Brute Force (20 page)

“Not any longer,” she said, her lip giving the slightest of quivers.

“We could easily find ourselves up against this weapon of yours,” Quinn said. “I would have liked to hear a little more about it.”

“I can tell you what you need to know,” she said. “An overabundance of knowledge could get you killed.”

“I can see that,” Quinn said. “But what about the Fengs? Hard to question a man with two .45 slugs in his chest.”

“It does not matter.” Song stooped to pick up her pistol, apparently satisfied Quinn wasn’t going to shoot her—though he hadn’t quite made up his mind. She waved a hand toward the trees where the motorcycle was hidden. “If they are going to see Big Uncle, I know where to find them.”

 

C
amille Thibodaux was in the kitchen, surrounded by two bushels of green beans, when the doorbell rang. She ignored it, focusing instead on the sound of the pressure cooker with her first canning batch, hissing and rattling on the stove. Glass quart jars packed with fresh beans lined the counter space on both sides of the stainless-steel sink. A cloud of steam rolled out of the dishwasher when she opened the door to take out a load of newly washed jars. She pushed a lock of dark hair out of her eyes with her arm, and removed the rack of jars, flipping the dishwasher door shut with her foot.

She didn’t wear a watch, so she glanced at her cell phone that lay on the counter beside a thick wooden cutting board to check the time when the bell rang again, wondering who could be dropping by at this time of day. Government agents and the homeowners’ association Nazis tended to knock, apparently feeling the sound of their fists on the door was more intimidating than a wimpy chime. Church folk or salesmen rang the doorbell. It was that time of year again when the bug boys and security system installers descended on the DC area like locusts. They were mostly harmless, clean-cut young men from the Rocky Mountains, but it wouldn’t hurt them to wait a little minute.

The bell rang a third time, bringing shouts of “Door, Mama!” from the younger boys, who knew not to open it themselves under penalty of a swat on the butt with a Hot Wheels track.

Beads of sweat trickled down Camille’s back as she hoisted the jars onto the counter, wetting her green Marine Corps T-shirt. She’d still not lost all her weight from the last baby so T-shirts and loose sweats made up most of her wardrobe. Canning pole beans was far too hot an undertaking for sweats, so she’d slipped into a pair of basketball shorts and some well-worn Saucony runners. The older boys were out playing and the younger three were watching cartoons in the basement—giving Camille some much needed time to work.

With the special pay addendum gone that Jacques had been getting before the administration change, she had to pull out all the stops to feed seven hungry boys on a Corps salary. One of the guys at the Spotsylvania Farmers’ Market was a former Marine and knew the drill of making ends meet. He’d given her a killer deal on pole beans. Camille spent a good deal of each summer canning produce to feed her boys—and Jacques whenever he decided to come home. Always a worker, she enjoyed the industry of home production. It gave her something to take her mind off the worry over her husband, who was, it seemed, always trying to find the most dangerous people in the most awful places on earth to spend his time with.

The doorbell rang again, followed by a soft, civilized knock. She felt a pang of guilt for not answering sooner. Looking at the buckets and jars of beans, she did some math in her head as she dried her hands on a dishtowel and made her way down the hall toward the door. According to Jacques’s grandmother’s canning recipe book, she had enough beans to make twenty-eight quarts—four canner batches—with maybe a few left over to make a couple of jars of her pickled beans. Jacques loved pickled green beans.

She was thinking of how much Jacques loved pickled beans when she opened the door.

Camille tensed when she recognized the IDTF agent with greasy black curls from the day before. She slammed the door in his face, half expecting that he’d kick it in. Instead, he gave another soft knock.

“Mrs. Thibodaux,” he said. “Please listen to me. I’m a friend of your husband.”

She stood behind the closed door, considering making a run for the pistol. “I’m listening,” she said.

“I’ve come alone,” the man said, “without my partner. I’m here unofficially, as a friend.”

She looked through the peephole. “What about my husband, Mr . . . ?”

“Benavides,” the man said, smiling. “Joey Benavides. I did some work with the Gunny.”

Jacques had never mentioned a Joey Benavides, but that was not unusual. He’d worked with Jericho Quinn for several months before she’d even heard him say the man’s name out loud. Now you’d think the two had grown up together.

Sighing, she pulled open the door. If he was not what he said he was, he’d just kick it in anyway.

“What is it you want, Mr. Benavides?”

“I need to get word to your husband,” the tubby agent said, glancing over his shoulder, up and down the street. “Look, I’m taking a big risk. If my boss finds out I came here like this, it could cost me my job . . . or worse. Could I please come inside for a couple of minutes?”

Something about this guy still raised her hackles, but he had asked permission. Even when he’d come the day before with his partner, he seemed more bark than bite. Against her better judgment she stepped back. “Come in then,” she said.

The timer on the stove began to beep as soon as she’d shut the door. “I need to get the pressure cooker,” she said, nodding up the hallway. “We can talk in the kitchen.”

“Sure,” Benavides said, smiling. He seemed extremely interested in their family photos, pausing here and there, as an old friend might to catch up after a long absence.

Camille turned down the heat under the pressure cooker and picked up the stubby paring knife to cut the ends off the green beans before stuffing them in the hot jars from the dishwasher. Doing something with her hands helped her focus. “I’m all ears.”

“I don’t know how much your husband has told you about our present situation,” Benavides said, sidling up next to her at the counter.

Camille noticed right off that Joey Benavides was what Jacques called a “close talker.” The man’s idea of personal space was measured in single digits.

“You want some water or sweet tea?” Camille asked, taking a half step away.

“Sure,” he said, stammering as he tried to get back on his train of thought. “Tea . . . that would be great. Anyway, I’m not sure who to trust anymore. That’s why—”

Camille held up her paring knife, using her elbow to gain back a little more of her space as she pointed toward the fridge. “The pitcher’s in there. Help yourself.”

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks . . . I mean, sure, that’d be good. You want some?”

“Sweet tea,” she said, “In the blue pitcher.” She told him where the glasses were and continued to cut beans from a seemingly endless pile.

“Your husband and I thought we could get things back on track.” Benavides filled two glasses with tea as he spoke, then returned the pitcher to the fridge. “With Ronnie Garcia in custody, I need to get word to him ASAP.”

Camille nearly dropped the knife at the mention of Ronnie’s name, but kept cutting beans as if it meant nothing to her. She glanced up in time to see Benavides reach into the pocket of his slacks and bring out a small pill, which he dropped into one of the tea glasses.

“You need sugar or anything?” he asked, swirling the doped glass in his hand, presumably giving whatever he’d slipped her time to dissolve.

“You’re sure enough not from the South,” she said forcing a smile. “It’s
sweet
tea. The sugar’s already in it.”

“Oh, yeah.” Benavides winced. “Of course.”

Camille continued to play naïve while her mind raced for the next move. She was stupid, stupid, stupid to let this guy in her house. Whatever she did, she had to do it in a hurry, before he realized she knew anything. Jacques always said most people lost a fight while they’re standing around deciding what to do. Maybe the pill was a vitamin or something, and he meant it for himself. Maybe . . .

She made up her mind when he held the doped tea glass out for her to take.

Her paring knife caught him where his thumb met his forefinger, just behind the glass. Bringing her left arm across, Camille used both hands to drive the blade downward, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“
Porca Vacca!”
The Italian curse was one hundred percent fear, but it had the startling effect of a war cry.

The glass of sweet tea crashed from Joey B’s hand as her knife pegged him to the wooden cutting board. His own gurgling screech rose above hers when he looked down and saw blood pouring from the wound.

“You biiiittchh!” he shrieked. “I’m—”

She cut him off with a quart jar full of green beans to the side of his head. Sinking like a sack of sand, he fell to the kitchen floor in a pile of blood, beans, and broken glass. The heavy cutting board, still attached to his hand with the knife, followed him down and bashed him in the head.

Her mind racing to figure out what Jacques would do, Camille bent quickly to snatch the pistol from a holster on the man’s belt. She took a step back with trembling knees. She’d just stabbed a federal officer—maybe even killed him with the jar. Then she thought, maybe she
should
kill him. He had tried to drug her, but there was no going back from what she’d done.

“Mama?”

Her oldest son’s voice nearly sent her out of her skin. He was twelve, and already sounded a lot like his father. She spun, biting her lip to keep from breaking down right then and there.

“Mama,” the boy repeated. All three of her older sons had come in from the yard and stood wide-eyed in the doorway to the kitchen.

Denny, the third in line at eight years old, had gone pale. “You’re bleeding. . . .”

She glanced down to see blood running out of her hand and dripping off the point of her elbow. The jar must have cut her when she hit Benavides in the head. She grabbed a paper towel and pressed it to the wound. It was not as bad as it looked, but it might take a while to stanch the blood.

“Help me, boys,” she said, as if she’d just asked them to bring up some laundry. “We need to get this bad man into the bedroom and tie him up.”

Dan, the second oldest nodded. “Want me to call 911?”

She shook her head. “This man is a policeman,” she said, wrapping her hand with a towel as she spoke. “But trust me, he’s a bad one. He was trying to hurt your mama.”

All three boys bristled at that and looked ready to stomp Joey B where he lay.

“Come on,” she said, “he’s a big guy. It’s going to take all four of us to move him.”

Ten minutes later, Camille Thibodaux and her sons of twelve, ten, and eight had dragged, rolled, and lifted Joey Benavides onto her bed. She’d considered using the guest bed, but her four-poster had strong oak rails at the head and foot, giving her something to chain his arms and legs to. Jacques’s grandfather had been the sheriff of Terrebonne Parish, and Camille had been able to find two pairs of his old handcuffs in the drawer where Jacques kept what he called his “important tactical shit.”

She used ropes and duct tape to secure Joey’s ankles, sure it cut off his circulation, but she didn’t really care.

Satisfied Benavides wouldn’t be able to escape when he woke up, Camille stepped back to try to work out what to do next. If he’d told anyone he was here, she was screwed. Help would be along anytime. But considering the fact that he’d tried to drug her instead of arrest her, she hoped his visit was unofficial and off the books.

The three boys stood behind her, flushed and glowing that they’d be able to tell their dad about being men of the house while he was gone. Jacques had instilled in them from birth that “protector of the mama” was the highest of callings.

Camille handed Dan the keys to Joey B’s sedan, holding up the ignition key so he’d know which one it was, and told him to drive the car around back so it was off the street and out of sight. At ten, he was the best driver of all the boys and often took the wheel when they went to their grandpa’s farm in Louisiana. Besides that, she wasn’t about to leave them alone in the house with this creep, even if he was tied up.

She sent the other two boys to clean up the glass in the kitchen and picked up her cell phone with trembling hands to make another futile attempt at calling Jacques. He rarely spoke of it, but she knew his life was full of stabbing and head bashing. He would surely know what to do. Benavides had said that Ronnie Garcia was in custody. Though Camille didn’t know everything, she was smart enough to read between the lines and see that if IDTF agents had found Ronnie, everyone she was associated with was in mortal danger.

She got Jacques’s voice mail, listened to all of it just to hear his voice, then tried again, holding on to hope while it rang. Still nothing. Cursing under her breath in staccato Italian, she paced back and forth, her eyes locked on the unconscious man tied to her bed.

“Come on, Jacques,” she said, barely holding her sobs at bay. It was all over the Internet what these IDTF guys did to their prisoners. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach. Jacques and Jericho were both AWOL so they would be no help. It was up to her to figure out what to do to help Ronnie. She was smart and relatively fit, but she knew she couldn’t do this by herself—whatever it was she was doing.

With no one else to call, she scrolled through her list of contacts and took a deep breath before punching in the number to the last person on earth who should want to help Veronica Garcia.

 

I
t was dark by the time Quinn rode the Toaster Tank Beemer up the cobblestone road in front of the Bursaws’ inn. From the looks of things, the party had been going on for some time.

Petra’s father played raucous folk music on his accordion beside two men about his age on a wooden stage they’d dragged up under the canopy of the beech tree. One man played the violin, another a long-necked stringed instrument called a
tamburica
that sounded to Quinn much like a mandolin.

Song sat on the back of the bike for a long moment after Quinn rolled to a stop and lowered the side stand. Arms locked around his waist, she seemed frozen in place, her eyes glued to the musicians. The end of a number broke the spell and Quinn felt her shake herself as if shooing away a stray thought. He steadied the bike while he waited for her to swing a leg off and step back.

“I need to make arrangements,” she said, removing her helmet and running a hand through her hair as she started for the door. “I’ll be down in a moment.”

She bounded through the milling crowd as if she couldn’t wait to get away from Quinn now that she was out of her stupor.

Kevin Bursaw stood chatting with a small crowd of men under a string of white and red lights, the colors of the Croatian flag. Nibbling from a paper plate piled high with food, he looked up and waved at Quinn, motioning him over.

The lights draped from the high eaves of the three-story inn to the beech tree, across to the motorcycle shed, then back to the inn, forming a lighted stable for two dozen adventure motorcycles and half again as many people. Beaked GSs and larger GS Adventures made up the bulk of the bikes since Bursaw had the BMW concession, but the herd was dotted with a handful of KTMs, Yamahas, and Triumphs. They all looked aggressive and predatory. Two black Corvettes and a gleaming lime-green Dodge Challenger Hellcat sat parked along the edge of the road facing the lighted stable as if they were looking over the bikes.

Quinn peeled off his helmet and hung it on the Toaster’s handlebars. The incredibly thick and herby odor of spit-roasted lamb hit him full in the face and caused his mouth to water. He knew he’d have to make excuses and get going, but he also had to eat. The heady smells of fresh bread and cooking meat made him realize his body was running on reserve. Off the bike, he arched his back, popping his neck from side to side. The wind on the ride back had almost dried his wet jeans but left him chilled and exhausted down to his bones. Some sort of nourishment was fast becoming an imperative.

Petra had outdone herself with two long tables of assorted Croatian dishes. There was a long line crowded around the lamb so Quinn grabbed a piece of crusty bread and a small fish grilled simply in olive oil and herbs. He ate it in two bites while he walked over to let Kevin know his prized Toaster Tank Beemer was, amazingly enough, still intact.

“Hey, man,” Bursaw said, shaking Quinn’s hand when he walked up, still careful to let him pick the name he wanted to use to be introduced. Bursaw gestured to a rangy-looking man with a blond goatee to his left. “You’ll have to forgive my nephew, Craig,” he said.

“He won’t shut up about his new muscle car.”

“John Martin,” Quinn said, using the name on his Australian passport. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“American muscle, Uncle Kevin,” Craig said. A lit cigarette drooped from the corners of his grinning lips. Though he spoke excellent English, his Balkan accent gave him away as being from Petra’s side of the family. He didn’t look much younger than Kevin. He nodded proudly and gestured toward the shiny green Dodge with the glowing cigarette. “Just picked her up from the customs lot three days ago. She is a 2015 SRT Hellcat. She has a 707 horsepower Hemi engine, capable of zero to sixty miles per hour in three seconds—”

“Yeah.” Kevin laughed, “And it cost you more than my house.” He stuffed a bite of cheese and
pršut
, the prosciutto-like cured meat of Croatia, into his mouth.

Bursaw’s nephew, whose real name was Crepko, but who had changed his name to Craig because he loved American things, swung the red and black key fobs in his hand and gave a resigned shrug. “Maybe my car is expensive, but I had the money.” He wagged his head and jabbed at him with the cigarette to make his point. “And don’t tell me you don’t want to take her out on the road and let her speak to you, Uncle. Perhaps Aunt Petra would not allow you because the women would flock like birds to such a sexy machine. . . .”

Song walked up and touched Quinn’s arm. He didn’t mind small talk if it was about motors and speed.

“I need to talk to you, dear,” she said. Her voice was tense, pointed.

The other men raised their eyebrows and gave Quinn a knowing nod. They stepped away to give the couple space.

“I am informed that Big Uncle is no longer in Madrid,” she whispered. Her eyes darted from guest to guest as she spoke. “He has set up shop in the United States.”

“Okay.” Quinn nodded thoughtfully. “So the Fengs
are
going to the US. Do you know where?”

“Washington,” she said.

“The capital,” Quinn mused.

Song shook her head. “The state. Big Uncle now runs his triad from Seattle.”

“Interesting,” Quinn said, his brain going into overdrive. He went over the long list of possible targets in the Northwest—military bases, nuclear facilities, the major cities themselves.

“We need to get to Seattle then,” he said. “And in the meantime, you need to tell me more about this Black Dragon so we can consider where they might hit.”

Song folded her arms tightly across her chest and stood silently in front of him. To others in the group it probably looked like they were having a fight instead of discussing how to avert a war between their two countries. Quinn couldn’t help but notice that even in their present situation Song’s shoulders bounced and bobbed to the lilt of the music, as if she might break out dancing at any moment. Her foot tapped along with the beat.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll get Kevin to take us to the airport.”

Song shook her head, rolling her lips as if she wanted to make sure she didn’t let the wrong words slip out. “There are no flights for another seven hours.”

“The Citation?” Quinn said.

“Already tasked with another mission,” she said.

“A mission more important than this?”

“I warned you,” she said. “There are those within my government who believe war with the United States would work to the eventual benefit of China. My allies grow fewer in number with each passing hour. Very soon it may just be me and you.”

“I’m still an undecided in that regard,” Quinn said.

“In any case,” she said, still watching the band. “We are booked on a British Airways flight to Seattle in the morning.”

“Nothing to do but wait then,” Quinn said. He paused, looking directly at Song. “Do you play?”

Her head snapped around. “What?”

“We’re talking about World War Done and you haven’t taken your eyes off those musicians.”

She bowed her head and gave him a sheepish nod. “The violin,” she said. “Back at the university. I was quite good at it. I studied fiddle music in the United States my second year, intending to make it my profession before my present job . . . occurred.”

“The fiddle,” Quinn mused. “That explains the country music.”

Kevin Bursaw walked back up in the middle of the conversation. He looked at Quinn. “Bo never told me you play the fiddle.”

Quinn laughed. “I couldn’t even play the triangle.” He nodded at Song. “She’s the fiddle player.”

Bursaw held his paper plate with one hand and put two fingers to his mouth in a piercing whistle, bringing the band to a stop. “Papa,” he yelled across the crowd. “We have a beautiful young lady here who plays the fiddle. Do you think Silvano would mind if she had a try?”

All eyes turned in their direction, giving Song no way out. She flashed Quinn a pinched look that said she might shoot him.

Bursaw noticed the look as well and picked up a ball of fried dough crusted in sugar as they watched Song step up on the portable stage. “Make sure and try Petra’s
fritule
before your girlfriend cuts your guts out.”

The three musicians gave Song the stage, happy for a short break to partake of the feast. Quinn watched in rapt attention as she raised Silvano’s violin to her shoulder, and, after a few plucks of tuning, launched into a frantic buzz of “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Everyone at the party stopped what they were doing as the notes swarmed from the strings. Then, as if the bees had turned back on themselves, the violin transformed into fiddle. A few notes later and the eerie screams and groans of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” began to spill from her bow. The crowd of riders erupted in whistles and applause when she finished. Song bowed, then moved to climb down off the stage, but a chant rose up, begging her to continue. Quinn found himself shouting along with the crowd, hoping to convince her to play another, if only for her own sake.

Song smiled shyly. It was a look that Quinn hadn’t seen on her before, but it suited her well, making her appear more like an actual human being.

“One more,” she shouted back over the crowd.

“Two more!” the people pled.

She actually blushed. “One more.”

Quinn found himself grinning. He looked at Bursaw and said, “She’s with me.”

The crowd fell silent, watching, leaning in toward the music as Song’s bow coaxed out a haunting tune that Quinn didn’t recognize. It sounded like a cross between Mannheim Steamroller techno and Old World folk. The locals in the crowd launched into a frenzy of cheers. When she finished, Bursaw’s father-in-law tried to convince her to join the band.

It took Song almost two minutes to wade through her new admirers and work her way back to Quinn. She gave him a good-natured jab in the ribs with her elbow, in a much better mood than when she had left.

Bursaw looked at her with a gaping mouth. “How did you know how to play ‘Croatian Rhapsody’?”

“Is that what it’s called?” Song shrugged. “I heard it at the airport when we arrived.” She looked at Quinn as if she wasn’t some kind of musical genius. “We have an early day. I think I’ll go to bed.”

“I’ll be up in a minute,” he said. “Don’t lock me out.”

“Why, because you made me play in front of everyone?” She smiled.

He watched her walk away, still trying to get a handle on what made her tick. As soon as she made it inside, he turned to Bursaw. “Do you have a phone I can borrow for a couple of international calls? I’ll pay to cover the cost.”

Bursaw reached in his pocket and handed over his smartphone. “Knock yourself out,” he said. “I have to call my parents every other day or they flip out. I got an international plan.”

Quinn took the mobile and walked beyond the beech tree, away from the noise of the crowd. The moon was nearly full and each stone and shrub cast long shadows on the silver limestone of the hillside. Far enough away that he felt he could speak freely, he punched in the prearranged emergency number for Palmer. If the Fengs had something planned for Seattle, he had to tell someone. It would take him nearly twenty-four hours just to get there, and though the Fengs were apparently traveling commercially as well, they had a good ten-hour head start—and a lot could happen in ten hours.

There was no answer, so Quinn ended the call and tried again, mentally willing his old boss to pick up. He gave up after ten rings, immediately punching in the last number he had for Garcia. They hadn’t spoken in almost a month, and though Quinn told himself he needed to get in touch with Palmer through whatever means possible, he had to admit that he was glad to have an excuse to check in with her. She was the most low-maintenance girl he’d ever even heard of, but he’d learned from the wisdom of Jacques Thibodaux that low maintenance didn’t mean no maintenance.

He tried her twice as well, getting nothing but empty rings both times. He tried both Miyagi and then Jacques next with the same result. Everyone had gone dark. He needed to get word to someone on the West Coast and thought of calling Bo, but decided to wait on that. Great to have around as backup, Bo and his club were just as likely to start World War III as prevent it if sent in unsupervised.

A sickening realization that something was very wrong began to creep over Quinn. He’d found himself in some very lonely spots over the course of his life—remote hunts on the barren Alaska tundra, outside the wire at forward operating bases in the Middle East—but here, standing on this moonlit hillside in Eastern Europe, the aloneness was oppressive. He worked for the most powerful nation on earth—or at least he had—a nation with the fastest aircraft, the most advanced satellites, and the most sophisticated war-fighting apparatus on the planet, and still, he found himself waiting for a seat on a commercial airline and dependent on a mercurial enemy agent to complete his mission.

A sudden commotion at the party drew his attention back toward the lights. The sound of a revving engine grew louder. Gravel crunched in the darkness as a vehicle ground to a quick stop. At first he thought it might be Bursaw’s nephew showing off the muscle car, but the engine sound was more mewl than roar. The unmistakable sound of a scream rose above the noise of music and dancing.

Out of habit, Jericho stuffed the phone in his back pocket to free up both hands and began to trot back toward the party—toward the sound of danger. The band’s Croatian folk song came to an abrupt stop. As he reached the beech tree, he realized everyone had turned to look toward the back of the inn where the browlike taillights of an Alpha Romeo Giulietta sedan flashed in the darkness. Quinn saw Stilvano, the violinist, run toward the sedan, and then crumple under the pop of gunfire. Kevin Bursaw, who had already drawn a pistol, ran toward the house where his twin daughters were sleeping. The Giulietta’s tires squealed as it sped away in a rooster tail of spraying gravel.