Ronnie had learned early as a young woman that few people she met, particularly the men, would spend much time looking at her face.
The comforting whine of Miyagi’s Ducati revved behind her, toward the traffic circle and Lincoln Square. Garcia found it comforting to know she was there — a mother hen on a motorcycle… with a sword.
The weather was hot and extremely muggy compared to the canned air of the bunker. Garcia had exchanged the cashmere for a light blue button-down oxford and the loosest pair of jeans she owned. Her ex called them her “mom jeans.” Half expecting her meeting to turn into a run for her life, she opted for a light pair of Nike sneakers instead of more fashionable shoes. Far from formfitting, the outfit still drew plenty of nods from passersby, both male and female.
She was fairly certain she hadn’t been followed but used a half dozen countersurveillance measures in any case, doubling back on herself and stopping at intersections through two complete light cycles as if her car had stalled. If anyone had known where she was, Palmer and everyone else would have all been dead in a ditch somewhere. Her concern was that someone would follow the delegation. Palmer had briefed his friend, Congressman Dillman, on how to watch for surveillance. Dillman supposedly had considerable experience in combat, but like Thibodaux had pointed out that from his experiences in both, combat and tradecraft were about as far apart as a tickle and a slap. Their lack of covert experience notwithstanding, both Gorski and Dillman appeared to be extremely intelligent people. Ronnie was depending on that to keep them all alive.
All associated with the effort to bring down the administration were careful not to carry anything that would incriminate them or tie them to any organized effort. They committed information to memory, sent notes in encrypted e-mails, and used old-fashioned dead drops, but recruiting powerful politicians to the cause — convincing them to move forward and actually put themselves at risk — meant certain lines needed to be crossed.
Garcia had to take risks to show the others that certain risks were worth taking. The encrypted IronKey flash drive in her pocket contained photos and detailed charts that tied the Vice President to the Pakistani Qasim Ranjhani, and medical records connecting President Drake to known terrorist plotter Dr. Nazeer Badeeb. Any one piece of it would no doubt get her shot if found in her possession, but the fact that she was willing to hand carry the thumb drive to the meeting and look the congressional delegation in the eye when she handed it over should carry some weight. She would explain the contents during their meeting, and then provide the delegation with a password after they parted company.
Garcia stopped to look in the window of a shop selling Civil War chess sets, thinking idly of her parents. Revolution and civil war had been constant topics in her home. Her father, a rule-keeping Russian who taught math and science under the Soviet-backed education system in Havana, saw no room for anything but unwavering loyalty to the party. A devoted Cuban wife, her mother was the daughter of a man who had been a successful grapefruit plantation owner before Castro. Ronnie never acted on it, but the blood of a revolutionary ran deep within her veins. She missed them both to the point of tears.
Mind snapping back to the moment, Garcia reversed direction, wanting to make one more pass down the street. Miyagi kept coming, off her bike now and looking like a tourist in crisp white slacks and a navy T-shirt. She wore a white ball cap to match her slacks and dark shades that mercifully shielded others from the intensity of her eyes. The two women passed, acknowledging each other with the polite nod of two strangers and nothing more. No one else on the sidewalk knew that inside Miyagi’s oblong messenger case was a Japanese short sword that had tasted more than its share of blood. Garcia smiled to herself, thinking how odd it was that she found such a thing comforting.
Halfway down the block, she paused in front of a small café that sold Dutch apple pie and scrapple. Lifting her hand from the pocket of her jeans, she let a red crayon fall to the ground. Without looking down, she used the heel of her Nike to grind the wax into a small circle on the sidewalk. Satisfied she’d left a mark small enough to go unnoticed by most, but large enough to get the attention of anyone who was looking for it, she made her way across the street to another espresso shop. Ordering her third cup of coffee for the evening, she took a seat by the window to wait.
Chapter 19
Settling deeply into the high-back saddle, Quinn gave the big gray its head and “smooched,” the universal human-to-horse signal that it was time to move out. The animal lurched forward, breaking easily into a fast lope toward the dust-choked scrum of other horses. Cheers erupted from the sidelines. He was a stranger, but he was also a buzkashi rider, and that was enough — for now.
Quinn vaguely remembered that there was a Japanese martial art called bajutsu—fighting while on horseback. Other than seeing the word in a book about medieval samurai, he’d never taken the time to delve any deeper into the subject. He could, however sit a horse very well — and he knew how to fight even better.
His mother had taught him years before that a quick “preflight” of an unfamiliar horse could save a lot of heartache and what she called an “involuntary-rapid-aerial-dismount” down the road. Quinn leaned back in the saddle as soon as the gelding was well into its stride, lifting the reins and applying just enough pressure forward of the girth with his legs to bring the big animal to a sliding stop. The horse reared, pawing the air with its forefeet as if on command. Quinn leaned forward immediately, throwing his weight over the horse’s bowed neck, patting the snorting animal and urging it back into a canter, this time gaining speed until they reached the mob of other animals that stomped and screamed around the carcass of the dead goat. Not nearly as smooth as a motorcycle, the horse was nevertheless nearly as push-button in the way it responded to Quinn’s movements. His mother had always stressed for him to be as light as possible with any command. Thankfully, Hajip’s brother must have had the same sentiment when it came to horsemanship. It took little more than a change in leg pressure for the gray to “bend” around Quinn’s thigh, collect its haunches, and launch in the direction Quinn wanted to go as surely as a guided missile.
The game had already begun and at least twenty other horses and riders pushed and shoved at each other in a bloody melee of hooves and knees and whistling leather quirts. Habibullah and his two men sat on the outer edges of the scrum, watching and waiting patiently for someone else to do the initial work and pick up the carcass. Quinn rode as if he intended to drive straight into the center mass, shifting the weight at the last minute to turn the horse straight for Habibullah’s man on the black horse. Muzra was the larger of the two sidekicks, so Quinn had decided to get him out of the way first and take his spot on the team.
A shout rose up from the mob as a rider finally scooped up the carcass. Fending off the sudden rain of quirts and whips, the hapless man began to shove and whip his way through the packed scrum. He leaned back as he rode, using a leg to help prop up the flopping body of the headless goat as he tried to put distance between himself and the crowd. With all eyes on the carcass, Quinn focused on Muzra, bringing the gray just off the big black’s nose. Muzra was unconcerned with the oncoming rider since he wasn’t in possession of the goat. Quinn found it fairly easy to scrape in close, using his knee to shove the other man’s leg back and out of his stirrup, upending him and tossing him out of the saddle. The gray got in on the action, biting at the big black’s flank as he went by. Quinn gave the other horse a swat on the rump with his quirt, sending it trotting off the field and leaving Muzra lying on his back in the dirt. The action moved down the field at breakneck pace and though Muzra must have a pretty good idea that it had been Quinn who unseated him, there was nothing he could do about it, even if he’d been sure.