Field of Fire

by Marc Cameron

  And everything had been good for a while. The tats actually bought him a little deeper street cred. Then the scary looking dude with a tattoo of a spider crawling up his bony throat had come up ringside two nights earlier and pressed his ugly face against the ropes. The guy proceeded to machine-gun him in Russian with questions that were all but lost in the clamor and shouts of the crowd. It was loud, but Petyr was pretty sure he heard the word Vory—a thief. Still flushed with adrenaline from the beat-down he’d given his opponent, Petyr had waved Spider Neck off, thinking him a crazy Russian alky. There were plenty of those in Brighton Beach.

  That had been a big mistake.

  Now Petyr leaned in over the sink, closer to the mirror and touched one of the many scabs on his muscular chest. This one was between the fourth and fifth ribs—directly over his heart.

  Petyr was big enough to intimidate most who would even try to cross him outside the ring. A simple glare from the dark shadows of his eyes was usually enough to send even the roughest gangbanger running for his mama. For those few who were ignorant enough to face him, Petyr had the youthful strength of his twenty-six years and the skills gained from expending gallons of sweat and blood in the gym—not to mention the potent elixir his chemist father whipped up for him that worked better than any steroids he’d ever tried.

  None of that mattered to the Spider Neck. He’d waited in the alley behind the locker room, leaning against the brick wall when Petyr ducked out the back door after the fight.

  “Hey!” the man said, not moving from his relaxed position against the wall. Night shadows fell across his face, giving him the appearance of a gargoyle on some creepy building. “You are thief-in-law?”

  It was not a question, but a challenge. The eight pointed stars were tattoos of vory v zokone or thieves-in-law. Spider Neck wanted to know if he’d earned them the proper way, by spending time in a Russian prison.

  Though Petyr outweighed him by at least eighty pounds, Spider Neck hadn’t been the least bit intimidated. Petyr hadn’t seen him move until it was too late. The man seemed to be everywhere at once, swarming all over the place like an entire hive of wasps. By the time he was still, the skeletal Russian had cut Petyr in at least two dozen places. All the wounds were superficial, slicing only skin and sparing the muscle underneath—but he’d made his point: if Petyr resisted, death was a forgone conclusion.

  Spider Neck shoved him against the brick wall and delivered a message from Anatoly Anikin, a local who called himself a Pakhan or captain in the Russian mafia. Mr. Anikin was one of the few former guests of Russia’s infamous Black Dolphin prison who had been released in something other than a pine box. He was the real deal as far as criminal thugs went, but Petyr doubted he had any ties with the mob in Russia. More likely he was one of the many freelancers vying for positions of authority in the underbelly of Brooklyn, which probably made him even more dangerous.

  According to Spider Neck, Mr. Anikin had caught a glimpse of Petyr’s tattoos during a recent mixed martial-arts fight that had been streamed online. It didn’t help that Anikin had bet on the other fighter and Petyr had won.

  Spider Neck demanded to know how long Petyr had been in prison and where he’d done his time. The dude was scary enough but his face had twisted and darkened even more when Petyr admitted he’d never been in any prison other than the 60th Precinct lockup in Brooklyn due to possession of steroids. Nikka bonded him out after only two hours so he’d never even made it past the holding cells, but he kept that little factoid to himself.

  Spider Neck had just looked at him and glared, turning the blade so it glinted in the scant light of the alley. “If you arrived in a Russian prison with ink that had not been earned, the men there would cut out your liver . . .”

  He had gone on to explain that since they were in America and not a Russian prison, Mr. Anikin had graciously given Petyr forty-eight hours to have the stars and the laughing skull covered or removed. He also ordered Petyr to take a fall during his next fight. It was implied that if he chose not to comply, Spider Neck would remove the tattoos for him.

  But two days came and went and no one came to cut out his liver. The more time that passed from the incident in the alley, the more of his bravery, however misguided, seeped back. Petyr hadn’t spent years training to fight in the octagon to run scared from some ugly dude with a bug tattooed on his throat. By the third morning, he reasoned that if this Russian mob boss wanted him dead, he would have killed him already. The Bratva, or Brotherhood, was into stolen credit cards nowadays. They didn’t go around whacking people over tats. By lunchtime, he’d felt ready to kick Spider Neck’s ass for treating him with such disrespect. He was The Wolf. Nobody treated The Wolf like that.

  But a shadow of doubt crept into his bravado, diminishing his swagger now that almost seventy-two hours had passed. Petyr nearly jumped out of his skin when someone began to pound on his door. He leaned around the corner from the bathroom and stared hard at the knob, as if he had some kind of X-ray vision, trying to figure out who it was on the other side. For a moment he held onto the hope that it might be Nikka, but the banging was much too hard for her little hands. He thought about looking through the peephole but decided against it. Spider Neck would just shoot him in the eye as soon as he saw the shadow pass across the lens.

  The banging got louder, like the person doing it owned the place, then suddenly stopped. The doorknob jiggled. Petyr froze. Metal scraped against metal as someone inserted a pick set into the lock.

  Petyr shot a gaze at the back window. He’d already packed a bag with the important stuff—a change of underwear and the rest of the juice his father sent him. He could hit the fire escape and be gone in a flash. But if it was Anikin’s men, they would be expecting that. They’d make a big show of trying to get in, only to have Spider Neck waiting for him outside to cut out his liver as soon as he dropped off the fire escape. The door would have been easy enough to kick in if they’d really wanted to. No, this was an ambush. They expected him to run.

  He took a long, calming breath, and then ducked back in the bathroom so he could get another look at himself in the mirror. He’d do the last thing they expected—meet them head on.

  Slipping a loose cotton shirt over his head, he picked up a baseball bat he kept beside the door and held it over his head like an ax. Spider Neck had thrashed him so well the last time, Petyr doubted he’d brought more than a couple of helpers, and those just so he’d have an audience. Keeping well to the side of the doorframe in case someone out there had a shotgun, he reached out and flipped the lock before putting his hand on the knob, ready to fling it open.

  Spider Neck had caught him off guard once. He wasn’t going to let that happen again. All he wanted was to be left alone to fight in the octagon, but if these guys wanted to mess with The Wolf, they’d feel his teeth.

  Chapter 12

  Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson, Anchorage

  Quinn felt his phone buzz with a text message at the same moment one of the two young airmen pushed a black button on the back wall of the cavernous hangar. The button activated the floor to ceiling doors, opening the entire north wall so they could drive the tug out and pull in the aircraft with Quinn’s mystery guest who had just arrived from Boling Air Force Base. Metal doors rumbled on their tracks as they began to slide across each other, yawning open to reveal the black of an Alaska fall night. Blue and green lights winked in the chilly air beyond the approaching airplane. It seemed extra dark in contrast with the bright and sterile interior of the hanger.

  Quinn looked down at the text and chuckled. Garcia was standing next to him and raised a wary brow at the message.

  “Who’s that from?”

  “Jacques,” Quinn said, still chuckling.

  “Is he talking about me?”

  Quinn cocked his head and looked her in the eye. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not nice to read over someone’s shoulder?”

  “I work for the CIA,” Garcia said. “It’s my job to
read over people’s shoulders.” She took on Thibodaux’s Cajun accent as she read the text aloud. “ ‘Watch your ass, l’ami. The woman is batshit crazy.’ What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “My guess is he’s talking about whoever’s on this airplane,” Quinn said, nodding to the phone. “He left me a voicemail. Maybe that explains it.”

  Quinn called his voicemail but kept his eyes on the Challenger while it taxied with a high whine toward the hanger. He took a calculated risk and left the phone on speaker so Ronnie could hear. She was already what Thibodaux called “level-ten pissed,” so there wasn’t much of a chance she could get any madder than she already was.

  “I don’t have much time, Chair Force . . .” The Cajun’s tone was dead sober, absent its customary irreverence. “You’re about to meet my cousin, Special Agent Khaki Beaudine of the FBI . . .” He stopped, taking a long thinking pause, odd for a man who never seemed to be at a loss for words, even in the middle of a running gun battle.

  Ronnie’s eyes widened at the news. Quinn knew Thibodaux’s cousin was with the Bureau, but other than the fact that she was getting a divorce, the big Cajun had kept anything else about her to himself.

  “Khaki’s a good kid,” the message finally continued. “But she has some . . . well, cher, she’s plum bracque—loony—and I ain’t just sayin’ that because she grew up in Texas. She’s been through some horrible shit . . .” There was a muffled sound on the other end, as if someone else was trying to talk to Jacques while he left the message. “Dammit, I gotta scoot.” His voice grew hushed, imperative. “You watch yourself with her, Jericho, no foolin’. I’m serious as nut cancer.”

  * * *

  Quinn watched as the two airmen marshaled the tug and waited for the floor-to-ceiling hanger doors to slide to their stops and lock open. Outside, starkly white against the darkness, the Bombardier Challenger 601 nosed its way toward the hanger. The beefy business jet was ostensibly assigned to the FAA but was in actuality at the beck and call of Winfield Palmer. This off-the-books aircraft allowed him to move operatives and human assets around the world without resorting to commercial aircraft or infighting between government agencies.

  The Challenger rolled to a stop twenty meters from the open door, and twin GE turbofan engines whined down.

  The spacious hanger off the end of the Elmendorf flight line could easily hold three planes the size of the nineteen-passenger aircraft, but the National Security Advisor to the President of the United States had enough pull that they had the entire place to themselves. Even the tug driver and his spotter disappeared down the hallway to the front offices as soon as they had the airplane chocked and the hanger bay secured.

  The pilot stepped to the aircraft door as soon as it opened, lowering the folding stairs himself. He caught Quinn’s eye immediately, smiling a tight-lipped smile as if there was something he needed to apologize for. The first officer, a man with sandy hair, followed him off the plane. Winfield Palmer handpicked his pilots from Air Force Special Operations Command, and Quinn recognized the first officer as a former AC-130 “Spooky” gunship pilot out of Hurlburt Field.

  “She does look a little crazy,” Garcia whispered as a small woman with a frosted blond pixie cut stepped to the aircraft door and stopped, her neck moving birdlike, as she looked around. Quinn estimated her to be about five three.

  Standing shoulder to shoulder with Garcia, he leaned his head sideways, his eye still on Beaudine. “What do you mean?”

  “I got ways of picking up on these things,” Garcia said. “Jacques is right. You should watch yourself.”

  “It’s her figure, isn’t it?” Quinn said, earning an elbow in the ribs. “You’re jealous because she’s in shape.”

  Garcia assured him she wasn’t the jealous type—but Quinn knew she didn’t relish the idea of him traveling into bush Alaska with a woman who wore a pair of Wranglers as well as Khaki Beaudine.

  Along with the form-fitting Wrangler jeans, Jacques’s cousin wore a black turtleneck that highlighted her athletic build. Quinn felt the same way about turtlenecks as he did neckties, which was to say he hated them both. They made him feel as though a small and sickly child was trying to choke him to death. Khaki Beaudine wore hers well enough to earn an extra moment of glare from Ronnie.

  Beaudine carried an earth-tone 5.11 backpack in her hand like a briefcase. She had a black parka shell draped over her left arm, exposing a Glock pistol, two extra magazines, handcuffs, and a gold FBI badge on her belt.

  She nodded at Quinn as if she recognized him. Her eyes were bright aquamarine under the harsh light of the hangar, but they did not look particularly happy to see him.

  “FBI.” She stuck out her hand. “Khaki Beaudine.” Quinn noticed a heavy twang, but wasn’t sure anyone in the world could say the words “Khaki Beaudine” without having an accent.

  “Welcome to Alaska.” Quinn smiled, sizing her up without staring. “You’re Jacques’s cousin?”

  “That’s right.” A half smile pulled into a pinched grimace as if she’d caught the odor of something unpleasant. “I can only imagine the things he’s told you about me.”

  “Just that you were related,” Ronnie said, covering for Jacques.

  “Well, I guess I got more to worry about than a tale-tellin’ cousin.” Beaudine dropped her backpack on the hanger floor and fished out a small tablet computer. She wagged her head at Quinn while she slid the computer from a black neoprene case and folded out the screen. “Truth be told, I never wanted anything to do with you spooks. Bureau counterintelligence is like a bunch of English professors who see some hidden meaning in every damn thing. ‘The whale represents evil . . . the whale is Ahab . . . the whale is a quest . . .’” Beaudine scoffed. “No Counter Intel secret squirrel mumbo jumbo for me. The Violent Crime Squads, they know how to handle their shit. Call stuff what it is, straight up—a dangerous whale that needs to be hunted down and killed.”

  “I see,” Quinn said, wondering if she’d ever even read Moby Dick.

  “Anyhow,” Beaudine said. “I’ve got orders to link up with the national security advisor as soon as I’m off the plane.”

  Beaudine typed a password on the tablet, then consulted a small key fob from her pocket for the numbers she’d need to get through the second layer of security. This passcode changed every sixty seconds and only worked once she’d logged in with her password. The tech was years old, but the cumbersome nature of it made it secure, and changing the methods of the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country could be glacially slow.

  Winfield Palmer’s ruddy, pixilated face appeared on screen a moment later. With the intense look of a man with heavy purpose, the national security advisor sat behind his expansive mahogany desk. Quinn recognized the off-site office he kept near Crystal City, Virginia. Still inside the Beltway but across the Potomac from DC proper, the quiet shopping district was a stone’s throw from the Pentagon and a dozen different intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.

  “Here’s what we know,” Palmer said a few moments later. “Preliminary test results on the stuff used in Dallas show it’s a binary nerve agent akin to VX and Soman—maybe one of the Russian Novichok agents that have worried us for the last decade.”

  “Newcomer,” Garcia said, translating the Russian.

  Special Agent Beaudine nodded at the translation.

  “Correct,” Palmer said. “Only our guys say this stuff looks to be at least a dozen times more powerful than Sarin. It’s made of two relatively harmless components, but they become a fulminating compound when mixed, producing a heavy and lingering vapor. Extremely toxic stuff.”

  “Twelve times as powerful?” Garcia frowned.

  “At least,” Palmer said. “They’re telling me that if Aum would have had this stuff in the Tokyo subway attack in ’95 most of the thousand injured would have died instead of just twelve.”

  “Not easy to manufacture, I’d imagine,” Quinn mused. “At least not without some serious lab e
quipment.”

  Ronnie nodded. “I doubt the Islamic State or any one of the other wannabe groups of that ilk even have the glassware to produce something like this. They’d probably gas themselves in the process.”

  Beaudine shrugged. “The Islamic State has been trying to recruit scientists,” she said. “But we don’t think they’ve been successful as of yet. This gas used in Dallas and LA was weapons grade, not some homemade pickle-jar variety. It takes a government facility to manufacture this stuff.”

  “How does all this lead back to Nome?” Quinn asked. He caught the flightiness in Beaudine’s eyes. It was clear she’d rather be somewhere else.

  Palmer laid both hands flat on top of his desk. The huge mahogany thing was big enough to warrant its own zip code, but he was meticulous about keeping it free of clutter.

  “At any given time, the FBI keeps tabs on seventeen chemists,” Palmer said. “Men and women who they believe are capable of developing sophisticated nerve agents. Some work for foreign governments, some live right here in the U.S. We’re not ruling anyone out at this point.”

  As if on cue, Agent Beaudine pulled a light-blue folder from her pack and handed it to Quinn. It was marked Top Secret in bold letters with a red diagonal stripe across its face. “Passport records show that a little over seven hours ago one of those seventeen scientists, a Russian named Kostya Volodin, passed through Immigration and Customs at the Nome, Alaska, port of entry.”

  “That is odd he would come to the U.S. the day of the attacks,” Ronnie said.