Day Zero (27 page)

 

Q
uinn had only meant to close his eyes for a moment, but the massive adrenaline dump from the day before had taken a heavy toll. More even than the physical stress, hours of worry over Mattie and Kim had eaten away at Quinn’s reserves. Once on the plane, he felt relatively safe, and allowed himself to relax before his body shut down entirely. He’d all but passed out after Mattie had returned from visiting her new friend, leaving her to watch over him while she read Lemony Snicket.

Quinn had always been athletic, climbing mountains, running track, and boxing from the time he was a boy. He’d learned, even then, that when in peak condition, the mind and body could do amazing things. In China and Japan, he’d witnessed feats of skill and stamina that seemed superhuman. The Air Force Special Operations pipeline taught him that human limits went far beyond the wildest imagination of most—but there was always a price. Reaching those limits required huge expenditures of energy—and with that came the eventual need to recharge. No matter how tough and well-trained a person was, at some point, body and brain needed a break.

Roughly an hour after Quinn had closed his eyes, he became aware of someone in the aisle beside his seat.

Willing himself back to consciousness, he sat up to find Carly the flight attendant standing above him. Her hand resting on the back of his seat, lips tight, she looked down as if she was afraid to disturb him. Her blond hair had lost the perfection of before, more disheveled, as if she’d been on a run or just gotten up from a nap.

Quinn coughed, rubbing the grit of sleep from his eyes. His head ached and he felt as if he’d swallowed a cup of sand. He wondered how long she’d been standing there and chided himself for allowing her to hover over him at all. That kind of lapse could get a man in his line of work very dead.

Carly forced a smile, probably for Mattie’s sake. She cast a quick glance toward the rear of the plane. “May I speak with you a moment?”

Quinn was instantly awake. Flight attendants didn’t summon passengers out of their seats for no reason. He half turned in his seat, expecting to find a couple of ham-fisted government agents waiting for him at the bulkhead, ready to slap the cuffs on him. There was no one there but an elderly woman who disappeared into one of the lavatories.

He looked at Mattie. Her nose was still buried in her book. “Hey, kiddo, you be okay for a minute?”

She shook her head without looking up, the way Kim did when she was exasperated about something—which was usually him. “We’re on an airplane, Dad,” she said. “Where am I going to go?”

Quinn looked at Popeye, who was snoring soundly next to the window. Malleable wax plugs stuffed his ears. “Okay.” He smiled, mussing her hair. “I hear you. But do me a favor and lose the attitude.”

Mattie gave him a thumbs-up to go with her snaggle-toothed grin. “I hear you,” she said.

The seat belt sign came on with another porcelain chime. Captain Rob’s firm voice warned everyone of bumpy air.

Quinn looked up at the attendant, nodding to the light on the console above him. “Shouldn’t I . . . ?”

She gave a slow shake of her head, the kind of shake a doctor uses when he’s telling someone their loved one didn’t make it out of surgery. “The captain knows I need to speak to you.”

Quinn flicked the latch on his seat belt and stood to follow the attendant down the aisle. Rather than stopping to talk when they reached the open area behind the bulkhead lavatories, she kept walking, moving with a purpose toward the galley and lounge area at far end of the aircraft below the curving stairwell that led to the upper deck. Carly didn’t just want to talk. She wanted to show him something.

The Airbus A380 was designed for long voyages of relative luxury, where passengers could get up and move around. As such, the aft section of the plane was furnished as a comfortable lounge, complete with mood lighting, a magazine rack, and leather couches along both sides of the airplane. A row of vending machines with everything from electronics to perfumes was situated at the rear bulkhead—in the event someone couldn’t do without a new iPhone or bottle of eau de toilette before they landed.

Carly turned abruptly when she reached the curved wall at the base of the stairwell. A thick velvet rope, maroon, like those used in theaters and banks, cordoned off the bottom step.

A second flight attendant with silver hair in an elegant updo had parked herself immediately around the corner with her back to the bulkhead. She faced the stairs, blue eyes locked forward, as if on a target. Quinn recognized someone standing guard when he saw her. He gave this new attendant a polite nod, which she returned mechanically, saying nothing.

Carly clasped her hands in front of her, bringing them up to her mouth, as if she meant to pray.

“I need to ask you something.” She spoke around her hands. “Are you a cop? Because you look like a cop, and you handle yourself like a cop. I’ve been doing this job for twelve years, and I think I can tell if someone’s a cop. You have one of those faces, you know?” She finally took a breath.

“I am,” Quinn sighed. “In a manner of speaking.”

“I knew it.” Carly chewed on her knuckle. Opal-pink nails dug into the back of her fists. She glanced at the other attendant. “I told you, didn’t I, Natalie?”

“Yes,” Natalie said, deadpan, eyes still aimed on the stairs. “You said he was a cop.” If she was impressed by Carly’s insight, she didn’t show it.

Before she could get to her point, a stern-eyed woman wearing lumpy black yoga pants that were several sizes too small pushed her way through the curtains at the bulkhead. She had a boy of four or five in tow and they were headed for the stairs.

Natalie perked up at the sound of her approach, turning to intercept her. “I’m sorry. The stairs are closed,” the attendant said. “And the captain has turned on the seat belt sign. I’m going to have to ask you to return—”

“I don’t feel any bumps.” The woman in yoga pants crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “And besides, how can the stairs be closed? It’s not like you can break a flight of stairs.”

“Ma’am,” Natalie said, through a tight smile. “Return to your seat.”

“Well.” The woman gave a sarcastic wag of her head as she spoke. “That is exactly what we are trying to do. My son wanted to look around your fancy airplane. We came this way so he could use the restroom.”

“You’ll have to use the front stairs,” Natalie said.

“I don’t see why—”

“Go the other way,” Quinn said. His voice was barbed with the pointed ambivalence of a man who’d ended people’s lives. He had never hurt a woman just for being rude, but Yoga Pants didn’t know that.

“This is going in my TripAdvisor review!” the woman said. “I can assure you of that.” She drew her son to her like a shield, thankfully, Quinn thought, covering the most offending portions of her yoga pants.

Once the woman had stomped away, Carly turned her attention back to Quinn. “See what I mean,” she said. “You sounded like you would have slammed her on the floor if she’d refused your order.”

“I should have slammed her because of those hideous tights,” Natalie said, still deadpan.

“Okay,” Quinn said. “Before someone else comes back and challenges any authority I don’t actually possess, tell me what is it you need.”

Carly let her hands fall to her sides. “You held that rolled motorcycle magazine like a club when you were boarding. And you handled your idiot seatmate like someone who’s used to tough situations.” Her eyes played up and down, studying him, as if she was still trying to convince herself she’d made the right decision. “And the way you interact with your daughter . . . I told the captain you were a man we could trust.” She lifted a beige handset off the rear bulkhead and extended it toward Quinn. “He wants to speak with you.”

Quinn sighed, taking the phone. This couldn’t be good.

Rob Szymanski’s voice came across the line. He didn’t sound nearly as upbeat as he did over the intercom. “Mr. . . . Hackman, is it?” the captain said, using the name on Quinn’s passport.

“Yes, sir,” Quinn said.

“Carly thinks you’re some kind of police officer. Is she correct?”

“She is,” Quinn said. “Air Force OSI.” There was no point in lying. There was obviously something going on that made the crew think they needed someone with law enforcement experience.

“Very good,” the captain said. “An old ROTC buddy of mine is the OSI detachment commander in New York. Maybe you know him.”

“Dave Fullmer,” Quinn said. “He was one of my instructors at FLETC. He’s a good man.” FLETC was the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

“Yes, he is,” the captain said, apparently convinced now that Quinn was actually an OSI agent. “Listen, I’ll just cut to the chase. Carly brought you back there because we’ve had a murder on board.”

Quinn’s breath caught like a stone in his throat. He’d expected that they might want his help with an unruly passenger. “You mean an unattended death?”

“No,” the captain sighed. “Well, yes. SOP says I’m not allowed to open the cockpit door under these circumstances, but from the way they describe it to me, we’re pretty sure it’s a murder, throat cut, the whole nine—”

“Just a minute.” Quinn cut him off. “Do you have the killer in custody?”

“No, I—”

Quinn dropped the handset, letting it fall against its cord without another word. He shouldered his way past a dumbfounded Carly, and ran back up the aisle, scanning for threats as he went.

Mattie was too short to be visible over the back of her seat, but he sensed something was wrong when he was still five rows back. The guy with the Popeye chin was gone. Quinn picked up his pace, shoving aside errant knees and elbows as he rushed down the aisle. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid as to leave her alone.

He nearly collapsed when he reached their row and saw her kneeling beside her backpack at the foot of her seat. She’d finished one Lemony Snicket book and, being too small to reach her bag, she’d unbuckled her seat belt and climbed down on the floor to get another from her backpack. It had been impossible for Quinn to see her until he was right on top of their row.

He ignored the glares of surrounding passengers when he not only snubbed his own nose at the seat belt sign, but told his daughter to get up and accompany him to the back of the plane.

“Bring your book,” he snapped, a little more harshly than he should have.

Mattie followed without a word.

Though Quinn had been deployed or absent on assignment through fully half of Mattie’s short life, she was smart enough to know when the time for joking was over. She walked obediently behind him, sensing somehow, even at this tender age, that there were things more important than seat belt signs.

Quinn got her situated on the couch along the wall nearest Natalie the guard. Carly was still on the phone with the cockpit. She passed the handset to Quinn.

“What was that all about?” the captain snapped. “I’m in the middle of telling you about a murder and you walk away?”

“Captain . . .” Quinn took a slow breath. “I’m not willing to leave my daughter unattended when there’s a killer free on the plane.”

“Right,” the captain said. “I understand. Look, I have to be honest with you. The FBI will be pretty upset that I’m breaking protocol and having someone else investigate this murder before we get back. But, as you said, I’m not happy about a killer running around on my airplane. If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate a professional pair of eyes on the body. Maybe there’s some clue that will lead us to the killer right away. I’d come out and give it a look myself, but after something like this, I can’t even crack the door until we land.”

“OSI doesn’t pull lead on homicide investigations,” Quinn said. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

“Very well,” Captain Rob said. “I’m not too keen on landing in Russia with a dead body on board. Take a look and get back with me quickly. I’ve got some decisions to make and I got about fifteen minutes to make them.”

“Roger that,” Quinn said. He was at once worried over Mattie’s safety and excited at the prospect of the hunt.

“It . . . I mean he’s around the corner,” Carly said. She nodded at the stairwell that curved upward in a slow arc to the second level. A pool of yellow light washed down the polished teak, spilling onto the maroon Berber carpet of the lounge. “Your daughter can sit right here at the bottom without seeing too much. You should be able to keep an eye on her and still see what you need to see. I’ll help you watch her.”

“Thank you.” Quinn nodded. “That will work.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t think about the danger before,” Carly said. “It was pretty stupid of me to leave her sitting there by herself, considering.”

“No worries,” Quinn said, pausing as Carly moved the rope barrier to one side. “Tell me, what was it really that made you think I was a cop?”

“You remind me of my dad,” she said, holding out her hand to motion him in.

“Your dad was in law enforcement?”

“No,” she laughed. “He was a news correspondent for the wire services. We lived all over the world. Anyway, he had a laminated saying on his computer that was something like: ‘Every man is sometimes tempted to cut throats,’ or something like that.”

Quinn smiled in spite of the dead body ten feet away. “It’s a Mencken quote,” he said. “He was a journalist like your father. ‘Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.’ ”

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Carly said. “When I first saw you, that’s what came to mind.”

 

P
resident Hartman Drake leaned back in his chair with a phone pressed to one ear. His bowtie was crooked. His face was still flushed from his recent workout, which, McKeon knew, included a certain amount of exertion with Barbara Wong. The attractive Navy ensign was the only female in the room and now stood at the end of the desk with a second handset, acting as interpreter. President Chen spoke excellent English and she was only there in the event the conversation reached a more nuanced level. Both countries, after all, had the means, and lately the will, to see each other reduced to glowing piles of ash.

The President nibbled White House M&Ms as he spoke, snatching little handfuls from the bowl on his desk and dropping them into his mouth during the conversation. McKeon could not help but think that for someone who was so concerned about his physique, the man ate a great many M&Ms. President Chen Min of the People’s Republic of China was on the other end of the line and must have heard the crunching.

McKeon stood behind the President, arms folded, looking out the window. David Crosby, Drake’s chief of staff, stood by the main door, his body obscuring the view of the peephole the President’s secretary—and anyone else who happened to be standing beside her desk—used to check on the status of meetings in the Oval Office. Two admirals and five generals—with more stars among them than two colonial flags—crowded onto the small spot of carpet between the sofas and the President’s desk. Secretaries Watchel and Filson were on opposite sides of the situation and the room. Apart from the President, no one sat.

“. . . I’m sure you do, Mr. President,” Drake said around a mouthful of red, white, and blue M&Ms. “But it would be helpful to take a little more of a worldview on this. I . . . No, I completely understand.... It saddens me that you feel that way. . . . No, I have made my decision.”

Drake hung up the phone and grabbed another handful of candy.

“He’s pretty pissed,” Drake said. “Gave me a rant about our relationship with what he called the ‘illegal government of Taiwan’ and our treaties with Japan over the Senkaku Islands. A lot of saber rattling, but that’s it so far.”

A buzz ran between the military leaders. Filson gave a bellicose nod and Watchel bit his tongue to keep from saying “I told you so.” McKeon had hoped, but not expected this would push China over the edge. The more independent leaders who’d taken over after Mao might have fired a missile directly after hanging up the phone. They had been able to command, where the current leader had to consult. McKeon understood the realities and planned for them.

“Andrew,” the President said to Secretary of Defense Filson. “Have your guys monitor the situations in the South China Sea as well as Japan.... Hell, just keep an eye on China.” He turned to the Secretary of State. “Tom, get in touch with our embassy in Islamabad and let’s get these Uyghur sons a bitches back in a Pakistani prison where they belong.”

Crosby stepped up and whispered something in the president’s ear. He was a pasty man who looked as though the pressures of the job were eating him alive—but he’d been the keeper of Drake’s dirty laundry since his time in the House. There was really no one else who could do it.

Drake took a deep breath. “Seems I am needed in the Roosevelt Room.”

Wong’s eyes flashed momentarily toward the president, looking, no doubt, for some sign of appreciation for their earlier time in the gym. When he gave her none, she tucked the white dress cap under her arm and squared her shoulders. “Thank you, Mr. President.”

“Thank you . . .” Drake consulted the name tag on her uniform. “Ensign Wong.”

She addressed the rest of the heavy brass in the room, and then excused herself before she started crying. Drake had that effect on women—a fact that kept his chief of staff perpetually busy fending off civil suits and blackmail threats. At least Crosby thought he was fending them off. Ran, McKeon’s Japanese friend, had done the heavy lifting, sorting out many of Drake’s women before they even hit Crosby’s radar.

JFK and Bill Clinton were his heroes, but the Warren G. Harding White House made their liaisons seem like college indiscretions. Drake had outdone them all in his first six months in office. If things continued as planned, Drake would have a great deal in common with the twenty-ninth president.

The baby-faced Marine Corps sentry posted outside the West Wing did not acknowledge Ran when she walked by, but three uniformed Secret Service officers and two plainclothes agents nodded in turn as she walked down the colonnade toward the Rose Garden. Armed with pistols and expandable batons and radios on their belts, these agents stood by with a twitchy hyperawareness that made them jump at the click of a cicada. Counter-snipers patrolled the roof and some of the agents carried small submachine guns on hanging harnesses under their jackets. It had been nearly half a year since the assassinations, but security personnel, from the president’s bodyguards to the uniformed mounted DC Park Police who patrolled the Capitol on horseback, still operated as if they were under immediate attack. Staffing in and around the White House had tripled. Ran had to stifle a laugh at all the precautions since the greatest threat to their way of life was sitting inside the Oval Office. If these men and women knew what their precious POTUS was up to, they would kill him themselves. Ran had certainly thought about it.

Ran viewed everyone she met as a possible opponent whom she would eventually have to crush. She had vague recollections of a mother who was pretty, but essentially soft and flawed. From the time she was old enough to walk, her father had drilled into her an exactness of spirit, a focus that cut through weaker souls and saw them for what they were—nothing. She’d killed her first human being before she was six—a boy two years older than her. He had sneered when he saw he was fighting a girl—and then vomited up his own blood when her dagger had pierced his belly. One of her father’s counselors, a lusty wrestler with rippling muscles and an ego the size of the sea, made advances on her when she was thirteen. He fell to her sword like rice stalks before a fire. She’d counted at first, seen the faces in her dreams, but by the time she was twenty, there were too many.

The fact that she wore no ID badge hanging around her neck was a sign of her importance. Virtually everyone working or visiting the West Wing wore a color-coded badge identifying their work status and clearance level. Only four people were exempt: POTUS, VPOTUS, David Crosby, and the Vice President’s special advisor, Ran Kimura. The fact that she was included in that list caused no small amount of jealousy among staffers.

Ran stopped at the east door off the Rose Garden. Through the rippled glass, she watched several generals from the Joint Chiefs spill out of the Oval Office into the main corridor. The Vice President stood at the threshold with the President’s chief of staff, having a heated discussion about something. She watched as Crosby’s posture softened. He nodded, as if caught in some hypnotic spell. The man didn’t like McKeon—no, Ran thought, that wasn’t strong enough. Crosby despised McKeon, seeing him as usurping the power of the presidency. But those feelings melted when the two men were together. That’s the way it worked with Lee McKeon. He had a way. An inexplicable force that twined its way into your good sense, into your strategy and will, and made you think you were the most important thing in the world.

At first glance, it was impossible to see how a tall, gawky skeleton of a man with dark skin and deep-set eyes ever got elected to public office. His Pakistani blood gave him the features many Americans saw as a personification of the enemy—and yet, each speech saw hundreds more followers jumping on board his political machine, writing checks and donating time, because Lee McKeon, the Chindian underdog with the Scottish name, looked like a very tan Abraham Lincoln and entranced others as surely as the mad monk Rasputin.

Ran had seen the power of his presence firsthand, two years before, when he’d talked her out of killing him.