“Miss Elliot.” McKeon nodded, taking Ran by the hand in order to help her out of the limo. She would never exit merely because Drake told her to.
“Make certain to work out those arrangements, Lee,” Drake said, flexing his POTUS muscles in front of the girl.
“Of course, Mr. President.” McKeon could barely contain his smile. Groveling was easy when he knew the man would be dead before nightfall.
Chapter 59
Quinn pulled up short, stopping in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs to do a quick peek around the edge of the doorway. He trotted through the shadows to peer around the backhoe. The fact that he had no shoes was a problem. It was tough to do much fighting in bare feet, no matter what the super-duper cool ISIS training videos showed.
Evening traffic thumped on the viaduct overhead. Birds chirped and cooed, settling in for the evening in the trees that ran along the hillside that led up to the city. Quinn had hoped to catch a glimpse of Jiàn Zŏu running away, but he’d had too much of a head start. He stuffed the Glock into his waistband and put a hand on Song’s shoulder as she came up beside him, intent on rushing past. She had been inconsolable since she’d recognized the man she called Jiàn Zŏu.
“Listen to me,” Quinn said, leaning against the rear tire of the backhoe. “Both of us look like we’ve been mugged. My face is covered in blood, your lips look like someone hit you with a brick, and our shoes are gone. We have to use our heads here. We’ll get stopped by the police before we make it a block. We don’t know if he went up toward the Market or got picked up by a boat—”
“He went up,” a voice said from under the viaduct. “Toward Pike.”
Quinn drew the Glock again, scanning the shadows.
“You’re the one who gave me the light, aren’t you?” the voice spoke again. “Jeez Louise, those boys had it in for you. We thought they was going to murder your ass right here. Scared Burt so bad I think he’s halfway to Tacoma by now…”
Quinn relaxed a notch when a homeless man stepped around a concrete pillar. He held a plastic grocery sack in his tobacco-stained hand.
“I found your shoes,” the man said, offering the sack to Quinn. “Was gonna sell ’em, but it looks like you still got a need.”
Quinn thanked the homeless man, who said his name was Jiggy, and took Song gently by the hand to lead her back toward the apartment. “I have to make a call,” he said. “And we need to take a look at those burns.”
“The burns will heal.” Song was breathing hard, about to hyperventilate. “I fear you do not understand. Jiàn Zŏu is not like the Fengs. He is a professional.”
“So are we,” Quinn said. “But we’re going to need some reinforcements.”
Back in the dilapidated apartment, Quinn had Song sit on the sagging couch while he knelt to look at her wounds. It was surreal, even to Quinn, to come back and sit with the bodies of the two men they’d been chasing for what seemed like an eternity. He moved the couch so the Fengs were out of her line of sight, hoping Song could focus on the Chinese-language news program on the television over his shoulder.
Quinn knew time was of the essence, so he used the dead Uyghur’s cell phone to call Jacques, holding it against his ear with an aching shoulder while he knelt at her feet. Being engaged like this with someone else made lifting the hem of her dress feel less intimate, and more comfortable for both of them.
Three almost identical brands from the tip of the iron formed the beginnings of a rough circle on the otherwise pale skin of her inner thigh. Ehmet Feng had just been getting started with his torture — having only gotten past the taunting phase when Quinn stopped him. The Uyghur had applied just the tip of the iron, leaving behind small, triangular burns, complete with spots from the steam vents. It was as if he’d been drawing a flower with each nasty burn forming a pink and blistered petal.
Thibodaux answered on the second ring.
“ ’Allo?” the big Cajun grunted, not recognizing the number.
“Hey,” Quinn said, feeling a little light-headed at the sound of his friend’s drawl.
There was nothing in the shabby apartment that was even close to sterile, so Quinn did the best he could by ripping away some of the lining of his suit jacket and, after running it under cool tap water, applying it to Song’s thigh to bring down the temperature of the wounds. There was little else he could do without first aid supplies, but he knew from harsh experience that small wounds could become big problems if left unattended.
“We’re alive.” He adjusted the cell phone with his free hand and rolled his neck to try to ease the pain. “That’s something, I guess.”
Quinn pressed the cool cloth lightly to Song’s thigh, as much to keep her sitting as to treat the burn.
“Oo ye yi! L’ami,” Thibodaux said. “Don’t you do me that way. Where you at?”
Quinn gave their location and a rundown of events, including the new information about this Chinese commando, Jiàn Zŏu. He didn’t know much, but he gave Jacques what he had.
He left out how badly he was hurt.
Song remained inconsolable, bouncing in her seat and looking toward the door as if she wanted to bolt. She suddenly tensed, moving his hand off her leg, nearly knocking him over as she jumped to her feet, pointing at the television.
“Hang on,” Quinn said into the phone. “Something’s happening.” He turned to see a pretty Chinese reporter standing under an umbrella near the Space Needle. The camera panned away long enough to show a seemingly endless line of black limousines driving onto the concrete pathways of Seattle Center. It was obviously a motorcade.
Quinn listened long enough to get the gist of the story. A familiar knot formed low in his belly. He put the phone on speaker.
“Did you know anything about the President attending some kind of concert with the Japanese Prime Minister?”
“No idea,” Thibodaux said. “It wasn’t on the schedule this morning. Must have been a last-minute thing.”
“It’s a ballet,” Song said, eyes still glued to the television. “Remember Prime Minister Nabe’s wife was a ballerina, as is his daughter…” Her voice trailed off and she turned to look at Quinn. “Jiàn Zŏu will not wait until tomorrow morning. This is the target.”
Thibodaux gave a low whistle when he heard the news. “I know POTUS is a shitbird and all, but I think we should make an anonymous call to the Secret Service and get him out of there.”
“It won’t matter,” Quinn said, looking at the glass walls of McCaw Hall. “That place must hold a couple of thousand people—”
“They say three thousand,” Song corrected him, slowly shaking her head.
“If we tip our hand, Jiàn Zŏu will just shoot into the building. The US will blame China.”
“You said this Jiàn character is a Chinese Army GI Joe or some shit,” Thibodaux said. “Sounds to me like the Chinese are the ones behind this.”
“Not China,” Song said. “General Sun. It is he who wants a war. Jiàn Zŏu was a member of the Nan Dao or Southern Broadswords, the Special Forces unit operating in the Guangzhou Military Region. I trained with them for a short time as well. General Sun was the commander of this unit. Perhaps our countries will be at war one day, but this is the work of General Sun. This operation was not ordered by President Chen Min.”
“Tough thing to be sure of,” Jacques said at the other end of the line.
“I am sure,” Song said. “If he’d wanted to kill your President, Chen Min would have sent me.”
Quinn nodded at that. “It really makes no difference. If Jiàn Zŏu deploys the Black Dragon, the US will blame China—”