Time of Attack (6 page)

Quinn shook hands with both men. They were just doing their jobs. DeKirk, keeping up the FBI tradition of trying to run the entire show, and Torrance, the dutiful subordinate.

Quinn turned to Garcia and Thibodaux after the elevator doors closed on the other two agents. The Marine’s dark uniform hid most of his stains, but Garcia’s sunshine yellow dress showed broad swatches of red, like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Quinn closed his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts. “What else did you see out there?”

“No tracks good enough to follow,” Thibodaux said, shooting a glance at Garcia. “The kid here noticed something, though.”

“It’s probably nothing.” Ronnie shrugged. “But I could have sworn I smelled peppermint around the tree where the shooter left the rifle.”

“Peppermint,” Quinn mused, making a mental note. “Sucking on a breath mint’s not like a professional assassin . .
.
”

Thibodaux’s eyebrow crawled above his black patch. “Maybe she was aimin’ at you and missed. That ain’t very professional.”

Quinn’s head spun at a sudden realization, remembering how Mattie jumped just before Kim fell, how her ponytail had been neatly clipped away by the bullet. “The shot wasn’t for Kim. It was for Mattie.” Quinn reached in the pocket of his uniform slacks and pulled out the lock of dark hair. He swayed on his feet, dizzy, letting adrenaline overwhelm him for the first time since the attack. He fell back, collapsing in one of the waiting-room chairs.

Ronnie sat beside him. Strong thigh pressed alongside his, she stroked the back of his hand.

Thibodaux hunkered down in front of him so they were face-to-face. “Who would do that? Who’s out there that would kill your little girl but leave you alive?”

Quinn sat very still, remembering his confrontation with a handful of Japanese punks while he’d been following Hartman Drake. A plan began to form in his mind. With every breath, his strength and resolve returned. At length he stood, letting Garcia’s hand slide away.

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “But the Speaker of the House will. I’ve been wanting to talk to him for some time now.”

“What are you thinking, l’ami?” Thibodaux stood as well.

“I’m going to call Palmer and find out where Hartman Drake is, then I’ll book the first flight there after I get Kim settled.”

“We’ll come with.” Thibodaux gave a somber nod. “You better change clothes first. You look like you been choppin’ off zombie heads.”

“It’s better if I do this alone.”

“The hell you say.” Thibodaux frowned. “You were half a breath away from ripping that FBI guy’s head off—and, it pains me to say it, but he’s one of us. The way you’re feelin’, ain’t nobody gonna blame you for showing some emotion. But the last thing you ought to do is go in by yourself. You need a wingman.” He looked at Garcia. “And woman.”

“This is liable to be bad,” Quinn said. “I can’t risk getting you two involved.”

“For a guy who speaks umpteen languages you can be pretty dense, Chair Force. It’s because things might get bad that you need us along.”

“No,” Quinn said.

He took a tight breath through his nose, staring into space. In defensive tactics they called it a thousand-yard stare. It was almost always the precursor to a fight.

“Okay.” Jacques threw up his hands. “I’ve seen that look before. You get like this and you can’t even get out of your own way. There’s no arguing with you. Even if I happen to be right and you happen to know it . . .”

 

 

A redheaded nurse with a soft smile and a voice to match came in to tell them Kim was awake enough for Jericho to see her. He followed her through the swinging doors.

Left behind, Ronnie Garcia’s heart tightened as if gripped by a fist. She found it difficult to draw a full breath as Quinn disappeared through the double doors toward the recovery room. She cursed herself for what she was thinking—blaming Kim for getting shot and ruining a perfectly good weekend. Garcia knew it was moronic to wish that she had been the one to take the bullet so Quinn would be worried about her instead. But that was the way her mind worked. Love sucked.

She turned to Thibodaux, who’d become a great confidant. His jaw was still set from the run-in with Jericho. He was right to be upset, too. Quinn was out of his head with worry and guilt, but too bullheaded to accept help, even from his closest friends. For all his gruff, gunnery sergeant exterior, Thibodaux had a wife and flock of small boys who made certain he kept a nurturing side alive.

“You know,” Ronnie whispered, “right after the wedding, Kim swore to me she would fight to get Jericho back.”

“That’s weird,” Thibodaux said, raising his good eye and nodding slowly as if he knew it was not weird at all. “I thought she wanted to be shed of him and his danger-man lifestyle for good. Maybe this latest little
fais do do
will clinch her mind.”

“It’ll clinch her mind all right.” Ronnie sniffed, feeling a good cry coming on. “And Jericho’s, too.” She breathed through her mouth in a vain attempt to hold back tears. Her Cuban accent came on stronger when she got emotional. “Oh, Jacques, you know this is probably the one and only thing she could do that would get him to choose her over me. She’ll need him. There’s no way he can resist that.”

Thibodaux put a hand on her shoulder and drew her into his chest, dwarfing her in a big, brotherly squeeze. “He’s acting the stupid SOB right now, cher,” he said. “But let’s have a little faith in our man Jericho. He’ll do the right thing.”

Garcia let herself go, sobbing in the safety of Jacques’s massive embrace. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

T
he stress of having her mother shot was bad enough, but Quinn suspected there was more to Mattie’s tears than that. She was a smart girl, well beyond her seven years. When she replayed the events in her mind, it would not be too much for her to figure out that the bullet that took her mother’s leg was really meant for her.

Quinn longed to stay with them, to hold Mattie in his lap and pat her back and tell her everything would be all right. But that was a lie. Nothing would be all right unless he went out and made it so.

Kim motioned him closer. He put a hand on her forehead, smoothing her hair, then bent down with his ear to her lips.

“You need to get out of here,” she whispered. The oxygen cannulas gave her already soft voice a pitiful, nasal tone that twisted a knife in Quinn’s gut.

He stood up, trying to gauge her emotion from the look on her face. It was impossible.

“Just try and get some sleep,” he said. “We’ll make some decisions soon enough.”

Kim’s chest began to jerk with sobs, oblivious to Mattie’s crying.

“Jer . . . icho.” Her voice caught in her throat between breaths. “They . . . shot me . . .”

Quinn caressed the top of her head.

“And I’ll find out who, Kim—”

“You . . . need to get . . . out of here,” she groaned.

“I will,” he said, trying to soothe her with his voice though he was anything but calm inside. “Soon enough.”

She gave a minute shake of her head. “You don’t understand, Jer . . .” She swallowed hard, panting to catch her breath. Her voice climbed with each word. “I’m not giving you permission . . . I’m telling you to go. I . . . don’t want you here!”

He would have rather she’d shot him.

Nodding, he hugged a weeping Mattie.

Kim reached and caught the tail of the borrowed fleece jacket as he turned to go.

“Jericho.”

“Yes?”

Oddly, Kim, who had boiled over with fear and anger just moments before, smiled.

“I don’t know . . . exactly what it is you do.” She sighed. “But whatever it is, I trust you to go do it well.”

She gave his hand a squeeze. It was the worst possible thing she could say, the thing that would cut him the most. He’d grown used to angry. He could prepare himself for angry. Trust was too much to handle.

 

 

Quinn left a cadre of a half dozen OSI agents from Buckley, Peterson, and the Denver Joint Terrorism Task Force to look after Mattie and Kim. All of them appeared happy to help, closing the protective ranks around the OSI family.

Quinn called Winfield Palmer in the car on the drive back to the Marriott. Still on the books with OSI at the Headquarters Detachment in Quantico, his detail as an OGA gave him certain access to the highest levels of government, but it had also made his family a target.

Palmer answered on the second ring.

“I heard,” he said, not waiting for Quinn to brief him. With the national security advisor, conversations often leaned heavily toward the one-sided if he had all the information he wanted. “How’s Kim?”

“Minus a leg,” Jericho said through clenched teeth. “But she’ll live. I’m pretty sure the shooter was trying to kill my daughter.”

“Reports say an Asian female?”

Quinn could hear computer keys clicking in the background over the car’s speaker. He didn’t believe in multitasking, but you didn’t get to Palmer’s level without being a champion at rapid transitioning back and forth between several tasks.

“Yeah, I’m thinking Japanese,” Quinn said, glancing over his shoulder to take the right lane as his exit approached. “And that’s about all we have. Remember I told you I followed Hartman Drake to that meeting with a woman at the docks in Old Town?”

“How could I forget?” Palmer scoffed. “You brought me a couple of severed fingers as a memento.”

“That’s right,” Quinn said. “Japanese fingers.” Quinn had cut them off during a fight with the guards standing between him and the clandestine meeting—and broken Yawaraka-te, his ancient Japanese killing dagger, in the process. “Drake is a part of this. He has to be.”

“Maybe.” Palmer tapped away at his computer. “I really should relieve you. You know that, don’t you, Quinn?”

Quinn’s jaw clenched. “You’ll have to put me in prison to keep me off of this,” he said.

“I know.” Palmer sighed. His keyboard still clicked in the background. “That’s why I’m not even trying. It would just piss us both off. Listen, I smell something bigger than a simple vendetta.”

“Me too.” Quinn took the exit to Garden of the Gods Road, toward his hotel. “No organization is going to waste a well-placed asset like Drake on some little operation.”

“Interesting connection,” Palmer said. “If we’re right and Drake was working with Doctor Badeeb—”

“I’m sure of it,” Quinn said, cutting Palmer off.

“At any rate,” Palmer went on, “PSIA says they’re catching an inordinate amount of chatter linked to several terrorist groups in Pakistan.” PSIA or
k
anch
sa-ch
—
the Public Security Intelligence Agency—was one of the agencies within the Japanese government that dealt with counterespionage and threats to national security. “Not much of a leap to connect Drake to the Japanese woman to this chatter with Lashkar i Taiba and other bad actors.”

“You get no argument from me,” Quinn said, nodding to himself as he pulled into the parking lot and turned off the ignition. “I thought I was going to have to convince you.”

“We need to make a plan on this, Jericho,” Palmer said. “I know you’re going to talk to Drake, but let’s do it the right way.”

“Understood.”

“My version of the right way. Not yours.”

Quinn ignored the counsel. “Congress is on a recess, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Palmer said. “Drake is in Las Vegas, presumably blowing off some steam after all the budget debates. Capitol Police say he’s staying at Caesars Palace for one more night but will be back in his office tomorrow.”

No sir,
Quinn thought, taking a deep breath.
He won’t.