Day Zero (6 page)

 

R
onnie Garcia’s group supervisor turned to go, and then spun at the last minute, Colombo-style.

“You know,” Bobby Jeffrey said. “Why don’t you just call it a night? Get out of here. Go home, go to a bar, go for a run or whatever it is you do when you’re not guarding the nation’s secrets.”

Garcia’s heart was in her throat, but she smiled broadly, trying to keep it light. “I’m always guarding the nation’s secrets, Bobby,” she said. “You know that.”

“I’m serious.” Jeffery looked over the top of his wire glasses. He tugged at his tie to loosen it even more than it already was. “They didn’t order me to hold you, so I’m ordering you to haul ass. I’ll talk to this ID guy. You and I can discuss what to do about it in the morning.”

Ronnie took a deep breath. Jeffery had the face and demeanor of a man she could trust, with a reputation as a supervisor who took care of his people. A fifteen-year veteran of the Clandestine Service, he’d been yanked off what had to be a juicy counterterrorism assignment on the Pakistan Desk, and moved to be a group supervisor in Regional and Transnational Issues—Russia and Central Asia—just weeks after the new president took office. It was still important work, but pulling him off the major case was the equivalent of benching him.

A consummate spy, he kept his cards close, even among friends. He’d never say it out loud, but he seemed to know there was a movement against the new administration, and considering Ronnie’s association with the former national security advisor, he was smart enough to know she would be a part of it.

“Okay,” she said. “If you’re going to order me.” She logged out of her computer, then pulled the security ID card out of the slot in her keyboard and looped the lanyard around her neck. It was difficult to look nonchalant with her gut gurgling the way it was. Still, she didn’t want to look as though she’d just been caught looking for evidence that could bring down the presidency. “I’m not going to argue with my boss when he’s trying to get me to leave the office.”

She threw on a thin linen jacket to cover the butt of a Kahr 9MM. The pistol rested in a flat inside-the-pants holster that peeked above her light wool gabardine slacks and pressed against the fabric of a silk blouse. It was small enough that she hardly knew it was there. The light jacket made sure no one else did either. Reaching under her credenza, she grabbed the leather backpack that contained her credentials, some makeup, and most important, her prepaid cell phones. Giving the dial on her desk safe one last spin, she turned to leave.

Jeffrey stepped to the door of her cubicle, blocking her exit. She gave him the most relaxed smile she could muster.

“So.” She batted her eyelashes. “You’ll let me know what’s going on tomorrow?”

“Sure,” he said, “if they don’t cart me off to the gulag.” Jeffrey sighed, stepping out of her way. The lines around his eyes said he was only half joking. “But I have a feeling you already know what they want.”

He touched her shoulder as she slipped past. “Watch yourself, Garcia,” he said.

She gave him a tight chuckle. “Relax, Bobby. You act like you’re sending me on some suicide mission.”

Jeffery opened his mouth to speak. Then, thinking better of it, he turned back to his office door.

 

 

Ronnie Garcia’s cubicle was located in the OHB, or Old Headquarters Building, on the grounds of the George Bush Center for Intelligence. It was the iconic CIA building, made famous in movies and spy books with its huge seal of eagle, shield, and compass on the granite floor, portraits of past directors, and the memorial wall to fallen agents. Having patrolled these halls for years as a uniformed CIA security police officer, Garcia was intimately familiar with every inch of the entire campus. A relatively fast-rising star only months before, she was still low on the general pecking order when it came to seniority in the Clandestine Service and had to park in the hinterlands of the sprawling, mall-like parking lot to the north of the OHB. It was interesting to her that the closer spots were already vacant and the farther she walked—out to where the worker bees parked—the more cars were still in the lot.

She walked fast, low heels clicking on the warm pavement, but not so fast that she would look like she was fleeing the scene of a crime.

It was hot for June, not as humid as it would get later in the summer, but plenty uncomfortable for a girl who had to wear a jacket because of her firearm. Still, it was better than the uniform and ballistic vest she had to wear in her previous job. She pushed the auto-start button on her key fob. A half block away, wedged between a Lexus sedan and a beater Subaru, her black Impala flashed, and then roared to life.

“That’s pretty smart,” a male voice said from behind her. “Start it from a distance to check for an explosive device.”

Ronnie turned to see a man she didn’t recognize leaning against the hood of a dark blue Jeep Cherokee. He was tall, thick boned enough that he might have played college ball three decades before when he’d been in college.

“My mechanic told me it’s good for the engine to let it run,” she said, looking the man up and down. She didn’t recognize him. And while she didn’t know everyone at Langley, years in uniform at her previous job made her aware of most of faces that belonged.

“Still pretty smart,” the man said. “Unless someone rigs a tremble switch or pressure device under your seat—or, heaven forbid, has a radio detonator—”

He looked tall, even lounging against the Jeep—Ronnie guessed around six-four. He wore a gray off-the-rack suit that was rumpled as if he’d lived in it for three days in a row, but his shoes were polished to a high, military gloss. Dark Oakley Half Jacket shades perched on top of dirty blond hair that was long enough to be tousled by the breeze.

Ronnie gave him a suit-yourself shrug and walked on toward her car. It was broad daylight and she had been through enough violent confrontations that it took more than some creepy guy in a bad suit to scare her. Still, she was realistic and felt happy to feel the tiny Kahr under her jacket. A violent encounter wasn’t out of the question, even in the CIA parking lot.

“Miss Garcia,” the man said when she’d made it two steps past, “I wonder if I could have a word.”

Ronnie spun, staring him down.

“How do you know my name?”

He pushed away from the Jeep and held up a black leather credential case, open to reveal a frowning photo of him wearing what looked to be the same wrinkled suit.

“Glen Walter,” he said. “Internal Defense.” Ronnie caught the shadow of a sidearm on his right hip inside the suit jacket when he returned the credential case to his breast pocket. He smiled. “I actually came here to see you.”

Ronnie checked her watch, swallowing back the surprise that this man had known exactly where she parked and when she would be walking to her car. He was IDTF all right. “Well, Mr. Walters, it’s after five. You caught me on my way home.”

“It’s Walter,” the man said. “No
s
.”

“Whatever.” Ronnie shrugged again. “Anyway, I’m on my way home. This is a weird time for a meeting.”

“I suppose,” Walter said, his face holding a crooked half smile. “But it’s important to take care of some things right when they come up. Don’t you think?”

There was a decided hint of the South in his voice. Maybe one of the Carolinas, Ronnie thought. He had an overly sweet way of talking that seemed calculated to put her off balance.

“Okay . . .” She half expected him to pull out a silenced pistol and try to assassinate her. “How about you get to the point then,” she said, not one to dance around a matter for any length of time. “Because I’ve had a long crappy day.”

“Sure.” Walter shrugged, leaning sideways on the Jeep again and folding his hands. “I can appreciate that. How about I save us both a lot of time and tell you how this will go. I’m going to ask you a couple of very specific questions—for the record. I’m pretty sure you’ll refuse to answer them, or, if you do, your answers will be a pack of lies. After you lie to my face, I’ll read you a short statement from the Espionage Act, you know, 18 USC Title—”

“I’m familiar with the Espionage Act,” Garcia said. Smugness was a quality she could not abide, even for a minute, from a man with the authority to arrest her on the spot.

“I’ll just bet you are,” Walter said. “Anywaaaay . . .” He drew the word out as if to chastise her for the interruption. “After I admonish you about your responsibility regarding the act, I’ll ask you those same little questions one more time. You’ll look me right in the eye and lie . . . again.” He gave a halfhearted shrug, still leaning against the Jeep. “And we’ll be right back to where we—”

“Maldita sea!”
Ronnie cut him off with her go-to Cuban curse before she lost all semblance of self-control. “Look, Mr. Walters, if this is about Jericho Quinn, I’ve already told investigators from the US Marshals and the FBI everything I know.”

“It’s Walter, no
s
,” he said. “And just like I predicted, there comes your first lie.”

“We are done here.” Ronnie turned to walk to her car.

“We may be done
here
, Miss Garcia,” Walter said, again much too smugly for Ronnie. “But we’re not done. I wouldn’t be leaving town anytime soon.”

Ronnie spun. “I don’t know what it is you think you know—”

“That’s true.” Walter smiled his half smile, cutting her off. “You don’t know what I know. Anyway, as you said, we’re done here.”

Agent Walter stood up from the Jeep. He gave a flip of his hand, as if he was bored with the conversation, and summoned a black Town Car that had been waiting down the aisle. A moment later, he was gone, leaving Garcia standing alone in the parking lot under a hot evening sun, wondering how much this guy did know about what she was doing for Jericho Quinn.

 

Q
uinn was moving before the scream trailed away into a mournful, gurgling cough. He stepped over Proctor’s lifeless body and shoved the front door open at the same instant Ukka charged in from the back hallway.

Both men stopped in their tracks at what they saw.

A squat contractor with dark curly hair lay on his back, glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling. The dead might leak, but they didn’t bleed very long, and the growing pool of blood on the living room floor revealed he’d not been dead more than a few seconds. Ukka’s wife, Christina, stood over him, a bloody skinning knife in her hand. A broken piece of what looked like ivory or bone, about the size of a child’s baseball bat, lay on the ground beside the man’s demolished skull. It was an
oosik
, the penis bone of a walrus, often found as decoration in Alaska homes. Christina had evidently used it to cave in the face of her attacker before grabbing a skinning knife off the table and virtually gutting him.

The mournful scream Quinn heard had been that of the dying man.

Ukka put a big arm around his wife and gently took the knife out of her hand.

“You okay?”

“I smacked him in the face with the
oosik
,” Christina said, small shoulders trembling. She looked up at him weakly, fighting shock.

“I know you did, sweetheart,” Ukka said, shooting a glance at Quinn. “He was a bad man. You did the right thing.”

Fico’s sidearm lay on the ground beside him. He was too far gone to lift it, but Quinn kicked it out of the way just in case.

A strained voice crackled over the radio. It was Perkins, one of the men who’d gone to scout the river.

“How about a SITREP up there?”

Quinn started to answer, but decided against it, listening instead.

“Proctor!” the voice called again. “What’s going on? We heard shots.”

There was a long pause, followed by another voice, presumably the pilot, letting them know he was coming to their location, down by the fishery plant. The man called Perkins cut him off, ordering radio silence.

Quinn sighed. It was too late for that. He had what he needed to know.

Ukka’s cell phone began to ring. He listened for a few moments, a smile spreading over his wide face as he ended the call.

“Chantelle says there’s nobody left to guard the plane.”

Quinn checked the magazine on the MP7 while he thought. “I don’t think these guys are actually affiliated with any specific agency. None of them have badges or any kind of credential—but they still have the backing of the government. If any of them make it out of here, he’ll come back with reinforcements and slaughter the whole village. It won’t matter to them that I’m not here.”

Ukka’s daughter Kaylee had ignored the direction to go to her auntie’s house. Unable to leave with the sound of the scream, she’d come in behind Quinn and now sat on the couch, helping to console her mother.

Ukka pulled Quinn to the side so his wife and youngest daughter couldn’t hear. “It’s all good, man,” he said. “I had Chantelle do some work on the plane. If they try and make a run for it, they’ll never get off the ground. If we take care of them somewhere else, she’ll torch the plane at the end of the runway.” He waved his hand as if saying good-bye. “No one’s getting back to call in the cavalry.”

“That might work,” Quinn said, glancing at the couch. He nodded at the two women in the room. “Christina should probably see a doctor. And Kaylee might need a counselor after what these guys just put her through.”

“All my girls are tundra tough.” Ukka gave a solemn nod. “But you’re right. This is a lot to process. I’m proud of Christina, though. Not a good idea to cross an Eskimo woman when she’s protecting her home.”

“Or any woman,” Quinn said, thinking of his ex-wife and of Ronnie Garcia, wondering what they would do in such a situation.

“Maybe,” Ukka said. “But most women don’t know their way around a skinning knife like my wife does.” He grinned. “Or a walrus pecker . . .”

“That’s so wrong,” Quinn sighed. He let the MP7 fall against the sling at his chest and lifted the curtain to peer out the window at the vacant dirt street in front of the Perry house. “We better get going,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and Alaska will kill these guys.”