Day Zero

by Marc Cameron

  Trapped between the bank and the shooters, Quinn crawled on his hands and knees toward the steering console. Bullets continued to stitch the side of the boat as he reached up and shoved the throttle all the way forward. The aluminum gunwales provided some concealment but no real cover, and he watched as dots of light appeared with each new bullet hole in thin metal. Mired in the shallows, the prop ground against a slurry of gravel and mud before Ukka gave the boat a mighty shove and pushed it away. With only Quinn and the salmon on board, the little skiff jumped forward, chewing up the distance to Rubio’s boat before he or his partner could adjust their aim.

  Rather than try to avoid them, Quinn held his course, bracing his shoulder against the aluminum pedestal as the bow took the other boat in a direct broadside, riding up to put Ukka’s skiff nearly vertical in the water. Metal shrieked and motors roared as both props cleared the surface.

  Rubio staggered to the side, arms flailing as he teetered against the forward rail. He was smart enough to let the MP7 fall against his sling, giving him both hands to hold on. Regaining his balance, Rubio launched himself over the bow and onto Ukka’s skiff like a boarding pirate. He brought the machine gun up as his rubber boots hit the slanted deck just forward of the steering post.

  Thrown forward by the crash, Quinn met the new arrival a half step in, surprising him with two quick shots to the chest from the .45. Rubio was wearing a vest, but the blunt force of two 230-grain slugs shattered his collarbone. He backpedaled instinctively in an attempt to get away from the pain, toppling over the bow rail into the waiting river.

  The rubber boots filled instantly, dragging him along with the current. Rather than relaxing to simply remove the waterlogged boots, the man thought he was strong enough to fight against the unbeatable current of the mighty Yukon. The boots acted as a sea-anchor, towing him sideways in the swift water. A frantic gurgle caught in his throat as the Yukon tugged his head below the surface.

  With Rubio no longer a threat, Quinn focused on the others in the skiff. Pistol up and ready, he chided himself for being so focused on the new airplane that he’d missed the threat right in front of him.

  Welded together in a sort of twisted tee, the two boats caught the current and began to spin downriver. A great gash had opened up along the front quarter of Ukka’s boat below the waterline. Gallons of brown water gushed through the ripped metal. Dead salmon bobbed in the rising brown water around Quinn’s boots.

  Stunned by the sudden death of his partner, the younger man regained his senses and sent a wild volley from the MP7. Quinn dove sideways, splashing to the relative safety behind a thick plastic tub full of drift net to avoid another string of fire. Frigid water rushed beneath his float coat, soaking him to the skin.

  Fortunately for Quinn, the younger agent fell victim to dependency on the machine gun and used spray-and-pray tactics. Quinn, with only eight rounds, had to be more judicious and actually aim.

  Peeking around the corner of the steering pedestal, he put two rounds in the youngster’s left shoulder, outside the vest. He knew his shots were on target, but as he’d expected, in the heat of the fight, the kid didn’t even know he was hit.

  Regaining his composure after the crash, the driver of the other boat threw his motor into reverse in an effort to free it from the rapidly sinking skiff. The yank of the larger vessel sent Quinn sliding backwards in a soup of fish, fuel, and river water. His shoulder slammed hard off the unforgiving aluminum transom, knocking the .45 from his grasp. The younger agent fell directly on top of him.

  Quinn was keenly aware of the MP7 wedged between them, digging into his ribs. It was sideways, for now, but the kid still had a good hold and worked feverishly to wrestle it away. The .45 was lost and useless somewhere under a foot of brown water.

  On his back and nearly submerged, Quinn felt a low growl grow in his belly. Quinn gave the kid a vicious head butt. The blow brought a torrent of blood, but failed to get him to release the grip on the gun. Fear and adrenaline caused the kid to kick into high gear, flinging himself into the fight. The head butt was no more than a stunning injury, but soon he’d feel the effects of blood loss from the bullet wounds in his shoulder. His face just inches above the water, Quinn wondered if it would be soon enough.

  Quinn’s legs trapped the young contractor’s body against his, heels hooked behind the small of the young man’s back. Snaking his left arm through the MP7’s sling, he jerked the kid in close. It constricted his movements, but wasn’t quite enough for a proper choke.

  Rising water lapped at Quinn’s ears, and he had to crane his neck to stay above the surface. In a matter of seconds, the river would be above his face and do the kid’s work for him.

  Quinn held what he had while his right hand searched desperately under the surface, shoving aside dead salmon and coils of gill net. The Severance was on his left side, useless for the moment. Now with just his nose above the water, his fingers wrapped around the wooden shaft of the harpoon just as the silhouette of the boat driver appeared on the bow above the younger shooter. Backlit by the gray clouds, he loomed above for a split second, MP7 in his hands. The man shouted something but water lapped around Quinn’s ears, making it impossible for him to make out the words.

  Quinn was vaguely aware of pistol shots, and at first thought the boat driver may have shot directly through his partner. Instead, the man toppled over the side and into the river.

  Way to go, Ukka, Quinn thought. Bucking his body upward to create the needed space, he drove the point of the harpoon through the young contractor’s ribs.

  The kid’s eyes flew wide as he tried to make sense of what was going on. Blood covered his teeth by the time Quinn had swiped the MP7 out of the way and dragged him sloshing onto the bow of the other boat. His rattling wheeze said the shaft of the spear had gone through the vest and pierced a lung. Quinn used his hand to try to seal the foaming wound as best he could. The bullet wounds on the opposite shoulder were not life threatening in and of themselves, but taken together, shock and additional loss of blood only sped up the inevitable brought on by the harpoon.

  “What’s your name?” Quinn asked, cradling the young man in his lap.

  “Lane . . .” The kid said, choking on his own words. He looked up, blinking terrified eyes. “We came to kill you . . . and you’re trying to save me?”

  “You’re too far gone to save.” Quinn gave a slow shake of his head. “But I’ll sit here with you while you die.”

  “Thank you . . .” His face tensed at a sudden shot of pain. Tears welled in his eyes. Quinn had seen many men die and often thought how they looked like little boys the nearer they got to that moment.

  Lane’s pulse grew faster as he fell deeper into shock. More blood oozed from the wound around the shaft of the harpoon. Quinn leaned in so the kid could hear and understand him. “How many on the plane?”

  Lane swallowed. He didn’t have long. “Five, counting the pilot, I think. . . .” His body began to shake uncontrollably. “They’re . . . picking us up.” A wave of pain brought on a twisted grimace. His words came in short, panting breaths. “This . . . is so . . . wrong. . . .” The boy gave a rattling cough, and then fell slack in Quinn’s arms. Pale blue eyes stared up blankly at the mist.

  Ukka had commandeered his cousin’s battered skiff and now motored up alongside the two wrecked boats. He sat on an ice chest at the stern, working the tiller to keep the boat steady in the current. Quinn pulled the earpiece out of the dead kid’s ear and took the radio off his belt. He grabbed the MP7, checked the chamber, and then slung it around his neck.

  Ukka held up his hand. “Don’t forget the harpoon. It was my grandfather’s.”

  Quinn looked back over his shoulder at the dead contractor. “The barb’s going to make it tough to pull out.”

  “He can keep that for his trouble,” Ukka said, frowning. These men had attacked his village and he felt no sorrow for them. “It comes off anyhow. I can make a new one.” Quinn gave the harpoon a quick yank, fre
eing it from the body, and hopped over the gunwale and onto the deck of Ukka’s new ride.

  The big Eskimo threw the boat in reverse, and then turned to take it upstream, free of the drifting wreckage of the other two vessels. “You know the plane that just landed is full of another hit team,” he said, once Quinn was on board.

  “No doubt,” Quinn said. “The kid told me five more.”

  Ukka’s lower jaw pushed forward and stayed there, the way it did when he was angry. “We need to haul ass up to the village. That first bunch didn’t care much who they shot—and my family is back there.”

  “I appreciate your help.” Quinn nodded, shaking his head. “Seriously, James, I am sorry about bringing these guys down on your family.”

  Ukka pushed the throttle forward, bringing the boat up on step. He pointed it toward the bank a half a mile downriver, well below the fish processing plant where they would be closer to his house. “I ever tell you about the time I left my good friend out to die on the tundra?” He raised his voice to be heard over the drone of the motor.

  “No,” Quinn answered. “I have to admit, you’ve skipped that story.”

  “That’s because I don’t do stuff like that.” Ukka twisted the throttle and laid on the gas.

  Inside the pocket of Quinn’s float coat, safely wrapped in a plastic Baggie and barely audible above the sounds of wind, water, and the outboard engine, his phone began to chirp.

  Far from anything close to a “smart phone,” the little Hershey Bar–size device was a prepaid “burner.” It was difficult, but not entirely impossible, to trace, given the right set of circumstances. In the five months since he’d had the phone, Quinn had received a grand total of three incoming calls. Considering the fact that men were trying to kill him at that very moment, the timing of this fourth call was no coincidence.

  Chapter 3

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  McCarran International Airport

  Tang Dalu stood outside the security zone and watched his wife work her way toward security screening with the snaking queue of passengers. The Chinese man was thirty-nine years old and dressed for travel in gray cotton slacks and a short-sleeve white button-up shirt. He was short enough that he had to stand on tiptoe in order to keep an eye on his wife. Her name was Lin. They had been married for eleven years—long enough for him to know, even from nearly a hundred feet away, that she was crying.

  Hers was a silent, anguished cry, manifested only by glistening red eyes that seemed ever on the verge of tears—and the periodic shudder of frail shoulders.

  Tang had wept too, in the beginning, great choking sobs that wracked his chest and threatened to detach his lungs from his throat.

  He could not eat. He could not sleep. He could not bring himself to touch his wife. The sadness was too much to bear. At first, he’d thought he might die. Then he’d watched the light vanish from his wife’s wide brown eyes and he feared he might have to live forever to witness her despair. She’d depended on him, on his position—and he had let her down.

  Allah, it turned out, was not nearly as merciful as he had once supposed.

  Only the man from Pakistan had saved him. Lin had never been devout, but she had listened to the man’s message and he had saved her as well. In her misery she did not seem to care.

  Tang craned his head as he watched her move to the front of the line. He could feel his jaw tighten as a TSA agent ordered her forward with a dismissive flick of his fingers. All around her other agents barked orders at passengers to remove their shoes and empty their pockets. Keep it moving, slow down, stop right there, step forward, quickly, slower, this not that.

  Do it my way.

  Bewildered or just plain numb, passengers plodded along like sheep. If they wished to fly there was no alternative but to submit to the will of the officious security agents who squawked and scolded like so many angry blue jays, steadfast in their own moral superiority. Such power always brought oppression—and under oppression the weak had no choice but to give in to despair or fight back. The man from Pakistan had taught him that.

  Though Tang had been born to Hui Chinese parents and raised under the tenets of Islam, he had never heard of Ramzi Yousef. The man from Pakistan had explained that in 1994 Yousef had smuggled nitroglycerin and other components on board a Philippines Airline flight from Manila to Tokyo. Using a simple Casio watch as his timer, he’d assembled his bomb in the bathroom while in flight. He’d placed the bomb under a seat in the life vest compartment and then gotten off the plane in Cebu. The device had exploded on the way to Tokyo, blowing a Japanese sewing machine maker in half and ripping a hole in the floor. Security technology had progressed since then, but as the man from Pakistan explained, so had the technology of making bombs.

  Tang felt the knot in his stomach grow as Lin put her camera bag on the X-ray conveyor. To her right, in an adjacent line, a red-faced passenger began to argue with his TSA overlord about a water bottle filled with vodka.

  Most of the security staff on scene converged around the sputtering drunk, leaving Lin to pass through the scanners without a hitch. Relief washed over Tang as she retrieved her camera bag from the belt on the other side of the X-ray. She turned to wave, a hollow look of resignation weighing heavily on her sallow face.

  The detonator was in.

  Chapter 4

  Alaska

  Quinn pressed the phone tight against his ear, straining to hear over the wind and roaring motor.

  “Hello,” he shouted.

  “ ‘Mariposa’ hasn’t called in.” The caller started right in without introduction—par for Quinn’s former boss, even though he hadn’t spoken a word to the man in two months. There was a tense note of despair in the man’s voice that Quinn had never heard before.

  It was Winfield Palmer, national security advisor to the recently assassinated president, Chris Clark. A West Point alumni and confidante of Clark, Palmer had served with him in various posts from their military academy days, including director of national security and then national security advisor. As such, he’d recruited Quinn as a blunt instrument, a sort of hammer to be employed when more diplomatic or traditional means failed.

  Now, under the new administration, Palmer was unemployed and followed everywhere he went.

  Living under constant surveillance, he had resorted to layers of security with his communication—proxy servers, shadow e-mail accounts, remote log-in to computers located in various safe-sites around the world, burner phones—and, of course, code. Mariposa, the Spanish word for butterfly, was the code name he’d chosen for Emiko Miyagi, Quinn’s martial arts instructor and friend. The name signified something beautiful and delicate. Miyagi was one, but certainly not the other.

  “How long has it been?” Quinn asked.

  “Five days,” Palmer said, uncharacteristically silent.

  Both Quinn and Palmer knew Miyagi was 115 pounds of highly skilled badass warrior woman. Quinn, a more than talented fighter himself, had tasted defeat at her hands each and every time they had sparred. If she hadn’t made contact in five days, she was in serious trouble.

  “Maybe she’s close to something?” Quinn offered.

  “Maybe,” Palmer said, hollow, unconvinced. “She gave me a name last time we spoke. I have ‘Sonja’ looking into it now.”

  “That’s good,” Quinn said, nodding to himself. “She still has resources.” “Sonja” was Palmer’s code name for CIA agent Veronica “Ronnie” Garcia. Apart from hair color, the buxom, sword-wielding fantasy heroine Red Sonja was a perfect ringer for Garcia—who also happened to be Quinn’s girlfriend. At least she had been, before he’d dropped off the grid. Quinn was smart enough to know that girlfriends needed care and feeding—and he’d been around to do neither for nearly half a year.

  “Maybe she can get us something to go on,” Palmer said. “I don’t mind telling you, though, I’m worried.”

  Behind Quinn in the boat, Ukka shouted from his position at the tiller. “Nearly there!”


  Quinn gave the Eskimo a thumbs-up to show he understood, and then turned back to the phone. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Things are heating up out here.”

  “Anything that I can do?” Palmer said, more out of habit from the old days than any ability to actually help. Even with his little ad hoc resistance movement, as a private citizen in suburban Virginia, there was nothing he could offer Quinn in Alaska beyond good wishes.

  “No,” Quinn said, careful to not to use military trigger words like negative and affirmative that might trigger closer scrutiny from the NSA. “Looks like I’m burned, though. They’ve sent what looks to be contractors.”

  “Contractors?” Palmer said. “That’s not good.”

  “Yeah, well,” Quinn said, “they’re three down from when they started. Watch yourself. Looks like the gloves are off.” Quinn ended the call. He made certain the phone was on silent—a ringtone at the wrong moment could get him killed.

  Twenty meters away, Ukka took the skiff out into the current to make a wide turn back toward the bank. The white crosses in the cemetery on Azochorak Hill ghosted in and out of the fog above them. They were coming in downriver, about a quarter mile from the village proper. Quinn traded his float coat for a more neutrally colored Helly Hansen raincoat he’d found in the borrowed skiff. The jacket was tattered and stunk of fish and mildew, but its olive green would be far less noticeable against scrub willow or even the open tundra. He slung the MP7 over his shoulder and stuffed the cell phone and the dead man’s radio in the pockets of the raincoat. He stood at the rail, ready to jump and run as soon as the bow touched gravel.

  Cut, broken, and bruised to the point he could barely walk, let alone run, Quinn had come to Mountain Village one step ahead of US authorities. The marshals had taken him off their Top Fifteen wanted list for all of about ten minutes, until someone in the new presidential administration had caught wind of it and insisted he be made a priority. Thankfully, a deputy named August Bowen, an acquaintance of his from his boxing career at the Air Force Academy, had been assigned the case. Bowen had been in Japan and knew much of the truth about Quinn, so he dragged his feet as best he could. Still, Top Fifteens were worked by many hands. Quinn had to keep his wits about him to keep from getting captured—which under the present administration would surely mean a speedy trial and quick backroom execution.