by Marc Cameron
Three Arlington Police cruisers rolled onto the scene. Unsure of what was going on, the officers approached with weapons drawn, eyeing Pete and Bo Quinn as hard as they did the downed kidnappers.
Jericho’s propensity to grow a heavy beard had come from his father. He’d surely shaved that morning, but already looked as though he’d gone a week. Bo, the younger and more wayward of his two sons, had bleached blond hair that was long enough to blow in the wind when he rode. He was more baby faced than his brother and father, but his life in a Texas motorcycle club that dabbled in the gray edges of the law had aged and hardened him.
Seven-year-old Mattie, clutching Kim’s leg, appeared to calm the arriving officers a degree. Two of them handcuffed the downed kidnappers, while one checked on the status of the man in the Hawaiian shirt.
The responding sergeant, a tall, clean-shaven man named Oldham, approached Pete Quinn, nodding politely at Kim. He looked like a man with an easy smile, but for the circumstances. “They were trying to kidnap the little girl?”
“That’s right,” Kim said, still feeling shaky. “She’s my daughter.”
“And you guys stepped in to help?”
“Correct.” Pete nodded. “I’m the grandfather.”
Oldham collected their IDs, stopping to peer back over at them when he read the names.
“Quinn,” he said, lips pursing in distaste. “You all related to the Jericho Quinn who’s wanted for the murder of a Fairfax police officer?”
Bo began to speak, but Pete Quinn held up his calloused hand. “We are,” he said. “But this has nothing to do with that.”
“My experience,” Sergeant Oldham muttered, still studying the two men, “is that this always has to do with that. And from where I’m standing, it looks like you have a lot in common with your son.”
Pete Quinn took a deep breath, mulling his words carefully before he said them. “Sergeant,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “Haven’t you ever had a relative that disappointed you?”
Oldham thought about that for a long moment. “Guess you can’t choose your relatives,” he said at length. “My bad. I’m going to need you to come down to the station and fill out some paperwork.” He looked at Kim. “And I’m gonna get a paramedic to take a look at you.”
Bo leaned in as Sergeant Oldham went to summon a paramedic. “The disappointing one—that’s me you’re talking about, right?”
“Pshh,” Pete said. It was his way of dismissing any notion as so utterly inconceivable it didn’t merit an answer. “I don’t know about that guy, but I’m proud of my family. When he comes back, tell him I had to make a call.”
Kim knew exactly who he was about to call—and she’d never wished for that man to be there as much as she did at that moment.
Chapter 16
Alaska
Jericho’s cell phone began to vibrate seconds after he’d fastened the shoulder harness in the cramped backseat of the tiny airplane. The little yellow Super Cub was a tandem-seat tail dragger. Lovita sat in the single seat directly in front of his. In her baggy pink fleece with the large green headphones over her orange hair, she looked like a child pretending to be a bush pilot.
The rain had started to fall in earnest on the way to the gravel strip and beat against the outside of the airplane as if someone was pelting them with a steady barrage of pebbles. Quinn used the forearm of his wool shirt to wipe away the condensation on his window, scanning what was left of the eastern horizon for the other plane as he pressed the phone to his ear.
Lovita applied the brakes to keep the Super Cub from rolling forward, and then slowly increased the throttle until it shook in place. The little airplane groaned, straining to leap off the gravel strip. Lovita watched the handful of simple engine gauges, checking oil pressure and both magnetos. She spun the dial to reset her altimeter and checked the fuel level in the clear plastic tubes above each window on either side of her seat. Satisfied, she worked the stick between her knees in all directions, and pumped the rudder pedals back and forth. An identical set of controls in front of Quinn moved in time with her as if operated by some ghost.
The rag and tube construction of the Super Cub did little to block the deafening roar of the Lycoming engine. Quinn wedged the phone under the earpiece of his headset and leaned down as best he could in the cramped confines behind Lovita’s short seat.
He listened in horror as his father related the kidnapping attempt on Kim and Mattie. His stomach twisted tighter with each word. By the time he ended the call, he’d already reached a decision.
Lovita’s husky voice crackled in his headset. It sounded much too mature to be coming from the little girl sitting in front of him.
“That other plane just overflew Pitka’s Point,” she said. “They’re gonna be here any minute.”
“Can we steer clear of them?” Quinn asked, looking out the window at the white sheets of rain marching along the river.
“Maybe so,” Lovita said, releasing the brake. “But first we have to get in the air.” The plane lurched forward. Fat tundra tires bounced toward the end of the gravel strip as they picked up speed. The tail lifted almost immediately, leveling the plane and giving little Lovita a better view out the windshield.
“I need to make a couple of quick calls before we lose reception,” Quinn said, punching buttons as he spoke.
“Go for it.” Lovita added throttle and pulled back on the stick, causing the little plane to leap off the runway. One hand on the throttle, the other on the stick at her knees, Lovita worked the rudders at her feet, engaged in a sort of dance with the airplane as she committed it to the turbulent mixture of fog and driving rain.
Quinn felt his stomach fall away at the same moment Ronnie Garcia picked up on the other end of his call. He longed to talk to her more, but kept the conversation brief. There was still one more person he had to contact before he lost reception.
“We’re going to need that babysitter,” he yelled.
“The babysitter?” Garcia’s voice came back amid a crackle of static. “You’re certain about this?”
“Call my dad,” Quinn said. “He’ll explain.”
“I love you,” Ronnie said.
The phone went dead before he could answer.
Quinn punched in the second number as Lovita dipped a wing, banking the Super Cub to the right toward the razor-thin line of open sky between soggy tundra and trailing clouds. The plane lurched hard, buffeting as they flew through a band of turbulence where cooler air over the river gave way to warmer stuff over land. Rain splattered the windows, streaming backwards as they picked up speed. The Kilbuck Mountains lay ahead, and beyond them, the Alaska Range, and then the city of Anchorage—and somewhere in between, the other airplane.
Lovita cheated north, leaving the Yukon River and the sprawling settlement of Mountain Village. Breaking nearly every rule in the book, she nosed the little plane upward and into the clouds in an effort to avoid the other plane. The cell tower disappeared behind them in a shroud of gray mist. Quinn pressed the cell phone to his ear, knowing he didn’t have long before he lost reception altogether.
“Come on,” he said under his breath. “Pick up, Jacques.”
Chapter 17
Spotsylvania, Virginia
Gunnery Sergeant Jacques Thibodaux dropped his carry-on roller bag on the chipped concrete porch and fished his house key from the pocket of his Marine Corps utilities. Two gallon jugs of milk and six flimsy plastic grocery bags hung from his massive left hand. The brim of his utility cover pulled low over his forehead, he clutched a stack of bills and credit card offers between his teeth. A black patch covered one eye, the wound courtesy of a gun battle in a Bolivian jungle alongside his friend Jericho Quinn. He was a big man with shoulders as wide as his own front porch and muscles that strained the seams of his MARPAT camo uniform. The black nylon rigger’s belt with a single red stripe signified he was a certified instructor trainer of Marine Corps Martial Arts.
The door swung open before
he could get the key.
“Hey, Boo,” Thibodaux said to his wife. Her name was Camille, but he’d called her Cornmeal or Boo from the first time he’d met her when she was tending bar outside Camp Lejeune. She was a short thing, and at six-feet-four he had to lean down some to meet her. Snatching the mail out of his mouth with the hand that held the grocery bags, he winked his good eye and tilted his head so she could give him their customary welcome-home kiss without bumping the brim of his cover.
Camille didn’t move. Standing in the open door, she cocked her hip to one side—a hip that was nicely clad, to the gunny’s way of thinking, in stretchy black yoga pants. Her deeply tanned arms ran up either side of the threshold, completely blocking his entry. Black hair brushed strong shoulders. The Eagle, Globe, and Anchor on the chest of her faded green USMC tank top swelled and dipped in all the right places.
He’d only been gone three nights—some training down in Georgia for his new job in logistics. Sheer torture for a man used to the rigors and adventure of the field, the hours of convoluted PowerPoints and bone-dry lectures felt like some new form of enhanced interrogation. Being able to lay eyes again on the mother of his seven boys took his breath away.
He leaned in again, trying once more for their customary hello.
Instead of kissing him, she folded her arms, obscuring his view of the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, and threw him one of her patented pissed-off Italian looks. She was nearly a foot shorter than him, but standing inside the doorway made it easier to look him in the eye with him still out on the porch.
Thibodaux took a half step back.
“What?” he said. “Somebody die or somethin’?”
Eyes the color of black coffee narrowed under an even darker brow. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know.” Her accent was a fricassee of the Deep South spiced with just a hint of her father’s Mott Street Italian.
Thibodaux shook his head, rolling through his brain for some anniversary or birthday he’d missed. They’d just talked the night before. She hadn’t given him any indication then that she’d been mad.
“I really don’t—”
“Yes, you do, Jacques,” she whispered. “That’s the problem.”
“What?” He was begging now. “What is the problem?”
“I want to hear it from your own lips, Jacques Thibodaux,” she said. “It’ll be better for everyone that way.”
“Arette toi,” he pleaded. Stop, you. “Baby, I got no earthly idea what you’re talkin’ about.”
Her lips tightened into a terrifying line, the way they did when she banished him to sleep on the couch. “Jacques,” she said, scolding. “You have got to tell me the truth.”
“You’re killin’ me, here,” Thibodaux said, his gumbo-thick Cajun drawl thickening even more. “I swear on my mamere’s own grave . . .”
Camille’s face melted into a wide smile
“Just checking,” she said and leaned in to give him a peck on the nose. “Gotta keep what’s mine, mine.”
“Holy shit, girl,” he moaned, throwing his head back. “You scared my mule there.”
She raised a black eyebrow at his cursing.
“Come on,” he said, walking in to set the bags on the dining room table. “You owe me that one.”
“Maybe,” she said, peeking out the mini-blinds that faced the street.
Camille Thibodaux, the churchgoing member of the marriage, allotted her gunnery sergeant husband a total of five non-Bible curse words each month in an effort to keep her boys from picking up potty mouths. As long as it was in the Bible, any word was fair game. Which, Thibodaux discovered, actually gave him a pretty large lexicon to choose from.
“That van’s back,” she said.
Thibodaux shrugged. “I know,” he said. “Just try and forget about it.” He took the milk into the kitchen.
He knew what the van was all about—or had his suspicions at least. He even told Camille some of it. An OGA, or other governmental agent along with Quinn when Winfield Palmer had been in office, the change in the administration had forced him to return to his old unit. He returned from Japan as ordered and reported in to Quantico, but his command had been unsure of what to do with him. It seemed that anyone who’d had access to the former president was now damaged goods—even dangerous to be around. Gunny Thibodaux—the consummate warrior with more tours into forward operating areas in the hellholes of the Middle East than he had sons—which was saying a lot—had been relegated to desk duty.
Even there he didn’t really have a job other than organizing paper files that seemed to be pretty damned organized already. It was the clerical equivalent of breaking big rocks into little rocks. Still, Thibodaux tried to make the best of it, biding his time until Palmer, and the few he had working with him, hatched a plan to deal with this current administration. Thibodaux had little contact with Quinn, but Garcia and Palmer reached out to him on occasion, using the old-school method of leaving a chalk mark on the bench at the ball field where his oldest sons played when they wanted a meeting. It was all basic tradecraft from the Cold War era, fascinating stuff in his early training with Quinn and the enigmatic Mrs. Miyagi, but certainly not something he’d thought he would ever put to use.
Camille’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “Are you even listening to me, T?”
Thibodaux turned to see his wife had folded her arms again. After seven sons, her figure was still what his daddy would have called praline-scrumptious—a little curvier than she once was—but that was just fine with Jacques. The skin-and-bones things on TV looked about as appetizing as cuddling with a metal storm grate. Camille was, as Jacques liked to point out, built for comfort over speed.
“You know I’m listening, mon cher,” Jacques said, flinging his Cajun charm at her. He ran the flat of his hand over the top of the bristles of his high and tight haircut. “What was it you were sayin’?”
“You big, stupid son of a bitch,” Camille said, welling up with tears. Somehow, she could curse whenever she felt like it. She could have cursed him in her native Italian, but what was the good of cursing your husband if he didn’t understand how mad you were? Some things just couldn’t be picked up by context alone.
She threw her head back and stared at the ceiling, blinking away tears. “Sometimes you just make me want to scream.”
Jacques grimaced. He truly hated it when his sweet bride was angry—on so many levels. “I’m sorry, Boo. I swear I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“I’m telling you that van is parked back across the street again. It was here for a week, then left when you did. You get back from training and now it’s out there again. I can’t help it if that scares me.” She snatched a tissue from the table and blew her nose. “Sometimes I think you just don’t give a damn.”
Thibodaux took her gently by both shoulders, cocking his head to one side to try to make sense of what she meant rather than what she said.
“Of course, I give a damn,” he said. “I give lots of damns. In fact, I give more damns than anyone I ever even heard of. You know that.” He tilted her chin up with a crooked finger.
She put her arms around his neck and pulled him close. “I’m just tired,” she whispered. “You being followed everywhere, creepy men watching us like this—it’s a lot for a girl to take in. You know?”
Arms around her waist, he lifted her off her feet. “I hate it too,” he whispered, pulling her body against his and giving her back a little crack the way she liked.
He put her down and gave her a peck on the forehead.
Camille sighed, semi-appeased. “I’m sorry for the hissy fit.”
Thibodaux glanced at his watch. “I got an hour till I have to start making the rounds to go pick up the little bougs. We hardly ever get any time alone. What say you and me play a little game of Naked Twister?”
Camille took an elastic band off her wrist and looped it around her hair, pulling it up into a thick ponytail. “I guess I could pencil you in,” she said. “If yo
u help me put away these groceries.”
“Sold.” Thibodaux grinned, opening the refrigerator door to put in all his plastic shopping bags at once.
“I see where our boys get their behavior,” Camille chided.
“I know,” Thibodaux said. “I was just foolin’ with you.”
“Not until you unpack these groceries, you’re not.” Camille turned away, carrying a carton of Minute Rice to the pantry. He gave her a little swat on the butt as she walked away, keeping up the illusion that he was the one in charge.
Five minutes later, Thibodaux followed his wife into the bedroom, hopping on one foot and then the other as he peeled off his socks.
Camille sat on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs and watching him undress. He rarely told her what he did when he was out of town, but she made it a habit of checking him over for new wounds and scars when he came home.
“When is the last time you heard anything from Jericho?” She asked.
Thibodaux shot a glance toward the window. He put a finger to his lips, and then leaned in closer, whispering. “There’s a good chance the guys in that van have listening devices. They might able to pick up some of the things we say, even inside the house.”
She raised an eyebrow, giving him a slow nod as she considered that information. “That being the case . . .” She looked down at the bed. “We should probably be careful then.”
“Hang on, now.” Thibodaux held up both hands, trying to salvage a few minutes with his wife before he had to pick up the boys. “I ain’t saying they can really hear us. I’m just thinking we should be careful when we mention you know who.”
“I see,” she said, not moving.
“Does this mean . . . ?”
“Of course not.” She peeled off her shirt and fell back on the bed, giving the mattress a playful bounce. “Remember that crap hole apartment we rented when we were stationed at Camp Pendleton?”
He nodded, dumbly. After seven boys, the sight of her body still took his breath away.