State of Emergency

CHAPTER 62


Quinn estimated the cartel was no more than half an hour ahead of them with the bomb. There was no time to bury the dead, so he left them where they lay surrounded by a dark jungle that hummed and ticked with creatures that would close in and reclaim the bodies in a matter of hours.

Quinn rigged a makeshift stretcher from a nylon tarp he found hanging near the overturned table. With the help of a half-blind Thibodaux, he was able to get Bo back to the riverbank without reopening his wound. There was no time to waste formulating a sophisticated plan, so they boarded the boat without discussion. Aleksandra manned the tiller, pointing the boat downriver toward medical attention—and the bomb.

Moving again, Quinn took the opportunity to pack more QuikClot gauze into Bo’s wound and apply an H bandage for direct pressure. He found a pen in Aleksandra’s daypack and noted the time on the tourniquet for medical staff.

Thibodaux sat at the bow, keeping his good eye peeled for any sign of Zamora and Monagas, who were still unaccounted for. He’d rinsed his eye with two bottles of fresh water and though it seemed to help, the lid was still badly swollen and inflamed as if he’d rubbed it with sandpaper.

“You’re going to have to leave us,” Bo said, looking up with sunken eyes. Blond hair matted to his forehead. His normally tan face was pale and drawn. “There’s a lot of traffic on the big river. We’ll be back in civilization in no time.”

“I’ll stay with him, l’ami,” Thibodaux said without turning around. “I’m no good to you as a Cyclops, and you two have to catch up to the bomb.”

Jericho shot a glance at Aleksandra, who nodded almost imperceptibly. A soft breeze, caused by the movement of the boat, jostled her hair.

“My phone is dead,” she said. “I have no signal with which to track Monagas, even if he is with the bomb. We must rely on what the girl told you and hope for the best.”

In a world accustomed to instant communication by radio, cellular, and satellite phone, going off the grid was like a slap in the face. There were few places on the planet where some sort of communication system would not get through. Much of the Himalayas had 3G service and satellite phones worked at least a few hours each day even at the earth’s extreme poles—but you had to have such a device. Batteries died, electronics broke or fell in the water.

Sometimes all a man had to rely on was himself—Quinn looked up at Thibodaux, Bo, and Aleksandra—and, if he was fortunate, a capable friend.



A family of fishermen was camped at the confluence and agreed to take Bo and Thibodaux back to Rurrenabaque immediately.

Quinn gave Jacques the notepad with Pollard’s instructions about his wife and shook the big man’s hand.

“Don’t you worry about Boaz,” the Cajun said. “I’ll look after him.”

“I know you will,” Quinn said.

Thibodaux shook his head with a squinting half frown.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “That’s Diego Borregos out there. Zamora sold the bomb to the Colombians?”

“Looks that way,” Quinn said. “All the money they make with narcotics, they have enough of a bankroll. But I’m still trying to figure out where the Yemenis fit in.”

The Cajun put a hand to his damaged eye, wincing. “Wish I was coming with you, Chair Force. I don’t trust the Russian to watch your back like I would. She’s crazy.”

Quinn gave a tense chuckle, still watching his brother. “You say that about every woman we’ve ever met.”

Thibodaux took a deep breath through his nose. “I know I do, and I stand by it. But this one is damaged-crazy. That goes clean to the bone.”





“What did you talk about with Jacques?” Aleksandra said, once they were back on the water. Behind her, the little Nissan engine whined in protest as she opened the throttle as wide as it would go. Spray hissed and splashed from the wooden bow.

Quinn smiled. “He told me not to trust you.”

“Wise,” she said, scanning the river ahead as if her mind was elsewhere. “The children in my primary school used to tease me when I was very young—ryzhi krasni chelovek apasni. It means a redheaded person is dangerous.” She shrugged. “My mission is to retrieve Baba Yaga. If I have to sacrifice you, I will do so without pause.”

“And if we see Monagas again?” Quinn asked. “Will you chase him without pause—even at the expense of finding the bomb?”

Aleksandra frowned. “There were many people to shoot back there,” she said. “Monagas was just as deserving of a bullet as any of them.” She stopped, looking down at her boots for a long moment. “Still, I see your point. Such a thing will not happen again.”

Quinn settled back against the gunnel, holding the backpack in his lap. He opened a water bottle and took his first drink in over an hour. It was warm, but it revitalized him almost immediately.

He checked the Aquaracer on his wrist. “We’re making good time,” he said, happy to change the subject. “They’re loaded down with at least six men, not to mention the bomb. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch them before they leave the river.”

“And then what?” Aleksandra sat stoically at the tiller, small shoulders hunched forward, red hair blowing in the wind.

“Good question,” Quinn said, tapping the curved blade on his belt. “We’re a little light on ammo for a gunfight. Your H&K is out. I have two rounds left and Bo’s pistol has three.” They’d left Jacques with his pistol and two rounds in case Zamora had doubled back. Other than the weapons and scant ammunition, they had the pack, a bottle of water, and three cunape that they split between them. Over long periods of exposure, adrenaline and stress ate away at the body’s fuel reserves, sapping strength and draining brainpower. The starchy cheese biscuits gave a much-needed boost of energy.

Quinn spotted the bow of the sunken boat two hours after they left Bo and Thibodaux with the fishermen. The point of the bow bobbed just inches above the surface, nearly hidden in the raft of branches and other deadfall caught in a shaded back eddy behind the stump of a fallen tree. Borregos’s men had thought to scuttle the vessel and hide their trail, but the river had other ideas.

Quinn nodded downriver, actively ignoring the boat. Aleksandra ran past, slowing the little Nissan only when they were a hundred meters beyond the sunken vessel. Cranking the tiller hard over, she turned in a wide arc, slicing a deep V in the chocolate-brown water. Twenty meters out, Aleksandra killed the engine and let momentum carry them in. A startled caiman greeted them with a splash of his knotted tail as the boat nosed up against the muddy bank, groaning as it rubbed a submerged stone.

Quinn stepped over the gunnel and onto the spongy bank. He carried the pack in his left hand but left the 1911 holstered, reasoning that if someone was going to shoot him, they’d have done it already.

Beyond the sunken boat the bank was a trampled mess. Quinn found a square of mud about a yard long, and counted fifteen separate footprints. Splitting that number in half and rounding up, he estimated Borregos had eight men including himself. Two sets of boots had pressed more deeply into the mud. They would be carrying the weight of the bomb. He didn’t waste time trying to age the tracks. Even accounting for the time he’d spent talking to the dying Indian girl and then dropping off Bo and Jacques, the cartel couldn’t have been more than a half hour ahead.

Aleksandra stood facing the humming wall of black jungle, her back to Quinn. Sweat darkened her khaki shirt along the spine. “Apologies do not come easy to my lips,” she said.

Quinn checked to make certain his pistol was fastened in the holster, then slid Severance from the sheath at his belt. He said nothing.

Aleksandra plowed ahead. “I should not have abandoned you to go after Monagas.”

“You are correct there,” Quinn said, checking the bowknot connecting the boat to the gnarled root snaking out of the cutbank.

“Perhaps your brother would not have been shot if I would have stayed.”

“Or perhaps he would have,” Quinn said, knowing such after-action quarterbacking did little good.

“Have you never had a friend you would kill for?”

“I left two of them back there along the river,” Quinn said without hesitation. He looked west, shielding his eyes from the low, afternoon sun above an endless ocean of green forest canopy. “Now let’s focus on finding the bomb before they make it to the airstrip.”

“Very well,” Aleksandra said. “If we move quickly we can catch them before nightfall.”

“That should be easy enough.” Quinn turned, pushing aside a vine the size of his wrist with the tip of his blade. “It’s easy to move fast when you’re not weighed down with unnecessary things like ammunition.”