Brute Force (10 page)

“Where then?” Quinn said. “What did you plan to do before my friend and I entered the picture?”

“Habibullah,” the Uyghur said.

Thibodaux mouthed the word several times, getting it in his head.

“A Tajik,” Hajip went on. “Habibullah is powerful, a man with many connections. If you want a new identity, Habibullah is the man to see. He would know if someone assisted Ehmet Feng.”

“That’s a start,” Quinn said, feeling the familiar flutter of an impending hunt. “Let’s go and talk to him.”

“Oh,” Hajip said, giving an emphatic shake of his head as he spoke in a distraught and rapid-fire pace. “It is too late to speak with Habibullah tonight. He will be sleeping by now. His men would slaughter us if we woke him. The only way to get near Habibullah is to have business with Habibullah. Even then you must go through his men. I could have spoken with him early tomorrow. . . .” Hajip’s gaze shifted to his right side and lingered at his injured arm as if all was lost. “But your interference has ruined my chance to speak with Habibullah!”

“Damn,” Thibodaux whistled under his breath. “I can’t understand a word, but this guy sure likes to say ‘Habibullah.’ ”

The unconscious man began to stir.

“Ayeee!” Hajip threw his head back and cried. “You have broken my arm! I will never be able to get near Habibullah!”

Thibodaux stepped up, taking Hajip’s sudden rise in tone for a threat. “Blah, blah, blah, Habib-blah-blah-bulla! You best calm your ass down, down fast, fast.”

“It’s okay, Jacques,” Quinn said, and translated the last to bring the Cajun up to speed before turning to face the Uyghur. “Why does your broken arm keep you from talking with Habibullah?”

Hajip rattled off his plan in Mandarin, sobbing as much as he spoke. Quinn thought for a moment, then came back with a plan of his own. The Uyghur stopped crying and fired back with a string of curses. When he was finished, Quinn spoke again, and then stepped back, rubbing his chin in thought.

“Dammit,
l’ami,
but you make my head ache.” Thibodaux rubbed his temples. “I know a scoff when I hear it in any language. It sounded to me like you’re trying to convince this guy of something and he ain’t buying any.”

“You picked up on that, did you?” Quinn grinned.

“
Arrete toi
,” Thibodaux said, shaking his head.
Stop, you.
“Every time you get that look in your eye—”

“What look?” Quinn’s mind was already racing, making plans.

“Don’t make me pass you a slap, Chair Force. You know what I’m talking about.” Thibodaux peered at him with his good eye. “That look that says you think you have superpowers. It’s a bad, bad look, I’m telling you straight. What are you plannin’? Pistols at dawn with Habibullah because you broke this dipshit’s arm?”

“A duel . . .” Quinn looked up and gave his friend a sly smile. “I wish it were something that easy.”

 

F
ormer CIA Clandestine Services Officer Joey Benavides hoisted a doughy leg out of the passenger side of his partner’s government-issued Jeep Patriot and unfolded himself onto the quiet residential sidewalk. The little car seemed to squeak with relief as the pressure was taken off the suspension.

Joey B’s partner, former IRS agent Roy Gant, wore a gray blazer that was at least one size too small and caused his fleshy arms to ride up a little farther away from his body than they should have. Agents of the Internal Defense Task Force weren’t known for strict adherence to dress codes, but Gant was one of the few who were slovenly enough to make even Benavides look acceptable. He didn’t even bother to tuck in his shirttail.

A girl on a bicycle, one of the legions of snot-nose kids Benavides saw terrorizing the neighborhoods this time of year, cruised by on the sidewalk.

“I hate summer,” Gant grumbled, glaring at the little girl as she sped down the street.

“Okay, we’re looking for the Thib-o-day-ox residence,” Benavides said, spitting into the gutter as he hitched his slacks over a sagging belly.

“Rhymes with dough,” his partner corrected. “Thib-o-daux.”

“Whatever.”

Joey B stuffed the errant tail of his white shirt back where it was supposed to be. Task Force agents weren’t required to wear ties—which was a good thing, because Benavides hadn’t been able to button the top button on any of his dress shirts in six months. Leaning back into the Jeep, he shrugged on a wrinkled sport coat to cover his sidearm and nodded his jowly head toward the house halfway down the block so his equally corpulent partner would know where they were going.

Younger than Gant by at least fifteen years, Benavides took the lead as they walked to the house. Gant, who didn’t appear to care, plodded along behind with his head down, a hand in one pocket.

“The boss is gonna have my ass if we don’t find something on Garcia,” Gant muttered as they cut across a freshly mowed yard.

The grass was littered with mutilated pieces of green toy soldiers and Hot Wheels cars as if the toys had been mowed over. Plastic guns and wooden swords hung from the handlebars of two bicycles parked in a barren flower bed beside the front porch. “I’m seriously thinking he might take me out back and shoot me.”

“Mr. Walter is a son of a bitch,” Benavides said. “But I doubt he’d shoot you, even if you did let a traitor slip away on your watch.”

Gant stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. He did that sometimes, just stopped moving in the middle of a sentence for no apparent reason. Benavides hated working with him. “Have you heard from Craig Thorson lately?”

“No. Why?”

“Exactly.” Gant nodded as if it should all be so clear. “Thorson let some numbers slip to a Senate staffer about the IDTF budget. Nothing big, but Walter didn’t approve it beforehand so he got pissed—and Thorson hasn’t been answering calls or e-mails for two weeks.”

In reality, Benavides had no doubt the top supervisory agent within the Vice President’s newly formed Task Force would have no problem shooting a colleague in the back of the head. Hell, the sadistic whack job probably had a couple of people chained up in his basement. It was just not something Benavides wanted to talk about. If he agreed with Gant, the other agent might twist his words around and call him a traitor—earning him a bullet in the brain from Walter.

Benavides thought about it a second too long and gave a shivering shrug. “Come on. Let’s go see what this bitch knows.” He read the name he’d written in pen on the palm of his hand, pronouncing it correctly this time. “Camille Thibodaux. The boss says her husband did some work with Garcia. He’s supposed to be a gunny in the Marine Corps, but he happens to be deployed so we can take our time if his wife decides to get pissy with us. If she knows something about Veronica Garcia, we’ll get it out of her.”

Benavides was grinning at the prospect by the time he stepped up on the porch and rang the bell.

A curvaceous woman with dark hair and brooding brown eyes flung open the door—as if she’d been lurking there, waiting. Barefoot, she wore a pair of loose basketball shorts and a red USMC T-shirt. He let his eyes play up and down over the swells of the shirt, then back to the fresh red polish on the woman’s toenails. A snotty toddler clung to the leg of her shorts, pushing them up and giving the agents a tantalizing peek at his mama’s muscular thigh. In between ogling her legs and her toes, Benavides had the fleeting thought that this woman kept her right hand out of sight. She might actually have a weapon hidden back there. Marine wives were a tricky bunch.

Both agents held up their credential cases. It could be pretty gratifying to see people wilt with fear at the IDTF badge.

“You’re not in any trouble,” Gant said, raising his hand as if it was even possible to calm the fury in this woman’s eyes.

“I know I’m not,” Camille Thibodaux said. “Because I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Be that as it may.” Gant shrugged. “We need to talk to you about a person of interest named Veronica Garcia. Sometimes goes by Ronnie. She a friend of yours?”

“Never heard of her,” Camille Thibodaux said.

“I see,” Benavides sighed. “You know, people like Ronnie Garcia tend to have a short shelf life. And you know what they say about one bad apple. I think it’d be a shame if her problems spilled over into your problems.. . .”

“I don’t really give a damn about what you think.” Her baby began to squall and she took a moment to reach down and pat him on the head. “It’s okay, sugar. These men just made Mama use a Bible word.” The door swung open a hair farther, allowing Benavides to get his foot inside.

“Here’s how this is going to—” He stopped in mid-sentence, staring at a large family photo that hung on the wall beside a framed black-and-white photo of some Marines from another war. Along with an ungodly number of kids, the studio portrait showed Camille holding the arm of a mountainous USMC gunnery sergeant. The crew cut and black eye patch filled Benavides with immediate dread. This was one of two men who’d bashed out his teeth and blackmailed him into cooperating to help with the escape of the traitor and former director of the CIA, Virginia Ross. He’d never given Benavides his name.

“Thibodaux . . .” Joey B mused under his breath. So that was his name. It made sense. He fought the growing urge to crow. This Marine Corps shithead had spoken his bullying threats with a Cajun accent. And now he’d gone and gotten himself deployed with no one to look after his sexy little wifey.

“So,” Benavides said, smiling sweetly. He removed his foot from the doorway. “You’ve never heard of Ms. Garcia?”

“I have not,” Camille Thibodaux said, her lips clenched in an obvious lie.

“Okay then.” Benavides shrugged, looking at a baffled Gant. “Someone must have gotten their wires crossed back at HQ. We’ll just be on our way.”

Mrs. Thibodaux slammed the door, leaving the two men standing on her porch.

“What the hell was that all about?” Gant asked.

“This bitch knows something,” Benavides said as they walked back to the Jeep. “But she isn’t going to crack with the direct approach. Trust me on this one, bud. I want to try something with more of a personal touch.”

 

V
eronica “Ronnie” Garcia sat with six others around a long plastic table, all watching a small flat-screen monitor mounted on the wall at the far end of the bunker. She felt herself tense as the image of two state police helicopters passed across the screen, picked up by the skyward cameras over the wooded compound. The group was deep underground and the earth outside the thick concrete cooled the piped air, forcing each of those in attendance to wear a Windbreaker or light jacket. Ronnie, without thinking, had slipped into a tight, long-sleeved cardigan. It was one of Jericho’s favorites, but the reasons he liked it were the same reasons that would bring her so much grief from their host, the owner of the bunker.

“These overflights are becoming more frequent,” Winfield Palmer said to Garcia from across the table. Garcia and Jericho’s former boss, he’d served as the National Security Advisor before the President and Vice President had been assassinated. Even now, as a fugitive with a terrible head cold, he still carried himself like a man who was completely in charge of the room. It was troubling to Garcia that something like a common cold could find its way past Win Palmer’s concrete persona. He’d been the President’s confidant and advisor, the power behind the power for as long as she’d known him—ever robust and full of confidence-inspiring vigor. He was still strong, despite his illness, but the stress of this life was chipping away at his base. When the coughing subsided, he turned to the elderly man in faded Carhartts who stood slightly behind him against the back wall of the cellar. “Have you heard any chatter around town?”

“Everybody round here knows I hate the G,” the man against the wall said, abbreviating “government” as if he couldn’t bear for the word to cross his lips. His name was Sam Hawthorne and he owned nearly three square miles of the Pennsylvania woodland where Garcia and the others had holed up. At seventy-one, he still stood ramrod straight with big, farmer’s hands that matched a husky, six-foot build. “No one in their right mind would think I’d hide the likes of you. Hell, if you’d told me a year ago that Sam Hawthorne would be aiding and abetting a bunch of DC spies turned Sons of Liberty, I’d said you were full of shit.”

“Sam!” Wilma Hawthorne chided, looking up from where she sat in the corner working over a hooped cross-stitch project. “Watch your mouth. We have guests.” She was an apple-shaped woman with silver hair and a quiet smile.

“Spies from the G,” Sam said under his breath. “Guests my ass.”

A self-proclaimed doomsday prepper, Hawthorne had been suspicious of the federal government during every one of the eleven presidential administrations since he was old enough to make it to a ballot box. The current occupant of the White House validated all his years of ranting, curtailing freedom of the press and tightening the grip on personal freedoms in the name of greater security. When President Drake had issued the executive order creating the Internal Defense Task Force, even the normally pensive and peace-loving Wilma Hawthorne had seen the new secret police force for what it was—an American Gestapo. She had stood up from the television and found her way to the gun safe to strap on her favorite Makarov pistol and was rarely seen without it.

The Hawthornes had spent the last forty-six years building up the rural property Wilma had inherited from her mother. Years spent raising three sons and living a life that was what Sam called “on/off ” the grid—having just enough connectivity to keep from raising suspicion with authorities, but with plenty of safe rooms, underground bunkers, and escape tunnels to keep an intrusive G guessing if they did ever decided to raid the place and take away all his guns. Palmer’s consistent comparison of their movement to the Revolutionary War’s Sons of Liberty seemed to appeal to Hawthorne’s notion of a patriotic fight against the G.

“Likely just a routine flight,” Melissa Ryan, the former Secretary of State, said from the chair on the other side of Garcia. “But I’d suggest a couple of us stay in the rooms below at any given time so we’re all not captured should we get raided.” In her early fifties, Ryan still looked like a cover girl in her formfitting jeans and signature silk blouse under her red Mountain Hard-wear Windbreaker. It was no secret that she and Palmer had been an item for several years. It had broken the hearts of many an eligible bachelor when
DC Magazine
had named them one of the top most influential couples in the country. In addition to being beautiful, Melissa Ryan was also one of the brightest minds on the planet. If they were going to do anything to bring down the present administration they needed all the brainpower they could cobble together. It was Ryan’s connections that had made the introductions to the Hawthornes, and her particular diplomatic skills that made Hawthorne, if only grudgingly, agree to aid and abet former bureaucrats from the G.

“I agree,” the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency said. Virginia Ross stood against the concrete wall near the Hawthornes, hands behind her back, listening. “These people are evil, but they are not stupid.” Ross said little but when she did, it carried a lot of weight. A fugitive now, she’d been arrested on trumped-up charges by an IDTF agent named Walter, stripped of her clothing and tortured in an attempt to find Palmer and the others deemed to be a threat to the administration. Garcia and Thibodaux had masterminded her escape. She was now not only on the run, but a celebrity in the underground movement to topple President Hartman Drake and his regime. Ronnie had been part of her rescue, had seen firsthand the effects of the inhuman treatment the poor woman had received at the hands of Agent Walter. The cruelty had only managed to bolster Ross’s resolve to fight.

Garcia caught the eye of Emiko Miyagi, the strange little Japanese woman who was Jericho’s martial arts trainer and confidant. Miyagi was attractive in the way a handsome blade was attractive—dangerous, and quite useful in the right hands. Garcia had known her for over a year now, received defensive tactics instruction from her at Camp Peary during CIA basic, and worked alongside her on several bloody missions. She still couldn’t quite put her finger on this woman. If she hadn’t known better, Garcia might have been jealous of the time Miyagi spent with Jericho. She wasn’t worried that they’d ever been romantic—but, Ronnie knew, there were things far more intimate than romance. She couldn’t help but think that this Japanese warrior woman was able to see far more deeply into Jericho Quinn’s soul than she would ever find possible.

“Evil,” Miyagi said, wasting no further words since everyone was in agreement.

Palmer unwrapped a menthol cough drop and popped it in his mouth, narrowing his eyes the way he did when Garcia knew he wanted to get back to business. He was a normally vibrant man, but the illness, along with months of playing cat and mouse with the administration’s goons had caused him to lose most of what was left of his close-cropped gray hair. His once ruddy complexion bordered on ashen and his posture had stooped noticeably from the time when Garcia had first met him. Wearing a shawl collar cardigan against the chill of the underground, he looked more like an exhausted college professor than the West Point graduate and close confidant of the man who’d been the most powerful man on earth.

Since they’d come to the farm, Palmer had decided to hold all their important meetings in the bunker rather than the more comfortable farmhouse. Hawthorne had built the thing like a SCIF or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. No two-way communication took place from the facility. Cells and radios were left topside and radio frequency detectors at the door made sure everyone stayed honest. Twelve feet beneath the surface under two feet of concrete, fresh air was drawn in and stale air was piped out through a series of vents that came up through the floor of an empty barn over a hundred meters away. The bunker could be accessed through a false floor in an equally well-hidden panic room entered by sliding back a portion of the kitchen counter. Even Garcia, who’d been through training in all manner of unbelievable things at Camp Peary, had found the designs amazing. Paranoia caused people to take drastic measures—but it was hard to say Sam Hawthorne’s paranoia was unwarranted, considering their present situation.

“I got in touch with Jennifer on the Hill this morning,” Palmer said, bringing the meeting back on topic once the cough drop began to do its job. He looked at Garcia. “Senator Gorski and Congressman Dillman have agreed to meet you this evening.”

“Why don’t you just send one of these girls in to shoot the son of a bitch President in the eye?” Hawthorne groused, giving a sidelong look toward Garcia. “The busty one looks like she’s shot people before.” His wife raised a chastising eyebrow at his cursing, but adjusted the Makarov on her hip and resumed her cross-stitch without saying anything.

Garcia smiled at the old man. Miyagi had much more experience in the shooting department, and the intensity in her eyes bore it out, but Hawthorne made no secret that he had a little crush on Ronnie. At least twice a day he’d lament that none of his sons had married a healthy girl with “breeder’s hips” like hers. Ronnie just shrugged it off. Her deadbeat ex-husband had described her as having a “ghetto booty.” “Breeder’s hips” seemed more pleasant than that—and anyway, Jericho didn’t seem to mind them. In any case, Hawthorne was committing all sorts of crimes by just letting fugitives from the G stay at his place, so she put up with a little leering and a comment or two. He was harmless enough at seventy, but she was sure he’d been a handful for Miss Wilma back in his prime.

Palmer swallowed to stifle a cough. “Garcia is plenty capable of shooting a man in the eye,” he said quietly, “or killing him in a variety of ways if he were to give her any trouble. There are many who would be willing to take on that job, but it’s not that simple. Both the President and Vice President are guarded by arguably the most highly trained protective agency in the world.” Palmer paused for effect. “And I should know. They protected me for a time while I was National Security Advisor. They’re good men and women and too many would get hurt if we made an attempt now.”

“Fox News said there was a gunman in the White House today,” Hawthorne said. “They’re saying the target was the VP. Sure the shooter wasn’t yours?”

Virginia Ross shook her head, her chin quivered like she might break into tears. “No,” she said, “that was a good friend of mine acting on his own volition. His loss is a blow to the country. I can tell you that much.”

“At any rate,” Palmer said, “the G, as you call it, has enough checks and balances that even moles like Drake and McKeon can’t bring it down easily. They have to chip away, nudging us toward a war that will inflate the economy, devalue the dollar, and ultimately cost millions of American lives. Slowly and methodically, they have raised the stakes on the evil of the masked terrorist who shoots dozens or bombs hundreds. It takes both houses of Congress to bring up impeachment charges. I think the senator and congressman can swing enough of their people our way—as long as we give them something they can sink their teeth into—something more than the mere suggestion the POTUS and VPOTUS are warmongering moles. Miss Garcia can lay out the evidence we have, including Drake’s connection to a Pakistani terrorist.” Palmer shrugged and crunched through the last of his cough drop. “It’s thin, but I’m hopeful that impeachment will send a signal to China that the entire country isn’t in lockstep.”

“You think the meeting could be a trap?” Garcia asked, focusing on her immediate mission. She wasn’t afraid, but alliances in Washington were historically fluid. Lately, they blew like dandelion fuzz in an ever-changing political wind.

“These two were handpicked to keep that from happening.” Palmer shook his head. “Deborah Gorski went to college in Fairbanks with Quinn’s mother. Her father was a senator before her and gave Quinn his nomination to the Air Force Academy. Personal ties beat credentials at this point. Mike Dillman was a plebe my senior year at West Point. We worked on a number of missions well before the good citizens of Indiana decided to elect him to Congress. I trust him the way Quinn trusts Jacques.”

“Roger that,” Garcia said, knowing no better analogy for trust. She glanced at the Tag Heuer Aquaracer Quinn had given her for her last birthday. “What time are they meeting me?”

“They know to walk down York Street in Gettysburg at six. They’ll look for your mark, and then wait at the area you designate. You contact them after you’re sure they don’t have a tail. Miyagi will pull countersurveillance.” Palmer stood, ready for everyone to get to work. “To tell you the truth, I’m surprised this administration hasn’t imploded already. The problem with conspiracies is that they rot from within.”

“I don’t know.” Sam Hawthorne shrugged. “This Sons of Liberty shit you’re doing ain’t nothing if it’s not a conspiracy—and, apart from your croup, it looks pretty damn healthy to me.”

Ronnie reached back out of habit, touching the small 9mm Kahr pistol tucked over her right kidney, inside the waistband of her jeans. Even under the thin cashmere sweater, it was all but invisible. Breeder’s hips or ghetto booty, being built on the athletic side of zaftig made it easier to hide a pistol—or at the very least more unlikely that anyone would notice that particular little bulge when there were so many other bulges to ogle.

Melissa Ryan must have seen her index the pistol and came up to put a hand on her shoulder. Garcia had liked her from the moment they’d met—nearly everyone did. She had a tantalizing smile that drew people to her and seemed to say to men and women alike, “Oh, my darling, if only I was yours and you were mine. . . .”

“Not to worry, dear,” Ryan said, flashing the smile. Garcia caught the jasmine hint of Chanel as she drew alongside. Ryan exuded elegance even in a bunker. “Gettysburg streets are crowded with tourists from all over the world this time of year,” she said. “You should be fine. Just try not to draw any attention to yourself.”