State of Emergency

CHAPTER 15


Coral Gables, Florida

8:35 PM





Quinn shut the door of the black crew cab Silverado and tossed the keys to a Hispanic teenager beside the valet stand. The kid was so busy watching Garcia’s long legs spill out of the backseat that he missed the keys completely. Quinn had to admit, she looked incredible in a white wraparound sundress. A simple gold chain fell across high collarbones to rest in the cleft of her breasts. She winked playfully at the boy and looped an arm through Quinn’s, showing she belonged to him. Quinn caught his breath at the simple act.

Thibodaux shut the door and fell in behind the couple as they walked toward the sprawling Italian villa, shaking his head.

Quinn’s mind reeled at the thought of Garcia walking beside him. Over the years, as Kim had grown more distant and Mattie had gotten older, thoughts of them and the difficulties of trying to hold the family together had threatened to knock him off task. He’d become a pro at compartmentalizing during missions, focusing on the problem at hand, then allowing himself a moment of melancholy only when the shooting stopped and he was in a safe place.

He shook off the worry and steeled himself to Garcia’s touch as she snaked her arm around his waist, getting into character as his girl-toy. He could not dwell on the fact that he was standing next to one of the most amazing women he’d ever met. Dealing with a man as brutal as Valentine Zamora would require his full concentration.

Hanging torches lit a wide cobblestone walkway that led from behind the marble stand up a series of steps nearly thirty meters to the massive columns that comprised the front entrance to Valentine Zamora’s rented villa. The whiteness of the limestone structure appeared to glow against the dark green of the surrounding gardens and deep purple of the night sky.

Both men wore light khaki slacks and polo shirts, Thibodaux’s navy blue to Quinn’s black. The colors made them less visible if it became necessary to work among the shadows—urban camo, Jacques called it. The Cajun, supposed by Zamora to be Quinn’s bodyguard, carried his Kimber ten-millimeter in an inside-the-waistband holster over his right kidney, hidden by the tail of his polo shirt. The small Colt revolver still rested comfortably on the inside of his left ankle. Garcia carried no gun. Her weapons were more formidable than any bullet or blade. As the principal, Quinn went in clean. There would be plenty of killing tools available at such an event if he found one was needed.

“Twenty-nine dead in New York,” Quinn said as they approached the front door. He wanted them all to remember what they were dealing with. “Three times that wounded.”

“One-day missions suck,” Ronnie whispered. “If I didn’t have to get back to training tomorrow, I’d dearly love to help you nail this son of a bitch.”

Quinn thought about her leaving and didn’t know if he felt sadness or relief.

“Laissez les bons temps rouler,” Thibodaux said, clenching his square jaw as he reached for the brass doorknocker shaped like a lion’s head. Let the good times roll.





The gap-toothed twins greeted them under a heavy wrought-iron chandelier. Honey-colored clay tile and thick wooden ceiling beams accented the whitewashed walls of the spacious foyer. The blond twins wore black one-piece swimsuits with necklines that plunged well past their belly buttons, exposing enough cleavage that Thibodaux, who constantly worried that his wife had her very own spy satellite, hunted for a place to cast his eyes. Zamora seemed to have invited a great many similarly dressed woman to the party. In fact, though the interior of the house was exquisitely decorated in finely carved wood and tapestries, it was impossible to notice much beyond the female décor.

“Looks like you’re a bit overdressed,” Quinn said as the gap-toothed twins jiggled and flounced their way through the double doors to let Zamora know Quinn, and more importantly Veronica Garcia, had arrived.

“You say that to all your girls,” Ronnie said with the confident verbal equivalent of a shrug.

“How many guests you reckon are here?” Thibodaux grabbed a mojito from a passing waiter in khaki shorts and a white polo.

Quinn scanned the mass of people. “Maybe a hundred and fifty.”

A crowded great room, adorned with waist-high Tuscan vases and an eighteenth-century Italian fresco, separated the entry from a long covered porch. People milled here and there in knots of four or five under the pool-length lanai and at small round tables set around the cabanas on the other side of a long, rectangular pool. A covey of tittering girls soaked in the steaming Jacuzzi. Underwater lights flashed and swirled as guests dove and swam in the blue-topaz water.

The air was heavy with the smell of chlorine, sunblock, and alcohol. Stubby palmettos and sculptured hedges of holly and long-leafed oleander beyond the cabanas gave the entire area a jungle-like feeling, affording small, isolated pockets where couples could get away for a few private moments.

Zamora stood with four other men, one of them the ever-present Monagas, who kept back a few steps behind but within arm’s reach of his boss. Zamora wore a white linen sport coat with black slacks and matching shirt, open at the collar. The two men with him looked Hispanic. Shorter, stockier, and a decade older than Zamora, both spoke with the abrupt, animated gestures of men used to having things go their own way.

The Venezuelan’s head snapped up the moment the twins got to him. He excused himself immediately from the conversation and all but ran to meet Quinn and Garcia at the veranda. Cathy, the mousy brunette from the track, padded up behind him. She’d been dangling her legs in the pool and little puddles formed on the concrete around her toes. Arms folded across her chest, she kept one leg slightly ahead of the other as if she would have rather been wearing anything but the scrap of a bikini.

Monagas stood beside her. A disgruntled curl hung beneath the scraggly beard on his uneven upper lip.

Quinn forced a smile as Zamora took Garcia’s hand and pressed a kiss.

“I am overjoyed you decided to come, Mr. Quinn,” the Venezuelan said, stifling a giggle. He kept Garcia’s hand until Quinn threw an arm around her shoulder and tugged her away.

“This is a beautiful place, Mr. Zamora,” Garcia said, full lips parted slightly. She was very good at what she was doing.

“Call me Valentine, I beg you.” Zamora swept his arm around the grounds, narrowly missing Cathy standing behind him. He shot her a hateful glare, then smiled back at Garcia. “I have rented it every year of the past seven. It is modeled after a villa in Tuscany that I also rent during my trips to Italy.”

“You know,” Quinn said in spite of himself. “I’m in real estate. If you want, I could help you get into a place of your own so you don’t have to rent all the time.”

Zamora stared, his eyes narrowing to tiny slits. “I rent because I want to, Mr. Quinn. Not because I have to. It keeps me fluid.”

“He knows that,” Ronnie said, squeezing Quinn’s arm. “You should have heard him talking about you and your big entourage back at the track. All the way here he was Valentine this and Valentine that. You’d think he was your groupie.”

Zamora raised an eyebrow. Pleased. “Is that so?” Quinn shrugged, wishing he could drag the guy behind one of his manicured hedges and beat him to death.

“I have to finish an important business matter,” Zamora said. “Then you must let me show you around. Please enjoy the pool until then. Cathy, my darling,” he spoke over his shoulder without taking his eyes off Ronnie. “Please find Ms. Garcia a bathing suit.”

“It’s okay,” Ronnie said, opening her clenched fist to reveal the tiniest crumple of yellow cloth. “I brought my own.”

The corners of Zamora’s lips perked under his pencil-thin mustache as if he’d just spied his favorite entree on the menu.

“Most excellent,” he said. “Cathy will show you the changing room.”

Quinn gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Hurry back,” he said.

“You are a very lucky man,” Zamora said, watching the women walk away.

“Oh,” Quinn said. “I don’t know about that. I just have the one. You seem to have an entire harem.”

Zamora swept his arm again. “Pick any one of them. I won’t mind.”

“What about their dates?” Quinn asked.

“The only man here with a date is you, Mr. Quinn.” Zamora leaned in, confiding a secret. “And someone may try and steal her away if you are not very careful.” He stood back and clapped his hands together, holding them to his lips as if in thought. “Now, you must excuse me while I attend to the drudgeries of my business.”

Monagas remained a moment longer, giving them each a long up-and-down look. Scoffing to himself as if he couldn’t be bothered with speaking, he turned to join his boss.





“I’m feelin’ a need to whip that guy’s ass,” Thibodaux said as Zamora went to rejoin the men at the other end of the pool.

“Which one?” Quinn said. “Zamora or his thug?”

The Cajun shrugged, wagging his head. “I don’t know, either . . . both.”

“In time.” Quinn nodded. He consciously kept himself from staring at the Venezuelan for fear that his own disgust would be too obvious.

“There are way too many women here,” Thibodaux groaned.

Quinn frowned. “You’re not tempted, are you?”

“Hell no,” the big Cajun said. “Turn ’em upside down and they all look like sisters. My Camille is plenty enough for me.”

“She gave you seven sons,” Quinn chuckled. “I’d say that’s apparent.”

“What about you, l’ami?” Thibodaux looked down at him. “You can’t tell me Ronnie don’t tempt you a teensy bit. Aaiiee! I mean, she’s wearin’ that Bible dress and everything. . . .”

“Bible dress?” Quinn had worked with the good-hearted Marine for more than a year. Battle and blood had made them fast friends, but sometimes, he had a hard time understanding the man’s euphemisms.

Thibodaux tipped his head toward the departing Ronnie, sighing. “You know, a Bible dress.” He put his hands to his own chest as if holding up a particularly large bosom. “Lo and behold.”

“There is that.” It was Quinn’s turn to groan. In truth, he’d been battling the notion of Veronica Garcia all day long. Seeing her had brought back a flood of conflicting emotions. “I owe it to my daughter to try and work things out with Kim.”

“You mean the same Kim who bitched you out for saving her from a bunch of assassins?” Thibodaux shook his finger, scolding. “You know what you are, Chair Force? You are uxorious.”

“I speak five languages and I have no idea what that means.” Quinn scanned the crowd, arms folded across his chest.

“I accidentally made it when me and Camille were playing Words With Friends,” Jacques said. “But that ain’t the point. It means overly fixated on your wife.”

“Says the man two sons shy of a baseball team,” Quinn scoffed.

“Seriously, beb,” Thibodaux said. “One dude to another—you gotta stop frettin’ so much over the fair sex. It’s gonna get one of us killed.”

“I have an idea,” Quinn said. “You think we could focus on this little nuclear bomb problem instead of who I ride into the sunset with?”

“It’s your ride, brother.” Thibodaux shrugged. “Just pointing out some things you might be too . . . close . . . to . . . see. . . .”

The noise around the pool seemed to hush when Ronnie stepped out of the nearest cabana. Quinn closed his eyes, hoping to escape the sight of her.

“Good lord,” Thibodaux moaned. “You mean to tell me all that could be yours if you just said the word?”

“Shut up, Jacques,” Quinn said. “It’s not that simple.”

“Chair Force, you listen to me. There’s a lot of things in this life that’s complicated, but this ain’t one of ’em.”

Quinn gave a long sigh as Garcia padded barefoot across the pool deck, smiling at him as if they were lovers. Jacques had no idea what he was talking about. This was the most complicated situation in the world—and the swimsuit didn’t help matters at all.

Canary yellow, it stood out in warm contrast to her rich coffee-and-cream skin. On paper, Quinn was sure the thing had been designed as a modest one-piece with easily twice as much material as most of the suits around the pool. But the way Ronnie wore it made it anything but modest. The taut curves and swells of her body arced and dipped as if aching to escape the fabric. It covered everything—but hid absolutely nothing.

Ronnie did a pirouette to show off the suit when she got closer. It scooped low in the back, revealing a pale scar the size of a dime below her left shoulder blade, a reminder of another time when they’d depended on each other for their lives.

Zamora abandoned his poolside meeting as soon as he saw her, shoving aside anyone who dared get in his way.

“Come,” he said, taking her by the hand. “I want to show you the garden, though I must say, not a single flower is more vibrant than you.” He raised an eyebrow at Quinn. “With your permission, of course.”

Jericho shrugged, fighting the urge to split the Venezuelan’s skull. “Go for it,” he said. “I have plenty here to keep me occupied.”

“Remind me to pass you a slap if you let that get away,” Thibodaux said, eyes glued to the sight of Garcia’s swaying backside as she walked arm in arm with Zamora toward a garden of hanging flowers opposite the cabanas.

Quinn took a quick step back from the pool to avoid getting splashed by a team of piggyback couples wrestling for control of a volleyball. All six-packs and cleavage, these “beautiful people” were as much a part of the décor as the tapestries in the great room.

“Take a look over there if you can pry your eyes away for a minute.” Quinn gave a discreet nod toward the other side of pool. “Isn’t Farris bin Ushan supposed to be in jail?”

“You mean that kid that looks like a Yemeni Leave It to Beaver?” Thibodaux shrugged. “Sounds right.”

“I think that’s him hiding in the shadows over there ogling girls.” He nodded to the string of cabanas. “What’s the name of the Chechen bus driver from Grozny?”

“Are you serious?” Thibodaux said. “I have trouble remembering my own kids’ names in a pinch.”

“Come on. The Russians were looking at him for that most recent school bombing. . . .” Quinn pounded a fist into his palm, thinking. He wondered if it was the fog brought on by too much Ronnie Garcia or maybe too many years of boxing at the Air Force Academy—not to mention the countless other blows he’d taken to the head. In this business, the ability to remember names and faces was as crucial as knowing how to shoot.

“Beats me,” Thibodaux said. “I know who you’re talking about now—”

“Akhmad Umarov.” Quinn snapped his fingers, recalling the name. He watched as the Chechen and another man he didn’t recognize stood from a poolside table, leaving two cute blondes they’d been chatting up. The second was younger than Umarov by a decade. He wore tight, peg-legged jeans and a black, muscle-mapping T-shirt. Even from a distance, Quinn could see the kid moved with the gawky arrogance of someone thrust into a position of authority because of birth or association rather than talent. Passing the cabanas, Umarov and his companion walked quickly, as if they were late for an appointment.

Quinn watched as a compact woman broke from the game of water polo. She swam to the edge and did an easy hand press onto the deck. A forest-green bikini with a stylish white belt revealed powerful, if somewhat short, legs and the compact, muscular body of a gymnast. Intent on the departing Chechens, the woman took a quick moment to adjust the seat of her swimsuit and squeeze the water out of shoulder-length red hair before ducking down the path after them.

Quinn gave Thibodaux a jab with his elbow. “You enjoy your mojito and keep an eye on the Yemeni,” he said. “I’m going to take a walk and see what Akhmad and his friend are up to out there in the dark.”

“Watch yourself, l’ami.” The Cajun snatched a stuffed mushroom off the tray of a passing waiter and stuffed it in his mouth. “That jolie fille goin’ after him got a crazy look to her.”

“Come on, Jacques,” Quinn said. “You got that from watching her walk away?”

“I’ve done studies, l’ami. You can tell a lot about a woman from her ass.” Thibodaux winked. “And this one’s crazy.”