Kanatova raised a wary brow. The corners of her small mouth pricked in the beginnings of a smile as she held on to his hand. “An Air Force captain who fights like spetsnaz?”
“It’s complicated,” Quinn said. “But I’ve raced the Dakar before, so I was a natural choice for the assignment.”
“And I see you have other skills beyond racing motorcycles?”
“I boxed a little in college.” Quinn shrugged, working through a plan in his head.
“To play devil’s advocate, as they say. If Zamora has such a device — as we believe he does…” Aleksandra’s voice trailed while she waited for two men wearing red Loctite shirts to stumble past in the darkness, on their way to another party. “… why is he going to the trouble to run this stupid race?”
Quinn had been struggling with the same question. A bomb worth over a quarter of a billion dollars on the black market would make anyone change his plans.
“These old Soviet devices would have at least some level of safeguard, right?”
“That is correct,” Aleksandra said.
“So, in order to use the bomb, Zamora would have to get past those safeguards.”
“And bring the device back into working order.” Kanatova nodded. “They are small and portable, but this fact makes them lightly shielded. Radiation is extremely hard on the circuitry.”
“Ah.” Quinn rubbed his dark whiskers. “It makes perfect sense then. If Zamora values his life, he’s going to be as far away from the bomb as possible while his people get it in working order.” He looked at her, playing the thought over and over in his head before voicing it. At length, he sighed. “Listen, where are you staying?”
“A tent near Dakar Village where the spectators have a large camp. My government does not pay to put me up in fancy hotels with entertainment, caviar, and endless champagne.”
“Mine either anymore,” Quinn laughed. “But we’ll have plenty of opportunity for staying in tents at the bivouacs on the course. Zamora has already seen us together. It won’t be a big stretch for him to assume you came here with our team. We have an extra bed at our place for the night.” He raised a wary brow. “Though, considering who you are, my government would consider it a serious breach of etiquette that I’m even talking to you alone right now.”
“Breach of etiquette?” Kanatova scoffed, resuming her head-down walk. “I am discussing a missing Soviet nuclear bomb with a foreign operative. My superiors would have me shot.”
CHAPTER 29
A hollow pit of exhaustion settled over Aleksandra’s stomach by the time she rolled her sleeping bag out on the low bed shoved back under the angled eaves of the second-floor bedroom. It had taken another hour after they’d left Zamora’s to gather her gear and make their way back up the hill to Captain Quinn’s flat. She’d smiled inside when he’d given her his room and moved his own sleeping bag to the sagging couch downstairs. He was an American white knight — skilled in the brutal arts of violence, but all manners and kindness when it came to women. Her FSB instructors had taught courses about such men — how to manipulate their good intentions and innate trust of womanhood to leverage a proper end to the mission or even turn them as Russian assets.
Still, there was something about this Jericho Quinn’s earnest demeanor that gave Aleksandra pause. It reminded her of Mikhail when she’d first met him. The thought made the pit in her stomach worse.
Dead on her feet with abject mental and physical fatigue, she moved to the small window at the foot of the bed. She leaned against the cool glass with her forehead and looked out over the flickering lights from Dakar city a few blocks away. Her breath threw small patches of fog against the window. Chewing on what was left of her sorry fingernails, she repeated the solemn oath she’d made the night she’d heard Mikhail Ivanovich Polzin had been murdered. “Somewhere out there is the man who killed you. I will find him and kill him, Misha. I swear it. And no one, no matter how kind or earnest, will get in my way.”
CHAPTER 30
It was four-thirty in the morning when Boaz Quinn walked to the door with a bowl of cereal. A swarm of moths thumped against the screen, trying to get to the light. He wore only his boxers and a loose white T-shirt. The angry black octopus tattoo contrasted sharply with the tan flesh of his arm. Assorted scars from blade and bullet mapped the rough-and-tumble life Bo Quinn had led since striking out on his own shortly after high school.
Jericho had already finished a protein and carbohydrate shake that would become his pre-breakfast staple over the next two weeks and sat on a bench by the front door snapping the cam-locks on his riding boots. Thibodaux was outside loading extra tires on top of the support truck.
“There’s a chickaloon in the shower,” Bo said. He slurped placidly on a spoonful of cereal, apparently used to women showing up in surprise places. “She almost cut me when I went in to pee.”
“That’s Aleksandra. She’s working with us now,” Jericho said, giving a brief explanation.
“A Rusky?” Bo gave a long, groaning stretch, holding the cereal bowl out in front of him. “You know how I feel about Russians.”
“I know,” Quinn said. The entire incident — a fight with some drunk Russian nationals talking smack about America during his Air Force Academy parade — had very nearly made it so Jericho wasn’t allowed to graduate. It had become the stuff of Academy legend and followed him his entire career. “Behave,” he chided. “This particular Russian is after the same thing we are.”
Bo held up his spoon and shook it at Jericho to drive home his point. “Did I mention she nearly cut me a minute ago? I thought it was you in the shower. Anyways, I hear Russian women are—”
“Russian women are what?” Aleksandra’s husky voice came from the stairs. She was dressed in a pair of white shorts and a blue and white striped tank top. Red hair hung in damp ringlets around her shoulders from the shower.
Bo waved her off, but shot a “save me” glance at Quinn.
“I’m interested too, brother.” Jericho grinned. “What is it you hear about Russian women?”
“I prefer American women,” Bo grumbled, going back to eating his cereal. “That’s all.”
Aleksandra let the trill of her accent creep fully into her words. “You spend two minutes with a Russian woman and you will throw rocks at American girls.”
Jericho chuckled at that. A woman who could go toe-to-toe with his brother was a rare find indeed.
“Come on,” Jericho said, looking at Kanatova. “You can ride with me to ASO headquarters before the start of the first stage. We need to get you a wristband now that you’re officially a member of Team Quinn or you won’t be able to get into camp every night.”
CHAPTER 31
The British government wasn’t exactly forthcoming about known terror suspects who might happen to be racing under their flag in the Dakar Rally. Palmer had started a process of elimination, and by the time Quinn was at the starting line the first day of actual racing they’d been able to weed down the contestants, leaving them with two possibilities. Both were motorcyclists — Joey Blessington riding a Husaburg and Basil Tuckwood aboard a Honda. Like Quinn, both racers rode as privateers, meaning they had no major sponsor or big team support.
Much of Quinn’s cover story had been contrived by populating the Web with phony information and news releases about his investment business and photos of his thrill-seeking adventures.
Quinn was practical enough to know that completely stopping the flow of information to the World Wide Web was impossible. Even from high school he’d tried to keep his presence in the public venue as shadowy as he could. He refused to register new products that asked for his personal information and steered clear of social networking sites.