State of Emergency

by Marc Cameron

  CHAPTER 60

  Gunfire pinged off the heavy generator as Quinn slid in beside Thibodaux. The big Cajun turned too late as one of the bullets cut a fuel line, spraying him in the face with a slurry of metal shards and diesel fuel.

  “Son of a bitch!” he yelled, wiping a forearm across his face.

  Quinn felt a wave of dread tighten in his throat. Fighters learned to protect their eyes at all costs. A wound in the arm or leg was preferable to being blind in battle.

  “How bad?” Quinn said, throwing a double tap into the sweating face of a man with a red beard and naked upper lip who crept toward them on his belly.

  “Bad, l’ami,” Thibodaux spat. “My right eye is toast.”

  Another series of shots popped amid the undergrowth. A moment later Daudov staggered out, bleeding from a wound to his throat. A fusillade from Borregos’s men finished him off. Quinn was about to fire but caught a glimpse of Aleksandra ghosting through the thick vines.

  An eerie silence settled in over the jungle camp immediately after the Chechen leader’s body slumped to the ground. Pistol in both hands, Quinn scanned the tree line while he worked to slow his breathing. He looked at Bo, who gave him a weak thumbs-up with his gun hand.

  Thibodaux scanned the jungle with his good eye. “Two rounds and one peeper left, l’ami,” he said. “Afraid I’m not much help to you.”

  “We want the professor,” a voice yelled from the jungle shadows. “We have no fight with you.”

  Quinn looked at Pollard, who held a small notebook at waist level.

  “I’m coming out,” Pollard yelled. He dropped the notebook to the dirt at his feet, then looked at Quinn. “They’ll kill us all if I don’t go with them. Your friend needs a doctor. Please, save my wife. She doesn’t deserve this.” Raising his hands, he walked like a condemned man to disappear into the jungle with Borregos and his men.

  Aleksandra bolted from the trees a moment later and ducked behind the generator. “You should have shot him,” she hissed. “They need him to detonate the bomb. I am empty or I would have done it myself.” She held up her H & K, slide locked to the rear. Her eyes flew wide when she saw Bo.

  “What happened?”

  “Chechen bullet,” Quinn said, frowning. “Where did you go?”

  “I wounded Zamora,” she said. “He fell in the river and drifted away. I’ve been picking off his men one by one.”

  “And Monagas?” Quinn asked.

  “I’m not certain,” she said. “He went down, but I could not find the body.”

  “No time to look now,” Quinn said. “We have to get our wounded back to town.”

  Bo shook his head. “You can’t just let the bomb get away from you.”

  “I know,” Quinn said. “I’m working on that.”

  The Indian girl Pollard had been holding suddenly stirred.

  “Please,” she said, her voice a rasping whimper. In the aftermath of all the shooting, it was difficult to hear anything.

  Still unconvinced Borregos meant to keep his word, Quinn ducked as he sprinted to the girl and dragged her behind the overturned table. He relaxed a hair when no one tried to shoot him.

  “I had to pretend to be dead,” she whispered, “or I don’t think Dr. Matt would have left me.”

  Quinn found that she wasn’t far off from her pretense. Three bullets had torn into her side, shattering ribs and narrowly missing her heart. Her chest rattled as she struggled for breath. Dirt and leaves covered a grisly exit wound that had torn away most of her right shoulder blade. She didn’t have long.

  “Zamora has another camp,” she whispered through cracked lips. “A coca plant with an airstrip.” She coughed. “Promise to help Professor Matt and I will tell you where it is. . . .”

  Quinn bit his lip.

  “Of course,” he said, leaning in so he could hear the girl’s instructions over the incessant ringing in his ears.

  The flat roar of a boat engine carried in from the river. Baba Yaga was already moving.

  CHAPTER 61

  Marie held her hands over her baby’s ears to shield him from the horrible woman’s rant. Even Pete’s perpetual scowl had fallen into a twitching frown of nervous puzzlement at the latest volcanic eruption.

  “This is not like him.” Lourdes tromped back and forth in the living room, spinning at each corner to turn and stare accusingly at Marie and Pete in turn. “He always calls me back. It is not like him at all.” Tears welled in her black eyes. Her lips quivered like a frightened little girl’s. Wheeling, she looked down at Marie, her words gushing out in a fountain of emotion. “He knows what his calls mean to me. Why would he do such a thing? Do you think something has happened to him?”

  Marie relaxed her hold on Simon, letting him squirm around to face her. She didn’t know what to say. One minute this woman was threatening to kill her and eat her baby, the next she wanted to confide her innermost fears.

  Lourdes buried her face in her hands. “Why won’t you call me, Valentine?” she sobbed in frustration.

  Marie suddenly realized that if something had happened to Zamora, the same thing could have happened to Matt. Her chest tightened and for a moment she thought she might be having a heart attack. She’d heard of women her age whose hearts had just given out under severe stress—and heaven knew what she was going through qualified.

  As horrible as the woman was, there was something so genuine about the way Lourdes wept. Sadness was sadness, even in the heart of a madwoman.

  “Maybe he’s lost his phone,” Marie offered, attempting to console her. “Matt sometimes misplaces—”

  Lourdes’s head snapped up. Her bloodshot eyes seethed with anger. “You dare compare Valentine with your stupid excuse for a man! He cannot even protect his own family.” She spat on the floor to show her contempt. “I am surprised he was man enough to father your child—if the boy is even his.”

  Marie flew off the mattress in a rage.

  “You hateful bitch!” she screamed, clawing at Lourdes’s face. “Shut your mouth! My husband is twice the man your prissy little Valentine is.”

  Lourdes put a hand to ward her off, but not before Marie landed a wicked punch that split her bottom lip.

  Beyond furious, Marie kept punching and clawing, finally grabbing a handful of black bangs.

  All she could think of was killing the awful woman—beating her to death with whatever she could find.

  Pete pulled her off before she got another swing in. He gave her a hard backhand across the face to get her attention, then threw her brutally against the wall. She staggered, and then fell backward, landing on the mattress next to a screaming Simon.

  “Sit your ass down and stay there,” Pete said. He looked back and forth at the two women as if he didn’t know which one was crazier.

  Lourdes touched a finger to her split lip, licking away the blood. Her black eyes locked on Marie, who stared right back at her.

  A twisted smile crept slowly across the dark woman’s bleeding lips. “You surprise me,” she said, nodding in approval. “I had thought killing you would be a bore. I am so happy that you will at least fight back.” She held up her hand. “Wait, I want to show you something.” She disappeared down the hall to return a moment later with a length of stainless-steel chain. On each end was a gleaming steel hook.

  “If I do not hear from Valentine very, very soon, I am going to play a game.” Lourdes swung the chain in a tight circle in front of her face, causing the hooks to whir in the air. “Maybe I will play the first round with your little worm. . . .”

  CHAPTER 62

  Quinn estimated the cartel was no more than half an hour ahead of them with the bomb. There was no time to bury the dead, so he left them where they lay surrounded by a dark jungle that hummed and ticked with creatures that would close in and reclaim the bodies in a matter of hours.

  Quinn rigged a makeshift stretcher from a nylon tarp he found hanging near the overturned table. With the help of a half-blind Thibodaux, he was ab
le to get Bo back to the riverbank without reopening his wound. There was no time to waste formulating a sophisticated plan, so they boarded the boat without discussion. Aleksandra manned the tiller, pointing the boat downriver toward medical attention—and the bomb.

  Moving again, Quinn took the opportunity to pack more QuikClot gauze into Bo’s wound and apply an H bandage for direct pressure. He found a pen in Aleksandra’s daypack and noted the time on the tourniquet for medical staff.

  Thibodaux sat at the bow, keeping his good eye peeled for any sign of Zamora and Monagas, who were still unaccounted for. He’d rinsed his eye with two bottles of fresh water and though it seemed to help, the lid was still badly swollen and inflamed as if he’d rubbed it with sandpaper.

  “You’re going to have to leave us,” Bo said, looking up with sunken eyes. Blond hair matted to his forehead. His normally tan face was pale and drawn. “There’s a lot of traffic on the big river. We’ll be back in civilization in no time.”

  “I’ll stay with him, l’ami,” Thibodaux said without turning around. “I’m no good to you as a Cyclops, and you two have to catch up to the bomb.”

  Jericho shot a glance at Aleksandra, who nodded almost imperceptibly. A soft breeze, caused by the movement of the boat, jostled her hair.

  “My phone is dead,” she said. “I have no signal with which to track Monagas, even if he is with the bomb. We must rely on what the girl told you and hope for the best.”

  In a world accustomed to instant communication by radio, cellular, and satellite phone, going off the grid was like a slap in the face. There were few places on the planet where some sort of communication system would not get through. Much of the Himalayas had 3G service and satellite phones worked at least a few hours each day even at the earth’s extreme poles—but you had to have such a device. Batteries died, electronics broke or fell in the water.

  Sometimes all a man had to rely on was himself—Quinn looked up at Thibodaux, Bo, and Aleksandra—and, if he was fortunate, a capable friend.

  A family of fishermen was camped at the confluence and agreed to take Bo and Thibodaux back to Rurrenabaque immediately.

  Quinn gave Jacques the notepad with Pollard’s instructions about his wife and shook the big man’s hand.

  “Don’t you worry about Boaz,” the Cajun said. “I’ll look after him.”

  “I know you will,” Quinn said.

  Thibodaux shook his head with a squinting half frown.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “That’s Diego Borregos out there. Zamora sold the bomb to the Colombians?”

  “Looks that way,” Quinn said. “All the money they make with narcotics, they have enough of a bankroll. But I’m still trying to figure out where the Yemenis fit in.”

  The Cajun put a hand to his damaged eye, wincing. “Wish I was coming with you, Chair Force. I don’t trust the Russian to watch your back like I would. She’s crazy.”

  Quinn gave a tense chuckle, still watching his brother. “You say that about every woman we’ve ever met.”

  Thibodaux took a deep breath through his nose. “I know I do, and I stand by it. But this one is damaged-crazy. That goes clean to the bone.”

  “What did you talk about with Jacques?” Aleksandra said, once they were back on the water. Behind her, the little Nissan engine whined in protest as she opened the throttle as wide as it would go. Spray hissed and splashed from the wooden bow.

  Quinn smiled. “He told me not to trust you.”

  “Wise,” she said, scanning the river ahead as if her mind was elsewhere. “The children in my primary school used to tease me when I was very young—ryzhi krasni chelovek apasni. It means a redheaded person is dangerous.” She shrugged. “My mission is to retrieve Baba Yaga. If I have to sacrifice you, I will do so without pause.”

  “And if we see Monagas again?” Quinn asked. “Will you chase him without pause—even at the expense of finding the bomb?”

  Aleksandra frowned. “There were many people to shoot back there,” she said. “Monagas was just as deserving of a bullet as any of them.” She stopped, looking down at her boots for a long moment. “Still, I see your point. Such a thing will not happen again.”

  Quinn settled back against the gunnel, holding the backpack in his lap. He opened a water bottle and took his first drink in over an hour. It was warm, but it revitalized him almost immediately.

  He checked the Aquaracer on his wrist. “We’re making good time,” he said, happy to change the subject. “They’re loaded down with at least six men, not to mention the bomb. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch them before they leave the river.”

  “And then what?” Aleksandra sat stoically at the tiller, small shoulders hunched forward, red hair blowing in the wind.

  “Good question,” Quinn said, tapping the curved blade on his belt. “We’re a little light on ammo for a gunfight. Your H&K is out. I have two rounds left and Bo’s pistol has three.” They’d left Jacques with his pistol and two rounds in case Zamora had doubled back. Other than the weapons and scant ammunition, they had the pack, a bottle of water, and three cunape that they split between them. Over long periods of exposure, adrenaline and stress ate away at the body’s fuel reserves, sapping strength and draining brainpower. The starchy cheese biscuits gave a much-needed boost of energy.

  Quinn spotted the bow of the sunken boat two hours after they left Bo and Thibodaux with the fishermen. The point of the bow bobbed just inches above the surface, nearly hidden in the raft of branches and other deadfall caught in a shaded back eddy behind the stump of a fallen tree. Borregos’s men had thought to scuttle the vessel and hide their trail, but the river had other ideas.

  Quinn nodded downriver, actively ignoring the boat. Aleksandra ran past, slowing the little Nissan only when they were a hundred meters beyond the sunken vessel. Cranking the tiller hard over, she turned in a wide arc, slicing a deep V in the chocolate-brown water. Twenty meters out, Aleksandra killed the engine and let momentum carry them in. A startled caiman greeted them with a splash of his knotted tail as the boat nosed up against the muddy bank, groaning as it rubbed a submerged stone.

  Quinn stepped over the gunnel and onto the spongy bank. He carried the pack in his left hand but left the 1911 holstered, reasoning that if someone was going to shoot him, they’d have done it already.

  Beyond the sunken boat the bank was a trampled mess. Quinn found a square of mud about a yard long, and counted fifteen separate footprints. Splitting that number in half and rounding up, he estimated Borregos had eight men including himself. Two sets of boots had pressed more deeply into the mud. They would be carrying the weight of the bomb. He didn’t waste time trying to age the tracks. Even accounting for the time he’d spent talking to the dying Indian girl and then dropping off Bo and Jacques, the cartel couldn’t have been more than a half hour ahead.

  Aleksandra stood facing the humming wall of black jungle, her back to Quinn. Sweat darkened her khaki shirt along the spine. “Apologies do not come easy to my lips,” she said.

  Quinn checked to make certain his pistol was fastened in the holster, then slid Severance from the sheath at his belt. He said nothing.

  Aleksandra plowed ahead. “I should not have abandoned you to go after Monagas.”

  “You are correct there,” Quinn said, checking the bowknot connecting the boat to the gnarled root snaking out of the cutbank.

  “Perhaps your brother would not have been shot if I would have stayed.”

  “Or perhaps he would have,” Quinn said, knowing such after-action quarterbacking did little good.

  “Have you never had a friend you would kill for?”

  “I left two of them back there along the river,” Quinn said without hesitation. He looked west, shielding his eyes from the low, afternoon sun above an endless ocean of green forest canopy. “Now let’s focus on finding the bomb before they make it to the airstrip.”

  “Very well,” Aleksandra said. “If we move quickly we can catch them before nightfall.”<
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  “That should be easy enough.” Quinn turned, pushing aside a vine the size of his wrist with the tip of his blade. “It’s easy to move fast when you’re not weighed down with unnecessary things like ammunition.”

  CHAPTER 63

  Yazid Nazif swung his machete as if wielding a baseball bat. He’d never seen so much vegetation in his life and felt as if it was closing in around him. The intensity of the moist heat and droning hum in the surrounding trees caused his heart to pound out of control. He found it difficult to breathe, but consoled himself with the knowledge that he was at last in possession of Baba Yaga. Soon, all of the decadent West would bow to the white-hot power of a new al-Qaeda. He would be the leader of the most feared organization on earth—if Borregos didn’t kill him first. With Zamora gone, he realized that was a very distinct possibility.

  They walked in a single-file line, each man giving the next room to swing his own blade should he find it necessary to hack a vine or push a troublesome spiderweb out of the way. One of Borregos’s men was in front, doing the lion’s share of the work, followed by the cartel leader himself. Nazif was next in line with another two Yemenis behind him. The bearded professor stayed with the bomb, which was now carried by two of Borregos’s men farther back in the line. He was the only one who seemed unafraid of the thing. Everyone else kept a little distance away from the simple footlocker, as if a few feet would save them when such a bomb went off. A Yemeni and two Colombians brought up the rear.

  Strange and colorful birds flitted through the dark canopy of trees overhead, shrieking frightened warnings at the little parade. A troop of monkeys screamed from the shadows, pelting them with bits of wood. Here and there a snake coiled around a low-hanging branch like some sort of prop in an American horror film.

  A cloud of mosquitoes buzzed around Nazif’s face. Sweat rolled down this back.

  “Why do you not take the bomb for yourself?” the Yemeni suddenly asked, preferring to know his fate up front rather than fret over it. If Allah willed his death, there was nothing he could do about it.