State of Emergency

CHAPTER 26


7:30 PM





Quinn traveled in and out of D.C. enough that he knew virtually every security supervisor at Reagan National. He avoided the larger, more distant Dulles whenever he had the opportunity and now paid for it with a long wait at security. They were already boarding by the time he made it to the gate. Thibodaux was late, likely saying good-bye to his wife for the twentieth time. Good for him. At least he had a wife who missed him.

Quinn found his seat. Out of habit from flying armed it was an exit row with his right arm in the aisle. He took out a couple of motorcycle magazines and some study material, then shoved his carry-on in the overhead compartment. So far, he had the row to himself. He knew such luck would never last, and played a little game guessing the odds that each passenger would be his seatmate as they walked down the aisle toward him.

He dreaded the long flight to Argentina, preferring a poke in the eye to being stuffed into the long tin cans that served as modern-day airliners. He wasn’t tall by any standards, but he felt sorry for Jacques, who had to wedge himself into the narrow seats. In truth, he should have paid for a seat and a half because any unsuspecting seatmate ended up with the big Cajun’s shoulder and elbow in his or her lap during the entire flight.

More than anything Quinn dreaded the endless hours of flight. He’d never been one to let his guard down enough to sleep on an airplane surrounded by people close enough to smell. He planned to study some Chinese flash cards—they drew fewer looks than Arabic—and read some new motorcycle and gun magazines. But that still left hours with nothing to entertain him but his own thoughts. The flights between Miami and D.C. had given him way too much time to think already—and lately, when he thought, it was about Veronica Garcia.

Still alone in his row, he checked his TAG Aquaracer. Nearly eight in the evening during the Christmas holidays and he was on his way out of the country—again. He couldn’t help but wonder what Garcia was doing.

He knew her parents were dead. She had an aunt in Miami, but Miyagi made it sound like the agent trainees would only get a couple of days of break considering the present state of affairs in the country so he doubted she’d traveled far.

Quinn took out his phone to turn it off for the flight and without thinking, pressed Garcia’s speed-dial. No one—federal agents or agent trainees—should be completely alone during the holidays.

It rang twice before connecting. A man’s voice answered, going a hundred miles an hour.

“Ronnie’s phone. She’s a busy lady and can’t talk right now.”

Quinn could hear the rhythmic beat of music and the buzz and crack of people playing pool in the background. A hundred voices seemed to be talking at once.

“I’ll call back another time,” Quinn said.

“Message?” the man said, shouting over the din.

“No,” Quinn said. “I’m good.”

“Very well, my friend. You have yourself a happy holiday.”

“Yeah, you too,” Quinn grunted and hung up. This guy was far too peppy for his taste. Ronnie wasn’t alone during the holidays after all....

He looked up just as a heavyset person of ambiguous gender wearing a sleeveless mechanic’s shirt and carrying a pastrami sandwich nodded toward the seat beside him.

Quinn stepped into the aisle. Sighing to himself, he turned off his phone for the long flight to Argentina.





Ronnie Garcia walked out of the ladies’ room at the Corner Pocket in downtown Williamsburg and pushed through the crowds to rejoin her classmates. Though it was chilly outside, her roommate had persuaded her to dress to party in tight black capris and an off-the-shoulder red silk blouse.

“What’d I miss?” she said, smiling at the youngsters at her table. At twenty-nine, she was in the best shape of her life, but it was still difficult to keep up with the college crowd that made up the bulk of CIA trainees. Everyone but her had some sort of advanced degree in economics, law, or political science. Some had been interns for powerful senators, others came from rich families, all were incredibly bright. Apart from Garcia and a former Army Special Forces officer, none of her class had ever seen a moment of conflict more violent than a lovers’ quarrel. Just hearing their naïve dreams, Garcia couldn’t help but think of Jericho Quinn and his maxim: Everyone thinks they have a plan until they get punched in the nose.

Sometime it was a fist that gave you that punch, sometimes it was just life.

She scooted back into her seat around the table of eight, showing a tight smile at the thought of another hour with this crew. They were fine in a mock firefight and could interrogate role-players with the best, but she found hanging with them felt like playing Barbie with the twelve-year-olds after she’d already made out with her first guy. It had been a mistake to come, but she just couldn’t bear the thought of being stuck alone in the dorms.

Roger, a dark-eyed frat boy of Persian descent, grinned as she sat down, wagging his finger. He made no secret of the fact that he’d had a crush on her from their first day of polygraph class. She’d let him know right away that she was far too much woman for a youngster like him to handle—which only served to inflame his resolve. She’d been annoyed, but not surprised, when he’d showed up that evening and joined their group.

Smacking the finger away, she looked down her nose at him. “Good way to lose a hand, amigo.”

“You forgot your OPSEC,” he chided, raising his eyebrows as if he had eight-by-ten glossies of her in the shower. There was a cuteness about him, like a Christmas ornament that you could look at for a while but were happy to box up again right after New Years.

OPSEC—operational security—was no laughing matter.

“What?” she said, worried. “What did I do?”

“You could use a man like me watching out for you.” Roger held up her phone. “So many of our secrets are stuck in these little devices . . . and now I have access to yours, my dear. They say our brains are in our phones now.”

“I don’t think your brains are where you think they are.” Garcia poured her drink in the kid’s lap, snatching the phone away as he worked to catch his breath. “Let me tell you about a man who can handle me, Roger, my dear. When I fall down drunk and naked on the floor in the middle of a party, my man’s job is to stand there and fend all the other bastards in the room off of me. If I leave top-secret files in the penthouse of a foreign hotel, he would go all Tom Cruise and climb up the outside windows with those little sticky gloves to get those files back and save my honor. I don’t give a shit if I leave ten thousand dollars on the table when I go to pee. His job is to guard it with his life. And, he would never, ever, ever touch my phone. Comprende?”

Roger nodded, blinking quickly.

Ronnie turned to her roommate, who sat next to her. Her name was Bev, an Arabic and Farsi speaker from Maryland.

Bev snickered, rolling her eyes at the hapless Roger. “You warned him that you were a hard one to handle.” She put a hand on Ronnie’s arm. “I almost forgot. You missed a call.”

Ronnie got a jolt to the heart when she saw Jericho’s number. She bumped Roger out of the way with her hip as she moved quickly out of the booth, punching the buttons to return the call.

His voice mail answered after the first ring. “Quinn’s phone, leave a message.” She rang it again and got the same response. Turning, she stared back at poor Roger and tried to talk herself out of killing him.