by Marc Cameron
“There’s been a mistake here,” Ronnie said over the top of Mattie’s head, addressing the men in suits. “He helped us. He doesn’t belong in handcuffs.”
The eldest of the three men gave her a condescending smile, spending just a little too much time studying the ups and downs of her swimsuit, to Quinn’s way of thinking.
“Mr. Brooks says he could be cooperating with the shooters,” the oldest agent said.
“Who’s Brooks?” Ronnie raised a dark brow.
“That’s me.” The man in the Blue Jays hat stepped up beside the truck and puffed out his chest. “You can’t tell me this haji son of a bitch isn’t a part of all this.”
Ronnie rolled her eyes and looked at Quinn. “That’s the guy I was telling you about.”
“A hot tamale?” Quinn said, bouncing the man’s head off the side of the truck. Brooks staggered, then slid to the pavement in a heap.
Two of the suits advanced on Quinn but he raised his hands. He stepped over beside Garcia and took Mattie back to show he wasn’t a threat to the suits.
“You just knocked that guy out,” one of the agents said.
“Sorry,” Quinn said. “Guess the stress of this got to me . . .”
One of the men stooped down to check on a muttering Brooks, who looked like his pride was hurt more than anything else.
Quinn looked at Mukhtar and then the senior agent. He assumed they were DHS or local detectives. If they’d been FBI they would have told him already.
“Look,” he said. “It’s easy to see why you’d think Mukhtar might be involved, especially with upstanding citizens like Brooks giving you your intel, but I’m the one who called you guys over the PA. This man helped save a lot of people in there—including my daughter.”
“It’s not as simple as that.” The older agent shrugged. “I think we—”
“It’s exactly as simple as that.” Quinn stepped in, nose to nose with the man. “I don’t know who you are, and frankly, I don’t care. I’ll give you a number to call, but I’m warning you, you’re going to wish you’d taken the cuffs off before you called it.”
Quinn’s boss—the man on the other end of the number he gave the agent—happened to be sitting in the Oval Office when he took the call. Mukhtar’s father had been waiting frantically in the outskirts of the parking lot. He was finally let through the outer perimeter and allowed to collect his son.
Ronnie Garcia exchanged numbers with the boy with the promise that she and Quinn would join his family for dinner in a few days. Mr. Tahir then wisely whisked his son away from the crowd, which was still jumpy about anyone with dark skin wearing a Buccaneer Beach Thrill Park uniform.
* * *
Exhausted to the point of falling over, Quinn held both Mattie and Garcia close as he staggered back to the triage tent where Jacques waited with his family. The ringing in Quinn’s ears made it difficult to hear everything that was being said, but he could tell Camille Thibodaux was busy alternately chastising Dan for running off on his own and showering him with hugs and kisses.
“A burglary, Chair Force?” Jacques said from where he sat in the folding chair next to Quinn, shaking his head. “I’m hearing estimates of a hundred and three dead and twice that number wounded . . . All this killing for a little dab of cash?”
Quinn shrugged. Mattie sat in his lap. Garcia sat in the chair beside him. He took a moment to give her shoulder a squeeze and sniff Mattie’s hair before he spoke. “A park as big as Buccaneer Beach could rake in a quarter million in receipts every day,” he said. “And that’s not counting the concessions.”
“Wouldn’t a lot of it be credit card receipts?” Ronnie asked, batting exhausted brown eyes at Quinn.
“Some of it would,” he said.
Thibodaux rubbed his jaw in thought, following the logic. “But if he rounds up a bunch of guns from his uncle’s safe and a bunch of radical yahoos take care of the shootin’ spree that covers his crime, this little sociopath had no upfront investment and no accountability. Even half the daily gross in cash would be free money.”
“Exactly,” Quinn said.
Thibodaux leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. “I guess they all got to die as martyrs,” he said.
Mattie lifted her head from Quinn’s chest. “What’s a martyr, Daddy?”
Thibodaux gave a low groan, his eyes still closed. “Martyr is another word for dumbass,” he sighed. “Go ahead and quote me if you want to, darlin’.”
Quinn hugged his daughter and chuckled. “We’d better not mention that definition to your mom,” he said.
Mattie pulled back, blinking huge blue eyes, her mother’s eyes. She sniffed, flashing a beautiful grin—the type of grin that made him want to buy her things.
“Sorry I scared you, Daddy,” she said. “But there was this guy with a gun, and you always told me I should run from a guy with a gun. Then Dan said we should run, too, so I did.”
“He was right,” Quinn said. “And so were you.”
“Did you see Dan made a bow and arrow out of a piece of plastic pipe?” Her beautiful eyes grew even bigger. “And it really worked.”
“I saw that,” Quinn said, squeezing her as if she might fly away. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”
Mattie went on talking without taking a breath. “Then the bad guys threw us into the swimming pool. And it was really deep, and we treaded water, but Dan said we should stay out of the shallow end because we might get trampled.”
“He did?” Quinn said, shooting a sideways grin at Ronnie.
“It was really, really scary, Dad.” Mattie gave an emphatic nod, her arms still around Quinn’s neck. “We thought they were going to shoot any minute, then Dan told me and my friend Sarah that we should swim close to the edge and run—”
Jacques looked at Quinn, smiling broadly, mouthing his words so Mattie couldn’t hear him. “Well, Chair Force,” he said. “Looks like she got over Shawn . . .”
Keep reading for a preview of . . .
“One of the hottest new authors in the thriller genre.”—Brad Thor
The first target is Dallas, Texas. Then a deadly nerve gas called New Archangel is unleashed upon the City of Angels, claiming innocent lives, spreading nationwide panic, and fueling global fears of another attack. In the icy reaches of rural Alaska, special agent Jericho Quinn is enlisted to hunt down the man who created the bioweapon—a brilliant Russian scientist who is trying to defect and is hiding in the Alaskan wilderness. But time is running out. The scientist is beginning to lose his mind to dementia. If Quinn doesn’t find him before the Russians do, the entire western seaboard and beyond will feel the wrath of New Archangel—and darkness will fall upon the earth.
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Chapter 1
Near Anchorage, Alaska, 3:25 P.M.
Jericho Quinn knew an ambush when he saw one. He rolled the throttle of his gunmetal gray BMW R1200GS Adventure, leaning hard over into the second of a long series of S turns. Sometimes called the two-story bike of the motorcycling world, the big GS flicked easily on the twisty road. A chilly wind bit the tiny gap of skin between the chin of his helmet and the collar of his black leather jacket. Behind him, riding pillion, Veronica “Ronnie” Garcia squeezed with strong thighs, leaning when he leaned, moving when he moved as he negotiated the narrow, seaside road. Her soft chest pressed against his back, long arms twined around his waist.
Popping the bike upright on a straightaway, Quinn shot a glance in his side mirror and watched the grille of a dark panel van loom behind him. It came up fast, pressing aggressively on the winding two-lane that ran on the narrow ledge between mountain and ocean. Quinn bumped the throttle again and sped up, easing farther to the right and buying some distance while he considered any and all options that didn’t end with him and Garcia as twin grease spots on the asphalt or Wile E. Coyoted into the mountainside.
The van accelerated, moving close enough that it filled Quinn’s side mirrors with nothing but chrom
e grille. Just as he was about to swerve onto a gravel trail that cut off toward the ocean, he got a clear view of the guy at the wheel. A kid with a thick mullet haircut pressed a cell phone to his ear while gesturing wildly with the hand that should have been reserved for steering. Quinn kept up his speed but took the shoulder instead of the trail, allowing the van to barrel past before the next blind corner. For all Quinn knew, the guy never even saw him.
He’d ridden the Seward Highway south of Anchorage hundreds of times while growing up and knew there was a passing lane less than a mile ahead. Cell phones, sleepy drivers, drunks, turds with mullets—all made Quinn want to beat someone to death with an ax handle—but road rage had no place from the back of a motorcycle. No matter the traffic laws, the reality of physics dictated a right-of-way by tonnage if you wanted to stay alive.
“I’m proud of you, Mango,” Garcia’s sultry voice, spiced with a hint of her Cuban heritage, came across Quinn’s Cardo Bluetooth headset as he flicked the leggy BMW back onto the highway proper. “You didn’t even mutter when you yielded to that dude.”
Quinn poured on more speed, sending up a tornado of yellow leaves from a tiny stand of birches along the road. “I’m not much of a mutterer,” he said.
“Yeah, well,” Ronnie chuckled, “you’re not much of a yielder, either.”
Turnagain Arm, a narrow bay off the Cook Inlet of the Pacific Ocean, lay to their right, silty waters whitecapped and churning as if her tremendous tides hadn’t quite figured out which way to flow. Craggy peaks of the Chugach Mountains loomed directly to their left in a mix of rock, greenery, and waterfall that tumbled right to the shoulder of the winding road.
Quinn moved his neck from side to side, letting the adrenaline brought on by the idiot in the van ebb—and taking the time to enjoy the ride until the next idiot barreled up behind him. He flicked the bike around a basketball-sized rock that had come to rest in his lane. Here and there, great swaths of stone and shattered trees that had been bent and torn by avalanches fanned down the mountainside, just beginning to heal from the previous winter.
Quinn could relate.
It felt good to be back—back in his home state, with a badge back in his pocket, and back on his bike with the woman he loved on the seat behind him. Along with the two guns and Japanese killing dagger that hid under his black leather jacket, he bore as many scars as the avalanche chutes that cut the mountains above him. Some of the wounds were still painfully raw.
Ronnie bumped the back of his helmet with the forehead of hers and worked in closer behind him, giving him a playful squeeze. She was a strong woman, just a few inches shorter than Quinn, with broad, athletic shoulders and strong, alluring hips. Far from fat, her Russian father had called her zaftig. Her ex-husband—a man who wisely steered well clear of Quinn—described her as having a “ghetto booty.” But if the powerfully aggressive BMW reminded Quinn of the Death Dealer’s black warhorse, Veronica Dombrovski Garcia was no helpless maiden, cowering at the feet of a Conan or John Carter of Mars. She was a beautifully fierce warrior princess, clutching her own sword and flanked by pet tigers. Quinn’s seven-year-old daughter had privately confided to him that Garcia looked an awful lot like Wonder Woman.
As strong as she was, Garcia’s squeezes were considerably weaker than they had been, absent the ferocity they’d once possessed. It was understandable. Her treatment at the hands of sadistic captors had left both shoulders badly damaged, one requiring a lengthy surgery and months of physical therapy to repair. There had been concerns that she might not be able to use that arm again at all.
It would take a while, but Quinn was sure she’d heal, maybe only to ninety percent—but ninety percent of Ronnie Garcia was ten percent above any other woman Quinn had ever met. She pushed the limits being out of her sling, but he wasn’t really in a position to admonish her.
Gripping the handlebars, Quinn rolled his own shoulders back and forth, feeling the telltale pop and grind of damaged gristle and working out some of the stiffness and aftereffects of being shot by a Chinese terrorist just months earlier. Emiko Miyagi, friend and defensive tactics mentor, had done wonders with shiatsu massage and her specially designed, if incredibly painful, yoga routines. He could deal with physical pain. It was the thought of being incapacitated that haunted him.
The official written orders from the Air Force doc at Andrews had been to take it easy. But in an off-the-record chat, he’d told Quinn to work the injury until he started to “piss it off,” and then dial back some. Riding the bike definitely pissed off his old wounds. He found the hyperawareness and attention to balance it took to negotiate the mountain roads and prosecute the tight turns on the leggy Beemer to be just what he needed to put a bow on his recovery process—both mental and physical. In any case, disobeying doctor’s orders was part of his DNA. He’d been doing it for weeks, adding dead hangs and then pullups to his physical therapy regimen as soon as he could make a good fist. His old man had once lamented that Jericho could burn calories just sitting in the corner and looking mean. The older he got, the less that was true, so exercise was a necessity, injured or not.
Quinn knew he might not be a very good yielder, but he was a good healer. At nearly thirty-seven, the mending just took a little longer.
Both he and Garcia wore beaked Arai dual-sport helmets, his gray with an airbrushed paint job of crossed war-axes on the sides, hers canary yellow. Racing gloves and full black leathers protected them against an accidental dismount and the icy crispness of an Alaska autumn. Icon Truant motorcycle boots offered protection to his ankles but allowed him the freedom of movement to run should the need arise.
Though not a heavy woman by any stretch, Garcia was ample enough to make an extremely pleasant backrest. Her warmth seeped through Quinn’s leather jacket, bringing with it an added layer of comfort against the chill and an excited happiness that he hadn’t felt since his daughter was born.
Garcia gave him another playful squeeze. It sent a twinge of pain through Quinn’s bruised ribs but he didn’t care. His father had often urged him to lead the kind of life that bruised ribs. Now, as an agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations or OSI, he’d been assigned to work directly for the President’s National Security Advisor—doing the things that needed the heavy hand of his particular skill set. He wasn’t about to let a couple of old wounds—or some jackass with a mullet—stop him from enjoying this trip with Garcia. They’d been apart for far too long, and now he’d finally gotten her to his home state.
They’d been in Alaska for the better part of the week, going to the Musk Ox Farm and eating reindeer hot dogs in downtown Anchorage with his seven-year-old daughter Mattie. The two got along well enough that they shared whispered girl-secrets that they kept from him. To Quinn’s astonishment, even his ex-wife Kim seemed at ease with the fact he’d brought his girlfriend up to spend time with his parents—an obvious final step before any more permanent arrangement.
The trip was never meant as a test, but if it had been, Garcia would have aced it. Every new place Quinn took her threw her into a state of childlike awe. If anything, she appeared to love Alaska even more than he did—which was saying something.
The pavement was still clear and dry, but the mountains along the Seward Highway had been dusted by snow that same morning. This “termination dust” signified the end of Alaska’s short autumn but gave the already breathtaking scenery an extra shot of beauty. Quinn couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted to impress anyone as bad as he wanted to impress Veronica Garcia. It was a difficult endeavor considering everything they’d been through together.
As if she knew he was thinking about her, Garcia moved even closer—if such a thing were even possible.
Quinn absorbed it all, flicking the BMW back and forth through a maze of rocks that had tumbled onto the road on the far side of a blind curve. Like Quinn, the bike was happiest when dealing with the rough stuff.
Garcia’s husky giggle poured through the Cardo earpiece in
his helmet. “She wiggles like a sassy woman.”
“That she does,” Quinn said, his lips pressing against the foam microphone. “But she doesn’t wiggle herself. I wiggle her.”
“You got that right—”
Always scanning, Quinn tensed at a sight a quarter mile up the highway, causing Garcia to stop mid-sentence.
He could tell by the way her body moved—or stopped moving—that she saw it right after he did.
A white Anchorage PD patrol car sat parked in a paved pullout overlooking the ocean. The driver’s door gaped open and a uniformed officer crouched behind the back bumper. He was bent over the prone body of his partner, one hand on the downed man’s chest, the other at the radio mic clipped to his lapel. A scant three hundred yards ahead on a long straightaway, a red pickup and a white Subaru sedan sped away, southbound, past the turnoff to the ski village of Girdwood.
Quinn slowed, using his left hand to unzip his jacket and reach inside to retrieve a black leather credential case. Pulling up on a fallen officer without ID was a good way to get shot.
The downed officer lay on his back, surrounded by shattered glass from the rear window. His eyes were open and he writhed in pain. A good sign, Quinn thought as he put his foot down to steady the bike and flipped up the visor on his helmet. A line of what could only be bullet holes stitched the side of the police car. The other officer, a younger man with the earnest look of a full-grown Cabbage Patch doll, glanced up at the sound of the approaching motorcycle. His big eyes narrowed with adrenalized intensity. He nodded at the sight of Quinn’s OSI badge and returned to his radio traffic.
“. . . medics code red,” the officer said, calling in help for his injured partner.
The officer’s earpiece had come unplugged and the steady voice of the dispatcher spilled out of his radio. “All units, 10-33 for 25-Bravo-2,” she said, advising others on the frequency to yield to the officer’s traffic.