Field of Fire

by Marc Cameron

  Agent Beaudine rolled her eyes. “That’s true,” she said. “We have a contact in Russia who saw the doctor some four months ago and believes he’s in the early stages of dementia. The Customs official in Nome confirms that he seemed addled, which makes him an even less-likely candidate for developing a gas of this complexity. More likely he’s on a holiday. Guess that’s why the Bureau sent a junior agent to check him out.” She gave a little toss of her head. Quinn noticed she was smart enough to keep off camera so Palmer couldn’t see it.

  “I thought they sent you because you speak Russian,” Quinn asked.

  “I guess there’s that,” Beaudine said, still pouting like a child being forced into a chore.

  Ronnie took a half step forward, making certain Palmer could see her on the screen. “Don’t forget, sir, my father was Russian. I speak the language fluently. I know I can help on this. I’m ready to go to Nome now if needed.”

  “Durakov ne seyut, ne zhnut, sami rodyatsya,” Beaudine said under her breath and off camera.

  Garcia shot her a hard look but said nothing, focusing instead on Palmer.

  The national security advisor rubbed a hand over the top of his head in thought. It was nearly one in the morning East Coast time, and even on the small screen it was easy to see the strain in his eyes. Quinn was sure the man hadn’t had a moment to stop running since the attacks—and was not likely to slow down any time soon. He drove his people hard and himself harder.

  “You’re going to be with me,” Palmer said to Garcia. “I have Thibodaux partnered with the deputy marshal you all worked with a few months ago.”

  “Gus Bowen?” It was Quinn’s turn to look at Palmer a little cross-eyed. Quinn had broken Bowen’s nose back when they were in college—Quinn boxing for the Air Force Academy, Bowen for Army ROTC. Neither man had been too friendly with the other since. Beyond that, Quinn didn’t like the way Bowen grinned when he was around Ronnie. And the fact that he felt jealous at all made him annoyed at himself—which made him even madder.

  “The marshal’s a hell of a manhunter,” Palmer said. “Dr. Volodin was married to a Ukrainian scientist who emigrated to the U.S. in the early nineties. They have a son together. The ex-wife passed away three years ago, but the son lives in Brooklyn. Just so happens that Bowen is assigned to New York at the moment. This may be nothing, but we have every available agent and case officer working round the clock checking every possibility. Chances are you’ll run these particular leads to the ground in a few hours. Call when you do and I’ll put you on something else.” He gave a slight nod to Ronnie. “Five of the scientists are Russian so I can use you back in DC. I want someone I trust in on the interrogations.”

  “Of course, sir,” she said. “I’ll jump on the next flight.”

  “The next flight is the one in front of you,” Palmer said. “Be on it.” As was his custom, he signed off without another word.

  Beaudine scooped up her bag and went looking for the powder room. The Challenger pilots returned from the break room. Both were aware Garcia was to be their passenger and gave her a twenty-minute warning so they’d have time to push the plane back out and refuel.

  Quinn leaned against the wall by a fifty-five gallon drum of engine oil next to Garcia.

  “What did she say to you?” He spoke five languages but Russian wasn’t one of them.

  “A Russian saying,” Garcia said. “She basically called me a fool for wanting to get involved.”

  “Really? Because you want to help out?” Quinn groaned. “This is going to be rich.”

  “I don’t envy you,” Garica said, glaring at the doorway through which Beaudine had disappeared, before breaking into a series of Spanish epithets that seemed strong enough to peel paint. “She’s one of those nails that stick up on the dojo floor that has to be pounded down . . .”

  “I’ll have my mom send your clothes,” he said.

  “I don’t like her,” Garcia said.

  “My mom?”

  “You know who I mean, postalita.” She sometimes called him a “little postage stamp” when she was angry. Quinn could never bring himself to ask her why, figuring she could have gone with a lot worse.

  She turned to face him, toying with the buttons on his shirt. “Just be careful, Jericho.”

  “You’re the one who needs to be careful,” he said. “I’m only flying out to check on a dead end. DC is a lion’s den even without a bunch of nerve gas and Russian scientists.”

  Ronnie gave him a kiss on the lips, the first since they’d left for their afternoon motorcycle ride. “Jacques is right,” she said, her lips lingering near his. “This woman is crazy.”

  “You know,” Quinn laughed, raising his eyebrows. “He’s always telling me the same thing about you.”

  Chapter 13

  Forty-five minutes after it had arrived, the Bombardier Challenger was wheels up and winging its way back toward Washington, DC, leaving Quinn and Special Agent Khaki Beaudine alone in the hanger.

  “So,” Quinn said, nodding to the 5.11 backpack at Beaudine’s feet, “I guess you got all the gear you need?” The tough tactical bag was slightly larger than Quinn’s Sagebrush Dry pack, but his was completely waterproof. His father had told him from the time they started hunting together that the more comfortable he became in the outdoors, the less he would need to bring with him to survive. Still, Alaska was an unforgiving mistress, and some things were a necessity no matter how comfortable you were.

  Beaudine looked at her watch and shrugged. “We’re lookin’ at nearly ten o’clock. If I forgot anything I doubt there’s anyplace still open where I can go buy it now anyhow.”

  “True enough,” Quinn said. He shouldered his pack and walked toward the truck. “Come on. We’ll have to drive around the flight line and catch our ride from there. I’m sure you’re fine. As long as you have some kind of knife, a light, and a way to start a fire, you should be okay.”

  “You didn’t even mention a gun,” Beaudine said.

  “A gun is important,” Quinn said. “But bullets won’t keep you warm when it’s dark and you’re freezing to death.”

  * * *

  A half an hour later, Khaki Beaudine sat with her nose pressed to the window of the Air Force C-12, watching the lights of Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson slip away beneath her. Quinn had fallen asleep as soon as they started rolling, kicked back in the worn leather seat across the aisle as if he was accustomed to flying on last-minute missions to track down Russian chemists bent on destroying the free world. There was a relaxed surety about him that could easily have come across as conceit—or at the very least intimidating. When he spoke with you, he appeared to be genuinely interested in what you said, rather than simply waiting for his turn to talk again.

  Khaki had only been out of Quantico for a year, and she vividly remembered the buckets of testosterone exuded by so many of the male students itching to prove they were the best in their class of NATs—New Agent Trainees. Type A personalities were the norm in law enforcement, and the FBI in particular, but she could tell even from the short time she’d been around him that Quinn wasn’t so easy to put into neat descriptive boxes and columns. She was pretty sure Myers-Briggs had an entire “Q” category developed just for him. He was driven, to be sure. Mr. Palmer had told her as much. But now, he looked like he’d been run over by a truck.

  It was apparent that he would have been more comfortable working with Veronica Garcia or Jacques. Khaki knew Quinn and her cousin were closer than brothers, so she was certain they had talked despite the vague denial from Ronnie Garcia. She just wondered how much Jacques had given up. Some things you didn’t even tell your brother. Quinn had his own dark secrets. She was sure of that. Everybody did, no matter how pretty and perfect their life appeared on Facebook.

  Quinn must have known she was new to the Bureau. He could have quizzed her about her skills and abilities but instead decided it was best to catch up on his rest. Odd behavior for a warrior type who’d just had a new partner
thrust upon him. Beaudine looked past her own reflection in the window and wondered what she would have done under the same circumstances.

  The pilot climbed out to the north, banking slightly west as he flew over the Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet. A few moments later the lights of Anchorage winked out behind them as they flew into the inky blackness of Alaska. It was plenty warm inside the plane, but Khaki pulled her vest up around her shoulders and shivered. The vastness of the land outside made her wonder if there was a backpack large enough to bring all the things she might need to survive.

  She’d been minding her own business, happy to be shed of her worthless husband, and working in the Washington Field Office. WFO was where the real work happened. And now she’d been sucked into this nothing assignment out in the middle of Iceberg, Alaska, chasing some Russian scientist who had, from all accounts, lost his marbles.

  Her body and brain told her it was well past one in the morning, no matter what time it was in this frigid hellhole. She pushed the button to let her seat recline and let her head fall sideways to look at Quinn. His deep and rhythmic breathing was barely audible above the hiss of the aircraft ventilation. She couldn’t tell if he was relaxed or just completely exhausted.

  She shoved the pack in the seat beside her, trying to remember what she’d stuffed inside it when she’d gotten her orders. This was a dead-end mission anyway, and you didn’t need much gear for that. It was just make-work for a brand new “breast-fed”—what her bastard ex and his cronies called female agents. She’d be in and out in a couple of hours, ready for some other no-action assignment.

  Chapter 14

  New York

  The UN dinner broke about the same time Bowen got permission from higher authorities to leave the assignment, flooding the already choked streets with armored vehicles as he and Thibodaux left the DoubleTree on Lexington. Snaking motorcades of over a hundred delegations—each blipping their sirens and flashing emergency lights to jockey for position—turned Midtown Manhattan into a honking, stagnant sea of black sedans and yellow cabs. Native New Yorkers stood bunched up at each intersection supremely unimpressed by the red and blue lights. Bordering on angry mobs, they glared at every passing Town Car and Suburban as if they were part of an invading army. Tourists lined the teaming streets with no idea of what was going on. They hoped, no doubt, to see someone famous when a motorcade pulled up in front of a hotel. Instead, they got the foreign minister of Togo—who turned out to be a very gracious, if not famous, personality.

  Thibodaux had the rental car, so he drove, nosing his way through traffic toward the Battery Park Tunnel and Brooklyn, Petyr Volodin’s last known address. Bowen had changed into a pair of jeans and a navy-blue cotton polo, happy to be out of the monkey suit. He left the tail out to help conceal his pistol. A brown jacket of distressed leather gave him some protection against the chilly morning fog.

  It was nearly two in the morning when they finally reached a shabby, five-story walk-up apartment building four blocks off the boardwalk in Brighton Beach.

  The big Cajun pulled the rented Ford Taurus next to the curb half a block from the apartment building, across the street from a Russian grocery. He chewed on a flat wooden stir stick he’d swiped from the hotel kitchen and used it to gesture when he spoke, reminding Bowen of the way his grandfather chewed a sprig of hay on the family ranch back in Montana. Steam rose from a sewer grate in front of the car, entwining the beam of the headlights and giving the dark night an otherworldly feel.

  “How do you want to do this?”

  “Same way you would do it, I’d guess,” Bowen said.

  “Okay,” Thibodaux tossed the wooden stick over his shoulder into the backseat of the rental car. Voices carried on the quiet street, so he began to whisper as he exited the car. “You knock. If our guy gives us any trouble, I’ll shoot him in the face.” He pressed the door closed instead of slamming it. Then turned to walk toward Volodin’s apartment as if that was all there was to planning.

  “Hang on now,” Bowen said, trotting to keep up with the Marine. “You might want to modify your community policing style. We’re in the U.S., not driving insurgents out of Fallujah.”

  “You think I’m bad.” Thibodaux grinned, bounding up the stoop and pushing open the glass doors. “You should try workin’ with Quinn.”

  Bowen rolled his eyes at the mention of the name. He’d faced Jericho Quinn in a boxing ring in college—and been assigned to hunt him when he was wanted for murder. Bowen trusted the man, even respected him, but it was hard to like someone who’d done such a good job of breaking your nose. “How about we just show Petyr our credentials and see where that takes us.”

  “Flash him your U.S. Marshals creds,” the big Marine said under his breath. He ran a thick forefinger up and down the lobby mailboxes, studying the names written on peeling masking tape. “Marines don’t need no stinkin’ badges.”

  “I thought Palmer had worked it out so you were on loan to OSI,” Bowen said. “Didn’t they give you a badge?”

  “I got one, but I don’t like to use it.” The big Marine gave a mock shudder. “It makes me feel . . . I don’t know . . . all Air Forcey.”

  Apartment 307 was located at the end of a short and dimly lit tile hallway to the left of the stairs.

  Thibodaux stopped when he got to the top and sniffed the air.

  “What?” Bowen said.

  “Blood,” the Cajun said, closing his good eye while taking a deep breath through his nose. “And other stuff.”

  Bowen nodded. Thibodaux was right. Amid the decaying smell of mothballs and peeling paint, the unmistakable copper tinge of blood stung his nostrils. Only someone who knew the smell of slaughter would recognize it, but the presence of “other stuff” hung heavy in the air. Bowen found the first blood smear half a minute later on the chipped tile floor outside of Petyr Volodin’s apartment. There was no more than a teaspoon worth, dark as chocolate syrup, pooled in the shadows below the mouth of the garbage chute. On the tile beside it was something more sinister, a fragment of bone, moist and pink, and about the size of a dime.

  “Wonder if that’s a chunk of our guy’s skull?” Thibodaux whispered, tossing a look over his shoulder at apartment 307.

  Bowen stepped to the side of the frame to take himself out of the line of fire should anyone inside decide to shoot through the door. Thibodaux took up a position on the opposite side, back a step. When the Marine nodded that he was set, Bowen reached across and pounded three times with the heel of his left hand, expecting a neighbor to come out at any moment to confront them for the noise at this time of night. If anyone was upset, they kept it to themselves.

  “Want me to huff and puff?” Thibodaux said when no one answered, backing off another half step like he was going to boot the door.

  Bowen shook his head and took a black leather pouch from the inside pocket of his jacket. He opened it to reveal a half dozen slender metal shims—his lock-picking tools. “Watch my six,” he said and had the door open in twenty seconds.

  There is a particular stillness to a vacant house or apartment. For safety’s sake, Bowen assumed there was a bad guy hiding in some closet waiting to blow his brains out, but he could almost always feel it when there was no one home. Both men entered with pistols drawn anyway, rolling around the doorframe and doing a quick sweep for threats—stepping over and around the copious pools of blood and bone as they moved.

  Petyr Volodin was long gone—judging from the carnage, probably long dead.

  The overwhelming odor of dirty gym socks and the dead-animal flatulence of a gym rat on a steady diet of protein powder hung in an invisible cloud. Someone had done a cursory job of cleaning up, but there was enough blood and what Thibodaux called “spatter matter” on the tile floor to lead to the logical conclusion that Volodin—or someone—had been killed just inside the door. A bloody baseball bat lay on the floor next to the radiator, encrusted with matted hair. Bone does a lot of damage to wood and jagged shards were embedded up and
down the business end of the bat. There was a divot in the tile where the killer had overshot his mark and hit the floor instead of his intended victim.

  Bowen looked at the bat and closed his eyes, remembering too many bloody scenes from his time in the Middle East. Rage did terrible things to people. He’d once seen one man beat another with so much vigor he’d broken the handle off a claw hammer in the process.

  “You okay?” Thibodaux said, snapping his fingers to break Bowen’s trance.

  The deputy exhaled quickly, coming back to the present. “I am outstanding,” he said. “Thanks for asking.” He left the bloody bat where he’d found it.

  The apartment was small, consisting of a living room and kitchen just inside the front door. The bathroom was tucked in behind the kitchen, adjacent to a single bedroom. The kitchen was tiny—what Bowen’s Coast Guardsman father called a one-butt galley. Thibodaux alone took up the entire space. Considering the piles of dirty laundry, porn magazines, and video games that covered the floor, the bedroom was too small for both men to stand in at the same time.

  “Gallons of blood here,” Bowen said, looking across the empty apartment toward the door. “And blood on the garbage chute.”

  “I know,” Thibodaux said. The big Cajun gave a sour grimace, as if he was sick to his stomach. “I guess we should go look in the basement. What you wanna bet we’re gonna find our shitbird down there with his head stove in . . .”

  * * *

  The darkness of the basement was greasy with diesel fuel and the sour stench of garbage from the twenty-four apartments on the floors above. Deputy Bowen reached around with his left hand to search inside for a light switch, pistol at waist level and standing outside the fatal funnel of the metal threshold. Jacques Thibodaux was two steps behind him. Some people liked to search an unknown area with flashlights, but in most cases, Bowen preferred to throw as much light on the matter as possible right from the beginning. The odds that anyone would hide where they’d dumped a body were long, but Bowen had never walked into any dark basement including his own without feeling there was something lurking in the shadows.