Time of Attack (32 page)

 

M
arta Bedford coughed. It took Herculean effort to lift her leg and try to move it so it didn’t press on the worst of her boils along the back of her knee. Grunting and hacking like an invalid woman twice her age, she grabbed the metal railing on the narrow hospital bed and maneuvered onto her right side.

Kane County Hospital had never been intended to house this many patients. Green military beds like something out of
M*A*S*H
crammed each room and lined the halls. Todd had made certain that the Bedfords had a room together, but Mrs. Johnson’s bed ran along the wall inside the door so there were three in a row, leaving just enough room between each of the patients for medical staff to tend them.

Had Rick not been so heavily sedated for the ECMO heart-lung bypass, Marta could have held his hand. As it was, every few minutes she rolled up on her side and bore the pressure on her boils as long as she could so she could watch him sleep.

Todd had told her there was still a chance the bypass would save Rick’s life. That he might be able to fight off whatever caused the boils as long as they could keep his lungs functioning.

From the time she was a little girl, tears had come easy to Marta Bedford. Her father could simply look sternly at her and bring what he called a geyser of repentance. But now, since Rick had gotten sick, she had long since cried herself out. First, she was angry with God for letting such an illness fall on her good husband. Then, she cried from the horrible pain caused by her own boils. Finally, her tears had been from the despair of knowing that she would not live to see her daughters graduate from high school, go to college, marry, or have children of their own.

In the end, she had forgiven God and come to grips with the fact that she’d never see her grandbabies. Though the pain never slackened, and was barely dented by medication, at least it reminded Marta that she was alive. In a macabre sense of competition, she and Mrs. Johnson had taken to counting the number of new boils on their arms. So far, Marta was “winning” but, as Mrs. Johnson pointed out between phlegm-laced bouts of her hacking cough, it wasn’t really fair because Marta was taller and thus had longer arms and more opportunities for boils to grow.

Gripping the bed rail to watch Rick, Marta found a new sore on the inside of her wrist. It was red and swollen with a translucent white dot in the center. They could not be counted until the white appeared.

“Got a new one, Mrs. Johnson,” Marta said. Her voice rattled when she spoke.

She got no response.

Marta began the laborious process of rolling back over to her left side so she could look at her competition.

“That’s twenty-seven to twenty,” Bedford said as she lifted the sheet and worked her way over. “Mrs. Johnson . . . ?”

Snow-white hair lay across the old woman’s pillow. Wrinkled hands folded across her chest. Her jaw hung open, lifeless.

Marta Bedford collapsed back against her sheets. She had a few tears left after all.

Q
uinn needed a doctor, but he didn’t care. He pointed the Blackbird east. Fifteen miles out of Fukuoka he found a small side road in the mountains that took him another half mile back to a secluded gravel pullout. Giant cryptomeria stood like sentries around the gravel pad. The earth underneath their broad evergreen canopies was at once landscaped and pristine, as if it had been swept by a scouring wind and not by human hands.

Quinn all but collapsed under the tent-like awning of one of the Japanese cedars. He leaned against rough bark and closed his eyes. He tried not to think—to clear his mind and let it rest. Ayako deserved more than a passing thought crammed somewhere in between strategy and battle plan. Though she’d ended up in a vocation that put her at odds with social and even moral norms, there was no way for anyone else to know what had driven her there. She’d said it herself—she wanted to be someone’s wife and feel safe. Prostitute, whore, yellow cab, woman of the floating world . . . just a woman, pushed by some secret demons—demons that led back to Oda.

Quinn sat in the shadow of the big tree and thought about her for a long time, regretting the lost opportunities and the things he might have said to give her just a little bit more happiness. He wished Thibodaux were there so he could listen to the big Cajun philosophize about womanhood and the fragility of life.

Pressing his injured back against the tree as if the pain might focus his tattered thoughts, Quinn opened his eyes and began to read Ayako’s book.

The first two pages contained the lyrics to some Korean pop song—likely by the young boy band from the poster in her apartment. They were written phonetically and decorated with hearts and flower doodles. Over the next several pages, Ayako had noted various appointments using a sort of code to describe her clients with names like Mr. Octopus, The Jelly Fish, and Sir Badger Dog. Grocery lists, more doodle drawings of kittens, and an incredibly realistic pencil study of a young geisha took up the first third of the little book.

Then, in bold ink was the entry—“
Pick up Emiko’s
’s
friend at Hakata Port
.” Followed by “
He would do nicely
” on a rain-spattered page.

Quinn turned the page and found a letter, written in her artistic, girlish hand. It was addressed to him.

Quinn sniffed back a tear in spite of himself, wondering what lies she’d told to cause her such a heavy burden. She must have written the letter while they were in the temple cottage. It was the only time she would have been able to watch him sleep.

Quinn turned the page, hoping to find another entry—not quite ready to say good-bye to this sweet little woman. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the map.

There was a short note, hastily scrawled in pencil as she’d stood there beside him in the alley watching Yanagi Pharmaceutical, a cold wind whipping her hair across her face.

Below the note was a map, captioned with a single word:
Oda
.

G
overnor Lee McKeon stood in front of the bathroom mirror of the Hay Adams Hotel and slipped a pair of beige latex gloves over slender fingers.

He had already showered and shaved. The French cuffs on his starched white shirt were folded but open. Gold cuff links sat in a small leather case on the white marble sink next to his wife’s makeup. He wore a conservative burgundy silk tie that his wife said would suit his Asian complexion. This was, after all, an extremely big night for him and he needed to look his best.

The wooden box Qasim Ranjhani had given him lay open beside the cuff links, dark and polished in stark contrast to the white marble. Inside, resting on a small velvet pillow, was a Rolex Sea Dweller, its second hand sweeping around the face in a smooth, fluid movement.

McKeon retrieved a roll of beige athletic tape from his shaving kit and took a half dozen wraps around his wrist, making a sort of gauntlet. Ripping the tape with his teeth, he smoothed the edge on the end nearer his hand so it wouldn’t be seen past the cuff of his dress shirt. Next, he tore open a large four-by-four plastic bandage and applied it to the underside of his left wrist over the tape, pressing it tight to make certain the edges didn’t roll up. He added one more for safety’s sake, placing it halfway up his wrist, overlapping the other so he had a protected piece of skin roughly four by six inches as well as the gauntlet of tape.

McKeon held his wrist up and examined it in the mirror. Satisfied that he was well protected, but inconspicuous, he lifted the Rolex from the wooden case. Careful not to touch the sapphire crystal, even with his gloves, he slipped the watch over his hand so the face was on the inside of his wrist, toward his body, and snapped the clasp. It fit snugly; Ranjhani had made certain of that. The consequences would be dire if it was allowed to slide around and possibly come in contact with his skin.

He removed the latex gloves and had just finished putting on the cuff links when his wife’s voice buzzed through the bathroom door.

“Are you ready?” She was a fanatic about many things; early arrival to meetings was at the top of the list.

“Just putting on the finishing touches, my dear.” McKeon took his dark blue suit jacket out of the plastic bag hanging on the back of the door and slipped it over narrow shoulders. He tugged the cuff down so it covered the watch. It wouldn’t do to accidentally brush the thing against his wife’s skin.

“We must not be late,” she said again, prodding.

“It’s okay. They have assigned seating.” Looking in the mirror one last time, he gave the burgundy tie a final adjustment. “Do not worry.” He put a hand on the door, heart pounding in his chest at the thought of what lay before him. “I’m a friend of the President of the United States. I get a seat on the House floor.”

Q
uinn sat on the bike with the engine off, perched on the crest of a hill half a mile away from Oda’s compound. The rain had stopped and a weak winter sun showed between the low clouds and the rolling mist-choked mountains to the west. Dark forests ran along the snaking valleys, populated by deer and wild boar. Large houses with tile roofs ran in meandering lines on another foothill to the south. Step-terraced tea plantations, groves of orange trees, and thick stands of bamboo created a glistening wet patchwork of green in the low sunlight. It was singularly beautiful and uniquely Japanese.

He’d briefly considered riding back through town to find August Bowen and ask for help, but in the end decided against it. Not because he didn’t want the help, but because he couldn’t trust that the deputy would believe him, much less follow him into the mountains to fight some mysterious assassin.

Ayako’s map was excellent, and Quinn was able to work his way deep into the mountains to Oda’s sanctuary in less than two hours. She’d gone so far as to warn him of sentries and direct him in the best avenue of approach. For a woman who made her living in the floating quarter, she was a brilliant tactician.

Oda’s secluded garden compound was itself located on a hill, but by coming in on a forest trail on an adjacent hill Quinn was able to get a good look at the front gate and the three sentries that guarded it, if not the compound itself.

He could make out the dark shapes of several buildings through the thick woods on the other side of the fence. One, presumably the main house, rose like a smaller version of a feudal lord’s castle, high parapets and curling green tile roof visible over the treetops. It was the way he’d imagined it from Miyagi’s stories.

Quinn could tell from the insulators that the fence was electrified. He recognized two of the guards from Tanaka’s warehouse. Still dressed in business suits, the men paced outside a tall wrought-iron gate. One of the men smoked an entire cigarette while Quinn watched. The other, less nervous, periodically aimed his submachine gun at some bird in a nearby tree pretending to shoot. Inside the fence, a third man, dressed as a groundskeeper in baggy canvas pants and a denim shirt, stood post next to a small security booth—presumably with the controls for the gate. All carried short-barrel Uzi machine pistols on single-point slings around their necks.

He not only had to take care of the two out front, he’d have to somehow get through the electrified fence and dispatch the third man before he could bring the Uzi into play. Quinn had no real plan beyond that other than fighting his way forward until he found Oda or the woman. He really didn’t care which. It was certain to rain guards as soon as the fence was breached. Some would call that overwhelming odds. He thought of it as a target-rich environment.

Foot on the brake, Quinn tested his arms, moving them back and forth and feeling the wound open up along his ribs. He flexed his hands. His left still worked, albeit a little slower than normal. He still had a full range of motion in his right arm, and though his back was sore, adrenaline, brought on in anticipation of battle, loosened his muscles and dampened the pain. He was not in optimum shape, but he was as ready as he would ever be. And for the sake of Kim, Mattie, Miyagi, and Ayako—he could not stop now.

Holding the sheathed sword in his right hand so it ran along the top of the handlebars, he released the clutch and let the bike roll.

The two yakuza guards jumped back when Quinn and the silent Blackbird burst from the trees ten yards to their left. The nearest tried to raise his weapon, but Quinn hit him across the face with the sheathed sword as he rolled past, moving well over twenty miles an hour. The blow shattered the man’s nose and sent him stumbling backward into the electrified fence with a hiss and a puff of acrid smoke.

Rolling from the moving bike, Quinn shook the sword from its scabbard and came up on his feet directly in front of the second guard just as the five-hundred-pound Blackbird crashed through the gate. He swatted the Uzi aside and cut up obliquely, severing the single-point sling and the man’s jugular in one motion.

Quinn grabbed for the falling machine gun, but the sling caught on the dying man and jerked it out of his hand. With no time to waste fumbling with the tangled weapon, he sprinted toward the fence, clearing the demolished gate at the same moment the third guard stepped around the shack and raised his weapon. Still five meters out, Quinn knew he was too far away to do any good with the sword. A claxon alarm began to blare beyond the trees, but that didn’t matter. In less than a second the guard would send a volley of bullets into him that the torn armor of his Transit jacket would not be able to stop.

The
phhhht
of suppressed gunfire caused Quinn’s heart to sink. He marveled that he didn’t feel more pain or loss of motion—until he watched the guard ahead of him fall like wheat before a sickle.

Quinn pulled up short, touching his stomach where he assumed the bullets would have hit him. The guard’s weapon lay at his feet, carrying no suppressor.

A crunch of gravel behind caused Quinn to wheel, bringing the sword around in a fluid arc.

Jacques Thibodaux’s Cajun drawl stopped him cold.

“I know, I know, this boogerman is too dangerous for the likes of us. We should let you do this all by yourself.” The gunny trotted up with a suppressed MP5 in his shovel-size hands. He scanned the trees ahead. “But come on, Chair Force, did you really think Palmer would know where you were and not send us to give you a hand?”

Emiko Miyagi and Ronnie Garcia fanned out behind the Marine. Both women carried MP5s identical to Thibodaux’s, but Miyagi also carried a sheathed samurai
katana
slung diagonally over her back.

Quinn let the short sword hang by his side.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“ ‘Thanks for saving my myopic ass’ would seem appropriate.” Thibodaux scoffed. “A body would think you might actually be glad to see us.”

Quinn felt as if he might cry.

Ronnie ran to him, lowering her weapon long enough to give him a hard kiss on the mouth.

Thibodaux pressed a small microphone at his throat. “Tell me what you got, kid.” He motioned the group forward toward the cover of thick-trunked Japanese cedar, nodding as he listened to the information coming across his earpiece.

Quinn retrieved Fujin’s scabbard and stuck the sword down the back of his jacket, before scooping up the dead sentry’s Uzi and following at a trot.

Miyagi scanned the woods, saying nothing. She had yet to meet Quinn’s gaze. Considering the mission that lay ahead, it was easy to understand why.

Garcia had her hair pulled back in a thick ponytail, and Quinn found himself amazed that someone could fill out a set of khakis as well as she did.

She pointed skyward with her thumb when they slid up next to the trees, explaining Thibodaux’s conversation.

“Guttman’s got Damocles loitering above us.”

Quinn smiled at the news.

Damocles was an off-the-books stealth drone. Developed by Lockheed Martin’s infamous Skunkworks, it was extreme high-side technology, “over-the-top” secret. Few in the government, and certainly no members of Congress, knew of its existence. Hanging overhead like the sword on a single hair from the Greek story, the drone could be armed with Tomahawk missiles and, more important to Quinn, a Gorgon Starepod with an array of cameras capable of counting the fuzz on a dandelion blossom from the nether regions of the atmosphere.

“Here’s the deal, kids,” Thibodaux said at length. “Our young Sergeant Guttman says we have five guys heading our way. There’s a female coming around the north side of the main building and another squad of four spilling out of some barracks straight up the middle. According to the kid, some old guy appears to be directing things from on top of the main building.”

“That would be Oda,” Miyagi hissed. “Where on top of the building?”

Thibodaux consulted with Guttman for more information from the loitering drone.

“Northwest corner,” Thibodaux said. “Looks like he’s—”

Miyagi was gone before he could finish.

“Damn,” he muttered. “I was gonna say looks like he’s got four other guys up there with him.”

Quinn watched Miyagi meld into the shadows with the sword across her back. “I almost feel sorry for them.”

Approaching voices sifted through the trees, yelling commands and demanding answers from the dead gate sentries.

“I don’t think these guys know that there is anyone here but you.” Thibodaux winked his good eye, nodding toward the white building that was barely visible through the forest. “How about you pretend for a minute you’re not a lowly Chair Force officer but an honest-to-goodness Marine and help me charge this castle.”

The high likelihood of imminent death aside, Quinn couldn’t help grinning like a schoolboy as he ran into the trees alongside his friends.