Brute Force (34 page)

“Sorry to put you through this, but we need to go for another ride.” Quinn returned the phone to his pocket, nodding toward the hill. “He’ll be somewhere up there.”

“How do you know?” Song asked, grimacing around the pain.

“Because that’s where I would be,” Quinn said.

M
cKeon leaned against the leather headrest and closed his eyes. It was only a matter of minutes now until his father’s plan would finally come to fruition. In the span of a breath, the course of the world would change irrevocably, ridding the Middle East of the American pests and ushering in a caliphate that could sweep across Europe unimpeded. There were only last-minute details that he would have to clear up. Not the least of which was the Japanese woman sitting next to him. McKeon’s wife knew about her, of course. Ran Kimura was a necessary, and, though he did not go into detail with his wife, an exquisite evil. He would not likely have made it this far without her protection. But his wife was a good Muslim woman, devoted enough to allow him the latitude to accomplish what his father had begun—and devout enough to follow him through Hell.

“And what of tomorrow?” Ran asked, running her fingers over his knee, as if she were reading his mind.

“Tomorrow?” he asked, trying to gain time. A consummate politician, he was rarely caught flatfooted with a question. “Tomorrow, Hartman Drake will be nothing but a greasy blot of memory and I will be President of a nation at war.”

“Of course, my love.” Her fingers worked their way up his thigh. “I know all that. But what of your wife? What of me?”

McKeon forced a chuckle. “My wife is still in Oregon. We will have plenty to keep us busy, my dear.”

“Do you know the last words you spoke to Drake?”

McKeon shook his head. “I really don’t remember.” Something about the way Ran looked at him made his blood run cold. He was suddenly taken back to the night they’d first met, when she stood over him naked, killing sword in hand.

“I remember them clearly,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “You said ‘things will work out as they must,’ the same thing you said to me when I asked about your wife.”

Ran leaned back against the seat, letting her head fall sideways so she was looking him directly in the eye from just inches away. “And how must they work out, my love? Tell me now, for I fear your life depends on your answer.”

McKeon fumbled in his pocket for the key fob panic button, hoping to activate it before Ran knew what he’d done. The privacy screen was up between the front and the backseats—and the agents were used to a certain amount of noise when Ran accompanied him. If he banged on the partition, she’d kill him before anyone had a chance to respond.

“Looking for this,” Ran said, opening her hand to reveal the panic button. Her lips turned down in a stoic frown. “I suppose that is all the answer I needed.”

“Please,” McKeon said, casting his eyes around the backseat for some avenue of escape, something he might say to change her mind.

“Please?” Ran said, her eyes closing to narrow black lines. Her head still lolled against the seat, but that only made her all the more terrifying. “I thought a man of your talent would come up with something better than that.”

B
ack on the Honda, Quinn headed west, giving Seattle Center and the attendant security a wide berth. He cut back to the north on Third Avenue, working his way up the hill by feel, using his senses as much as his intellect. Human beings tended to follow natural lines of drift and there was a very good chance that if he just looked for what he considered the perfect spot for a sniper to hide, Jiàn Z
u would be somewhere nearby.

The trouble was any one of a dozen locations would make a good firing location. There were multistory mansions, at least three wooded parks, and a half dozen businesses on Galer Street that would all do the trick. Song sat behind him, arms around his waist, both hands pressed flat on the gas tank in front of him. He was sure she was in terrible pain, but she said nothing.

He had both Miyagi and Thibodaux conferenced in so he could hear them on the Bluetooth earpiece.

“You getting anything, Jacques?” he asked, hoping Big Uncle would have provided some clue to narrow down his choices.

“Working on it,” Thibodaux grunted. “Big Uncle has barricaded his shitty little self in the back room and his man Lok is awfully hardheaded.”

“All the patrons appear to be inside the event hall.” Miyagi’s voice came into his ear as clearly as if she were sitting on the bike behind him. “The Secret Service agents with the vehicles look like they are settling in for the long haul.”

“You’re too close if you can see that,” Quinn said.

“I’m on top of the theater next door. It gives me the perfect vantage point to be your eyes and ears.”

“That’s inside the blast radius, Emiko,” Jacques cut in, sounding as if he was still in the middle of thrashing someone. “Too close.”

“He’s right,” Quinn said, riding past an ice cream parlor, a glassblowing studio, and a bike shop, any of which could have been the ideal sniper hide for a shot with the Black Dragon. “You’re in grave danger if we don’t manage to stop Jiàn Z
u.”

“Thank you for your concern,” she said. “Both of you. But we are all in grave danger if you do not stop Jiàn Z
u.”

“Copy that,” Quinn said. The aftermath of the fight and the initial adrenaline dump of pursuit left him feeling muddleheaded and doomed to fail. “Tell me what you got, Jacques.”

“You mean besides the unconscious dude with a ponytail and his fat ass boss I had to drag through a mile of broken glass—”

Quinn let off the throttle and grabbed a handful of front brake, feeling Song pile up behind him as she was thrown into his back by the rapid stop. She gave a stifled whimper as the back wheel hopped up a hair in a modified
stoppie
. Quinn planted his foot and poured on the gas, throwing the Honda into a controlled 180 to head back the way they’d come.

“Get ready to go,” he said over his shoulder to Song. “He’s at the glass shop.”

R
an’s blade struck quickly, entering Lee McKeon’s neck below his ear, nicking his spinal cord and rendering him unable to move—or speak above a choked whisper. The eyes that he’d used so often to entrance her flew open, twitching as if he wanted desperately to close them but could not. She’d missed any major arteries and only a thin trickle of blood wept down the side of his neck, soaking into the white collar of his shirt.

“Whaaaa?” A hoarse croak escaped his gaping mouth.

“I am sorry, my love,” Ran said, withdrawing the blade and wiping it on the leg of his slacks. “You always imagined you would die in a glorious jihad, but instead you were killed by your Japanese whore.” Her voice grew tense and she fought back a tear. “I was incredibly foolish, letting you under my skin like the black ink of my tattoo. You will not feel this,” she said, drawing a long, whip-like blade from the belt of her dress. “I wish it were otherwise, but paralysis is the only way I could be certain you would not cry out.” She gave a flick of her hand so the blade clipped his aorta, just below the stomach. She kept the wound small, containing everything, including the copious amounts of blood that now flooded his gut. “As you are so fond of saying, things will work out as they must.”

Ran said good-bye to the dead man as she opened the door, going so far as to throw him a flirtatious wink the Secret Service had come to expect. She nodded to the two agents posted near the front of the armored limo. Neither of them noticed the small droplets of blood on the dark blue dress she’d worn for that very reason. She’d have plenty of time to disappear into the crowd before they even knew their traitorous boss was dead. By then, they would never find her.

 

 

Flat on her belly, Emiko Miyagi watched as agents rushed to encircle a black limousine parked at the base of Fisher Pavilion. She was perfectly hidden on top of the Cornish Playhouse adjacent to McCaw Hall, watching events unfold five stories beneath her.

“Something’s happening,” she whispered into her earpiece.

“You see him?” Quinn said.

“No,” Miyagi said. “I believe it is something to do with the Vice President.” She worked her way around an air-conditioning unit, giving her an unobstructed view of the pavilion, but exposing herself to anyone who happened to be scanning the rooftop.

“I’m heading your way,” Thibodaux said. “In the meantime, I respectfully suggest you get your ass out of there.”

Q
uinn killed the Honda’s engine a block away from the three-story redbrick building that housed the glass shop and gallery. Considering all the ornate handblown glass at Big Uncle’s charity event, he should have realized this was the place the moment he’d ridden by.

Quinn planted his feet and let Song slip off behind him. The evening hour and a fresh drizzle had chased any pedestrians away and they had the street to themselves. He padded up to the edge of the building with Song right behind him. The inside of her leg was smeared in blood—a consequence of her burns rubbing against his belt as she took the many turns and bumps on the back of the bike. She seemed to do better back on the ground and moved quickly, assuring him she was in fighting shape as he did a quick peek into the alley that ran alongside the shop.

It was clear, so he moved up next to the front window, Kimber in hand.

“Watch my back,” he said as he inched his way up on the window to have a look without alerting anyone inside.

“I count three Asian males,” he whispered, as much for Jacques and Emiko’s benefit as Song’s. “Three furnaces up and running.”

Had this been an earlier time, when he’d had more control and moles hadn’t infiltrated the government, Win Palmer would not have hesitated to call in an airstrike on the shop, obliterating the building and the threat. As it was, Quinn had no high-tech equipment or sophisticated drones to rely on. If Jiàn Z
u was to be stopped, it was up to him and a pretty Chinese spy who could barely walk.

One of the three men removed a long metal tube from the nearest furnace, spinning an orange glob of molten glass the size of a cantaloupe on one end. He extended the tube out in front of him, blowing on one end as he spun it expertly in his hands. A second man followed suit, retrieving a similar glowing orb from the neighboring furnace. This one worked with a partner assisting him as he blew into the pipe and spun the liquid glass into a squirming orange ball. Pumpkin-sized spheres and huge blossoms of flowering glass hung like an inverted garden from the shop ceiling and lined row after row of shelves. A wooden counter, meant to provide a safe place from which patrons could watch the artisans at their work, divided the furnace floor from the main showroom.

Formulating a plan of attack, Quinn caught a glimpse of movement beyond the counter at the base of what looked like a set of stairs. He motioned Song forward, nodding to the back of the shop. “Is that him?”

The sudden tension in Song’s body answered his question. Jiàn Z
u walked out into the shop, talking on the phone as he watched the three men work their glass. He was a slight man, well-muscled and, as Quinn suspected he would, moved with the military bearing of a man who knew what he was doing. He pressed a cell phone to his ear, nodding, listening intently to whoever was on the other end. A moment later, he snapped to attention, the way someone ingrained with military protocol would act if he was just given a direct order from a superior officer, even over the phone. He’d surely just been given the green light to shoot.

Instead of walking toward the stairs as Quinn suspected he would, Jiàn Z
u stepped to the wooden counter, checking out the window as if he expected someone might be following him. Quinn tried to take a step back and get out of his line of sight, but with Song tucked in tightly behind him, there was nowhere for him to go.