Day Zero

by Marc Cameron

  She sank against her restraints, her body sagging on the metal frame. “We both work for the same government.. . .”

  Walter reached to touch her neck, stroking it tenderly, and then pressing a thumb against her flesh to get the vein to bulge.

  “What do you want?” Ross sobbed, though she knew the answer all too well. It was only a matter of time before she gave in. Everyone did.

  She felt a sharp prick of pain as Walter slid the needle into her neck.

  He released his thumb. “It’s time to relax, Virginia. You will find this part more pleasant than anything you could possibly imagine.”

  White-hot liquid coursed into her bloodstream, pooling, it seemed, behind her eyeballs. Tremors of euphoria flowed down her shoulders, shooting through her arms and pulsing in her hands. She was keenly aware of each individual toe, ringing like tiny bells. Her knees, her elbows, her ears, and even her hair crackled with static warmth.

  There was a muffled sound of the cell door opening, then footsteps slapping the tile. Ross was vaguely aware of a new voice speaking in hushed tones.

  “When?” she heard Walter say.

  “They’ll be here within the hour,” the new voice said.

  Ross gave a fleeting thought to opening her eyes, but decided it was just too much effort.

  Agent Walter erupted in a flurry of violent curses, roaring at the newcomer.

  “How long have you known about this?” he screamed. “Would it have killed you to get off your ass and tell me before I shot her up?”

  Virginia Ross took a deep breath, feeling the cozy warmth course through her body, causing her belly to pulse as if she was in the passionate embrace of a lover. She realized she was naked and rough men stood over her, one of them screaming about something. She couldn’t remember who he was, and found she no longer cared.

  Chapter 54

  Flight 105

  Quinn had no conventional weapons since he was on a commercial aircraft—but he didn’t intend to work empty-handed. He’d watched an older gentleman a few rows ahead of him stow a wooden cane in the bin over his seat and asked Carly to take Natalie with her and borrow the cane. Waiting for them to return, he sat down on the leather sofa by Mattie and thought about what he’d do with her. It set his nerves on edge to even think of letting her out of his sight again, but bringing her with him while he walked up and down the aisles looking for a killer was not an option.

  She’d seen him fight before, so that wouldn’t be the worst of it. Fights rarely went as planned. He was fairly certain he’d be able to take gain control quickly, but in the close confines of the cabin, there were simply too many variables—especially if Mattie was just a few feet away.

  Even if the digital-camera hack worked perfectly and he was able to find the killer splattered in blood, an accomplice could be seated nearby watching and waiting, unidentifiable until he started killing people. A little girl made for a ripe hostage. The killer might have a weapon. He’d certainly had one earlier and used it to great effect on the stairs. The entire plane was a lit fuse, with all the passengers on edge and unpredictable.

  Grabbing someone in the tight quarters of an airplane added an enhanced level of danger. Movements were subtle in close-quarters battle and often could not be seen with the natural eye. They had to be felt. When it came to joining a fight, Quinn very literally went with the flow. There was no way of knowing what he’d have to do to win the fight and the thought of his little girl seeing that side of him again chilled him to the core.

  “Got it,” Carly said, bringing Quinn out of his thoughts when she and Natalie returned to the rear of the plane. She handed him the cane and three white plastic restraints airlines used on unruly passengers.

  He passed the cane to Mattie while he fed one end through the other on each of the thick plastic cuffs so they formed large loops that he’d be able to zip tight quickly around a prisoner’s wrists. He tucked the “loaded” restraints into his waistband.

  Taking the cane back from Mattie, he held it in both hands and flexed it against his knee, testing it for strength. A simple wooden design with a shepherd’s crook, it seemed plenty strong for his intentions. He removed the rubber grip on the bottom and picked up the digital camera.

  He turned to Carly. “Do you still have that capacitor?”

  “I do.” She took it out of her pocket and passed it to him quickly, happy to get rid of it.

  Quinn held it out toward Natalie on his open palm. “I’d appreciate it if you’d look after my little girl for a few minutes. Anyone gets near her, scream your head off and jab them with the wax end of this. The wires will push through and give them a good shock. I’ll be here before they’re back on their feet.”

  Natalie took the improvised stun gun. Her eyes narrowed. Her lips pursed. “I’m a grandmother, Mr. Hackman. If anything happens to your daughter, it’ll be because I’m already dead.”

  “Thank you,” Quinn said, a measure calmer knowing that he was leaving Mattie with an honest human being. She’d made the only promise she was capable of keeping—not that she’d absolutely be able to keep Mattie safe, but that she would die trying.

  The economy-class beverage carts were stored in the aft section of the second level, so Quinn decided they should start there. Carly pushed the cart ahead, moving up the right aisle as if to start the service in front. This drew the passengers’ attention forward while giving Quinn a reason to move slowly, scanning as he walked. He held the improvised IR camera in his left hand, dragging his leg to feign a need for the cane, which he carried in his right.

  Global had advertised this new seasonal flight from Anchorage to Moscow for months, so there were few vacant seats in any of the cabins. In another time, under less bloody circumstances, Quinn would have enjoyed the cosmopolitan makeup of the flight. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese made up a good portion of the passengers. Many of them would get off in Vladivostok to catch flights to their various countries that were just short hops away. There were Siberian Yupiks, cousins of the Eskimos of western Alaska; dark-faced Turkic peoples from central Asia; and of course, Americans visiting Russia and Russians returning home.

  Quinn scanned with the camera as he walked, looking for evidence of the murder, but not allowing himself to get stuck on any particular stereotype of race or ethnicity. He could be looking at a Middle Eastern man reading a copy of the Economist in the seat to his left, while someone like the blue-eyed brunette to his right stabbed him in the neck with her pen. He’d earned several scars before he’d figured out that though there were certain indicators, all threats didn’t present an evil image.

  Danger did, however, have a feel—an aura that could be felt low in the gut. To the Chinese it was zhijue—straight sense. The Japanese called it haragei or the art of the belly. Quinn felt it before he’d reached mid cabin. He slowed his breathing, which, in turn, did the same to his heart rate. He popped his neck from side to side.

  Even on a wide-body aircraft like the A380, economy seats were cramped. Elbows and arms spilled into the aisle, forcing Carly to plod along behind her cart, warning passengers to pull in their appendages as she went. Many of the passengers eyed Quinn as he limped by. An Eskimo man in the collar, beard, and long black robes of a Russian Orthodox priest gave him a quiet smile from his window seat. An attractive redhead to his left turned at his approach, eyeing him warily as if she didn’t believe he needed the cane. If Quinn had had a sister, he was fairly certain she would have the same look in her eye. The redhead wore jeans and a sleeveless, blue wrap-around kimono top that exposed her well-muscled shoulders. The deep color of the blouse showed almost white in the camera viewfinder and was absent of any blood. Quinn continued to scan, feeling the woman stare at him as he passed.

  A stocky man in the aisle seat on the right side of the plane stretched his arms just as Carly passed with her cart. Quinn could only see a portion of his head and one shoulder, but he had closely buzzed black hair and Asian features. Thick arms filled out the black leathe
r sleeves of a designer jacket. White in the IR camera, the left shoulder was spotted with a spray of dark spots.

  Moving forward, Quinn abandoned the limp and shoved the camera in the pocket of his jeans. He studied the passengers seated around the man in the leather jacket. An older woman sat in the window seat on the same row. Members of a girls’ college volleyball team with matching jerseys took up the two rows behind him and most of the seats in the center rows to his left.

  When he reached the row directly behind his target, Quinn saw the faint hint of a blood smear on the side of the man’s neck—where he would have cradled Foulger’s head while he cut his throat.

  Carly was three rows ahead with the beverage cart, nearly to the center galley and bank of lavatories that divided the aft economy and mid-cabin business class. Though he’d warned her about it, Carly’s curiosity got the better of her and she looked over her shoulder to check on Quinn’s progress. Backward looks were contagious, and every passenger who happened to be watching—including the Asian man in the blood-spattered jacket—turned in their seats. What they saw was Quinn, holding the wooden cane like a club.

  Quinn jumped forward, shoving the smooth crook of the cane between the man’s forearm and seat back as he came up alongside. By lowering his center and pushing the cane upward, Quinn was able to graft the polished wood up past the man’s elbow and against the armpit so it stuck toward the ceiling behind his neck. Using the stick as a lever and the armpit as a fulcrum, Quinn slapped the crook end forward with his right hand while he hauled back on the base, torqueing the killer’s head down and sideways, slamming it against the back of the armrest on the seat in front of him with a dull thud. Quinn kept the man tied up as he rebounded off the seat, torqueing the man again as soon as he had room. He pulled up hard on the end of the cane, wanting to end the fight quickly, inflicting maximum damage to the shoulder that would tenderize the killer, but leave him well enough to question. Tied up with the cane and Quinn’s arcing movement, the man was twisted out of his seat and onto the floor so his shoulders and chest were in the aisle and his legs trailed behind him, trapped between the seat rows.

  The entire process took less than three seconds. By the time the killer’s nose collided with the in-floor lighting tape, the panicked passengers surrounding him sprang, jumped, and stampeded out of their seats. They got away by any means they could, putting as much distance between themselves and the crazy man with the cane as possible.

  Trapped next to the window, the elderly woman on the other side of the killer merely stomped over the top of his body, stepping on his back and head as she pushed her way into the aisle. The girls’ volleyball team cleared out in all directions, screaming and shoving other passengers out of their way. Quinn looked up to see Carly being pushed over the top of her beverage cart in the panic. Juice cartons spilled. An ice bucket poured its contents onto the floor. Carly slid along on her belly, to disappear into the aisle on the other side, out of his view.

  The killer struggled, but Quinn heaved up on the cane. He gambled that the man was Chinese and barked at him in Mandarin to stop moving. Chinese people were often startled to hear their language pouring so fluently from the mouth of a Caucasian, and he froze for a moment, trying to make sense of the situation.

  Quinn kept steady pressure the cane while he pulled one of the plastic restraints from his waistband. Before he could get it cinched, something heavy crashed into the back of his head.

  Quinn reeled at the impact, springing to his feet. He drove himself backwards into whoever had hit him as he fought off a wave of nausea. Fully upright now, he spun in mid aisle, the point of his elbow extended and looking for a target. It found one in the jaw of the redhead who’d been watching him earlier when he’d walked by.

  Quinn was still stunned and his delivery was slow, allowing the woman to step back enough that his elbow slid off with little more damage than a slap. The woman’s hands came up to cover her face like a boxer. Rather than regroup, Quinn stayed committed to his original spin, stepping into a furious left hook that caught the redhead in the temple, dropping her like a stone. She fell sideways across the now vacant seats in the middle rows. A hard plastic water bottle rolled up the aisle between them, water pouring from a crack that had very likely been caused when it had smashed into Quinn’s skull.

  Behind him, a shout rose up from Carly. The man in the leather jacket had regained his senses and now held the cane in both hands, high above his head like a sword. Before Quinn could move to close the distance, the attacker was slammed forward, struck hard in the back by Carly’s rolling beverage cart.

  The harried flight attendant blinked at Quinn, wide-eyed. Her face was wet with spilled coffee and juice. Once perfect blond hair was plastered to flushed cheeks. Her shoulders shook so violently she had to hold on to the cart to keep her feet.

  “You good?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” Quinn said, zipping restraints around the wrists of the Chinese man and then the redhead. His vision was still hazy. Waves of nausea lingered in his gut. He wondered how many more blows to the head he could take before he started seeing double—or not seeing at all.

  Pulling himself to his feet with a low groan, Quinn scanned the cowering passengers. They blinked up at him from their various hiding spots around the cabin. Some looked like they were deciding whether or not to rush him. Others turned half away, eyes down, hoping not to be noticed. While those around the fight had dispersed at the first signs of the trouble, many passengers from business class now crowded together at the bulkhead to see what the fuss was all about.

  Quinn could see no one else that presented an immediate threat—for the moment anyway. The dozens of other Asian passengers, many of them families with young children, took a particular interest that Quinn had beaten up one of their own, but that was easy to understand.

  He held up open hands to reassure them.

  “You have probably heard,” he said, catching his breath, “but there has been a murder on this airplane. I am a police officer. The captain has asked me to assist in arresting this man who we believe to be the killer.”

  Hearing Quinn’s voice appeared to bring Carly’s pulse down to a manageable level. “Please, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “Take your seats. We have everything under control now. Everything is fine.” She broke into a string of fluent Russian. Quinn assumed she was repeating herself for the Russian passengers. She switched back to English again as the passengers began to comply. “That’s right,” she said. “Go ahead and take your seats. Mr. Hackman is a law enforcement officer.”

  The redhead lifted her head and moaned. A white paper napkin from the floor was stuck to her forehead. “Wait a minute,” she groaned. “You’re a cop?”

  She winced when Quinn took her upper arm and hauled her to her feet alongside the Chinese man in the leather jacket.

  “I only ask,” the redhead continued, “because I happen to be a cop too.”

  Quinn stopped. “Then why did you hit me?”

  “Because, genius, you were beating the shit out of a passenger.” She squinted trying to clear her vision. “Madonna Foss, federal air marshal. Reach into the front pocket of my jeans and you’ll find my creds.”

  Quinn knew she was likely the real deal when she used the word creds instead of saying “identification.” A city or state officer might say “My badge is in my pocket”; an NYPD cop would simply tell you he was “on the job”; but a fed would show you his or her creds.

  The redhead bent at the waist a little to give Quinn space to retrieve the credentials from the pocket of her tight jeans. “Go ahead,” she said. “Nothing in there that will cut you.”

  The Chinese man tried to yank away. Quinn gave him a hammer fist to the groin to calm him down. He sank to the armrest of the nearest seat, wheezing in pain. Quinn let him fall.

  “These igmos,” Madonna Foss said. “Always forgetting they’re on an airplane with nowhere to run.” She batted green eyes at Quinn. “You going to look
at my creds or not? A girl can’t wait all day for a man to dive into her pockets.”

  Quinn ran a hand over the outside of her jeans. A couple of near-death experiences had taught him to treat males and females the same way when it came to security pat-downs. Professor Foulger’s throat had been cut, so he wasn’t about to take any chances. Feeling nothing but the outline of a flat wallet, he reached in and retrieved it.

  Her name was Madonna Foss and she was indeed a federal air marshal. Fire-red hair was cut just above the shoulders of her wraparound blouse. Though not a big woman, she was fit enough Quinn’s head still pounded from the blow she’d given him with the water bottle.

  Hands behind her back, she nodded at the credential case in Quinn’s hands. “I’m not on duty,” she said. “That’s why the flight attendants didn’t know I was on board. My fiancé is a Diplomatic Security agent at the US embassy in Moscow. I’m on my way over to see him.”

  “Yeah,” Quinn said, smoothing the hair on the back of his head. “I wasn’t on duty either.”

  “Listen,” Foss said, raising an eyebrow. “I’m just as kinky as the next girl, but we’re going to need some kind of safe word if you plan to leave me trussed up like this much longer.”

  “Not sure we’re set up to cut them off,” Quinn said, only half joking. “But we’ll see what they have in their kit. Come on, let’s get this guy to the back so I can ask him a few questions.”

  He grabbed the Asian thug by the collar of his leather jacket and hauled him to his feet again. Barking in dismissive Chinese, Quinn shoved him toward the rear of the airplane.

  Agent Foss peered at Quinn through narrow eyes. “What kind of cop did you say you are?”

  “The kind who’s pretty good at getting answers from guys like this.”

  Chapter 55