None of them liked what they were hearing.
“I won the bet fair and square,” Pete said. “You have to give me some time with her.”
“You will have plenty of time to do what you need to do,” Lourdes scoffed. “Make certain you are finished with her before I return—”
“Stop it!” Marie hissed. “No one will touch my baby while I’m alive.”
Pete smirked, unbuckling his belt. Lourdes laughed softly. She let the hook and chain slither from her hand to the floor, then took a black revolver from behind her back. Her face fell into a pinched frown.
“Make no mistake, my dear. We will touch whatever, whenever we please,” she said. “Shall I explain to you how this will go? First, I will shoot you in one knee. While you flop around in pain, thinking it cannot possibly get any worse, I will shoot you in the other knee for good measure. I will then allow you to experience that pain for a few moments before I very gently and against your hopeless sobs, peel the little worm from your pitiful grasp.”
Marie breathed in short pants. She and Simon were dead, that was a given — but how they died was not yet written. She’d do what this evil woman didn’t expect. She’d take the fight to her, force her hand, and take away the fun of torment.
The crash of breaking glass took a moment to register. Out of habit, Marie shielded Simon from the sudden noise. Lourdes turned toward the sound. Pete held up his pants with one hand, reaching toward the recliner for his pistol with the other.
A half second later the room exploded in a brilliant flash of light. A sudden woofing bang shook the paint off the ceiling and rattled the dishes in the kitchen. A series of muffled pops filled the smoky room. Blinded by the intense flash, Marie was vaguely aware of someone standing in front of her, shielding her from the events unfolding only a few feet away. As her vision began to clear, one of the biggest men she’d ever seen came into focus.
A black patch covered one eye.
Emiko Miyagi blew the door an instant after she tossed the weighted flash grenade through the living room window. Thibodaux rolled through the opening, peeling left to cover the woman and her baby while Garcia and Miyagi engaged the two bad guys. The idea was to take them alive if possible. Peter De Campo had gone for his weapon, forcing Garcia’s hand. A string of nine-millimeter rounds to his chest from her MP5 dropped him instantly. He was thought to be a minor gun thug hired by Zamora strictly for this part of the operation, so was likely to be of little help regarding Baba Yaga.
Lourdes Lopez was a different story. Her name popped up in government databases almost as often as Zamora’s. Though she hadn’t been with him in Florida, the two appeared to be a team. Miyagi saw to it that she was taken alive — barely.
Her first two shots had taken out the sullen woman’s knees. Two follow-up bursts destroyed each elbow.
“We are in America!” Lourdes screeched writhing on her back in a pool of blood. “You cannot just let me die.”
Miyagi stood over her for a long moment, her smooth face emotionless. At length, she knelt to apply four windless-style tourniquets, one over each bicep and another above each knee.
Thibodaux gathered a trembling Marie and her baby in his big arms, attempting to shield them from all the bloodshed. The sight of little Simon made him think of his own boys.
Marie pushed him away so she could see.
“I need a hospital,” Lourdes moaned, looking fearfully at the tourniquets. “If you leave these on me without attention I will lose my limbs. I will be helpless!”
Miyagi nodded, a tender smile on her lips.
“As a matter of fact, you will,” she said. “But in this life one must often depend on the kindness of strangers.”
Marie reached up to touch Thibodaux’s arm.
“Matt?” she asked.
The Cajun shook his head. “We’re still looking for him. I need you to think hard and tell us anything you might have heard that could help us find your husband and the men who have him.”
Marie nodded toward the hallway. “We talked on the computer every day until… a few days ago. I’m not sure how many. They all run together.”
“You’re one smart lady,” Ronnie said. She cleared the chamber of Pete’s pistol before slipping it in her waistband. “The photo you texted to your cell phone gave us the GPS coordinates that led us here.”
Marie brightened. “So Matt figured it out.” She kissed Simon on top of his head, tears flowing in earnest now. “Daddy figured it out,” she said. “Did you hear that, buddy? Daddy saved us.”
“Your pathetic husband,” Lourdes coughed. Her low groan carried across the room like a bad smell. “He was not the kind man you thought him to be… ” she gasped, vindictive even in defeat.
Miyagi grabbed the hateful woman by her collar and propped her roughly against the wall. Her useless arms flopped to her side, starting a fresh flow of blood and bringing a bloodcurdling wail.
“How’s that cruelty thing working out for you now?” Thibodaux shook his head in disdain. “Karma’s only a bitch when you are one your own self.”
CHAPTER 69
Landing gear squawked on the tarmac an hour and ten minutes from the moment the little green jet jumped from the dense Bolivian jungle.
As small as Aleksandra was, her hips dug into Quinn, cutting off his circulation and jamming him against the Spartan cockpit. Thankfully his legs had fallen asleep halfway into the flight.
Fuentes flipped open the cover during the back-taxi, allowing in a warm but welcome ocean breeze. A squad of six crewmen in green coveralls swarmed the aircraft as the screaming engines wound down.
On the tarmac, Quinn checked his phone and found he had six missed calls from Palmer. Kanatova took out her own phone, but Quinn shook his head.
“I’m not sure it would be a good idea for you to call your people on this,” he said, bracing himself for the onslaught of nails and knees he’d received at Zamora’s party.
“The battery is dead.” She shrugged, handing the phone to him. “Take it if you wish, but you needn’t worry.”
Quinn believed her sincerity, but took the phone anyway. He checked the battery, then gave it back to her.
She took it, smiling. “All we have been through and still you do not trust me.”
Quinn shrugged. “You would do the same if this was unfolding in Russia.”
There were dozens of spy apps available to turn almost any smartphone into a bug. But it was much easier than that. Turning on the auto-answer, then deactivating the ringer and vibrate functions transformed an ordinary cell phone into an inconspicuous listening device. Any operative would know better.
Aleksandra slipped the useless phone in her pocket and sighed. “I would never call my people on this. They would take a week to get a plan together and another to receive the levels of approval needed to implement the plan — and that’s if they wished to become involved.”
Quinn gave her an understanding smile and pressed the speed dial for Win Palmer.
The national security advisor began talking the instant he picked up. “The photo you sent came through a half hour ago. Quantico’s already got a hit through facial recognition. Tamir Mukhtar, a soldier they believe is attached to al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula under Yazid Nazif.”
“Nazif,” Quinn mused. “That makes sense.”
“And here’s the most interesting part,” Palmer said. “Nazif has a cousin who drives a cab in Houston.”
“I’m assuming FBI has eyes on that cousin?”
“In the next hour Houston, Texas, will have more feds than oilmen,” Palmer said.