Brute Force (22 page)

 

Q
uinn moved on autopilot, carried forward by instinct more than any actual plan. He slid behind the wheel and hit the Hellcat’s ignition, bringing the beast to life with a burbling roar. Bursaw’s nephew had both the red and black fobs on his keychain. When both proximity chips were in the vehicle, the more aggressive red key always won, all but screaming orders at the onboard computer, and awakening all 707 horses under the hood. The predatory
blat
of the supercharged 6.2 Hemi engine alone was enough to send the crowd stepping back as if they were afraid of being eaten.

Quinn whipped the wheel hard over, giving the muscle car enough gas to drift the rear tires to the right and point the nose in the direction of the fleeing Alfa Romeo Giulietta. It didn’t take much and he lifted his foot just enough to stop the drift, straightened the wheels, and then poured on the throttle.

The blower kicked in with a rising whine and the car sprang to life around him, as if it had caught the scent of new prey. Throwing him back against the bolstered leather seat, the Hellcat tore across the cobblestone drive in a shrieking squall of smoke and gravel. Less than a minute from the time the door shut on the Giulietta to speed away with Song, Quinn fishtailed the screaming Hellcat off the gravel and onto the paved highway toward Dubrovnik. It was late and thankfully there was no oncoming traffic, so he was able to use the entire road, drifting through the first long, arcing curve to the south, just in time to see the lights of the Giulietta wink out as they crested a hill, a quarter mile ahead.

Quinn used the paddle shifters to take the car down a gear, applying steady throttle to get maximum speed but without the smoking burnout that the powerful Hellcat was famous for. The effect was like being strapped to the back of a bullet with the Challenger eating up the distance to the fleeing sedan in a matter of seconds. Quinn let off the gas as the easily recognizable rear lights of the Giulietta loomed ahead in the darkness like two long number sixes tipped on their faces.

Song was nowhere in sight and Quinn assumed the two men visible through the rear hatch had pushed her down in the backseat. An arm appeared out the rear passenger window, buffeted heavily by the wind, and began to shoot at him. Quinn gave a tight chuckle despite the situation. Shooting backwards, in the dark, and from a moving car was useless.

Tracking in close like a guided missile on the Giulietta’s tail, Quinn took a quick moment to tap check Anton Scuric’s pistol he’d stuffed in his waistband, making certain it was still in place. In the middle of a long, slow curve, the little Giulietta used up the entire road. The little family car swayed and rocked back and forth to keep the heavier Dodge from passing. It seemed obvious that the driver wanted to be followed so he could lead Quinn into a trap, but he could not have expected to be overtaken so quickly, likely miles from any reinforcements.

Coming out of the turn and into the straightaway, Quinn took the Hellcat down a gear and feinted as if to pass on the right. The moment the Giulietta’s driver moved to cut him off, Quinn rolled quickly to the left, shooting the Hellcat forward between the fleeing sedan and the mountainside.

Nosing in along the Giulietta’s left flank, front fender to rear quarter panel, Quinn yanked the heavy Dodge to the right, aggressively nudging the lighter sedan just behind the back wheel and causing it to come untracked. He mouthed the words he’d used when first learning the PIT or “Precision Immobilization Technique,” toning down his aggressive driving as soon as the Alfa Romeo began to spin out and wrap around the hood of the Dodge to slam into the rocks to the left, facing in the other direction.

“GET!” Quinn barked when the cars made initial contact. And then, more softly, he said, “Out . . . of . . . my . . . way,” as he steered through the collision to make certain he didn’t end up spinning out of control himself.

With the Alfa Romeo behind him, Quinn took his foot completely off the gas, tapping the brake to bleed off speed. When the speedometer needle dropped below forty, he gave the wheel a slight flick to the right, shifting the weight off the inside wheels, then cranked it ninety degrees to the left and stomped the emergency brake. The back wheels broke loose, coming around in a semi-controlled “bootlegger’s” turn. Machinelike, he released the emergency brake and rolled on the gas, closing the distance back to the smoking Giulietta in a quick breath.

The little sedan had rolled up on its side, snapping an axle before colliding with a boulder and falling back to rest on all four tires. The driver, a tall and bony man wearing dark clothing, had just flung open his door and was climbing out with a pistol in hand when Quinn bailed out of the Hellcat, shooting him twice, center mass. He dropped to his knees and the gun slid away into the darkness. Quinn spent the third and fourth of the XDs’ six rounds on the backseat passenger who’d been shooting at him during the chase. He came out of the Giulietta on the far side, taking potshots and moving at a crouch—but not quite low enough. Quinn’s first round missed, but the second struck him in the back of his head.

Two rounds left. He had the extra magazine, but that would take time—something that was always in short supply during a gunfight.

The remaining kidnapper dragged Song out of the car, a pistol shoved under the base of her chin with such force that it caused her to gag. Blood ran from her nose in the glare of the Hellcat’s headlights. Her eyes hung half open and she slumped as if she could barely keep her feet.

“We have stalemate,” the man behind her said in heavily accented English. Albanian, Quinn guessed from his accent. A hired gun. He was sweating from fear and the effort of holding Song upright. “What now?”

Fifteen feet away, Quinn answered by shooting him in the exposed knee, relying on the gunfighter’s mantra to shoot the target that was available until a better one presented itself—and one did. The man’s shattered leg buckled at once, causing him to list sideways, reflexively throwing out his hands, including the one with the pistol, to catch himself. The sixth and final round from Quinn’s XDs caught the man above his eye as his head tilted out from behind Song. He toppled into the ditch and Song collapsed to the ground. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the headlights. Quinn dug into his pocket for the extra magazine and reloaded as he knelt down beside her, checking for wounds.

“I am fine,” she said, attempting to shrug him off, but grimacing at the pain. “My head was so full of that stupid music, they were able to catch me by surprise.”

Quinn looked up and down the highway, pulling Song to her feet. “Let’s get out of here before someone comes along and we have to explain all these dead kidnappers. I’m not sure my Australian passport will hold up under that kind of scrutiny.”

 

 

Kevin Bursaw’s mouth hung open when the Challenger growled back up the cobblestone drive in front of the inn with Song inside. His nephew, Craig, ran out to open the door, grinning from ear to ear.

“Thanks,” Quinn said, handing him the key fobs. “There’ll be a little damage to the front fender. I won’t blame you if you’re angry—”

“Do you joke?” Craig said. “They will write songs about my Hellcat. No way you could save the girl in lesser vehicle. My muscle car, she is now famous.”

Quinn moved to open the passenger door for Song. “I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t, you know, spread that around.”

Craig waved off the comment. “All the people here know. That is enough for me.”

Kevin Bursaw stepped up and put a hand on Quinn’s shoulder while Petra helped Song inside.

“Stilvano?” Quinn asked, wondering about the fate of the fiddle player who’d fallen to the kidnapper’s gunfire when he ran to rescue Song.

“Right through the love handle,” Bursaw said. “It’ll hurt like hell for a while, but he’ll have a nice scar to show the grannies he likes to flirt with.” Bursaw looked past Quinn, mulling over some kind of plan. “We need to get you both out of here. Just in case those guys send back some of their friends. I’ll move my wife and kids for a few days until this blows over. The cops will have the road back to the airport blocked any time now. My father-in-law keeps a small cabin cruiser moored down in the bay below us. We’ll take you around to the city in that. It’ll be a safe place to wait until your flight leaves.”

“I’m really sorry about all this,” Quinn said. “I’m kind of a magnet for bloody murder.”

“Your brother always told me you had superpowers.” Bursaw chuckled. “Boy, was he right. We should call you Action Man. I never saw anyone react that fast—and I spent the better part of my life around bikers and other Type A personalities.”

Quinn shrugged. Sometimes, there was just nothing to say.

“I happened to look at my watch when you ripped away in Craig’s Challenger,” Bursaw said. “You know you had the car and the girl back in under six minutes? Hell, Jericho, there are people at this party still chewing the same bite of food.”

 

C
amille Thibodaux thought she would feel some kind of elation at holding the power to hurt this evil man in her hands. He’d tried to drug her—and she shuddered to think what else he had in mind. Instead, she felt sick to her stomach. It was in her nature to yell at Jacques with fiery Italian curses, and even threaten the boys with all sorts of mayhem if they didn’t do their chores, but actual violence, that was her husband’s department. She did not know for sure what he and Jericho Quinn did on their little secret missions, but looking down at the quivering lump of hairy lard who wore nothing but a sagging pair of briefs, she assumed it had something to do with people like this.

There would be no bluffing with this man. If she said she was going to hit him with the hammer, she would have to hit him with the hammer. The trick was neither she nor Kim knew where to begin. In the end, Camille supposed it was the clinical once-over she gave Benavides while deciding on an appropriate target that made the man spill the beans.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he sobbed, flopping and arching so much he nearly wriggled out of his underwear. “I’ll tell you . . . I’ll tell you what I know.” His eyes rolled back in his head, unable to even look at the hammer anymore. “Just . . . please, put the tools away.”

“That’s all we ask,” Camille said, shooting a look at Kim, who narrowed her eyes and gave a slow nod.

“Where is she then?” Kim said, seeming a little disappointed that she wouldn’t get to pinch him somewhere painful with the pliers.

“She’s being held at a black site,” Joey groaned. “It’s a boat really. Mr. Walter has us put certain high-value prisoners there. The ones he wants to keep out of sight.” He craned his neck to watch her put the hammer back in the toolbox. “There are a shitload of guards. It’s impossible for you to get her out.”

Camille had heard Jacques talk about black sites and prison boats, but she’d assumed such awful places were overseas, a long way from American soil.

“Impossible?” Kim fumed, still holding the channel locks. “As impossible as knocking out an IDTF agent and tying him to a bed?”

“You let us worry about what we can and can’t do,” Camille said, grateful for Kim’s bravado. “You just answer our questions.”

Joey swallowed hard, sniffing back his tears. “Yes,” he sobbed. “Sure. Absolutely.”

Camille leaned in close enough she could smell the sickening odor of sweat that beaded beneath the mat of hair on his quivering body.

“Now, where is this boat?”

“Southwest of Salisbury . . . In Maryland, out on the Delmarva.” His words were now spewing like a geyser. “I mean, we get to it from the Delmarva side of the Chesapeake, but the boat’s actually anchored off Bloodsworth Island. The Navy used to do artillery practice there so it’s off limits to civilians.”

“I’m going to ask you this one time,” Camille said, stooping to pick up the hammer again so Benavides would know she was serious. “There are Internet stories of the horrible things IDTF agents did to the Director of the CIA. Are those reports true? Did your people really strip and torture a fifty-year-old woman?”

Joey’s head fell to the side, nodding as he looked away. “It was always on Mr. Walter’s orders. All any of us ever do is follow his orders.”

Camille let the hammer fall back into the metal toolbox with a loud crash. The sudden noise brought a squeaky fart from the terrified Benavides. His head fell back on the mattress when he realized she wasn’t going to hit him for his confession.

Camille shook her head in disgust and motioned for Kim to follow her to the walk-in closet at the far end of the bedroom. “What do you think?” she whispered. “These are the same guys that took Virginia Ross. That means Ronnie Garcia is in real trouble.”

“Isn’t there anyone you can trust to call?” Kim said.

“Jacques keeps work stuff separate from our family as much as he can. I don’t even know how many other guys in the Corps know what he’s up to most of the time.”

“I was just thinking about something Jericho always says.” Kim gave a heavy sigh, as if she’d finally come to understand some mystery that had been eluding her. “He says if you’re going to make a mistake, you should err on the side of action.”

Camille threw her head back and laughed out loud. She looked up at the ceiling and shook her head.

“What?” Kim asked. “What’s so funny?”

“I’m probably the first woman in my family to ever contemplate hiring a babysitter so she can go break a friend out of a secret boat-prison. I guess that counts as erring on the side of action all right.” Camille stretched up on her tiptoes and began to search through the shoeboxes on the closet shelf above the rack of dresses that she never wore anymore. “Got it,” she said at length, finding the holster Jacques had given her, along with the little stainless-steel .357 he’d wanted much worse than she had. She remembered it was called a “Small of the Back” holster, or SOB, because those were the exact words that came to her mind when she saw Jacques had given her a gun for a present.

Peeking around the corner to make sure Benavides was still on the mattress where she’d left him, Camille stepped out of the loose basketball shorts and into a pair of heavy-duty Carhartt pants she wore to work in the yard. She rarely wore a belt and had to rummage around on the floor behind piles of clothing and boxed knickknacks, before she found a wide leather one that still fit her.

“Sorry you had to see in my closet,” Camille said as she fed the belt through the loops and then the holster so it wouldn’t slide around, just like Jacques had shown her. “I just throw junk in here to get it out of the way. . . .”

“Have you got another gun?” Kim said, mesmerized by the little revolver. “I only have one leg, but you have to let me do something to help. These guys are the reason my little girl is hiding out halfway around the world.”

Camille gave her a leather belt from the pile on the floor. It was smaller but looked like it would probably fit Kim. “There’s a gun and holster in the bathroom gun safe.” Camille rolled her eyes. “I know. Right? Don’t even ask.”

“Remember who I used to be married to.” Kim took the belt and gave a nervous laugh. “A toilet gun safe doesn’t seem odd at—”

The sudden chime of the doorbell nearly sent Camille falling into the rack of dresses. The color bled from Kim’s face. Out in the bedroom, Joey Benavides began to scream for help at the top of his shattered voice.

Camille ran to the bedside and grabbed the hammer from the toolbox. “You better hush, mister,” she hissed.

The door was solid core but anyone standing near the window would be able to hear his yelling outside. If it was another IDTF agent, they were finished.

Benavides was obviously smart enough to know that this might be his only chance for escape. Leaning over the bed, Camille struggled to stuff the gag back in his mouth. He arched his body and jerked his head back and forth like a baby not wanting to eat his peas, all the while shrieking for help as if he was being burned alive. In a near meltdown panic, Kim began to whip him with the belt across the pale flesh of his thighs, which only added to his terror and made him scream even louder.

Realizing the situation called for desperate measures, Camille sprang onto the bed and threw herself astride Joey B so she knelt on his chest, trapping his head between her knees. He bucked and bounced beneath her, but she was finally able to stuff the gag between his teeth without getting bitten. She’d just pulled back her hand when she heard the bedroom doorknob rattle behind her. Terrified, and still straddling Joey B’s naked chest, she turned to find all six feet, four inches of her husband filling the doorway.

“Jacques!” Camille said, frozen in place. “Sweetie, I can explain.”

Thibodaux leaned a massive arm against the doorframe and cocked his head to one side, taking in the scene.

“Oh, Boo, you’re wearin’ the gun I bought you.” He grinned, nodding to the revolver on her hip. “I don’t believe I ever wanted you more.”