by Marc Cameron
Unwilling to be far from her pistol under the circumstances, she carried it into the bathroom and put in on the counter, within reach from the shower. Over the past year and a half she’d killed half a dozen people, been blown off the side of a mountain in Afghanistan, stabbed in the back by a psychotic little kid, and shot at more times than she could count. Keeping a gun next to her shower curtain was a far cry from needless paranoia.
Ronnie liked her showers hot enough to pink her skin. She stood for a long time with her hands on the wall, letting the water scald her back and chase the stiffness of defensive tactics class out of her joints. The pinpricks of pain were her way of relaxing and doing penance at the same time.
She washed her hair before the hot water ran out, never knowing when she might have the chance again, using the laurel conditioner Jericho said he liked. She turned off the shower and stood dripping in the tub for a long moment, thinking about Jericho and wondering how he was. Wrapping a towel around her head like a turban, she spread another towel along the edge of the tub and sat on it, still soaking wet. She took her time shaving her legs—another task she might normally put off for a week or more since Jericho was out of town—and hummed “Drume Negrita”—“Sleep My Little Black Baby”—a Cuban song her mother used to sing to her at bedtime.
The handprint on the mirror didn’t catch Ronnie’s eye until she was standing at the sink brushing her teeth. Spitting, she glanced up, thinking at first that she had to be imagining things. Out of instinct, she forced herself not to stare directly at the thing, instead scrubbing her teeth as if she wanted to start a fire by friction.
High in the right corner of her bathroom mirror, not far from the ceiling, the perfect imprint of a man’s palm stood out clearly against the condensation from her hot shower. Jericho had sometimes left little notes for her with his fingertip on the glass so the words would show up in the steam—but as far as she knew, he’d never climbed up on her counter. Whoever had left this handprint had likely caught himself while accessing the air vent above the medicine cabinet on the wall adjacent to the vanity.
Fighting the urge to throw on a robe—which would broadcast the fact that she knew she was being watched—Ronnie replaced her toothbrush in the holder beside the sink and reached for a tube of face cream from the cabinet. Piles of laundry and dirty dishes testified to the fact that she was a horrible housekeeper, but even that didn’t explain the tiny chips of paint on the counter. They had to have been knocked loose when someone had reattached the vent to the ceiling.
In general, Garcia was not a prudish sort of girl. She was perfectly content with her body and had never been uncomfortable on a clothing-optional beach. CIA operatives had to go through several iterations of training designed to snuff out as much of the natural embarrassment reflex as possible. Long surveillances often called for the use of a soda cup urinal while another agent sat just a few feet away. There was nothing quite as embarrassing as strip-searching a fellow classmate to look for contraband, and ordering them to lift and separate the various folds and crevices of the human body. But all that said, the thought of some sleazebag peering at her through a hidden camera in her own bathroom added a whole new level to the term “creepy.”
She did her best to ignore the air vent, taking the towel off her head and wrapping it around her torso, tucking it under her armpit. Agent Walter had likely sent in a black bag team while she was away on her run. They wouldn’t know that her normal routine was to walk around naked until she was completely dry, so covering herself now with the towel wouldn’t raise any alarms. Ronnie seethed inside at the thought that these pervs had actually put a camera in her bathroom. There was not a lot of useful intelligence to be gained from watching someone shave her legs and pee.
It took just a moment for the shock of finding the camera to wear off and Ronnie’s sense of self-preservation to kick in. Fighting the urge to flip the bird at the vent, she decided to use the camera to her advantage. She let the towel fall to the floor, thinking, “Get a load of them apples, you sick bastards.”
She spent the next five minutes standing in front of the mirror and putting on makeup as if to go out for a night on the town. She went so far as to hike up one foot at a time, resting it on the vanity counter so she could touch up the paint on her toenails. That would give them the show they were looking for. The more radical hormones they had flowing through their brains, the less likely they would be thinking straight when she did what she planned to do next.
Chapter 28
A block away from Ronnie Garcia’s house, backed into the driveway of a vacant house, IDTF agent Gene Lindale hit the button on the driver’s seat of his forest green Ford Expedition to lay it back as far as it would go. He shot a glance at his partner, a bruiser named Kevin Maloney.
“This ain’t bad duty,” Lindale said, peering at the open laptop computer on the console between them.
“This is dope!” Maloney grinned. “I hope we get to arrest her ass before this is over.”
“Yeah,” Lindale said. “I could give that a thorough pat down. . . .”
Before being tapped for work in the Internal Defense Task Force, both men had been agents for Homeland Security. Both their files had noted severe Giglio issues. That is, they were both known to be liars. In Giglio v. the United States, the Supreme Court had decided that defense counsels and juries in any trial where such liars testified had to be made aware of that fact. Such a record made it virtually impossible for a federal law enforcement agent to do his or her job. When they’d come aboard, the supervising agent, a guy named Walter, had told them not to worry about it. He didn’t expect them to spend much time on a witness stand.
“Looks like she’s going out for a drink or something,” Lindale said, rubbing his eyes. The dim light from the computer screen gave the men’s faces an eerie, otherworldly glow in the darkness of the vehicle. Dark tint on the side windows made them invisible to nosey neighbors.
“Look at that,” Maloney said, leaning forward so he could get a better look. “She carries that little pistol in a holster that hangs from her bra. I’ve heard about those.”
“I’ll make a note of that,” Lindale chuckled. “Don’t want to get my fingers shot . . .” His voice trailed off. “What the hell is she doing?”
The men watched as Ronnie Garcia walked to her kitchen wearing only jeans, a black sports bra, and a pistol. She knelt in front of her oven, screwdriver in hand, and opened the oven door to remove both metal racks so she could lean inside.
“You think she’s going to gas herself?” Lindale mused.
“It’s an electric oven, dipshit,” Maloney said. “So I’m thinking no.”
A moment later, Garcia backed out of the oven and set a metal plate on the linoleum beside her. She went in again and, after a moment wrestling with something at the back of the oven, brought out a desert tan duffel bag.
“You need to put the panel back on, sweetheart,” Lindale said to the computer screen.
“You just want to see her bend over one more time.” Maloney rubbed his eyes again. “How do you suppose that bag keeps from burning up in there?”
Lindale scoffed. “Does this bitch really look like a Suzy Homemaker to you? Even if that plate isn’t some sort of heat shield, I’m betting she doesn’t do a hell of a lot of baking—”
“I’ve lost her,” Maloney said a few moments later. He moved the computer mouse so he could click through a screen menu. “Did we put cameras in the garage?”
The garage door rumbled open in answer to his question, throwing a shaft of light onto her driveway. Garcia’s black Impala backed out a moment later. She turned west, thankfully moving away from the green Ford.
Maloney punched a speed dial number in his cell phone. “Mr. Walters . . . Sorry, I mean Walter,” he said when the other end picked up. “You wanted us to tell you if she moved.”
Chapter 29
Ronnie took a meandering route through the neighborhood to make the guys following her earn
their money. If they knew her at all, they’d know it was a normal habit for her to throw in an alternate route or two when she went anywhere. If she didn’t, they might smell a trap. She headed south on I-270 meandering back and forth across all six lanes, again making the guys in the green SUV behind her work for their pay. Slowing at every exit, she kept them guessing as she scanned the businesses along the service roads, looking for the specifics she would need for her plan to work.
She found exactly what she was looking for on the outskirts of Bethesda and took the exit for a little convenience store that Jericho would have called a “stop-and-rob.” Ronnie pulled her Impala under the bright lights of the awning beside the gas pumps. Ahead of her, a kid who looked like he might still be in high school fueled up a Kawasaki Ninja sport bike. She couldn’t help but smile at him. Every motorcycle she saw reminded her of Quinn. She’d known how to ride before she met him, but she’d never loved it the way she did since that first time riding with him on a rented Enfield Bullet high in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan.
She swiped her credit card at the pump and topped off the fuel in the Impala. Might as well make the guys in the green Expedition believe she was about to go for a long drive.
Chapter 30
Alaska
Blue sky, marred by only a thin line of halfhearted clouds over the distant Chugach Mountains, greeted them when Lovita brought her little Super Cub out of Lake Clark Pass. CAVU, they called it—Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited. She turned back to the north, skirting the mudflats on the western edge of Cook Inlet, staying low to avoid notice by other aircraft the contractors in the Caravan might have been able to contact. The city of Anchorage lay like a pile of reflective glass blocks on the flat delta below green mountains on the other side of the inlet. A steady line of commercial jets, both passenger and cargo, lumbered over the silver-brown water toward Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport at the end of the point. Like any other day in Alaska, it was impossible to look any direction for long and not see some kind of airplane. Small aircraft were the station wagons, taxis, and cargo vans of the wilderness—which started just a few minutes from the city of Anchorage.
Quinn’s phone chirped as soon he had a signal. He stuffed it under the seal of his headset, pressing it down as best he could to avoid the engine noise.
“Jer?” It was Kim. Everyone else knew not to use names on the phone, but he couldn’t blame her. She’d not signed up for this kind of work
“Hey,” Quinn said, half yelling. The fact that she was able to talk to him gave him more than a tinge of worry. “I thought you’d be on a plane by now.”
Silence.
“Hello?” Quinn said.
“I’m still here,” Kim said. “Are you okay? Jacques said there was some trouble out there.”
“I’m fine,” Quinn said, making a mental note to talk to Jacques about the information that was passed on to his ex-wife. “Everything’s fine.” Saying it twice had always been necessary with Kim.
“I don’t want you to worry,” she said, “but my leg was reinjured during the attack this afternoon.”
“Reinjured?” Quinn pressed the phone tighter to his ear.
“I feel okay. It’s just a big bruise really, but the doctor is worried about blood clots if I fly.”
“Okay,” Quinn said. “What about Mattie?”
“She’s with your parents,” Kim said. “They are on the way to you now.”
Quinn gave an audible sigh of relief. “We’ll get you over as soon as you’re able to fly,” he said. “I’m not happy leaving you here with all that’s going on.”
“Yeah,” Kim said, her voice faltering, the way it did when she was about to get mad. “And I have to tell you, it scares the shit out of me to send Mattie over with someone I’ve never met. Promise me she’ll be all right.”
“Of course,” Quinn said. He fought the urge to snap back.
Kim laughed, changing the subject. “I never saw your dad fight before. I can see where you get it.”
Quinn smiled at that. “Nope,” he said. “I get that from my mom. She’s way meaner than he is.”
He promised to check in as soon as they got to Vladivostok—if they got to Vladivostok—then ended the call.
From the air, Cook Inlet resembled a giant beetle jutting up from the Gulf of Alaska with the Knik and Turnagain Arms forming two antennae that pointed north and east respectively. Lovita cut across the muddy tidal waters of the Knik Arm, losing altitude as they neared Birchwood, a small public-use airport. As its name implied, it was nestled among thick stands of white birch that blanketed the lower elevations between water and mountains north of Anchorage.
Quinn asked her to circle twice before entering the pattern, unsure if there would be a welcome party bristling with weapons to mow them down as soon as they climbed out of the plane. Quinn still had the MP7, as well as a .45 Ukka had tucked in his hand before they departed Mountain Village, but they would be sitting ducks as soon as they were on the ground.
Judging everything as clear as it would ever be, Lovita touched down on 1 Right, the gravel strip that her balloon-like tundra tires preferred to the adjacent asphalt runway.
Once the Super Cub came to a bouncy stop, Quinn grabbed his small duffel, including the MP7, out of the back and squirmed his way out of the tiny cockpit after Lovita.
No one shot them so he relaxed a notch.
He reached to shake her hand. “I owe you,” he said.
She pushed her way past his hand and threw her arms around his neck, giving him a trembling hug, all the tension and emotion of the flight bleeding out of her now that they were relatively safe. When she finally let go, she stepped back and looked at him, but said nothing, communicating in the way of her Yup’ik people with her eyes.
“You’re an incredible girl, Lovita,” he said. “A friend for life.”
She nodded, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world, and then took a few steps away from the airplane so she could light a cigarette.
“I got a friend who lets me use the apartment in her hangar when I come to the big village.” She pointed with her cigarette toward the line of metal buildings across the taxiway. “She’s got a dusty old bed and pretty comfortable couch. We can stay there tonight.”
“When are you going back?”
“I gotta make a Costco run tomorrow morning. My friend has an old car she lets me use too. I can take you to the airport.”
She took another drag off her cigarette and let it dangle in her lips while she checked her cell phone. “I need to call Ukka and tell him we made it in.”
Quinn couldn’t help but think of how small she was, like one of Mattie’s seven-year-old friends pretending to smoke.
“Good deal,” he said. “I need to make a couple of calls as well. Tell Ukka I’ll get with him in a few minutes.”
Quinn walked to the rusty hulk of an old fuel truck, still scanning for an ambush as he walked. When none came, he dropped his duffel on the asphalt and dialed Ronnie Garcia. He hadn’t spoken to her since he’d asked her to make the call to Aleksandra Kanatova and wanted to be certain everything was in motion.
He got nothing but voice mail. Two calls in quick succession was his signal that it was important, so he tried again. He got her voice mail again. He listened to the entire thing this time, happy, at least, to hear the familiar hint of a Cuban lilt in her voice. Exhausted, Quinn shoved the phone back in his pocket and walked toward the hangar. He couldn’t help but worry that his plan was coming unraveled right before his eyes. If Ronnie wasn’t answering, she was in trouble—and if Ronnie was in trouble, they were all in trouble.
Chapter 31
Maryland
Gene Lindale found a discreet place to park one lot over from the convenience store and backed into the shadows against a graffiti-covered fence. He and Maloney watched as Garcia chatted up a guy fueling his motorcycle at the pump ahead of her.
“What do you suppose she’s saying to him?” Lindale
muttered, half to himself. The dash lights cast a green, otherworldly glow on his face.
“I don’t really give a shit,” Maloney said. “I just wish she’d go home and take another shower.”
“You got that right,” Lindale said, watching through binoculars now. “She paid at the pump. Wonder why she’s going inside.”
Lindale panned the binoculars, watching Garcia through the window as she browsed up and down the aisles. The shop was well lit and the shelving was low, so it was easy to keep track of her. She paused at the magazine rack long enough to flip through a couple. Instead of buying anything, she made her way to the counter, where she waved at the clerk like she knew her, then picked up a key chained to a toilet plunger, presumably to the restroom, before walking out of view toward the back of the store. A moment later, the kid with the bike went inside as well. Like Garcia, he loitered up and down the aisles until he apparently found what he was looking for.
“That’s no coincidence,” Lindale said. “That kid just went for the same magazine. She just passed him something.” He looked at his watch. “And anyway, where the hell is she at? How long does it take a girl to take a piss?”
Maloney cracked open his door. “I’ll go around and check to make sure she didn’t slip out the back.”
“You do that,” Lindale said, his voice muffled by his hands holding the binoculars. “Watch yourself. Big-ass girls like that can fight. Take my word for it.”
Five minutes later, Lindale began to worry. Maloney was MIA and Garcia had yet to show her face. The stupid kid was still inside the store, buying cigarettes and killing time talking to the clerk, who was old enough to be his grandma.
