by Marc Cameron
“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
7:30 PM
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 p
laying 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.
DAKAR
Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed
overcomes the fear of death.
—HUNTER S. THOMPSON
CHAPTER 27
December 31
Mar del Plata, Argentina
The journey to reach the most dangerous race on earth was a race in and of itself. A ten-hour flight from Dulles to Buenos Aires saw Quinn standing in line for over an hour and a half to clear customs. He checked his phone and smiled when he saw two missed calls from Ronnie Garcia. He called her back, but got her voice mail. His phone began to buzz in his pocket again the moment he made it to the front of the line. A female Argentine customs officer waved him forward, her face stern though her gaudy red lipstick was painted into a smile. There was no way he would answer a cell phone call on her watch. Ronnie was back in class by the time the customs officer was through with him.
From the international airport it was another hour and a half through the city skirting crowds of out-of-work thirtysomethings who marched in what the cabdriver grudgingly called protest del dia, to Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, where he grabbed a domestic hop to Mar del Plata—the starting line of the Dakar.
A day and half after they’d left D.C., the Quinn brothers and Jacques Thibodaux stood with their orange KTM 450 race bike under the white tent along the breezy beaches of Argentina’s third-largest city. Thousands of people had flocked from all over the world to watch the opening ceremonies. The streets were alive with prerace parties and impromptu tangos. Liquor and maté, South America’s ubiquitous tea-like drink, flowed in abundance and abandon. The fragrant aromas of baking bread and grilled lamb, seasoned with just a hint of motor oil, settled comfortably over the crowds.
It was late afternoon and the area was a madhouse of prerace activity. Judges and engineers from the Amaury Sport Organisation swarmed over each motorcycle, Mini Cooper, Hummer, four-wheeler, and monster truck that planned to compete in the Dakar. The ASO was the same organization that sponsored the Tour de France and they had their bureaucracy well established. It was a nerve-wracking process known as scrutineering. Every item had to be checked, from required safety gear and engine size to the noise level of each vehicle’s exhaust.
The contestants had snatched little more than a few minutes of sleep at a stretch over the past days leading up to the race. The additional stress of having their machines scrutinized by the overly discerning eyes of ASO engineers only added to the growing pit in their collective guts.
Quinn trusted Mrs. Miyagi to make certain the KTM conformed to Dakar regulations. The bike was generally stock so there was little chance it would break any rules. Valentine Zamora, on the other hand, was spun into the rafters, spitting and cursing his mechanics in a black soup of Spanish and English.
He stomped back and forth wearing a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and New York Knicks shorts, checking and then double-checking the decibel measurements coming from the muffler of his Yamaha.
“Imbeciles,” he shouted at his two sheepish mechanics. They were the same young men he’d had with him at the track in Florida. “I pay you good money to get the motorcycle in perfect order and this is what you do to me? I swear to you.” His voice was tight and shrill amid all the buzzing ch
atter from the crowd of competitors and fans crammed inside the spacious tent.
“Monsieur Zamora,” a young Iranian motorcyclist named Navid Azimi tapped him on the shoulder.
Zamora spun, still spitting curses at his staff. “What is it?”
“You needn’t fret,” Azimi said. He pointed to his own bike, a blue and white Yamaha. “I had the very same issue. Your noise levels are just on the edge—easily remedied with a different muffler. I’m sure your mechanics have several in stock.”
Zamora glared at his staff. “Is this true?”
The two mechanics nodded. “Of course, sir.”
Zamora threw up his hands. “Then why didn’t you say so?” His tirade over for the moment, he looked up and noticed Quinn for the first time. A wide smile spread over his face. “You made it,” he said, walking over to grab Quinn’s hand between his.
Quinn didn’t bother to introduce Bo. Blond-haired and blue eyed, there was little chance he would be thought of as Jericho’s brother. Zamora treated his staff as nothing more than a backdrop for the great adventure of his life, so Quinn followed suit.
“If I may be so bold, where is the lovely Ms. Garcia?” The Venezuelan made a show of scanning the crowd behind Jericho.
“She had to check on her friends in New York,” Quinn said. “You know, that little bombing they had.”
“Of course.” Zamora nodded. “I understand the damage was extensive.”
“I guess.” Quinn shrugged “I stay out of that sort of thing. Too depressing. Anyway, good luck tomorrow.”
Zamora canted his head to one side. “I make my own luck.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“It does, doesn’t it? I don’t mean it that way. I’m hosting a party at my chalet tonight. You should drop by for some wine and a cigar.” Zamora put an arm around Quinn’s shoulders. “Because, tomorrow, friendship takes a backseat to the race. Do you understand?”
