by Marc Cameron
Knowing better than to argue with his crazy boss, Jorge slipped into his ratty Carhartt jacket and limped to the door.
A light coating of snow had covered the yard behind the house, powdering the small utility shed and propane tank. Sagging clotheslines hung in perfect shallow curves against the backdrop of a small orchard of a dozen leafless apple trees. A hundred yards beyond the orchard over a plowed stretch of field, a line of spruce trees marked the entrance to a copse of thick woods that ran up the side of a low hill, one of many islands of trees here and there on the rolling farmland.
Marie stopped at the orchard when she realized Lourdes was leading them toward the dark line of forest. Nothing good could come from walking into such a place with this horrible woman. Still, with Simon in her arms she could not fight, so a moment later she trudged on. Snow kicked up into her Danskos at each shuffling step and melted into her socks.
Ten yards inside the forest, Marie saw the mound of freshly dug earth. Her stomach clenched as she recognized it immediately for what it was. A grave. In the center of a small clearing, it was protected by the canopy of tall spruce trees and frosted with only a hint of snow.
Marie stopped in her tracks twenty feet from the pile of turned earth. She swayed, struggling to stay on her feet. Simon was too big for her to carry far and her legs shook from the effort and fear.
Lourdes raised a sullen brow at Pete and Jorge, who’d been walking single file with Marie in between them, and nodded toward the hole. “It will have to do,” she said. Cold pinked her cheeks and the tip of her nose. The tam hung low across her eyes. She retraced her steps so she passed Pete and stood directly in front of Marie.
Simon squirmed and fussed, trying to get down and play in the snow.
Lourdes looked on smugly, studying him.
“We have come to a crossroads,” she said with a snarling grin. “Where changes must be made.”
Marie’s heart told her to run as fast as she could, but she knew there was nowhere to go. Her stomach lurched and the world seemed to spin around her as she felt Jorge’s hands on her arm. This couldn’t be happening. She had dreams, Simon had to go to college, have a girlfriend. . . . Her vision blurred with tears and soul-crushing terror. She found it impossible even to swallow.
Pete grabbed her other arm and helped Jorge lead her to stand at the edge of the rectangular hole.
Oddly, once at the edge Marie felt a sudden calm come over her. What made her any more important than the murdered mothers and children she heard about on the news? They surely had dreams as well. She set her jaw and stared straight ahead. If she and Simon were dead, Matt could do what he needed to do. Maybe no one else would be hurt by these awful people. She began to sense everything around her in perfect detail. The toes of her Danskos sent a skittering of loose dirt over the edge with a hollow rattle. Small roots hung snakelike from the sides. The rich earthiness of the forest soil on chilly air tickled her nose. She no longer cared about herself but wanted only to make certain Simon did not suffer.
Beside her, Jorge’s hand began to tremble.
“I am sorry, señora,” he whispered, a split second before Lourdes shot him in the back of the head.
Jorge convulsed momentarily at her arm, nearly pulling her into the grave before he fell away. His body stiffened and he toppled headlong into the pit.
Every ounce of clarity she’d just felt flew from Marie with the sound of the pistol. Eyes wide in horror, she vomited into the hole. Clutching Simon to her breast, she collapsed to her knees, head bowed, bracing for the next shot.
It never came.
“He was weak,” Lourdes snapped. “Weakness is worse than babies.” She looked Marie in the eye. “Besides, I want you to understand what is coming to you . . . in time.” She turned on her heels to start for the house, leaving Jorge’s body alone in the open earth.
“Move your ass,” Pete stammered, clearly shaken that his boss had just shot one of her own.
Marie struggled to stand, scrambling to keep from sliding into the grave with the dead man. Lourdes trudged ahead without looking back. Pete plodded along behind, cursing and giving Marie a shove every few steps to prove there wasn’t the tiniest bit of weakness in him.
CHAPTER 42
January 8
Iquique Bivouac
Northern Chile
Quinn sat quietly with a watered-down Gatorade in his hand, staring into the flames of a small campfire. They’d walked a hundred meters outside the bivouac fence and a small sand dune blocked them from the hubbub of scooters, power tools, and foot traffic that went on all night inside the enclosure. There was no suitable wood, but Bo made do by pouring two cups of gasoline on a mound of sand. Orange shadows played off the faces of Thibodaux, Bo, and Aleksandra, who all sat in folding camp chairs watching the same fire.
The KTM’s tires and oil had been changed, Quinn had been fed and watered and completed his road book after his shower. All his Dakar duties complete, it was good to sit for a moment and collect his thoughts—and try to figure out Zamora.
“Hey, Jericho,” Bo said. One hand held an open bottle of rum, the other was shoved down the pocket of a handwoven cotton hoodie he’d bought from a local street vendor. “Remember what Dad calls a fire like this?”
“Cowboy TV.” Quinn laughed, enjoying the memory. “Our old man tells the dumbest jokes.”
“I know a joke,” Aleksandra said. Flames reflected on her oval face. Both hands rested in the pockets of her fleece vest.
“A joke?” Bo said, taking a swig of rum. “Impressive.”
She glanced up from the fire to glare hard at him. “Russians are very funny people,” she said.
“Yeah,” Bo said, rolling his eyes. “That’s obvious.”
“We do not giggle like maniacs at every little thing.” Aleksandra turned back to the fire, her face bordering on a pout. “But Russians have a fine sense of humor.”
“I think Mr. Bo should take a little teaspoon full of hush.” Thibodaux leaned forward, big arms resting on his knees. “I want to hear your joke, cheri.”
“Me too,” Jericho said.
“Okay.” Aleksandra sat up a little straighter. The pout left as quickly as it had come. “Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go to camp in the desert,” she began. Quinn couldn’t help but notice how her green eyes caught the dancing light of the fire. “They have a good meal and go to sleep. In the middle of the night Holmes nudges the doctor awake. ‘Look at the sky, Watson, and tell me what you see.’ Watson looks up and says: ‘I see millions and millions of stars.’ ‘And what does that tell you?’ Sherlock asks. ‘Well,’ Watson answers, ‘astronomically I see there are millions of galaxies and infer that there are billions of planets. Astrologically, I see that Saturn is in Leo. Meteorologically, I deduce from the lack of clouds that we should have pleasant weather in the morning. Theologically, I observe that God is infinite and we are but tiny, insignificant specks. . . . What do you deduce, Holmes?’ Sherlock shakes his head and says: ‘Watson, you idiot. Someone has stolen our tent!’ ”
Thibodaux’s easy belly laugh shook the chill from the night air. Jericho chuckled and even Bo cracked a smile.
Satisfied that her joke had gone over well enough, Aleksandra slid back in the canvas of her chair and closed her eyes. “That was Mikhail’s favorite,” she whispered.
Jericho looked up at the night sky. Like Dr. Watson, he saw millions of stars splashed across the Milky Way over an infinite desert night. Carina, Alpha and Beta Centauri, and the Southern Cross—they were foreign to the northern sky he’d grown up with.
“You know,” he said. “I assume since Russians have a sense of humor, you possess other feelings as well. We’ve been so busy trying to find this bomb that we’ve never stopped to check and see how you’re doing.”
“How do you mean?” Aleksandra looked up at him. “I am fine.”
“It’s difficult enough to lose a fellow agent.” Jericho shrugged. “But I can see you and Mikhail were very close.
Losing someone like that is especially painful.”
“He was married, you know,” Aleksandra said, her voice low and reverent. “He had a lovely wife, Irina, and two beautiful daughters.”
An awkward silence fell around the fire, but for the uneasy squeak and shift of camp chairs and the distant sound of engine noise.
“We were not lovers,” she went on, now staring a thousand yards past the fire, into the black desert night. “Though most suspected so, even our superiors. No, my Misha was very much in love with his wife. He was my trainer, my mentor, and oftentimes my surrogate father when I had no one else to trust. But most of all, he was my friend.” A tear ran down Aleksandra’s cheek. She rubbed her nose with her sleeve. “I have had many lovers—but I have only ever had one friend.”
Bo looked around the group with glassy eyes, his chest heaving. Quinn knew his brother could be argumentative, but his emotions ran bright, just below the surface. The younger Quinn sniffed and raised the bottle of rum.
“To Mikhail Ivanovich Polzin, Agent Riley Cooper, and too many other good friends we’ve all lost to bloody men.” He took a drink, then tipped the bottle, letting it run for a moment into the sand. “And to tomorrow, when we find that damned bomb.”
CHAPTER 43
“Daudov has disappeared.” Monagas slipped a Walther .22 caliber pistol with a stubby suppressor in the waistband of his pants. Nearly worthless in a true gunfight, the tiny thing was meant for close work where stealth was the key. Within the close and crowded confines of the bivouac, it was perfect.
“No sign at all?” Zamora mused. “My mind is muddled. We’ve killed so many, maybe we are just running out of Chechens.”
“No,” Monagas said. “He and anyone we know connected with him have simply vanished.”
Zamora threw a hand over his face. He lay alone in his bunk, wearing nothing but an open red dressing gown of rich silk on Egyptian cotton sheets that draped decadently over the edge. He’d grown bored with the gap-toothed twins and sent them to sleep in their own tent. The episode with Blessington and the Chechen had left him fitful and unable to concentrate. Still, in the crowds where he ran, it didn’t do to show a shred of weakness, even among friends.
Monagas stood across from him at the door to the motor home, waiting for orders.
Zamora looked up. “I would consider it a personal favor if you were to find Rustam Daudov and cut out his heart.”
“I will find him then.” Monagas turned to go.
“It is far too probable, my friend, that Daudov has found out our secret and is already en route to Bolivia.” Zamora pursed his lips. He was hesitant to voice his thoughts for fear that they would come true. “Far too many know about the camp,” he said. “My father’s pilots could easily be bought. I know—I bought them. I should have had them killed them long ago.”
Monagas put a hand on the doorknob. “The mechanic is still working outside. He will call me if he sees anyone.”
“You’re certain he had no part in Fabian’s betrayal?”
Monagas nodded. “He saw what happened to his partner.”
“Very well then. Do your best to find the Chechen dog. But I fear he has already flown.” Zamora made a fluttering gesture with his hand. “And that means my dream of finishing the Dakar has flown as well.”
“But you have other dreams, patrón,” Monagas said.
A thin smile perked Zamora’s lips.
“Indeed I do,” he said.
CHAPTER 44
Quinn and Aleksandra walked back to the bivouac together, keeping up the appearance of a couple. Each carried a folded camp chair over their shoulder. Bo had stayed back a few minutes longer to make sure the fire was out. Jacques hung back as well, using the satellite phone to call his wife in private.
In anticipation of an early start, most riders had already hit the rack, but Jericho’s mind raced. Instinct, sixth sense, haragei—Japanese art of the belly—however it was described, he’d learned long before to pay attention to such things.
“I am sorry for that display back there,” Aleksandra said. “I won’t let it happen again.”
“It was good,” Quinn said. “I don’t often see my baby brother get choked up like that.”
“You are very different, the two of you,” she said.
Jericho shook his head, chuckling. “You have no idea.”
“And yet . . .” She stopped to look at him under the light of the tire repair awning. The clank of wrenches and thump of rubber rims went on all night. “And yet you are very much the same.”
“I suppose.” Quinn walked on. Boaz Quinn was good deep down, but he’d chosen a very different path in his life.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Aleksandra said, looking back and forth to make certain no one else was in earshot. “In most—”
She stopped abruptly as Julian Monagas passed. The crooked-nosed thug forced his pockmarked face into a twisted half smile. He raised his hand in a noncommittal wave as he went by.
Beside him, Quinn felt Aleksandra’s body go tense, as if all the air around her was suddenly drawn away. She spun, staring daggers at the broad back of a departing thug.
“What is it?” Quinn stared down at her, feeling her hand go hot in his.
She stood stone still, not even breathing until Monagas turned the corner on the other side of the tire shop.
“Are you all right?” Quinn prodded.
“I am fine,” she said, shutting down again after all the emotional openness of the evening. She spun toward her tent. “I am very tired,” she said. “And you have an early morning.”
Inside her tent, Aleksandra knelt on her sleeping mat and rifled through her bag for the long dagger she kept at the bottom. She held her hand out in front of her. Even in the shadows of her tent, she could see it trembling.
The bastard Monagas was wearing Mikhail’s double eagle ring. It had been him in the men’s room stall at the strip club. He had killed the Chechen pig Akhmad Umarov. A tear of frustration crossed the freckles of her cheek. He had murdered her friend.
Aleksandra knew she should tell Quinn what she knew. If Monagas had killed Mikhail, then he and Zamora had been present when Baba Yaga was taken. There was no more doubt that they had her. She told herself that it didn’t matter. They were watching Zamora anyway. If Quinn started to doubt, then she would tell him. If she told him her plan for Monagas now, he would try and stop her.
“I will make him pay, Misha,” she whispered, huge tears dripping from the end of her nose and landing with loud plops on her sleeping bag. Chiding herself for such rampant emotion, she sniffed, wiping her nose with the heel of her hand.
She stuffed the dagger under her belt at the small of her back and press checked her H&K one last time, reassuring herself that there was a round in the chamber. Satisfied that she was ready to wreak havoc on the murderous thug with the flat nose and crooked lip, she listened until she heard the sound of Quinn’s rhythmic breathing coming from the tent beside her. She only had to wait a few moments for a scooter to buzz past and used the sound to cover the noise as she unzipped her tent and crept into the night.
CHAPTER 45
Marie woke from a fitful sleep to the sensation of breathing on her neck. Even her nightmares were welcome relief from her actual circumstances, and she clenched her eyes shut, afraid to open them until she heard the familiar sound of Simon’s cooing.
Pete sagged in the recliner, snoring loudly with a leg thrown over one arm of the chair. Lourdes was in the back bedroom. The buzz of her voice carried down the hall as she talked to her foul boyfriend on the computer.
Simon cooed again in her ear.
Fully awake now, she wiped the grit out of her eyes and licked dry lips. She needed some water but didn’t want to risk waking Pete.
“What have you got there?” she whispered, looking down at Simon’s hand. Her heart stopped in her chest when she realized what it was.
He must have wandered over to Pete’s chair while they
were both asleep and picked up his cell phone.
Marie tugged on the phone, her brain spinning as she tried to figure out what to do. She could call the police but didn’t know where she was. Worse, on the outside chance that someone was able to find them, such a thing would surely get Matt killed.
Simon started to whimper. Fearful of waking Pete, she abandoned trying to take the phone for a moment while she thought. Matt might have something planned already. He was smart that way. Whatever she did, it had to involve him. But how?
“Hooray for Simon,” Marie whispered, praising him for getting the phone. Pete was no more than fifteen feet away so she kept her voice to a quiet hum. Every move she made seemed as loud as banging a string of metal cans. “Can Mama see?” She held out her hand for the phone. Mercifully, the baby gave it to her. “Hooray for Simon,” she whispered again.
Thankfully, Pete had not opted for a screen lock and she was able to access the camera with no problem. She turned the phone around and took a photograph of herself and Simon leaning against the wall.
Lourdes’s heavy footfalls pounded down the hall and Marie shoved the phone under her thigh. Pete stirred but didn’t wake up. Marie did not breathe until she heard the bathroom door shut, followed by the sound of Lourdes peeing.
Fingers trembling, Marie punched in the number she’d decided on and sent the photograph attached to a text message. As soon as it sent, she deleted the evidence of both text and photograph.
The toilet flushed an instant before Marie slid the phone across the floor below Pete’s dangling leg.
Lourdes stomped into the living room just an instant after Marie had tiptoed back across the room and collapsed on her lumpy mattress beside Simon. The horrible woman got herself a glass of water from the kitchen and stood wearing nothing but black panties and a T-shirt. One hand on a thick hip, she glared down at Marie while she downed the water in one long gulping swallow.
