State of Emergency

CHAPTER 19


3:35 AM EST

Miami





“So,” Thibodaux said, craning his head to look at Garcia in the backseat. “They teachin’ you about surveillance at CIA school?” He sat behind the wheel across from Jericho, who looked through a set of binoculars. Both stared at the door to the eastern-most room on the bottom floor of the Green Flamingo Motel. Just a few yards beyond the end of the building the parking lot melded into the dark pine forest. The only streetlight in the lot was burned out and what little light there was leaked from the tattered blinds of the rooms themselves, making the lot and the motel itself the perfect place for someone who wanted anonymity.

“They do indeed,” Garcia said. Thankfully, she’d already wriggled into a pair of jeans and a dark T-shirt, but Quinn could still smell the faint jasmine odor of her skin wafting up behind him. “But role-playing is never like the real thing.”

“My uncle was a deputy sheriff in Terrebonne Parish,” Jacques said in the darkness. “He used to tell me stakeouts were nothin’ more than two people sittin’ in a stinking car with the collective urge to pee. I think he was right ’cause I’m feeling the need right now.”

“Well, you better use your Dr Pepper bottle,” Quinn said, his voice muffled against the binoculars. “I got movement at the room.”

Quinn watched as the Yemeni man they knew as Farris Ushan stepped out of the gaudy green door at the end of the rundown motel.

“What’s he doing?” Garcia put both hands on the back of Quinn’s seat.

Quinn passed the binoculars back to Garcia, his hand already on the door.

“He’s dragging a girl out of the trunk.”

Quinn was out of the truck and moving the moment Ushan shut the door to his room. Thibodaux trotted alongside him while Garcia held back a few steps acting as a rear guard.

“We’re in the U.S. of A now, Chair Force, and we got no warrant,” the big Cajun said, crouching as he ran. “Just checkin’, but are we gonna knock and announce?”

Quinn looked him in the eye. “What do you think?”





The beautiful thing about cheap motels was that most of their doors were routinely subjected to the boots, rams, or threshold spreaders of the local police. A sideways pull on the handle allowed Quinn to push this one open with hardly more than a shove. A little gentle persuasion tore the flimsy privacy chain out of the wall.

The Yemeni stood at the far side of the bed, towering over a bound Cathy with a leather belt in his hands. His head snapped up at the intrusion.

“Wha—?”

Quinn never stopped as he shouldered his way past the chain and bounded up on the bed to step over the cowering girl. He caught Ushan across a big ear with a brutal slap. Snatching the belt, he looped it quickly around the Yemeni’s neck and pulled it tight.

Garcia appeared at the open door, tiny Kahr pistol in her hand. Thibodaux, who scanned for other threats in the room, motioned for her to take the girl to the corner.

The Yemeni’s eyes bulged. The veins on his neck swelled red under the leather belt as if they might burst. When his head lolled, Quinn shoved him face forward onto the bed, patting him down for weapons.

He moaned when Quinn flipped him over.

“Where is your friend?” In reality Quinn knew of no one else, but it didn’t hurt to make the stunned Yemeni believe he did.

“Zamora gave me the girl.” Ushan shook his head, blinking. “I wanted her for myself, so I came here alone.”

“Where is the bomb?”

“Who are you?”

“The bomb, Farris.” Quinn drew back as if to strike him with the belt.

“What bomb?” Ushan worked his jaw back and forth, obviously stunned by the cuff to his ear.

Quinn gambled, throwing more cards than he actually had on the table. “I know Zamora has Baba Yaga.” He fell into easy Arabic. With his three-day growth of dark beard and copper skin, he could easily pass for someone from the Middle East.

Ushan’s eyes narrowed, trying to make sense of things. “Who are you?”

Quinn shot a glance at Ronnie, who attempted to comfort a hysterical Cathy in the far corner of the room. He shuddered to think what would have happened to her if they hadn’t decided to follow the Yemeni away from the party.

“I am the man who will cut out your worthless heart if you do not tell me what I want to know,” Quinn whispered, not entirely bluffing.

“If you want to kill me,” Ushan said, “you will have to get in line behind the Chechens.”

“The Chechens don’t have you here now,” Quinn said. “I do.” He acted disinterested, but took careful note of every word the Yemeni breathed.

“Yes.” Ushan smiled. “But you do not know this particular Chechen. He would—”

A loud whack, like someone hitting a softball, turned their attention to the door as it flew open. Quinn looked up to see a shotgun barrel pointing through the gap.

Thibodaux reacted immediately, bringing his forearm up under the barrel an instant after the first booming shot split the air inside the cramped hotel room. The Yemeni’s head burst, spilling onto the sheets. Grabbing the intruding shotgun’s fore end with his free hand, the big Cajun gave a hard yank and pulled the shooter, a balding man with a dirty blond beard, into the room. He used the butt of the weapon to smash the man in the face on the backstroke.

His lips pouring blood, the shooter rolled across the carpet, trying to access a pistol on his belt. Thibodaux held the shotgun to the side and used his Kimber to give the guy a double tap to the chest.

Quinn dove to the floor as more gunfire shattered the glass and tore the mini-blinds off the windows. Tires squealed in the parking lot. Car alarms began to honk and beep from the commotion.

Shotgun still in hand, Thibodaux did a quick peek out the open door. “Looks clear.” He turned back to Quinn. “You okay, l’ami?”

Quinn stood up, looking at Garcia. She nodded. “We’re okay,” he said.

Thibodaux pulled back the dead man’s shirt. He was bony and gaunt, and a crude eight-pointed star was tattooed on each skeletal shoulder, just above his collarbone. “Eastern Bloc mafia,” the Cajun said. “Could be Chechen. Tats are older, probably made in some Russian prison with ash and piss.”

“Not too much of a jump from Chechen Mafia to Chechen separatists,” Quinn said. “Guess this guy was right about them wanting to kill him.”

“Over the bomb?” Ronnie asked. “Do you think they saw us?” Ronnie stood up from where she’d used her own body to shield a hysterical Cathy.

Quinn set his mouth in a tight line.

“They sure enough saw him,” Thibodaux said, looking at the mess of blood, brain matter, and ears that had been Farris bin Ushan.