing through the stall. She was an excellent shot but held little hope she hit anything vital shooting so blindly.

She was vaguely aware that the far stall slammed open. She caught a shadowed glimpse of the other shooter as he lunged across the room and crashed out the flimsy wooden door.

“Idiot!” Aleksandra spat, as much to herself as the dead man in her lap. She collapsed back against the clammy wall, gun in hand, half expecting the shooter to come back and finish the job. She would never have left a witness alive.

Excited voices streamed in from the hallway.

Moving quickly, she tucked the pistol back in the holster over her kidney, then ripped the buttons of her shirt to expose her bra. She rubbed her hand across the Chechen’s chest, then wiped a smear of his blood on her face and exposed shoulder.

Umarov was heavy and it took all of Aleksandra’s strength to push his dead weight off her legs as the bartender peeked his head into the men’s room.

He stood in open-mouthed shock as she crawled across the tile floor toward him, blood smeared across her face.

“He… he…” She said little, letting her appearance and the dead man with his pants around his ankles tell the story. Willing her body to shake, she conjured up buckets of sniffling tears and tugged at the collar of her torn shirt in a show of horrified modesty. She’d worn her green lace bra and knew the bartender would be hard pressed to recall much for a police artist. Right now he saw her only as a pair of heaving breasts covered in gore.

“You’ll be okay,” he whispered, helping her to her feet. He passed her back to a wan-looking Cinnamon, who looked sickly pale and out of place, wearing nothing but her G-string and body glitter in the stark light of the restroom.

While the bartender and others went in to investigate the dead man with his pants around his ankles, Aleksandra slipped down the dark hallway and out the front door before anyone figured out that she was a great deal more than an innocent victim.

She had reached her rental car two blocks away by the time she heard the sirens. She put on a fresh shirt from her bag in the backseat. The bloody one she stuffed in an old McDonald’s sack before tossing it behind a palm tree. Less than six minutes from the time she’d exchanged gunfire with Mikhail’s killer, she took the entrance ramp to I-95. The man who wore Mikhail’s ring had surely murdered him — and was sure to be the one in possession of Baba Yaga. Whoever he was, that same man had just killed the Chechen she’d seen at Valentine Zamora’s party. Aleksandra calmed herself with slow, rhythmic breaths. She used her thumb to punch numbers into the disposable cell phone as she drove.

Somehow, Valentine Zamora held the answers, and if he had the answers, it was very likely he had the bomb.

“It’s me,” she said. “I’m going to South America.”

CHAPTER 23

“Your employer is very persuasive,” General Bundu of the Bissau-Guinean Army said. He stood with his arms folded over his belly, which had grown considerably since his ascendance to top military leader. Legs spread wide apart like an oil derrick, he peered up at a cloudless West African sky.

“You have no idea,” Matt Pollard mumbled from his spot in the dry grass beside the general. Above them, well out over the Atlantic, a slender Boeing 727 came out of a long downwind to bank slowly for a final approach. The runway was little more than five thousand feet of relatively obstacle-free hardpan with the trees and shrubs cleared from the parched salt grass on either side to give wing clearance to large aircraft. The ocean lapped at a breakwater of large black stones at the far end of the strip.

Behind Pollard and the general, two dozen riflemen, dressed in the woodland camouflage uniforms of the Bissau-Guinean Army, stood guard over five palletized stacks of assorted boxes. The box Pollard was the most concerned with was packed in the center of the second pallet in line, hiding in plain sight. As far as he knew, no one at the airstrip but him was aware of the true contents of that particular case.

Off to the side, two rusted fuel trucks idled under the sparse shade of three lonely palms beside a tethered goat. Each truck contained about nine thousand gallons of jet fuel, more than enough to get the thirsty 727 refilled for her return flight as long as she was fitted with extra tanks.

Though Zamora hadn’t explained the details of his operation, it hadn’t been too difficult for Pollard to put it together. The U.S. war on drugs made it increasingly difficult to smuggle large quantities of product across the Mexican border. South American cartels had branched out to lucrative European markets. Large oceangoing trawlers were still a favorite method of transport, but with the glut of retired commuter aircraft on the market, cartels were able to purchase planes for pennies on the dollar. Large quantities of cocaine now moved via these DC-9s, 727s, and older Gulfstreams, primarily from Venezuela to West Africa. Sometimes it was cheaper to pay the pilots two or three hundred grand to fly over a load of dope, then once the delivery was made, torch the plane and fly home commercially.

But Zamora dealt in weapons, many of them coming from former Soviet Bloc countries. The return drug flights offered the perfect way of getting his guns and explosive ordnance back to South America.

Zamora had been clear on one thing. Pollard’s job was to escort the bomb back to Venezuela, where he could work on it away from prying eyes, perform what maintenance it needed, and get past the Permissive Action Link. In simple terms, the PAL was the arming code for the bomb, the encrypted signal that permitted someone to blow it up. The U.S. had been using them since the 1960s in one form or another to safeguard against the very scenario Pollard now faced. Later PALs were impossible to bypass. As nuclear physicist Peter Zimmerman put it—“Bypassing a PAL should be about as complex as performing a tonsillectomy while entering the patient from the wrong end.”

Pollard wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to pull it off. He was, however, certain that if he didn’t, Zamora and his insane girlfriend would murder Marie and Simon without a second’s thought.

It was the perfect conundrum for his ethics class. Who is more important? The two people in the world you love the most, or fifteen thousand strangers? Should sheer numbers matter, or was the worth of one soul comparable to that of a thousand others? Pollard’s skull ached from rehearsing the arguments over and over, then sobbing himself into an exhausted sleep.

Zamora was obviously sure enough Pollard would choose his family that he didn’t even bother to put a guard with him. Perhaps Zamora knew him better than he knew himself.

General Bundu raised his hand and twirled it in a tight circle as the big jet made a breaking turn at the end of the runway amid a cloud of red dust and lumbered back toward them. His men sprang into action, jumping onto a gang of three ancient forklifts to be ready to unload as soon as the plane came to a stop. More time on the ground meant more chance of interception.

“The goal is to exchange cargo by the time they have finished fueling,” Bundu said, taking a square tin of snuff from the breast pocket of his uniform. “The pilots don’t like to stay on the ground too long.” His men moved with antlike precision, but the general’s eyes flicked this way and that with each order he gave as if the entire operation was his first time.

One of the forklift operators rolled up to the front of the aircraft and raised an empty pallet up as the front door swung open. A slender man who was obviously the pilot stepped onto the pallet and grabbed the attached handrail. He wore sturdy boots, jeans, and a well-worn leather jacket. Silver-gray hair was mussed from wearing a headset for hours on end.

The forklift driver backed up a few feet and lowered the pallet smoothly to the ground. The pilot stepped off and strode over to where Pollard and Bundu stood.

Pollard started to shake hands, but realized maybe that wasn’t the thing to do with these drug-running types.

“Change of plans,” the pilot said, peering between bushy gray eyebrows and the top of his Ray-Bans.

Bundu tensed and Pollard held his breath.

“How so?” the general asked.

“We’re offloading here as usual,” the pilot said. “But the boss says we are not to take this cargo back to Caracas.”

“The boss?” Pollard asked. “Zamora said not to take the load back?”

“That’s right,” the pilot said. “But we still need to get airborne again right away.” He began to look longingly at the dilapidated hangar. “I gotta take a serious dump and I’d just as soon not cram myself in the head on board that box of bolts.”

“I don’t understand,” Pollard said. “What am I supposed to do with the… items we have on hand?”

“I don’t give a shit,” the pilot said, turning for the hangar. “And neither does Rafael Zamora.”

Pollard grabbed him by the shoulder.

“You mean Valentine Zamora,” he said.

The pilot tore off his sunglasses and glared at Pollard. “Son,” he hissed. “You’ll want to let go of me now.”

Pollard nodded and stepped back.

“Sorry,” he said. “Rafael?”

The pilot turned to go. “Rafael is Valentine’s daddy. Those are his drugs being off-loaded from his airplane.”

“But we have to get this load back,” Pollard said, his voice sounding more desperate than he would have liked. He left out the part about his wife and son being killed if he failed.

Pollard borrowed Bundu’s phone and called the emergency number Zamora had given him.

The Venezuelan sputtered with anger at the news. “He said what? Never mind what he said…. The device must get to… Tell the pilot I will pay him double… No, tell him I’ll have him shot…. Wait, put him on and let me tell him myself… ”

Pollard took a deep breath and held it for a long moment, wracking his brain. It killed him to think up viable solutions for this man.

Before he could speak, Zamora began ranting again. “I’ll call my father and find out what this is all about. Tell General Bundu to shoot the pilots if they try to leave before I call back.”

The line went dead and Pollard relayed the message to a stunned Bundu.

“This job proves much more difficult than I imagined,” the deflated general whispered. His round face drooped like a despondent schoolboy’s. “If I shoot Rafael Zamora’s pilots he will send men to murder me. If I don’t shoot Rafael Zamora’s pilots, Valentine Zamora will come to Africa and murder me himself.”

Luckily for everyone involved, the pilot’s business inside the hangar took long enough that Valentine was able to call back and ask to speak to him. The pilot stood chatting for a full minute. His head swiveled this way and that as if he expected a raid at any moment. At length he shrugged and said, “Okay, I’ll keep our deal going. But if your father finds out, we’re all dead.”

He passed the phone back to Pollard.

“It seems my father believes our shipments bring unnecessary scrutiny on his high office,” Zamora said. “The bastard has barred me from doing business in my own country, Matthew. Can you believe that? He said he’d have me arrested if I landed in Venezuela with a load of weapons.”

Pollard swallowed. He didn’t know what to say. He only wanted to see his wife and son again.

“In any case,” Zamora went on. “Your priorities have not changed. Do as the pilot tells you. I will see you soon — and when I do, I hope for your family’s sake everything is in working order.” His voice grew giddy as if they were old friends. “Okay then, bye now… ”

Pollard switched off the phone and let his hand fall to his side. He looked at the pilot for directions.

“Load your shit,” the pilot said. “Looks like I’m taking you to Bolivia — if the bastards don’t shoot us out of the air.”

CHAPTER 24

The spacious interior of the Gulfstream V gave Valentine Zamora room to stretch his legs as he reclined in one of two buttoned leather seats at the front of the cabin. Monagas sat in the other, and the gap-toothed twins lay in the settees along the cabin walls behind, each with her nose glued to a cell phone.

Zamora had a wet cloth over his eyes and his own phone pressed to his ear.

“I told you, we have nothing to worry about,” he said. Discussions like this made him want to strangle something helpless. “The move to Bolivia is a mere hiccup.”

“I understood our purchase included the use of your pipeline into the United States,” the voice on the other end said. It clicked with a thick Arab accent “The American border is a very long way from Bolivia.”

“I am aware of the geography.” Zamora clenched his teeth. “All that is left is for you to transfer the balance of what I am owed to my Cayman account. Things are already set in motion to move the product north. I have planned for all eventualities, Inshallah.” He threw out the Arabic as a statement of solidarity.

“Oh,” the voice said, unimpressed. “Make no mistake. This is most definitely God’s will. We are looking closely at the target you suggested. It seems worthy—”

Zamora rose up in his seat, ripping the wet cloth from his eyes. “Of course it is worthy!” He fought to keep from screaming. “What could possibly hurt the Americans more than this?” The call was scrambled, but he stopped short of actually naming the interfaith choir. One could never be certain of the American NSA.

“Is not the device ours once we purchase it?”

“Of course it is.” Zamora stood to pace up and down the aisle as he spoke. One of the gap-toothed twins reached out to give his leg an affectionate touch and got the back of his hand in return. “But things are already set in motion.”

“Relax,” the voice said. “We are merely exploring other avenues. My brother is looking at your route as well as your target.”

Zamora ran a hand through his hair, wracking his brain. “Do you not trust me, my friend?”

“Of course,” the voice said. “I trust — but tie my camels tightly. Before there can be a target, I need your assurance that you can actually move the device up from Bolivia.”

“You have my word,” Zamora said. “There is nothing to worry about.”

Zamora ended the call and turned to watch the clouds outside the G Five’s oval window. Of course there was nothing to worry about. Nothing but thousands of miles of jungle, poorly maintained aircraft, guerrilla armies, and the governments of most of the free world that wanted to see him killed — and that didn’t even take into account his father.

But before any of that mattered, Matthew Pollard had to make the damned thing work.

CHAPTER 25

His bags packed, Quinn switched on the standing lamp beside his leather sofa and plopped down with the two-foot cardboard box he’d picked up from the post office. Flicking open his ZT folder from his pocket, he broke his own rule about using a “people-killing” knife to cut cardboard.

Quinn knew what was inside before he opened it. Smiling, he lifted the fourteen-inch curved blade.

He picked up his phone with the other hand.

“Ray,” he said when the other party answered. “You are the man!”

“You got it?” Ray Thibault’s smiling voice came across the line. He and his son, Ryan, ran Northern Knives in Anchorage. Both were on Quinn’s short list of trustworthy people. Ryan wore his hair in a buzz cut and shared his father’s easy laugh and religious zeal for all things edged. An expert pistol shot and knife fighter, Ryan carried a straight razor in his belt. Not everyone respected a pistol, he reasoned, but nearly everyone had been cut at least once. It was something they wanted to avoid at all cost — which made a straight razor a formidable psychological weapon. Ray preferred an Arkansas Toothpick. All grins and friendly advice, both father and son gave off a calm but deadly don’t-screw-with-me air.

“It looks like you left a kukri and a Japanese short sword in a drawer together and they had offspring,” Quinn said.

“We call it the Severance.” Ray gave an easy chuckle. “We talked about calling it the Jericho, but I thought you might get pissed. Anyway, when we heard about Yawaraka-Te, Ryan and I wanted you to have something to use.”

Quinn turned the knife in the lamplight. It was fourteen inches long and nearly an eighth of an inch thick along the spine. A black parachute-cord strap hung from a hole in the nasty skull-crusher pommel. The olive drab scales felt as natural in Quinn’s hand as the throttle of his motorcycle.

He missed Yawaraka-Te, and frankly could not wait until Mrs. Miyagi had her repaired. But for the utilitarian chores he might find in South America, Severance seemed to be the perfect blade. It looked to be the kind of knife that could cut down a small tree or convince an opponent that he should comply in order to keep his head.

“Mind field-testing it for us?” Ray asked, the sparkle in his eyes almost audible on the phone.

“I appreciate this more than you know, Ray.” Quinn weighed the blade in his hand, feeling the balance and heft of it. “But the places I go, you might not get it back.”

“Good deal,” Ray said. “Now about that other matter. Just send her by. I think I know exactly what she needs… ”

“Are you really going to buy me a pocketknife?” Mattie Quinn asked ten minutes later when Jericho had her on the phone.

“Everybody needs a knife, sweet pea,” he said. “Go ahead and check me right now.”

“Okay.” Mattie giggled. “Dad, have you got your pocketknife on you?”

“I have my pants on, don’t I?” Quinn said, sharing their inside joke. When she was barely old enough to understand, he’d promised her that if was wearing pockets and she caught him without a knife, he would buy her a soda.

“Mom says I might be too young.”

“I’ll square it with Mom,” Quinn said, knowing full well Kim was likely on the other line. “Do you cut up your own steak?”

“Of course, Dad. I’m seven.” He could hear her crinkling her nose in that adorable way of hers.

“Well, the way I see it, a steak knife is way bigger than a pocketknife.” Quinn practiced the line of reasoning he planned to use on Kim. “I already talked to Ray about which one.”

“I like Ray,” Mattie said. “He’s got the pet piranha.”

“All you have to do is get Mom to take you by the store,” Quinn said. “Merry Christmas, sweet pea.”

“Miss you, Dad,” she said.

“Miss you too. Can you put Mom on?”

“Sure,” Mattie said. “I’ll go get her. But you should know, she’s pretty mad about you not coming home for Christmas.”

Kim picked up immediately.

“I’m not mad,” she said, defending herself. “Just disappointed… for Mattie. What’s up?”

“Full disclosure,” Quinn said, chewing on his bottom lip. “I’ve talked to Ray about getting Mattie a knife for Christmas.” It astounded Quinn that he faced the most ruthless killers in the world without so much as a blink, but shuddered when he talked to his ex-wife.

“A knife?” she said. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” he said, wishing for a terrorist to fight.

The phone went quiet for a long moment. “I guess I’m cool with her getting a pocketknife.” Kim changed her tune. “We are talking pocketknife, right, and not some people-killin’ cutlass?”

Quinn smiled at how much of him had rubbed off on her over the years. He released a pent-up breath, giving a thumbs-up to his empty living room. “You have my word. I won’t buy her a sword.”

Kim’s voice suddenly took on the playful tone that had snared him in the first place. “I made enchiladas.”

“That sounds great.” Quinn said. “You know I would be there if I could be.”

“Did you know Steve and Connie are getting married at the Academy?” she asked, changing the subject. “I forgot they weren’t married already.”

“I did. He asked me to be part of the ceremony.” Steve Brun had graduated from USAFA the same year as Quinn. They’d both served as Squadron Commanders, Quinn of the 20th Trolls and Brun of the 19th Wolverines. They’d led the Air Force Sandhurst competition team at West Point and gone through the rigorous pipeline of Air Force Special Operations training. While Quinn had moved to OSI, Brun had remained a combat rescue officer. Quinn had even introduced Steve to Jacques Thibodaux on a previous mission and they’d hit it off immediately. Brun had actually been together with his fiancée, Connie, for over ten years and they had finally decided tie the knot. From the very beginning, the two couples had done everything together. Kim and Connie remained close even after the divorce.

“Are you going?” Quinn asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Connie asked me to.”

“Good,” he said.

“Listen,” she said, her voice suddenly distant. “Gary Lavin has asked if I want to be his date.”

“I see,” Quinn said, feeling like he’d just been punched in the gut. “That will be interesting. Well, it’ll be good to see you anyway.”

Captain Gary Lavin was another acquaintance from the Academy, though he’d gone on to fly C-17s and eventually transferred to the 517th at Elmendorf in Anchorage. He’d been sniffing around Kim since they were cadets, so it made sense he’d look her up now that she was divorced.

“Listen, I have to go,” Quinn said, suddenly tired of talking.

“I know, I just…” Her voice trailed off as it often had when they’d spoken over the last three years.

“You what?” Quinn prodded softly, bracing himself for an avalanche of emotion.

“I just can’t help thinking that every time we say good-bye it might be the last. That kills me, you know.”

“We won’t say it then,” Quinn said, consoling her as best he could. “How about Merry Christmas?”

“Okay,” she said, her voice hollow. It was obvious he only made her miserable. “Merry Christmas… ”

He ended the call and tossed the phone on the coffee table beside the open box.

Over the years of courtship and marriage he’d missed countless holidays because of his job. Kim hadn’t liked the idea, but she’d put up with it, more or less. Other spouses missed special events because of deployments. Their loved ones cried a little and sucked it up. The country was fighting two wars.

Kim had left him, trashed him to his face, and even cursed him after he’d saved her life. He still loved her past the point of sanity, but he’d never really understand her. One minute she held him close, the next she wanted to take off his head. Loving Kimberly Quinn was like roasting in an exquisite flame — and getting stabbed a lot with a really big fork.

From the moment they met, he’d made no secret of the fact that he was in love with fast machines, bloody-knuckle brawls, and frequent travel to dark and dangerous parts of the world. She’d climbed aboard his bike and hung on for what he thought would be their grand adventure. Unbeknownst to him, she’d hoped from that very first ride to change him. He, on the other hand, had rolled on the gas and prayed this pretty blonde with her arms wrapped around his waist would stay the same forever.

But now, Jericho couldn’t tell her about the bomb. He’d had to tell her he was missing Christmas because he’d entered a motorcycle race.

CHAPTER 26

Quinn traveled in and out of D.C. enough that he knew virtually every security supervisor at Reagan National. He avoided the larger, more distant Dulles whenever he had the opportunity and now paid for it with a long wait at security. They were already boarding by the time he made it to the gate. Thibodaux was late, likely saying good-bye to his wife for the twentieth time. Good for him. At least he had a wife who missed him.

Quinn found his seat. Out of habit from flying armed it was an exit row with his right arm in the aisle. He took out a couple of motorcycle magazines and some study material, then shoved his carry-on in the overhead compartment. So far, he had the row to himself. He knew such luck would never last, and played a little game guessing the odds that each passenger would be his seatmate as they walked down the aisle toward him.

He dreaded the long flight to Argentina, preferring a poke in the eye to being stuffed into the long tin cans that served as modern-day airliners. He wasn’t tall by any standards, but he felt sorry for Jacques, who had to wedge himself into the narrow seats. In truth, he should have paid for a seat and a half because any unsuspecting seatmate ended up with the big Cajun’s shoulder and elbow in his or her lap during the entire flight.

More than anything Quinn dreaded the endless hours of flight. He’d never been one to let his guard down enough to sleep on an airplane surrounded by people close enough to smell. He planned to study some Chinese flash cards — they drew fewer looks than Arabic — and read some new motorcycle and gun magazines. But that still left hours with nothing to entertain him but his own thoughts. The flights between Miami and D.C. had given him way too much time to think already — and lately, when he thought, it was about Veronica Garcia.

Still alone in his row, he checked his TAG Aquaracer. Nearly eight in the evening during the Christmas holidays and he was on his way out of the country — again. He couldn’t help but wonder what Garcia was doing.

He knew her parents were dead. She had an aunt in Miami, but Miyagi made it sound like the agent trainees would only get a couple of days of break considering the present state of affairs in the country so he doubted she’d traveled far.

Quinn took out his phone to turn it off for the flight and without thinking, pressed Garcia’s speed-dial. No one — federal agents or agent trainees — should be completely alone during the holidays.

It rang twice before connecting. A man’s voice answered, going a hundred miles an hour.

“Ronnie’s phone. She’s a busy lady and can’t talk right now.”

Quinn could hear the rhythmic beat of music and the buzz and crack of people playing pool in the background. A hundred voices seemed to be talking at once.

“I’ll call back another time,” Quinn said.

“Message?” the man said, shouting over the din.

“No,” Quinn said. “I’m good.”

“Very well, my friend. You have yourself a happy holiday.”

“Yeah, you too,” Quinn grunted and hung up. This guy was far too peppy for his taste. Ronnie wasn’t alone during the holidays after all….

He looked up just as a heavyset person of ambiguous gender wearing a sleeveless mechanic’s shirt and carrying a pastrami sandwich nodded toward the seat beside him.

Quinn stepped into the aisle. Sighing to himself, he turned off his phone for the long flight to Argentina.

Ronnie Garcia walked out of the ladies’ room at the Corner Pocket in downtown Williamsburg and pushed through the crowds to rejoin her classmates. Though it was chilly outside, her roommate had persuaded her to dress to party in tight black capris and an off-the-shoulder red silk blouse.

“What’d I miss?” she said, smiling at the youngsters at her table. At twenty-nine, she was in the best shape of her life, but it was still difficult to keep up with the college crowd that made up the bulk of CIA trainees. Everyone but her had some sort of advanced degree in economics, law, or political science. Some had been interns for powerful senators, others came from rich families, all were incredibly bright. Apart from Garcia and a former Army Special Forces officer, none of her class had ever seen a moment of conflict more violent than a lovers’ quarrel. Just hearing their naïve dreams, Garcia couldn’t help but think of Jericho Quinn and his maxim: Everyone thinks they have a plan until they get punched in the nose.

Sometime it was a fist that gave you that punch, sometimes it was just life.

She scooted back into her seat around the table of eight, showing a tight smile at the thought of another hour with this crew. They were fine in a mock firefight and could interrogate role-players with the best, but she found hanging with them felt like playing Barbie with the twelve-year-olds after she’d already made out with her first guy. It had been a mistake to come, but she just couldn’t bear the thought of being stuck alone in the dorms.

Roger, a dark-eyed frat boy of Persian descent, grinned as she sat down, wagging his finger. He made no secret of the fact that he’d had a crush on her from their first day of polygraph class. She’d let him know right away that she was far too much woman for a youngster like him to handle — which only served to inflame his resolve. She’d been annoyed, but not surprised, when he’d showed up that evening and joined their group.

Smacking the finger away, she looked down her nose at him. “Good way to lose a hand, amigo.”

“You forgot your OPSEC,” he chided, raising his eyebrows as if he had eight-by-ten glossies of her in the shower. There was a cuteness about him, like a Christmas ornament that you could look at for a while but were happy to box up again right after New Years.

OPSEC — operational security — was no laughing matter.

“What?” she said, worried. “What did I do?”

“You could use a man like me watching out for you.” Roger held up her phone. “So many of our secrets are stuck in these little devices… and now I have access to yours, my dear. They say our brains are in our phones now.”

“I don’t think your brains are where you think they are.” Garcia poured her drink in the kid’s lap, snatching the phone away as he worked to catch his breath. “Let me tell you about a man who can handle me, Roger, my dear. When I fall down drunk and naked on the floor in the middle of a party, my man’s job is to stand there and fend all the other bastards in the room off of me. If I leave top-secret files in the penthouse of a foreign hotel, he would go all Tom Cruise and climb up the outside windows with those little sticky gloves to get those files back and save my honor. I don’t give a shit if I leave ten thousand dollars on the table when I go to pee. His job is to guard it with his life. And, he would never, ever, ever touch my phone. Comprende?”

Roger nodded, blinking quickly.

Ronnie turned to her roommate, who sat next to her. Her name was Bev, an Arabic and Farsi speaker from Maryland.

Bev snickered, rolling her eyes at the hapless Roger. “You warned him that you were a hard one to handle.” She put a hand on Ronnie’s arm. “I almost forgot. You missed a call.”

Ronnie got a jolt to the heart when she saw Jericho’s number. She bumped Roger out of the way with her hip as she moved quickly out of the booth, punching the buttons to return the call.

His voice mail answered after the first ring. “Quinn’s phone, leave a message.” She rang it again and got the same response. Turning, she stared back at poor Roger and tried to talk herself out of killing him.