by Marc Cameron
Quinn pushed himself up on one knee, blinking and wincing in pain from his throbbing foot. “Where’s Badeeb? You didn’t kill him, did you? We’re supposed to see what he knows.”
The Cajun sighed. “Sucker swallowed a little magic coward pill before I could even unass my bike. NYPD is sacking up the body.” He tipped his gun barrel toward the severed head. “Anyhow, you got no room to chastise me. I guess the King’s not gonna do much talking either.” He did a passable Elvis impersonation, complete with quivering upper lip. “Thank you, thank you very much.”
“No, he’s not talking.” Quinn struggled to his feet, using the wall for support. “But maybe someone else will.
A red smear followed on the wooden floor behind Li Huang where she had dragged herself to the edge of her bed. Dark, arterial blood seeped between the gaps of bony fingers clenched at her neck, ebbing and flowing in time with the weakening beat of her heart. Her lips had gone a chalky blue.
Quinn knelt beside her. “We have an ambulance en route.” He took a piece of QuikClot gauze from the black Cordura wound kit in his pocket and applied it to her neck. Even as he worked, he knew the injury was too great to save her.
“My husband ... responsible ... for this,” she croaked. The glistening gray white sheath of her windpipe was visible through the sagging wound, moving when she spoke. “... faithful ... to that ... dog ... fifteen years ...”
“And yet he wanted you dead,” Quinn said, slowly shaking his head. This woman had surely been a party to the deaths of untold numbers of innocents. It was difficult for him to muster much sympathy. “Why?”
“... hate him,” she gasped.
“I believe I can save you,” Quinn lied. “But you have to tell me what you know.”
“Too late ...” Her voice came in ragged whispers, like the worn-out remnants of a sobbing cry.
“Your husband ordered you murdered,” Quinn said, keeping firm pressure on the old woman’s wound. “Are you going to protect him after that?”
“It is a girl,” Li Huang whispered, lapsing into Mandarin. “She will kill them all.”
Quinn shot a glance at Thibodaux, nodding. “We took the girl into custody,” he said, following the woman into her native language. “Before she could get in her airplane.”
“Not Tara ...” The old woman shook her head. The move was slight, but enough to start the wound bleeding again in earnest. “Tara was ... insurance... .”
Her eyes fluttered, dimming.
Quinn held her chin with his free hand. “What is her name?” he asked, still in Chinese. “This other girl? Where is she?”
“Vice president’s wife ... new assistant ... they will kill your president... .” The old woman tried to swallow. “Could ... I have ... water?” Dried saliva flaked white at the corners of slack lips.
“They?” Quinn asked, his face just inches from the dying woman.
“There ... is a man... . He ... he ...” She coughed, drawing a series of rattling breaths. “What time is it?”
Thibodaux looked at his watch. “Just after five,” he said.
A wan smile crossed Li Huang’s sallow face. “It does not matter anymore.” She shook her head for the last time. “You are too late—”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Quinn laid the old Chinese woman’s lifeless body on her rude wooden bed. Shaking off the hollow pit of abject fatigue, he reached in the pocket of the Transit jacket for his phone and glanced up at Thibodaux as he punched in the number for Palmer.
The big Cajun stood, staring down at the gaping wound in the old woman’s neck, jaws loose again as if he might be sick. “I don’t reckon I was ever around a people so keen on cuttin’ one another’s heads off... .”
“Do me a favor,” Quinn said.
“Huh?” Thibodaux looked up as if from a trance.
“Get Smedley back on the horn. Ask him to get his Osprey here on the double. We have to get out to that wedding.”
“She said, ‘he,’ ” Thibodaux mused. “Got any notion who ‘he’ is?”
“Could be anybody,” Quinn said, waiting for his call to connect.
Thibodaux grunted his agreement and went to work.
“Dammit,” Quinn spat. He got the fast busy signal that told him something was going on with the cell tower handling his call. He pressed redial but heard the same rapid series of beeps.
“Mine’s not going through either.” The big Cajun met his gaze. “I’m gettin’ zip.”
“Then we’ll deliver the message in person.” Quinn was already trotting toward the stairs.
Thibodaux still had the cell phone pressed to his ear as he ran beside Quinn. His face suddenly brightened. “It’s ringing.” He handed Jericho the phone.
Smedley picked up on the third ring. His phone was connected via Bluetooth to his Lightspeed headset and the lawnmower thump of the V-22’s Rolls-Royce engines was barely audible in the background.
“Smeds,” Quinn said. “It’s me, Copper. Where you been? Your phone wasn’t working.”
“Just dropped off a load of Castle Guards at the venue,” the pilot said, referring to the Secret Service detail. “The place is swarming with those sunglass-wearin’ dudes—and I gotta tell you, they all look like they’re itching to shoot someone.”
“Yeah, well, me too, Jared,” Quinn said. “Me too. So where are you now?”
“Setting down at the heliport by the ferry terminal. Why?”
“The moles must have a cell phone jammer on the island,” Quinn mused, as much to himself as Smedley. “I can’t get through to Palmer and your phone was in-op while you were over there.”
“Want me to get a message on the military frequency?” the major asked. “It was working fine.”
Standing at the Ducati now, Quinn paused to sort his thoughts. He was hurt and exhausted, dead on his feet. It was moments like this when he couldn’t afford to make snap decisions. But it was one of the great paradoxes of his life that in moments like this, snap decisions were all he had time for.
“Do you have someone on the ground out there you can trust?” he asked. With an unknown number of moles infiltrating the government, sending out an open message could have deadly consequences.
“I trust all my guys,” Smedley said. “Without a doubt.”
“Okay then.” Quinn paused. “Think for a minute. Do you know Tara Doyle?”
“Sure,” the pilot shot back. “I’d heard of her.”
“Did you trust her before today?”
There was silence on the line. “Roger that.” Smedley gave a long sigh. “From now on I don’t trust anyone.”
“I hear you,” Quinn said, twirling his open hand in the air above his head as he spoke, signaling Thibodaux to get ready to go. “I need you to get your bird over here as quick as you can.”
“The ball field where I dropped you off?”
“No time for that.” Quinn threw a leg over the Ducati. “It may already be too late. We’re just around the corner from Canal and Bowery. What do you need for clearance?”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Smedley almost shouted into the phone.
“Aren’t you the one that said you’d set her down in Times Square if I asked?” Quinn said.
“That’s cocky pilot bullshit and you know it,” Smedley said. “I can’t be held accountable for stuff like that.”
“Come on, Smeds. You know you’re itching for a reason to do this. What’s your wingspan?”
“I need thirty yards, give our take, just to have a few inches on either side. Fifty would be better.”
“Canal and Bowery should work then,” Quinn said, giving at best, an educated guess.
“Traffic in Chinatown is murder any time of the day.”
“Just bring her in,” Quinn said, starting the Ducati. “When the taxis see your giant gray pterodactyl swooping down on them, they’ll scoot out of the way like a bunch of canaries.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Quinn rode up over the curb with a hea
lthy bounce and stopped beside one of the gray lion statues in front of the HSBC bank building when the tilt-rotor Osprey thumped in from the south.
“This is gonna be a tight fit, beb,” Thibodaux said, pulling in beside him and flipping up the visor of his helmet.
Quinn clenched his teeth, willing the Osprey in. There was no room for error, but Smedley was as good a pilot as there was—and though he talked a tentative game, he was fearless. “He can do it.”
The major brought his bird in fast and low, screaming in at well over a hundred knots just above the brick fortress of tenements known as Knickerbocker Village. Keeping the Manhattan Bridge on his right, he didn’t flare until he reached Confucius Plaza.
Two helmeted crewmen in green Nomex flight suits craned swiveling heads out each side of the aircraft, guiding the pilots down through the maze of light poles, neon signs, and electric wires. Trash, dust, and road grit whirled under the cyclonic effect of the two thirty-eight-foot rotors. Metal trash cans toppled and rolled down the street. The blue and yellow cloth umbrella on a hotdog cart vanished in the whirling gray cloud.
Deafening vibration and flying debris activated car alarms up and down the street for two blocks. Taxis and delivery trucks crashed and squealed attempting to back out of the path of the descending aircraft. A traffic cop in a bright yellow vest stood in tight-lipped awe. He squinted, leaning into the wind with his hand holding down his hat.
The Osprey’s rear ramp yawned open as Smedley settled her expertly in the middle of the intersection, now deserted as if it had been swept clean. The crewmen waved Quinn forward and the two men gunned their bikes into the darkness and relative quiet of the cabin.
Quinn ripped off his helmet, still straddling the Ducati. One of the crewmen handed him a headset that was attached to a wire on the wall.
“Now that’s what I call some slick flying.” Smedley craned his head around in the cockpit, grinning at the adventure of it all. “Don’t I even get a thank-you?”
“You should thank me for giving you the opportunity.” Quinn said. “When else would you get to make good on your pilot bullshit?”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
Governors Island
Amanda Deatherage waited less than ten feet behind the receiving line beside the fat iron cannon where she’d tied the bow earlier. Perspiration beaded on her upper lip.
So far, the president had been trapped on the far side of the lawn talking to an endless parade of foreign dignitaries who wanted a piece of his time. Mrs. Hughes and the vice president stood to the right of their daughter. The groom, the secretary of state, and the national security advisor stood beside them, shaking hands and chatting brightly with well-wishers as they came through the line.
They were all so handsome and arrogant—and doomed.
Amanda knew full well Mrs. Hughes thought her odd and erratic at best, but she’d gained the hag’s trust and that’s what was important. She hoped her quirky behavior would mask any last-minute jitters.
Shadan was somewhere in the crowd watching her, making certain she followed through with her assignment. She’d never met the man—she’d heard his name for the first time when Dr. Badeeb explained her mission. It would be her honor to kill the president and vice president. Shadan, he explained, would be there to assist if needed. He would have a second detonator if anything were to happen to her.
Deatherage knew the man was really there in the event she changed her mind—but that was something that would not happen. She’d come too far, seen too much, to back out now. She owed it to her parents to seek vengeance against the lie that was America. Death was not something to fear. It would be welcome. She had tasted gall for so much of her young life; her martyrdom would come as a sweet reward.
Since taking the job as personal assistant, Deatherage had made it her norm to wear baggy, ill-fitting clothes. Mrs. Hughes expected her to look disheveled. The canvas vest now strapped to her chest held nine thin blocks of plastic explosive and a full ten pounds of evenly placed BBs and sheet-metal screws—all soaked in rat poison to hinder wounds from clotting. Dr. Badeeb had assured her the device would obliterate anyone standing within fifteen feet and maim dozens more who stood within the blast radius. Her loose dress and frumpy jacket hid everything better than she could have imagined.
Security was everywhere—Secret Service, Diplomatic Security, Foreign protective agents, NYPD, and some Amanda couldn’t name. But none of them would be able to stop her now.
All that remained was for the president to walk across the lawn and pay his respects to the bride and groom. At that point he would be close enough to the vice president. Then Deatherage would take two steps forward and the face of America would change forever.
The service itself hadn’t taken nearly long enough in Nancy Hughes’s estimation. A matter of such importance should linger awhile before being over. She consoled herself with the fact that they could stand in line and gloat for a good while, showing off their now-married little girl.
Helicopters whumped above the trees and fighter jets roared overhead, higher now so as not to deafen the guests, but still too low for Nancy’s taste. She shook hands with the foreign minister of Japan, a guest of Melissa Ryan’s, and apologized for the racket.
Secret Service agents milled among the throng of guests and myriad waiters and waitresses moving in to work the crowd with silver trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres
President Clark and his entourage stood in a loose gaggle at the far end of the front yard, opposite the cannon. Toby Braithwaite, the playboy British prime minister, bloviated like the parliamentarian he was, hogging the president’s attention as if it were his day instead of Jolene’s. Nancy wanted a photo of the bride and her new husband with the president. And now the stupid Brit wouldn’t turn loose of him.
Special Agent Jack Blackmore with the Secret Service loitered directly behind his protectee, head on a swivel, looking for any abnormality in a sea of guests. Other agents on the POTUS detail, all in dark tuxedos to fit in with the crowd, took various positions around the yard. Some faced inbound, keeping an eye on the guests. Two dozen more faced outward, watching for oncoming threats.
Sonny Vindetti stood directly behind the vice president with Jimmy Doyle. Six more agents assigned to the VP detail stood in front of the receiving line. Each wore the regulation skin-tone earpiece for the radio at their belt. Their eyes scanned each guest on the way down the line.
Melissa Ryan looked ravishing, Nancy thought, in her dark blue Burberry wool suit. Even at her son’s wedding, the top two buttons on her white silk blouse remained alluringly open. Winfield Palmer stood beside her, looking dapper but uncomfortably cramped in his tux.
“Heads-up,” Nancy heard Sonny Vindetti’s voice behind her as he spoke to his team of agents.
President Clark had, at long last, disengaged himself from his conversation with Braithwaite and now strode quickly across the lawn, his team of agents in tow.
“Longbow is on the move,” Vindetti said into the microphone at his lapel, using the president’s code name.
POTUS was finally on his way and Nancy would be able to get her photo.
“Amanda, dear,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s time. Would you be so kind as to bring the photographer around?”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
“How do you know who you’re looking for?” Smedley said as he brought the Osprey from Battery Park over the south tip of Governors Island. He’d received clearance to land in the center of the island, in an area the Secret Service and the NYPD had set up as a joint receiving point. He deviated from his flight path to fly directly over the wedding party.
“I’m hoping I know when I see them,” Quinn said. “You have a FLIR onboard?”
“Sure,” the pilot tapped the console. “But what good will thermal imaging do with that crowd?”
Quinn went forward to look at the color screen. People, generally warmer than the surrounding air temperature of late evening, showed up in va
rious shades of yellow and red on the forward-looking infrared system. The cooler ground and foliage ranged from light blue to purple. Quinn concentrated his search in the area around the vice president and his wife and it didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.
Behind the reception line was the form of a young woman. Her arms and head glowed red, but her chest was baby blue as if she wore something heavy under her clothing that didn’t let her body heat escape.
“That would be Mrs. Hughes’s assistant.” He tapped the screen with his finger. “I’m willing to bet she’s wearing a suicide vest!” Quinn looked up to get a clear view out the front window. “And the president is walking straight for her.”
Quinn racked his brain. “Fly straight at them, Smeds—and if you have a spotlight, see if you can light up the girl. We need them to see who we’re focusing on—and hopefully get the president to cover.”
The pilot looked up, nodding grimly. “You know they’ll probably shoot us down?”
“Not this low, beb,” Thibodaux offered. “They’ll be afraid our flaming wreckage would land on the big boss.”
“You have about ten seconds before the president makes it across the lawn,” Quinn said.
“Roger that,” Smedley said throwing the Osprey into a dive. “What are you going to do?”
Quinn had punched the button to open the rear ramp and was already running back toward the strapped Ducati. “I don’t know,” he yelled over his shoulder. “I’m making this up as I go along.”
Nancy Hughes looked up as a thunderous roar filled the evening sky. She glared at the vice president. “Bobby,” she hissed. “I thought we agreed to kee—”
Her voice was drowned out by an approaching aircraft that looked like a plane with upturned propellers. It swooped in over the wedding party to hover just over treetop level—lower than the roof of the mansion. It was close enough she could make out the strained looks on the pilots’ faces.