Day Zero

by Marc Cameron

  Startled by the sudden shock, the contractor stepped back, raising his hand to ward off the new threat. Steel flashed as he struck blindly with the fillet knife, lashing out to protect himself while he got his bearings.

  As its name implied, the Severance was at its best when used as a hacking instrument. Its finely ground tip was, however, needle sharp and pierced the flesh between the contractor’s wrist bones as surely as an axe through soft cheese.

  With the thick spine of the blade facing backwards, toward the contractor’s hand, Quinn yanked the man toward him, in the direction of his attack. Screaming in pain, the contractor’s eyes flew open as he tumbled into the fish tub, while Quinn twisted the Severance’s handle like a lever between the bones of his forearm. Even with nearly a foot of steel sticking out of his arm, the bald man was nowhere near finished. He lashed out with heavy boots, wrenching the Severance from Quinn’s hand and sending him sliding backwards across the floor. Unfortunately for the contractor, Quinn stopped sliding beside the MP7.

  A quick burp of six 4.6x30 rounds to his chest and the frown on the bald guy’s forehead went slack. He collapsed back into the tub of dead salmon with a groan.

  Quinn held the MP7 at high ready, giving the room a full scan for the first time since he’d charged through the door ninety seconds earlier. April John was unconscious in the corner, facedown on the plywood in a pool of grimy water and salmon blood. She had a bloody lip, and her hands and feet were bound with gray duct tape, but she was breathing.

  Quinn checked both contractors to make certain they wouldn’t cause any more problems, and then moved to cut April John’s restraints. She drew back when he touched her shoulder, drawing her body into a tight ball.

  “Get off me!” Her terrified scream was muffled in Quinn’s ears.

  “It’s me, Jericho,” Quinn said. He laid a hand gently against her elbow to show he meant no harm. “They’re dead.”

  She turned her head to look up at him, blinking terrified eyes. Blood and slime from the floor dripped from her round cheek. “Jericho? They . . .” She tried to sit up, but swayed in place. Quinn could now see the knot on her forehead from where she’d been hit, hard. “What happened? Where are they?”

  “It’s okay now,” he said, still panting from exertion. “I’m going to cut you loose.”

  The door opened behind him and he looked up to see James Perry silhouetted against the gray fog. The big Eskimo took a quick look around the room, and then stepped up beside Quinn. His face was turned down in a somber frown.

  “Waqaa, cousin.” He gave the traditional Yup’ik greeting, voice drawn with pent-up worry. “You good?”

  “Hey,” Quinn nodded. “I’m fine. Looks like they knocked April around pretty good, though.”

  Kneeling, Quinn used a fillet knife to finish cutting away the duct tape on the girl’s wrists and ankles. He helped her into a sitting position with her back against the tubs.

  Swaying when he tried to stand, he reached out to Ukka for support. The adrenaline dump from his coldwater swim and subsequent fight behind him now, he began to shiver uncontrollably.

  April John’s two younger sisters poured in through the open door, scooping her up amid a shower of grateful tears and hugs for both her and Quinn. They whisked her away with a nod, getting her out of the place that had only moments before had been her prison.

  “We got some bad news,” Ukka said, as Lovita Aguth-luk, his twenty-two-year-old niece, stepped through the door behind him. Dressed in a pink fleece sweater that was three sizes too big, she was a breath over five feet tall with long peroxide orange hair and a row of piercings festooning the top of each tiny ear. Her grandmother was from Kotzebue and she honored the older woman with a traditional Inupiat facial tattoo—three simple parallel lines, green and pencil thin, that ran from her lower lip to the bottom of her deeply tanned chin. On some women, such a marking might be considered a job stopper, but Lovita had the cultural background to make it attractive. Her fleece was grimy at the cuffs from fishing and gathering wood for the stove in her small shack in Saint Mary’s. Any money she got was spent on airplane fuel and there were few clear days when she could not be seen drilling holes in the sky between Mountain Village and Saint Mary’s in her ratty old Super Cub. She hauled whatever anyone would pay her to haul to support her flying habit and build time behind the stick.

  “What is it?” Quinn asked, steadying himself on the cleaning counter. He wasn’t sure he could handle much more at the moment.

  Ukka looked at his niece. “Tell him what you saw.”

  “A plane full of these guys landed in Saint Mary’s about half an hour ago,” she said in a husky voice that sounded like she’d smoked two packs a day for twice her lifetime—which wasn’t far from the truth. She was trying to quit and now had a wad of punk ash—leaf tobacco and a type of burned tree fungus—snuff beneath her lower lip. “They were going from house to house looking for you when I left, but I’m pretty sure they’re getting ready to come this way.”

  She handed Quinn a tall plastic tumbler full of hot liquid, placing it carefully between his trembling hands to make sure he didn’t spill it.

  “How many?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “As soon as I saw them, I jumped in the Cub and headed this way to warn you.”

  Quinn nodded in thanks. He started to put the mug to his lips but raised a wary eye. He knew Lovita had a stomach of iron. She’d talked all spring about her favorite dish, called “stinkhead”—a concoction of fermented salmon heads that had been left in a grassy pit for a period of days. An ardent traditionalist, it was impossible to know what sort of ancient hunk of mystery meat she might throw into a soup or stew.

  “It’s coffee,” she grunted. “We need to hurry.”

  Quinn took a tentative sip, grimacing at the syrupy sweetness.

  Lovita gave a half smile. She wasn’t much of a smiler, but when she did, it brightened the entire room. “I put lots of sugar in it to help your body warm itself.” She handed Quinn a roll of dry clothes. “We gotta go now.”

  Nodding, Quinn handed the coffee to Ukka. Lovita turned her back while he slipped out of his sopping wet pants. She’d brought him a black wool sweater that zipped up the front and a fresh set of khakis.

  “I didn’t want to go rootin’ around in your stuff for your tighty whities,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go commando.”

  Quinn shot a glance at Ukka, who shrugged.

  “I don’t know where they learn that stuff all the way out here,” the Eskimo said.

  “I got satellite,” Lovita said, her voice even more gravelly than before. “Anyway, hurry up. I’ll step outside while you change.”

  “I think she has a little crush on you,” Ukka said.

  Quinn steered the subject in a different direction. “If they’re leaving Saint Mary’s now,” he said, pulling the sweater over his head, “they’ll be here in—”

  “Ten minutes,” Ukka cut him off. “We know. That’s why we need to haul ass.”

  Once Quinn was decent, Ukka looked over his shoulder and flicked his hand to summon his daughter Chantelle, who stepped through the door carrying Quinn’s Lowa boots and a rolled pair of wool socks.

  “Lovita said she couldn’t find his underwear,” she said. “I could have brought his underwear if I woulda known.”

  “Will you girls forget about his underwear,” Ukka bellowed. He looked at his watch. “It’ll take us five minutes to get to the airport. That’s cutting it pretty close.”

  Lovita poked her head in behind Ukka.

  “I’m going,” she said. “It’ll take me a minute or two to get the plane ready.”

  Quinn dropped the boots on the floor and sat on an overturned fish tub to pull on the socks. He looked at the young pilot with a wary eye.

  “The weather isn’t too low to fly?”

  “We got no choice.” She shrugged, her neck disappearing down the oversize fleece like a turtle’s.

&nb
sp; “She’s right,” Ukka said. “We’ll get rid of the bodies, then handle these new guys when they land. But who knows how many more are right behind them? It’s been a great visit, but you gotta get outta here before someone gets hurt.”

  Quinn laced up his last boot and walked outside behind the others. Cold drizzle hit him in the face. Heavy curtains of fog obscured all but the base of the Azochorak Mountain to the west. The white crosses in the cemetery that had been visible when he’d entered the river were now gone.

  Quinn took a lungful of air and let it out, able to see his breath. “You really plan to fly in this muck?”

  Lovita nodded. “I can sneak out just off the deck and try to stay under the clouds.”

  “Try?”

  Lovita ignored him. “Weather’s better over past the Kilbucks.” Her voice was matter-of-fact as if she flew in this kind of soupy fog every day. “It’s not good, mind you—but it’s a damn sight better than this.”

  Chapter 15

  Pentagon City, Virginia

  Kim Quinn saw the man with the flap of blond hair again as they exited the mall. He was standing next to the Metro entrance between the taxi road and the main thoroughfare of Hayes Street. Worried over why someone might be following her, she’d talked Mattie out of dinner at Johnny Rockets and decided to go straight back to their hotel room. Jericho’s parents were there—Pete Quinn would know what to do.

  Kim tried to tell herself a life with Jericho had made her paranoid. But there was definitely something wrong. This guy had ignored her when she’d almost run into him. He hadn’t given her a second look—which was virtually unthinkable. Kim had always been proud of her legs. The one that she had left was well worth gawking over—and the metal one drew even more stares, even from polite people who were usually more startled than anything. The fact that this man hadn’t paid her any attention set off an alarm in her head.

  Over the span of their marriage, Jericho had droned on and on about how she should trust her instincts. Go with her gut, he said. Her gut told her the man with the flap of blond hair was dangerous.

  Pausing for just a moment outside the mall, she took Mattie’s hand in hers.

  “Stay with me,” she said, leading her across the taxi and tour bus service road and weaving through the throng of summer vendors, lined up under umbrella carts, selling bottled water and WASHINGTON, DC T-shirts. The air was thick, but she didn’t know if it was humidity or dread.

  She cursed herself for not taking a closer parking spot. Her pride had made her want to show off to her daughter, so she’d parked across the street in the larger Costco lot, hoping to demonstrate that she was tough and resilient.

  The blond man didn’t move from his post by the Metro escalator, and made no secret of the fact that he was now staring directly at Kim. He must have taken the Metro tunnel out from the food court level of the mall and surfaced outside to wait.

  Kim shot a quick glance up and down the street. She fought the urge to scream for help, realizing she was in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, and nothing had actually happened. The area around Washington, DC, was a busy place any time of year, but summer was the worst with visitors from all over the world pouring out of buses, taxis, and rental cars. Every ten feet she saw someone who looked like they might be working with the man by the Metro. There was a crosswalk to her right, halfway down the block at Fifteenth Street. It would be closer to where she’d parked the car across the street at the Costco lot. But the crowds thinned out down there. She made a decision to cross mid-block, staying with the herd for protection.

  There were plenty of people here, she reasoned. No way anyone would try anything in the open in broad daylight.

  Mattie kept quiet, sensitive to her mother’s mood. With Jericho Quinn as her father, she was much more accustomed to sudden violence that any seven-year-old should have to be.

  Kim was sure the pedestrian light was the longest in history of mankind. A middle-aged man in a loose Hawaiian shirt asked if she needed help crossing the street and she nearly punched him out of panic. Realizing he was just being kind, she thanked him instead and assured him she was fine. The last word had no sooner escaped her mouth than a tan minivan squealed up to the curb and stopped directly in front of her.

  The door slid open and two men jumped out to the sidewalk. Both wore absurd-looking clown masks. One grabbed for Mattie while the other planted both palms in Kim’s chest and gave her a rough shove, sending her sliding on her butt on the pavement.

  The man in the Hawaiian shirt stepped in between the kidnapper and Mattie, shooing her behind him as he punched the other man in the jaw. He was strong, certainly no out-of-shape tourist, and the blow connected with a loud crack. He went to follow up, but the man who’d shoved Kim shot him twice for his trouble. He staggered, then slumped to the sidewalk.

  “Mattie, run!” Kim screamed. She was on her feet in a moment, forgetting how difficult such a simple task had been in physical therapy. Swinging her cane like a baseball bat, she struck out at the gunman, impacting on the base of his skull. He squealed in pain and staggered into his companion. Kim swung again, but the aluminum cane was much too light to do any real damage and the kidnapper grabbed it in midair, yanking her to him and into his waiting fist.

  Kim had never been hit so hard in her life and found it oddly liberating. She’d heard Jericho say punches didn’t really hurt until later and was astonished to find out how right he was. Instead of wilting like a battered woman, she launched herself against her attackers with the renewed fury of a mother protecting her child. She tore at the gunman’s eyes with her fingernails, screaming like a madwoman, intent on ripping his face off his body.

  Nearly back to the doors of the mall, Mattie stopped in her tracks when she heard her mother’s cries. She had her father’s blood in her veins, so it was no surprise when she turned on her heels and ran back to help her mother.

  The man with the blond flap of hair caught her as she came past and scooped her up in his arms.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” he said, trapping her arms and legs so she could do the least damage with all her kicking and screaming.

  “No!” Kim screamed, as the gunman hit her again, this time sending a shower of fireworks exploding behind her eyes. “Mattie!”

  A distant roar seemed to fill the street, growing louder as Kim’s vision cleared enough for her to make out what was happening.

  A Harley-Davidson motorcycle roared up the mall service road, scattering tourists and vendors. At the same moment a black GMC pickup jumped the curb, ramming the minivan and raking the gunman with a running board. The biker rode straight for the blond kidnapper, striking him with the front tire before he could throw a squalling Mattie into the minivan. She scrambled out of the way, running back toward the mall.

  Six feet, two inches of extremely angry grandfather boiled out of the black pickup. Pete Quinn sent a massive fist crashing into the temple of the stunned gunman, felling him like a tree. He bounced the second man’s head off the hood of the minivan as the man on the motorcycle jumped off the bike and ran for the open door of the van. He was wearing a helmet, but moved with the same easy stride of Jericho. It had to be his brother, Bo.

  The frantic driver threw the minivan in reverse, narrowly missing the downed Good Samaritan in the Hawaiian shirt, and then sped away down Hayes Street, fishtailing around the corner to disappear down Fifteenth.

  Kim breathed a measured sigh of relief.

  The sullen blond tried to push himself to his feet, but Jericho’s father put the toe of his heavy leather boot to good use, nearly kicking the man’s head off his body. As far as he was concerned, anyone stupid enough to grab his granddaughter would get no forgiveness in this world or the world to come.

  The gunman’s jaw hung oddly to the side, half out of its socket, courtesy of the punch from the man in the Hawaiian shirt. He jumped up and attempted to run, but Bo grabbed him by the collar, yanking him into a devastating left hook that reset his jaw and crump
led him into an unconscious heap.

  Once she saw Mattie was okay, Kim half knelt, half fell to the pavement beside the wounded Good Samaritan. Her damaged prosthetic splayed awkwardly to one side, but there was nothing she could do about that now. She put a hand to his chest, pressing against the bullet wound. He was still breathing but losing a lot of blood.

  “Thank you,” Kim whispered. “For helping us.”

  The man smiled, but grimaced when he tried to speak.

  A crowd of onlookers began to gather, happy to form a circle around the commotion now that the apparent danger had passed. Several people called 911 at the same time, arguing about what happened and their actual location. There was a firehouse just blocks away and sirens blared moments later. An ER nurse coming out of Fashion Center mall stepped in and relieved Kim to care for the man in the Hawaiian shirt. Pete Quinn, Jericho’s father, helped her back to her feet.

  “You okay?” He put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. His dark hair was mussed and the top button of his shirt had been torn off, but there was a glint in his eyes that said he’d enjoyed the scrap. He was broader than either of his sons, bigger boned, but he moved with the same purposeful intensity that Kim had always seen in Jericho. In all the years she’d known her former father-in-law, he’d always been in the shop or out working on the boat. They’d really never sat down to have a long conversation. To see him now, like this, was nothing short of mind-blowing.

  Kim thanked him, panting so hard she could hardly speak. She fanned her face with an open hand. She’d just thought she’d been sweating before.

  “I think my new bionic leg is toast,” she said, glancing down at the bowed metal that no longer bent correctly at her knee. She dabbed her lip, tasting blood. “Where did you guys come from?”

  The elder Quinn shrugged. “Bo thought someone ought to keep an eye on you.” He’d never been one for much chitchat.

  A shiver shook Kim’s shoulders. The world around her began to blur and ooze.

  Pete Quinn caught her as she swayed.