After twenty minutes he gave up looking for Kanatova and arrived back at the rented flat nearly the same time as Bo and Thibodaux, who’d walked back up the hill. The crickets had already begun to sing and the evening gathered in fast around them.
With all the excitement of the race it was nothing short of a miracle that Winfield Palmer had been able to find them a place in the respectable four-plex on such short notice. Only a mile and a half off the beach, it was perfectly located — far enough from the crowds to sleep, close enough to get where they needed to be with minimal loss of time.
Quinn secured the bike inside the garage and sprinted up the long flight of aged wooden stairs to grab the duffel off the bed in his room. The flight from Dulles, coupled with the stress of the race logistics, left him with a sore back and a knot in his gut.
He’d tried Garcia again, but got her voice mail. Feeling like a stalker for calling so much, he left her a message telling her things were about to get really busy, so he’d check in when he got back. He hoped she understood the subtext of the message — because he sure didn’t.
A long run past Zamora’s chalet would be just the ticket to work out the kinks and clear his head.
“Dude, you’re going for a run?” Bo said, rolling his eyes when Quinn walked back down the stairs dressed in loose running pants and a dark blue T-shirt. “I forgot what an overachiever you are.”
“Helps me think.” Jericho shrugged. “And I like to get the lay of the backstreets as soon as practical.”
“The practical thing is to get some sleep.” Bo gave a long, catlike yawn, arching his back so his belly showed under the tail of his wifebeater shirt. “I’m glad it’s you on the bike, Jer. And I won’t be expected to keep up with you.”
“I gotta call my wife,” Thibodaux said, still trying to untangle himself from being crammed into business-class seating for so many hours on the plane. He stood blinking at the door, swaying like a huge tree in the breeze. “What time is it back home in Spotsylvania, Virginia?”
Bo looked at his watch, a TAG Heuer identical to Jericho’s. “We’re two hours later here, so it’s about nine-thirty.”
“Good,” the big Cajun said, moving his head from side to side as he raised his eyebrows. “Kids’ll be fed and bathed. Maybe Camille will be up for a game of escaped convict and the warden’s wife on the phone… ”
By the time Jericho snugged the laces on his Nikes and took a drink from the kitchen tap, Bo and Jacques had already disappeared to their rooms. Jacques’s belly laugh rattled the walls.
A long run was second only to a good motorcycle ride for clearing Quinn’s mind. Beyond the obvious physical and psychological effects, a run got him outside the false sense of security a rented room gave and allowed him to see if anyone had him under surveillance.
Standing in the moist night air on the cracked concrete driveway of the four-plex, Quinn studied a tourist map of the area under the streetlight. He made a mental note of the streets and alleyways around Zamora’s rented chalet less than a mile away.
When he ran at home Quinn usually stuffed the baby Glock 27 in an across-the-chest rig other runners might use to carry a cell phone or energy bars. It was easy to reach in the event of an emergency and snug enough to keep from bouncing around during a sprint. A pretty brunette with a thick Spanish accent had met them with two plain blue Colt Combat Commanders in .45 caliber, one for Quinn and one for Jacques. A proven weapon since 1911, it was still too large to carry on a run, so Jericho left it in his duffel beside Severance.
Unless he happened to be in a war zone, he was often forced by circumstance to be unarmed when overseas. Always happy to have a sidearm or blade, he knew enough not to bank on traditional protection. Weapons were available everywhere if one only knew where to look for them.
Noting the time of 11:40, Jericho turned and trotted into the darkness.
When the Quinn boys were younger, their father had often taken them hunting in areas known for large populations of Alaska brown bear. Rather than letting them hide frightened in the tent cringing at every crack of a twig or crunch in the gravel late at night, the elder Quinn encouraged his boys to step outside and “take a look” at whatever was out there. Likely as not the noise turned out to be a weasel or night bird, but the old man reasoned that if it did happen to be a bear the thin layer of tent fabric was no more than imagined safety anyway. It was always better to see what wanted to eat you. It was a contradiction, but Quinn felt safer in the open than he did holed up in the dark.
A gentle salt breeze jostled the warm night air as Quinn trotted quietly down the dark and deserted streets. Pools of light and raucous laughter poured out from a bar here or a party there. Dakar Village, the ad hoc city within a city three blocks to the east, lit up the night sky. The steady thrum of tango music sulked over the sea wall and coursed between the buildings of Mar del Plata.
Well into his stride, Quinn ran on, jogging uphill to pass two snarling dogs fighting over something in the shadows. A block away from Zamora’s, he slowed to a walk, catching his breath and popping his neck from side to side. His plan was to watch, gain information, nothing more. But planning on violent action and being prepared for it were two completely different things.
The houses in the quiet, upscale district sat on a small bluff overlooking the silver ribbon of beach and the blackness of the southern Atlantic. Lofty trees lined the streets and ornamental shrubs and stone sculptures set off the careful landscaping of the larger lots. Decades old, each was tucked back in the shadows of their own private garden.
It was late and even the most intense of prerace parties had quieting down. Still, Quinn kept to the shadows, keeping up the pretense that he was jogging in case someone happened to look out their window.
He stopped behind a dark blue Volkswagen Passat parked in the street and stooped as if to tie his shoe, watching, straining his ears for signs of more movement.
Zamora’s rented stone block chalet sprawled over a large corner lot. An ornate set of wrought iron gates closed off the wide driveway. Thick tree branches brushed the top of a six-foot wall of gray stone that matched the house.
Hearing nothing but chattering music from a dozen different parties, Quinn shot a glance up and down the street, then sprinted across to the far side of the neighboring house. It was set slightly higher on the hill and might give him a better vantage point.
He vaulted to the top of the wall and scrambled up the adjacent patio roof that overlooked Zamora’s garden. The thorny boughs of a mesquite tree gave him good cover and by pressing facedown against the ridgeline of clay tile Quinn was able to see the man moving along the inside edge of the wall behind a trellis of flowering fuchsia plants.
Quinn relaxed against the cool tile and watched, taking the opportunity to rest. He didn’t have long to wait.
The twin glass doors to the main chalet flung open, exposing the dark garden to a flood of light and sound. Zamora came out, followed by Monagas, who shut the door behind them. Zamora opened his mouth to speak, but the big man raised a small black device Quinn recognized as an RF scanner.
Monagas played the device around the foliage and statuary beside his boss.
In an age where satellites could be tasked with counting the dimples on a golf ball, good guys and bad often grew too dependent on gadgets to keep them safe. Listening devices and long-range weapons were only tools. Entire cities could be carpet-bombed back to the Stone Age, but in the end the powers that be still had to send in a guy with a knife to root out any survivors. All the bug sweepers in the world were worthless if one forgot security measures like drawing the curtains or simply looking up in the trees before speaking.