Day Zero (33 page)

Q
uinn stopped at the aft lounge just long enough to make certain Mattie was safe before contacting the captain on the interphone. He explained the ground aluminum powder and its probable use in an explosive device, but went into less detail about the murders since he’d not seen them himself.

Listening in on the conversation with the captain, Gao began to laugh hysterically when Quinn mentioned that one of the victims was an Asian woman, likely Chinese. Half the passengers were of Asian ethnicity so it was hardly standout news.

“Two murders,” Gao said in Mandarin, though he obviously understood English. “Two dead . . . Double Happiness . . .”

Quinn’s mouth went dry when he heard the words. He dropped the phone, letting it swing from the cord as he wheeled and grabbed the cackling man by the collar. “What did you say?”

“Double Happiness,” Gao said, quieter now but still grinning. His big head wagged stupidly back and forth as he spoke. “Lin is dead. I think double happiness is no happiness at all.”

Quinn shoved Gao backwards, letting him fall against the stairs, and ran to fling open the curtain where Mattie sat with Madonna Foss. He knelt beside his daughter.

Gao’s bellowing had been easy enough to hear. Quinn hoped the slurred Mandarin had been more difficult for Mattie to understand. The look on her face said he hadn’t been that lucky.

“Is Lin all right?” Mattie said. “I heard that man say ‘double happiness.’ That’s what I drew on the card I made for her. He said the word
dead
. Is she really dead?”

Quinn took her by the shoulders with both hands. “I don’t know, sweetheart. What seat is she sitting in?”

Mattie closed her eyes, trying to remember. “It’s upstairs, at the front. I remember she was two rows up from the bathrooms by the window on that side of the plane.” She pointed to the left.

“Two forward of the lavatories and galley . . . That would be 12A,” Carly said. “Business class.”

Madonna Foss groaned. “That’s near one of the emergency exits,” she said. “Perfect place for a you know what.”

“I already know you’re talking about a bomb,” Mattie said, shaking her head as if she had no time for secrets. “Really, Dad, do you think my friend is dead?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Quinn said. “A Chinese woman has been killed, but we’re not sure it’s her.” Blunt honesty had always been the best policy with Mattie. He nodded toward the handset. “Carly, can you get someone up front to take a look at 12A? Tell them not to make contact. Just see if anyone is sitting there.”

Carly used the interphone to page Andre in the upper-deck business class and spoke with him for a short moment.

The captain’s voice came across the loudspeaker.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “We’re approaching some extremely rough air. Please take your seats.”

Handset to her ear, Carly’s face grew pale as she listened to Andre report back.

“There’s an Asian man sitting in 12A,” she said. “And another two that refuse to take their seats.”

“Refuse?” Quinn said. “Are they arguing?”

“Ignoring.” Carly nodded. “According to Andre, one just ran down the front stairs.”

That made sense, Quinn thought. Put the bomber in the middle while they had two men guard both sets of stairs on either side of him. “Tell Andre and whoever else is up there the bomb is probably in 12A. I’ll be right there.”

Quinn kissed Mattie on the top of her head, taking a short moment to smell her hair before he looked up at Foss. “Can you keep watching her for a few more minutes?”

“Goes without saying,” the air marshal said.

Natalie stood, giving Quinn an uncharacteristic hug. Her perfume reminded him of his mother. “We’ll take care of her.”

“Thank you,” Quinn said. He gave his daughter one last kiss on the head, wondering if he’d ever see her again.

Natalie pulled Carly to her, whispering something in her ear.

“Sit tight, sweetie,” Quinn said to his daughter.

“Take the back stairs,” Carly said. “It’s quicker.”

“I would,” Quinn said. “But I need to grab something from my seat on the way.”

T
ang was standing just aft of the forward galley when Ma Zhen came out of the lavatory. He couldn’t see the small plastic flasks full of water and explosive, but knew the device was ready from the look of relief on Ma’s face. The men nodded, each dropping their shoulders in a half bow of respect and resignation. Then Ma disappeared behind the forward galley curtain toward what had once been Lin’s seat.

Tang looked toward the back of the plane, watching for the American girl’s father. Hu had already gone down the front stairs and was sweeping backwards on the main deck. They only had minutes left, but between the two of them, Ma would be protected.

“Hey,” a woman wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt said. “Why aren’t you in your seat?” Her voice held the suspicious edge of a mother with teenagers.

“Very dangerous man on board,” Tang said, keeping up the image of frightened passenger for a few moments longer. “Crew say he come from there.” He pointed toward the tail.

A burly man with a beard craned his neck to look behind him, and then stood. “I’m not going to sit around while someone is killing people on this plane,” he said.

“Me neither.” Another man, across the aisle and two rows back, stood as well. “What does he look like?”

A moment later, Tang had a group of six men who were spoiling for a fight. He described Quinn as best he could remember and started toward the back, leading his posse. He didn’t have much time to make it to the
guizi
girl. Ma would detonate the device as soon as he attached the detonator—two minutes away at the most. The angry mob gave him credibility with the other passengers as he strode down the aisle. The irony of it all made him smile for the first time in months.

 

B
owen ended the call with a frantic Joey Benavides and stuffed the cell phone back in his pocket. They were parked in the shadows on a side road off Rockville Pike, a block from the west side of Walter Reed Military Medical Center.

Bowen had never been much of a worrier, but sitting in a stolen truck with a member of a conspiracy to overthrow the president and now bent on breaking a federal prisoner out of custody ranked right up there with the activities that had caused his hair to go prematurely gray in the first place.

It was warm out, humid in the DC way that made clothes stick to skin and the odor of the last ten passengers rise up from the upholstery of vehicles left shut up too long in the sun. The concrete truck smelled like pastrami, overripe bananas, and half a can of Axe deodorant.

Bowen wore a short-sleeve sports shirt, plaid so it broke up the imprint of his Glock, unbuttoned and open over a black T-shirt. He’d left his ballistic vest in his Charger, which was still parked back at the strip mall, but consoled himself that getting shot was about to be the least of his worries.

“They’re taking her to a ship anchored off Bloods-worth Island,” Bowen said. “Some kind of old Navy gunnery range out in the Chesapeake.”

“
Cocshons!”
Thibodaux pounded his fist on the steering wheel. “Don’t tell me they’re moving her by air.” He had the Marshals Service short shotgun from Bowen’s G-car between his knees, muzzle pointed toward the floor.

Bowen shook his head. “Not until they get her to Annapolis. You were right. Joey said they couldn’t get a chopper here before General Hewn shows up, so they’re taking her out by van. He says they’re gearing up now to leave in fifteen minutes, give or take. They’re running a lead and a follow. Ross will be in the middle, in a dark blue Suburban with blackout windows.”

“Good deal,” Thibodaux said, rolling his shoulders as he visibly relaxed a notch.

“So,” Bowen said, “You said we have some kind of secret weapon. I get the basics of this plan, but now would be a good time to fill me in on the little details—before Joey calls back.”

“We’re gonna keep this simple. All gross motor skill stuff—”

A flatbed truck pulled up to park directly behind them, causing Thibodaux to stop in mid-sentence. Ronnie Garcia was behind the wheel. She jumped out as soon as she’d stopped and approached Bowen’s window. A pimply kid Bowen hadn’t seen before got out of the passenger side and came up behind her. He wore black-framed glasses the military called “Birth Control Goggles” for their propensity to chase away the opposite sex. He smiled meekly at Bowen and flinched a little when he saw Thibodaux, like a puppy afraid of being smacked.

“Staff Sergeant Guttman’s a friendly,” Ronnie said, introducing the kid. “He’s helping us out with some of his tech.”

Bowen couldn’t help but smile when he saw the sultry Cuban. She wore faded jeans and a loose T-shirt that presumably covered a pistol. A Washington Nationals ball cap kept her hair pulled back out of her eyes.

“Jacques was just going over the plan again,” Bowen said. “Our guy’s going to call back with specifics of the move. We have about ten minutes.”

Thibodaux followed a soccer mom with his good eye as she rolled by in a shiny minivan. He turned back to the others when she made the corner. “I was just telling the new guy that we’re not going to get too intricate. Things will get dicey for a minute, but that’s fine. We have to go fast for this to work. Staff Sergeant Guttman will put his bird in the air as soon as we get the call—”

“Bird?” Bowen said.

“Specifically a Schiebel S-100 Camcopter drone,” Guttman said, pushing up his glasses. He was obviously proud of what Garcia had called his “tech.” “She can fly over a hundred knots or hover in the trees until we need her. She’s got a small Starepod on her nose so I can see what she’s seeing on my iPad. Each of two hard points is equipped with a single LMM.”

“‘Lightweight Multirole Missile,’” Garcia offered as if she was used to translating military geek.

“Figured that,” Bowen said. He’d seen his share of chopper-fired missiles.

Thibodaux took back control of the briefing. “Guttman will work the drone from the passenger seat of your Charger. He’ll take out any lead and follow cars with the LMMs. I’ll pit the Suburban with Ross inside and pinch it into the curb. We put the smack on everyone inside that isn’t Ross. You and Garcia get her the hell out of there in your G-ride.”

“What if I get stopped?” Bowen asked.

“I’ll be behind you in the concrete truck.” Thibodaux shrugged. “But you’re a damned United States marshal. Wave your badge and say, ‘These aren’t the droids you’re lookin’ for.’ ”

“Sounds like you have this all worked out,” Bowen said. “Except for glossing over the part where we have a bloody firefight with the guys in the prisoner van.”

“You forgot about our secret weapon.” Thibodaux grinned. He seemed to thrive under the tension of impending battle.

“You said the drone only has two missiles,” Bowen said. “What’s its function with an assault on the prisoner vehicle after it’s taken out the lead and the follow?”

Thibodaux shot a glance at Garcia. Both smiled broadly as a red Ducati motorcycle turned off the Rockville Pike and growled up next to them. A compactly built woman in jeans and a white leather jacket dropped the side stand and swung a leg off the bike.

“That drone ain’t our secret weapon, son,” Thibodaux said. “Not by a long shot.”

Standing alongside her Ducati, the rider removed her helmet, giving her head a shake to free jet-black hair. Bowen recognized the woman immediately as Jericho Quinn’s Japanese friend and teacher, Emiko Miyagi.

 

C
aptain Rob Szymanski weighed the risks of a possible explosive decompression at 40,000 feet versus keeping the altitude needed to make it to the only piece of rock between him and the western coast of Alaska if the bomb damaged an engine. He split the difference and set the bug on the autopilot to Flight Level 210 or 21,000 feet. Without turning into a lawn dart and frightening the passengers, a maximum rate of descent would get them there in a little over three minutes. The A380 was the quietest bird he’d ever flown, and being well in front of the engines, the cockpit was eerily silent but for the buzz of the electronics array and the occasional click of a keyboard.

First Officer Mick Bott sat in the right seat going over emergency procedures in a three-ring binder in his lap. A machinelike focus and bottomless levels of energy had earned him the call sign
McBott
as an F18 Hornet jockey in the Navy. The name had stuck and followed him into civilian life.

The captain looked out the side window, seeing miles and miles of nothing in varying shades of blue. “What’s our distance to Dutch Harbor?”

McBott looked up from his manual to consult the navigational display on the console of screens and buttons in front of him. “Two-seven-two miles southeast,” he said. “Half an hour at this speed. Next closest is St. Paul Island at a hundred and sixty miles to our east. Neither runway is set up for heavy metal this big. I show Unalaska/Dutch Harbor at forty-one-hundred feet. St. Paul Island better at sixty-five-hundred, but still way too short.”

Szymanski forced a grin. Over his thirty years of flying, he’d found smiling brought calm to situations that might otherwise melt into pandemonium. “I thought you Navy boys were used to carrier landings.”

“You know I’m game, Captain,” McBott said. “But putting this bird down on one of those little strips would be like landing a carrier on a carrier.”

“Well, alrighty then,” the captain said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Start working through the checklist—and set the transponder to squawk 7700.”

“Not 7500?” McBott asked. A transponder code of 7500 signified a hijacking. It could not be reset or denied in the air. Once activated, they’d be forced to land at the nearest airport and would be stormed by gun-wielding law tactical teams.

Szymanski shook his head. “Not yet. Considering the state of the world right now, I’m afraid they’d just shoot us down and be done with it.”

“Squawking 7700. Roger that,” McBott said, punching in the code. “I’d say three murders and a bomb on board qualify as an emergency.”