Day Zero

by Marc Cameron

  She gave him a tight chuckle. “Relax, Bobby. You act like you’re sending me on some suicide mission.”

  Jeffery opened his mouth to speak. Then, thinking better of it, he turned back to his office door.

  Ronnie Garcia’s cubicle was located in the OHB, or Old Headquarters Building, on the grounds of the George Bush Center for Intelligence. It was the iconic CIA building, made famous in movies and spy books with its huge seal of eagle, shield, and compass on the granite floor, portraits of past directors, and the memorial wall to fallen agents. Having patrolled these halls for years as a uniformed CIA security police officer, Garcia was intimately familiar with every inch of the entire campus. A relatively fast-rising star only months before, she was still low on the general pecking order when it came to seniority in the Clandestine Service and had to park in the hinterlands of the sprawling, mall-like parking lot to the north of the OHB. It was interesting to her that the closer spots were already vacant and the farther she walked—out to where the worker bees parked—the more cars were still in the lot.

  She walked fast, low heels clicking on the warm pavement, but not so fast that she would look like she was fleeing the scene of a crime.

  It was hot for June, not as humid as it would get later in the summer, but plenty uncomfortable for a girl who had to wear a jacket because of her firearm. Still, it was better than the uniform and ballistic vest she had to wear in her previous job. She pushed the auto-start button on her key fob. A half block away, wedged between a Lexus sedan and a beater Subaru, her black Impala flashed, and then roared to life.

  “That’s pretty smart,” a male voice said from behind her. “Start it from a distance to check for an explosive device.”

  Ronnie turned to see a man she didn’t recognize leaning against the hood of a dark blue Jeep Cherokee. He was tall, thick boned enough that he might have played college ball three decades before when he’d been in college.

  “My mechanic told me it’s good for the engine to let it run,” she said, looking the man up and down. She didn’t recognize him. And while she didn’t know everyone at Langley, years in uniform at her previous job made her aware of most of faces that belonged.

  “Still pretty smart,” the man said. “Unless someone rigs a tremble switch or pressure device under your seat—or, heaven forbid, has a radio detonator—”

  He looked tall, even lounging against the Jeep—Ronnie guessed around six-four. He wore a gray off-the-rack suit that was rumpled as if he’d lived in it for three days in a row, but his shoes were polished to a high, military gloss. Dark Oakley Half Jacket shades perched on top of dirty blond hair that was long enough to be tousled by the breeze.

  Ronnie gave him a suit-yourself shrug and walked on toward her car. It was broad daylight and she had been through enough violent confrontations that it took more than some creepy guy in a bad suit to scare her. Still, she was realistic and felt happy to feel the tiny Kahr under her jacket. A violent encounter wasn’t out of the question, even in the CIA parking lot.

  “Miss Garcia,” the man said when she’d made it two steps past, “I wonder if I could have a word.”

  Ronnie spun, staring him down.

  “How do you know my name?”

  He pushed away from the Jeep and held up a black leather credential case, open to reveal a frowning photo of him wearing what looked to be the same wrinkled suit.

  “Glen Walter,” he said. “Internal Defense.” Ronnie caught the shadow of a sidearm on his right hip inside the suit jacket when he returned the credential case to his breast pocket. He smiled. “I actually came here to see you.”

  Ronnie checked her watch, swallowing back the surprise that this man had known exactly where she parked and when she would be walking to her car. He was IDTF all right. “Well, Mr. Walters, it’s after five. You caught me on my way home.”

  “It’s Walter,” the man said. “No s.”

  “Whatever.” Ronnie shrugged again. “Anyway, I’m on my way home. This is a weird time for a meeting.”

  “I suppose,” Walter said, his face holding a crooked half smile. “But it’s important to take care of some things right when they come up. Don’t you think?”

  There was a decided hint of the South in his voice. Maybe one of the Carolinas, Ronnie thought. He had an overly sweet way of talking that seemed calculated to put her off balance.

  “Okay . . .” She half expected him to pull out a silenced pistol and try to assassinate her. “How about you get to the point then,” she said, not one to dance around a matter for any length of time. “Because I’ve had a long crappy day.”

  “Sure.” Walter shrugged, leaning sideways on the Jeep again and folding his hands. “I can appreciate that. How about I save us both a lot of time and tell you how this will go. I’m going to ask you a couple of very specific questions—for the record. I’m pretty sure you’ll refuse to answer them, or, if you do, your answers will be a pack of lies. After you lie to my face, I’ll read you a short statement from the Espionage Act, you know, 18 USC Title—”

  “I’m familiar with the Espionage Act,” Garcia said. Smugness was a quality she could not abide, even for a minute, from a man with the authority to arrest her on the spot.

  “I’ll just bet you are,” Walter said. “Anywaaaay . . .” He drew the word out as if to chastise her for the interruption. “After I admonish you about your responsibility regarding the act, I’ll ask you those same little questions one more time. You’ll look me right in the eye and lie . . . again.” He gave a halfhearted shrug, still leaning against the Jeep. “And we’ll be right back to where we—”

  “Maldita sea!” Ronnie cut him off with her go-to Cuban curse before she lost all semblance of self-control. “Look, Mr. Walters, if this is about Jericho Quinn, I’ve already told investigators from the US Marshals and the FBI everything I know.”

  “It’s Walter, no s,” he said. “And just like I predicted, there comes your first lie.”

  “We are done here.” Ronnie turned to walk to her car.

  “We may be done here, Miss Garcia,” Walter said, again much too smugly for Ronnie. “But we’re not done. I wouldn’t be leaving town anytime soon.”

  Ronnie spun. “I don’t know what it is you think you know—”

  “That’s true.” Walter smiled his half smile, cutting her off. “You don’t know what I know. Anyway, as you said, we’re done here.”

  Agent Walter stood up from the Jeep. He gave a flip of his hand, as if he was bored with the conversation, and summoned a black Town Car that had been waiting down the aisle. A moment later, he was gone, leaving Garcia standing alone in the parking lot under a hot evening sun, wondering how much this guy did know about what she was doing for Jericho Quinn.

  Chapter 9

  Alaska

  Quinn was moving before the scream trailed away into a mournful, gurgling cough. He stepped over Proctor’s lifeless body and shoved the front door open at the same instant Ukka charged in from the back hallway.

  Both men stopped in their tracks at what they saw.

  A squat contractor with dark curly hair lay on his back, glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling. The dead might leak, but they didn’t bleed very long, and the growing pool of blood on the living room floor revealed he’d not been dead more than a few seconds. Ukka’s wife, Christina, stood over him, a bloody skinning knife in her hand. A broken piece of what looked like ivory or bone, about the size of a child’s baseball bat, lay on the ground beside the man’s demolished skull. It was an oosik, the penis bone of a walrus, often found as decoration in Alaska homes. Christina had evidently used it to cave in the face of her attacker before grabbing a skinning knife off the table and virtually gutting him.

  The mournful scream Quinn heard had been that of the dying man.

  Ukka put a big arm around his wife and gently took the knife out of her hand.

  “You okay?”

  “I smacked him in the face with the oosik,” Christina said, small shoulders
trembling. She looked up at him weakly, fighting shock.

  “I know you did, sweetheart,” Ukka said, shooting a glance at Quinn. “He was a bad man. You did the right thing.”

  Fico’s sidearm lay on the ground beside him. He was too far gone to lift it, but Quinn kicked it out of the way just in case.

  A strained voice crackled over the radio. It was Perkins, one of the men who’d gone to scout the river.

  “How about a SITREP up there?”

  Quinn started to answer, but decided against it, listening instead.

  “Proctor!” the voice called again. “What’s going on? We heard shots.”

  There was a long pause, followed by another voice, presumably the pilot, letting them know he was coming to their location, down by the fishery plant. The man called Perkins cut him off, ordering radio silence.

  Quinn sighed. It was too late for that. He had what he needed to know.

  Ukka’s cell phone began to ring. He listened for a few moments, a smile spreading over his wide face as he ended the call.

  “Chantelle says there’s nobody left to guard the plane.”

  Quinn checked the magazine on the MP7 while he thought. “I don’t think these guys are actually affiliated with any specific agency. None of them have badges or any kind of credential—but they still have the backing of the government. If any of them make it out of here, he’ll come back with reinforcements and slaughter the whole village. It won’t matter to them that I’m not here.”

  Ukka’s daughter Kaylee had ignored the direction to go to her auntie’s house. Unable to leave with the sound of the scream, she’d come in behind Quinn and now sat on the couch, helping to console her mother.

  Ukka pulled Quinn to the side so his wife and youngest daughter couldn’t hear. “It’s all good, man,” he said. “I had Chantelle do some work on the plane. If they try and make a run for it, they’ll never get off the ground. If we take care of them somewhere else, she’ll torch the plane at the end of the runway.” He waved his hand as if saying good-bye. “No one’s getting back to call in the cavalry.”

  “That might work,” Quinn said, glancing at the couch. He nodded at the two women in the room. “Christina should probably see a doctor. And Kaylee might need a counselor after what these guys just put her through.”

  “All my girls are tundra tough.” Ukka gave a solemn nod. “But you’re right. This is a lot to process. I’m proud of Christina, though. Not a good idea to cross an Eskimo woman when she’s protecting her home.”

  “Or any woman,” Quinn said, thinking of his ex-wife and of Ronnie Garcia, wondering what they would do in such a situation.

  “Maybe,” Ukka said. “But most women don’t know their way around a skinning knife like my wife does.” He grinned. “Or a walrus pecker . . .”

  “That’s so wrong,” Quinn sighed. He let the MP7 fall against the sling at his chest and lifted the curtain to peer out the window at the vacant dirt street in front of the Perry house. “We better get going,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and Alaska will kill these guys.”

  Chapter 10

  The White House

  The new president was a single man and, as such, had no one to push for the redecoration of the White House. Apart from a new leather desk chair and a couple of paintings staffers had spirited away from the National Gallery, the Oval Office was exactly as it had been under President Clark. Greens and whites ruled the day, as did paintings of Teddy Roosevelt and expansive Western scenes by the likes of George Catlin and John Mix Stanley. The former first lady had left everything behind, including the oppressive ghost of her dead husband that seemed to whisper in the halls to West Wing staffers that something was not quite right in the house.

  Now, sprawling over the Oval Office furniture like the stain that he was, President Hartman Drake didn’t help matters at all.

  McKeon stood adjacent to the President against the wall, next to the Remington Rough Rider bronze. He used long, slender fingers to rub exhausted eyes as he tried to clear the image of this idiot out of his mind.

  Drake sat with his feet propped up on the Resolute Desk, leaning back in a plush button-leather chair. He cradled his head in his hands as if he owned the world—which, in fact, he did. His trademark bowtie, this one a conservative red-and-black stripe, hung open. His collar was still buttoned, as if everyone at the meeting had surprised him in the middle of changing clothes.

  Across the room, Kurt Bodington, the director of the FBI, sat on one of the green sofas. He leaned forward with his elbows on both knees as if he was on the toilet rather than sitting in the Oval Office. Virginia Ross, the director of the CIA, sat beside him. Her ankles were crossed, her hands rested in her lap, like she was posing for a photo. More pear than hourglass, she’d recently lost a considerable amount of weight and wore clothes that were a size too large. The lacy cuffs of a white blouse hung from the sleeves of a voluminous blue suit that had once strained to keep her contained.

  It had been obvious from the time McKeon and Drake took office that neither of these directors was particularly effective in their respective positions. And that was the only reason they were still in place.

  A Japanese woman stood on the other side of the door from McKeon, hands folded at her lap. Her name was Ran. Japanese for orchid, it was pronounced to rhyme with the American name Ron but with a hard r, making it sound more like Lon or Don. In her early twenties, she had flawlessly smooth skin and a quiet presence that reached out into the room, touching anyone who dared look in her direction. She wore a cream-colored long sleeve blouse, unbuttoned enough to reveal the edge of a dark tattoo at her breast. McKeon knew firsthand that there were many more tattoos where that one came from. Director Bodington had unwisely attempted to shake her hand when he’d come in, but Ross had veered away from her as if she were poison—which was not far off. She worked as an aide—among other things—for McKeon and, to his wife’s chagrin, rarely left his side.

  “Chris Clark left me a real mess,” Drake said, staring absentmindedly at his reflection in the windows that overlooked the Rose Garden. The man couldn’t walk past a silver tea set without stopping to admire his physique. “I need to know what Winfield Palmer had going with him.”

  Bodington gave a concerned nod, as if he understood the gravity of the situation. He liked to paint himself as a big-picture man, but McKeon saw him as more of a paint-by-the-numbers stooge. The director of the most advanced law enforcement agency in the world was happy to do just what he was told and never dared to go outside the lines.

  Virginia Ross spoke first.

  “The national security advisor’s communications to the president would be privileged,” she said. “But I’m sure he left files. With the tragedy, it would be expected he’d turn them over to you for a seamless transition.”

  Nearly half a year after the assassination of both President Chris Clark and Vice President Bob Hughes during the last State of the Union address, people simply called it “the tragedy.”

  Unwilling to give his counterpart from the CIA too much floor time, Bodington spoke up before Ross could say more. “I have to be honest, Mr. President,” he said. “I never did understand the absolute power President Clark gave to Winfield Palmer. Sure, they were friends from their days at West Point, but the man seemed to have carte blanche in the intelligence community. He could override anyone and everyone with his special projects. The President took virtually every matter of state to the man as if he were some oracle or something.”

  “They were friends, Kurt,” Director Ross said. “Surely even you can understand what that would mean.”

  Bodington gave her a withering stare, then half turned in his seat, distancing himself.

  “I know he had a pretty large network of agents working for him,” he said. “Half the time, they did little but get in the way of my people.”

  “Right,” Drake said. “And we know at least one member of that network tried to kill me in Las Vegas.” He steepled his fingers und
er his chin, something McKeon had never seen him do until he’d become president. It looked asinine when someone like Drake did it, like he was trying to shoot himself under the chin—which, McKeon couldn’t help but think, was not an entirely bad idea.

  “We believe that to be correct,” Bodington said, smugly like one child telling on another to his teacher. “Facial recognition from the Vegas security videos shows it was Jericho Quinn, an agent with Air Force OSI. He’s also wanted for the brutal murder of a Fairfax County police officer. He ran with a big Marine named Thibeau or something.”

  “Thibodaux,” McKeon interjected. “Your report says Jacques Thibodaux.”

  “Right.” Bodington turned to Virginia Ross. “And some Mexican girl from your shop.”

  “She’s from Cuba.” Ross nodded. “I can’t speak for Quinn or the Marine, but Veronica Garcia is a good one. I wasn’t certain at first, but her heroism saved a lot of lives last year during the shooting at Langley.”

  Bodington steered the conversation back to Palmer.

  “He had quite a few working for him that we wouldn’t know about, but it seemed to me he was grabbing people from other agencies and repurposing them for his missions. No doubt without any oversight from Congress. I’ve seen him with agents from the Secret Service, a couple besides Quinn from Air Force OSI, and several CIA types.”

  “But no one from the FBI?”

  “Thankfully, no, Mr. President.” Bodington nodded. “My agents have more sense than that.”

  Virginia Ross cleared her throat. “I have to say, Mr. President.” She shook her head as if to try to hold back some comment that she couldn’t quite contain. “I’ve already stated my opinion regarding Garcia. Though I have observed Winfield Palmer to be a steamroller with his programs—and often arrogant to the extreme—I have never known him to be anything less than a patriot. To think that he might be behind these attacks is, in my opinion, unthinkable.” She scooted forward to the edge of her seat and leaned in toward the Resolute Desk. “Mr. President, I would suggest a small task force, perhaps some of my agents, and some from Kurt’s shop. I am not privy to all the details regarding the shooting of the poor Fairfax County officer, but I am aware that it’s not a forgone conclusion Agent Quinn is the shooter. There seem to be numerous mitigating—”