Brute Force (12 page)

 

S
ettling deeply into the high-back saddle, Quinn gave the big gray its head and “smooched,” the universal human-to-horse signal that it was time to move out. The animal lurched forward, breaking easily into a fast lope toward the dust-choked scrum of other horses. Cheers erupted from the sidelines. He was a stranger, but he was also a
buzkashi
rider, and that was enough—for now.

Quinn vaguely remembered that there was a Japanese martial art called
bajutsu
—fighting while on horseback. Other than seeing the word in a book about medieval samurai, he’d never taken the time to delve any deeper into the subject. He could, however sit a horse very well—and he knew how to fight even better.

His mother had taught him years before that a quick “preflight” of an unfamiliar horse could save a lot of heartache and what she called an “involuntary-rapid-aerial-dismount” down the road. Quinn leaned back in the saddle as soon as the gelding was well into its stride, lifting the reins and applying just enough pressure forward of the girth with his legs to bring the big animal to a sliding stop. The horse reared, pawing the air with its forefeet as if on command. Quinn leaned forward immediately, throwing his weight over the horse’s bowed neck, patting the snorting animal and urging it back into a canter, this time gaining speed until they reached the mob of other animals that stomped and screamed around the carcass of the dead goat. Not nearly as smooth as a motorcycle, the horse was nevertheless nearly as push-button in the way it responded to Quinn’s movements. His mother had always stressed for him to be as light as possible with any command. Thankfully, Hajip’s brother must have had the same sentiment when it came to horsemanship. It took little more than a change in leg pressure for the gray to “bend” around Quinn’s thigh, collect its haunches, and launch in the direction Quinn wanted to go as surely as a guided missile.

The game had already begun and at least twenty other horses and riders pushed and shoved at each other in a bloody melee of hooves and knees and whistling leather quirts. Habibullah and his two men sat on the outer edges of the scrum, watching and waiting patiently for someone else to do the initial work and pick up the carcass. Quinn rode as if he intended to drive straight into the center mass, shifting the weight at the last minute to turn the horse straight for Habibullah’s man on the black horse. Muzra was the larger of the two sidekicks, so Quinn had decided to get him out of the way first and take his spot on the team.

A shout rose up from the mob as a rider finally scooped up the carcass. Fending off the sudden rain of quirts and whips, the hapless man began to shove and whip his way through the packed scrum. He leaned back as he rode, using a leg to help prop up the flopping body of the headless goat as he tried to put distance between himself and the crowd. With all eyes on the carcass, Quinn focused on Muzra, bringing the gray just off the big black’s nose. Muzra was unconcerned with the oncoming rider since he wasn’t in possession of the goat. Quinn found it fairly easy to scrape in close, using his knee to shove the other man’s leg back and out of his stirrup, upending him and tossing him out of the saddle. The gray got in on the action, biting at the big black’s flank as he went by. Quinn gave the other horse a swat on the rump with his quirt, sending it trotting off the field and leaving Muzra lying on his back in the dirt. The action moved down the field at breakneck pace and though Muzra must have a pretty good idea that it had been Quinn who unseated him, there was nothing he could do about it, even if he’d been sure.

Habibullah made his move as the other riders strung out toward the pivot flag, each either running interference for the man who held the carcass or trying to get into a position to steal it. Obviously knowing that rider would have to come back toward the circle after he rounded the flag, the Tajik slowed, lurking on the near side, aiming to intercept. Habibullah’s remaining helper, an agile man who seemed to have been born on the back of a horse, drifted easily to his right while Quinn galloped the gray up alongside on his left. Habibullah turned in the saddle, giving him a wary look.

Holding the leather quirt in his teeth and leaning forward over the gray’s head to give it plenty of speed, Quinn smiled and gestured at the oncoming rider with his right hand as if to say “all yours.”

A
buzkashi
rider cannot be a timid man, but looking up and seeing the hulking Habibullah and two sidekicks bearing down on him made the rider who held the carcass flinch and cut right in an attempt to dart around. This put him broadside to the oncoming horses and allowed Habibullah to crash in, driving his larger bay into other animal. Horses squealed and collided as dozens of hooves pounded the earth. Centrifugal force threw dirt and dung and the tail end of the carcass into the air as the horses spun from the momentum. Quinn was able to squirt by on his gray, hazing three opposing riders out of the way so Habibullah could snatch the flopping
buz
as he plowed by. The startled rider had to use both hands to stay in the saddle and surrendered the goat without a fight.

Now, with the goat in his possession, Habibullah tucked the quirt between his teeth and spurred the bay back toward the flag at the far end of the field.

The next round had a similar outcome with Quinn using the gray to haze away other riders so the big Tajik could gain the point. Muzra was able to rejoin the contest, but Quinn had proven himself Habibullah’s ally by then, so it didn’t matter.

The sun was well up by the time the third round commenced. Mirages of morning heat began to drift up from the hard-packed dirt. Bits jangled and leather groaned as riders wheeled their horses, all bathed in sweat, waiting. A portable speaker on the sidelines crackled and a static-filled voice made an announcement in Uyghur. Quinn couldn’t understand the words but knew this was the last round. The horses were too valuable to risk in the heat.

A horn blew and the riders, Habibullah included, flung themselves at the battered goat carcass intent on finishing the game with honor. Caught up in the fierce competition, Quinn did not see the newcomers until they were almost on top of him. There were two of them, throwing up trails of yellow dust as they brought their horses in at a gallop from a row of trucks to the south. Quinn spun his horse, getting a quick 360 look, and saw a third horse, nostrils flaring on its huge black head, bearing directly at him from the sidelines. Something in the rider’s hands caught a glint of the morning sun. At fifty feet Quinn could see it wasn’t a riding crop but a two-foot length of metal rod.

Caught between the scrum behind him and the newcomers, Quinn spurred the gray forward, urging the big animal directly at the two men galloping toward him, and creating some distance between himself and the man on the black horse. The oncoming riders slowed, circling Quinn like wolves, pestering the gray with their quirts and pushing him toward the man with the spear. Quinn swung with his quirt, hearing it whistle past the intended target. The gray gave an energetic hop and cow-kicked at the nearest rider, missing but keeping him at bay.

To an onlooker, the three horses circling around Quinn against the backdrop of other horses vying for the carcass looked to be an extension of the game. But Quinn saw it for what it was, a direct attack.

Quinn lifted the reins, using his heel to urge another kick from the big gray. Snorting and trailing a line of slobber, the horse gave little hop, and then lashed out, hooves connecting with the thigh of the nearest rider with a crack like a gunshot.

Relaxing the reins, Quinn turned the gray to face the man on the black, shouldering past and narrowly missing a stab in the thigh. Two more new riders tore out from the sidelines, each carrying their own short spear. Both smiled crooked smiles, the way a lion surely looks at an impala before bringing it down. He gave a fleeting thought to making a break for it, but the black horse was fresh and showing his back would only turn Quinn into an easier target.

Spinning again, Quinn realized his only option was to use the other
buzkashi
players as a shield and look for a chance to put some distance between himself and the armed riders.

He might have made it had Habibullah not retrieved the carcass and run directly at him. The entire scrum of twenty horses followed, coming at Quinn from behind, carrying him like a wave toward the man on the black. Quinn twisted in the saddle as they washed together, but there was nowhere for him to go.

He felt a dull thud as the point of the metal rod impacted his shoulder, shoving him backwards but not quite unseating him. Quinn felt no pain, but the familiar rush of adrenaline said he’d been hit. He rolled his shoulder and flexed his hand to make sure there’d been no serious damage to the tendons or ligaments, turning the gray at the same time to put its rump toward the assailant. Gathering the reins, he collected the horse, urging it to bring its hindquarters up without moving forward. Snorting like a warhorse, the big gray arched its powerful neck and gave a hop before letting fly a backward kick with both hooves. Metal shoes snapped against the black horse’s ribs, cracking like a gunshot and catching the hapless rider’s knee. He yowled in pain, slumping forward in the saddle in an effort to keep his seat and maneuver out of the way in the swirling mass of screaming horses and shouting riders.

Quinn began to feel light-headed as he spurred the gray through the oncoming riders past Habibullah and his men. He reached to touch his shoulder and his fingers came back wet with blood. Some sort of claxon began to sound, hollow as if set deep inside his head. His vision began to narrow. Swaying in the saddle, he heard angry voices shouting something in Chinese. There was a gunshot and Quinn in his daze wondered if he’d been hit. His shoulder was on fire. He could hear engines, see the blurred image of the big six-by-six truck full of PLA soldiers rolling onto the field. Horses stomped and nickered, not understanding why the game had stopped as uniformed officials poured onto the grounds. Rough hands clamored for Quinn, dragging him from the saddle as he blinked stupidly, using all his energy in an effort just to remain conscious. Shoved flat on his back, he could see nothing but a small circle of sky above the angry faces of soldiers who held him down.

A Chinese woman in dark glasses hovered over him and ripped away his padded shirt, slapping away his hand as it lifted it in a feeble attempt to defend himself.

“Get away from me!” he tried to yell but managed little more than a whisper. Too weak to resist, he could no longer even raise his head.

“Hold him!” The woman in glasses hissed, drawing a blade from her belt.

Quinn felt the world close in around him as she plunged the knife into his chest.

 

V
ice President Lee McKeon stared across the white linen tablecloth at the Japanese woman and picked at his pheasant and pasta without looking down. Still brooding over Drake’s recent growth of a spine, McKeon had skimmed over the portion of the menu that said the dish was seasoned with fennel. The chef in the Navy Mess must have bought it by the bushel—and then used half of his purchase in this serving alone.

The mess, located within a stone’s toss from the Situation Room, was actually only open for seating during breakfast and lunch—making takeout orders for dinner—but none of the staff had argued when the Vice President sat down with his companion.

“I wish you’d let me sort out your wife,” Ran said, chewing a bite of bourbon-glazed salmon as her eyes flicked around the empty dining room. McKeon was certain that the assassination attempt had put her on edge, but there was little that could put her off a meal. Ran Kimura ate little, but she ate often, a function of all her physical activity, he supposed. Had it not been for McKeon’s own case of nerves the thought would have made him smile.

“The situation with my wife will work itself out in time,” he said, pushing away the plate. “Right now I’m more concerned with getting word from China.”

“About our friend Jericho Quinn?” Ran scoffed, chasing a bite of salmon around the plate with her fork, catlike. “You should have let me handle him personally from the beginning.”

“It should be a fairly easy endeavor at this point,” McKeon said, resolving to swear off fennel for the foreseeable future. “My sources say they have him located, and, for all practical purposes, cornered.”

“As they have in times past.” Ran’s lips turned up in a sarcastic smirk. “I prefer to do things myself. All this talking to others gives me a headache.”

McKeon cocked his head to one side. “But if you left, then who would look after me?”

“I suppose that if I had been gone this morning, Agent Knight would have been successful.” Ran shrugged, nodding in thought. “That would have been unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate, indeed.” Looking into her dark eyes, McKeon was taken back to that night years before, when Ran had come within a hair of taking his head. Her father’s organization had been hired by a rival to kill Qasim Ranjhani, a Pakistani fixer who was actually McKeon’s distant cousin. McKeon had been the governor of Oregon at the time. His father’s plan was still in its infancy and McKeon had been visiting with Ranjhani when Ran had slipped into the room, sword in hand, completely naked so as not to stain her clothing with blood from the planned slaughter. Certain he was about to be killed, McKeon had found himself transfixed by the incredibly intricate black and green ink of the tattoo that covered this beautiful woman from shoulder to mid thigh like a bodysuit. Coincidentally, Ranjhani had been in the toilet so McKeon faced her alone. Instead of striking him dead at once, she had paused, studying his face as her sword moved slowly, back and forth like the tip of a hunting cat’s tail, bleeding off coiled energy.

The look in her eyes at that moment was one he often recalled and one that he would never forget.

“Why did you not kill me?” he said, blurting the words much louder than he’d intended. A nearby Navy steward looked at him, then turned away so as not to be rude. “I only know that you stopped,” McKeon continued, quieter now. “What I do not know is why.”

“Because you frightened me.” Ran blotted at her lips with a linen napkin, leaving a telltale pink stain of lipstick. “And I am not an easy person to frighten.”

“Me, frighten you?” he said. “That’s laughable. I know I’m tall, but in a physical confrontation I would be worse than useless. That night . . . I was unarmed and you held a sword that you have proven you know how to use all too well. What was it about me that could have possibly frightened you?”

Ran stared at him, her oval face serene. She wore very little makeup, the natural flush of her cheeks providing plenty of contrast. “My father was a strong man,” she said, hands placed flat on either side of her plate as if she were meditating. “There was a time when I was younger that I thought he might be invincible. Over the years I learned that his heart was like iron and there was truly no room in it for me. I was led to believe that my target, Qasim Ranjhani, worked for a man who was as violent as my father was strong, a man who had some grand notion of global jihad—a new world for which he was willing to fight and die. I found the idea of a person with such lofty, impossible goals to be intriguing. When I came into the room that evening, I realized you were that man. I saw in you a similar strength that I’d seen in my father.” She leaned forward, almost imperceptibly, just enough that he caught a sultry glimpse of tattoo at the edge of her collar. “But I saw in you one fatal flaw.”

“And what was that?” he asked.

Ran leaned back and dabbed at her lips with the napkin again. “Even with all your grand plans of death and war,” she said, “your heart had room for someone else. I never saw that in my father.”

“So that is what kept me alive?” He forced a smile.

“So far.” She shrugged. “Time will tell.”

He wanted to ask her what she supposed she was going to get from following a man like him. He could understand it if she was after a man with power, but his mission was to bring down the very government that he now led. He was Muslim and she was
kafir
, an infidel from a nation of idol worshipers. His actions might be permissible under the principle of
Muruna
, a doctrine that allowed believers to suspend Sharia law in order to further Islam. But a woman like Ran who had covered herself in tattoos and held her head up like a man during conversations would be stoned or hanged once the law was reestablished.

In the end, he supposed that they both realized the likelihood either of them would live that long was very slim. The cell phone in his shirt pocket began to buzz, momentarily saving him from his philosophic self-flagellation.

“Yes,” he said, expecting it would be his secretary or the Chief of Staff. He felt a surge of anticipation when he heard Glen Walter’s voice. The IDTF agent was too intelligent to call unless there was something interesting going on.

“Mr. Vice President,” Walter said. “I’d like to brief you on a matter if you have a moment.” There was an urgency in his voice that made McKeon sit up straighter in his chair.

“By all means, Glen,” he said. “Brief away.” He flipped his slender fingers at Ran to bring her in closer so she could hear both sides of the conversation.

“I’ve taken the liberty of assigning agents to keep tabs on various members of Congress who have voiced vocal opposition to the administration—”

“Wise,” McKeon said, genuinely impressed.

“Thank you, Mr. Vice President,” Walter said. If he was happy with the praise he didn’t gush over it. “But that’s not the end of it. The two agents I have on Senator Gorski from Alaska just called in. Seems she’s driven up to Gettysburg this evening with Congressman Dillman.”

“An affair?” McKeon asked, raising an eyebrow at Ran.

“That could be it, sir,” Agent Walter said. “But it doesn’t really jibe with their personalities or backgrounds. Gorski is driving and my agents say she’s executing various countersurveillance maneuvers—doubling back, slowing down and speeding up, taking exits and then getting right back on the freeway. It’s as though they are trying to shake a tail.”

“So,” McKeon said, “you believe they are meeting someone.”

“I do, sir,” Walter said. “There’s always the possibility that it’s some sort of decoy or ruse, but I think they’re going to meet someone from the conspiracy.”

When Walter spoke of “the conspiracy,” he was referring to Winfield Palmer and his little group of patriots. Of course, Walter had no idea of anything really. He was only loyal because he enjoyed being nasty to people. Working for McKeon and the administration gave him the opportunity to do things that would have otherwise seen him strapped to an execution table with a needle in his vein.

McKeon took a deep breath and pressed his forehead against Ran’s. “This is good news,” he said. “Are you there in Gettysburg?”

Walter cleared his throat. “Unfortunately no, sir. I’m in San Diego on another matter.”

“Very well,” McKeon sighed, looking at Ran. “I’m going to send someone to meet the agents you have on scene. I trust you to have them handle this swiftly and surely. They should use whatever force they deem necessary.”

“Of course, sir,” Walter said. “They’ll scoop up whoever they find. I’ll book the next flight back.”

McKeon ended the call and smiled. He would have kissed Ran on the forehead had it not been for the Navy steward. “Take Marine One and get to Gettysburg as quickly as possible. I don’t want our IDTF idiots to squander this opportunity.”

Ran leaned closer. “Your pet President is in a pissy mood,” she said. “What if he does not want me to borrow his private helicopter?”

“Then kill him,” McKeon whispered, only half joking. “But get out there now. I want Winfield Palmer in a prison cell or in the ground.”