Petra induced a flurry of giggles from the twins when she reached Quinn and crushed him in an all-enveloping hug. Grabbing him by both shoulders, she held him back at arm’s length.
“Just making sure you are intact,” she said, giving him a motherly once-over. A Baltic accent — that sounded somewhere between Italian and Russian — added spice to her flawless English. “The life you lead has a way of stealing bits and pieces.”
“Of your soul,” Kevin Bursaw said, like he knew more than he admitted.
Quinn chuckled but let the comments slide. There was no way to argue with them anyway. Instead, he introduced Song to Petra.
“She’s pretty,” Petra said, winking. “I like her.”
Quinn looked at Song, who merely smiled and left any explanations to him.
It didn’t matter. There was no time for lengthy explanations anyway. “Bo says you have the BMW rental concession here,” he said to Bursaw. “You have an extra GS laying around?”
“Afraid not,” Bursaw said. “They’re all out with the paying customers at the moment.” He flicked his hand toward the shed. “Follow me. I figured you’d want something comfortable anyway since you’re riding two up. I took the liberty of having my father-in-law get the GTL ready for you.”
Quinn looked at the monstrous ivory BMW touring bike parked on a center stand under the edge of the shed — all 800 pounds and 1600 ccs of her.
“That’s not a motorcycle,” Quinn said under his breath. “That’s a space station.” The bike was big, but it was flashy, liable to stand out more than Quinn wanted. Behind the monster was another, smaller bike covered with a soft cotton sheet. He could just make out the shining black front fender and the outline of a fat round headlight. “Is that what I think it is?”
Bursaw grinned like a proud father and gave Quinn a smiling nod as he pulled back the cotton cover. “A 1972 Toaster Tank.”
Quinn ventured farther into the shed to get a better look at the shiny little bike. A BMW 75/5 sported a 750 cc engine and carried nearly five gallons of fuel in a tank that gave the bike its nickname because of a resemblance to the kitchen appliance. His voice grew quiet, almost reverent. “This one would fit the bill.”
“No way.” Bursaw shook his head. “Not the Slash-5. I just got her rebuilt.”
“Kevin,” Petra chided. “How often does Jericho come to visit? Let him take your precious bike. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Oh,” Bursaw said, “that just shows how little you know. He’ll probably be trying to do a Steve McQueen over some barbed-wire fence by sundown.”
Petra waved her husband away. She clucked at him in Croatian with the universal tone understood by husbands the world over. “My father will get you the key,” she said to Quinn, before turning to Song. “I have helmet and a jacket that should fit you, my dear.”
Chapter 29
Ran Kimura normally found herself calmed, emotionally blank after a bloody conflict. Before or after, she was not the type to wander without purpose. She either stood and waited patiently, or moved directly to her intended objective. That was before she had come face-to-face with her mother. Now she paced the length of the Oval Office, moving like the works of a precise clock in front of the fireplace, looking up only to stare holes in Drake and decide if whether or not she should cut his throat.
Of course, she’d known of Emiko Miyagi’s existence. She had seen more than one photograph, but pictures were nothing like a face-to-face encounter.
Ran had almost dropped her dagger when she’d come out of the coffee shop in Gettysburg. The look in her mother’s eyes hit her like a cold slap. Frozen and defenseless for far too long in her line of work, Ran realized the woman could have killed her had she been so inclined. She wondered though if her mother even realized it. It was terrifying, demoralizing — and Ran hated the woman for it.
Drake leaned back in the chair with his feet up on the Resolute Desk. He droned on and on about something but Ran chose to ignore him, knowing that if she focused on even a word he said, it would send her into a rage. McKeon must have sensed this and glanced up from the couch to put a hand over his phone to shush the President. He gave Ran a look as well, but she waved him off and kept walking. He might as well waste his attention on training an angry cobra. When she decided she’d had enough, Drake would be dead before anyone else in the room could blink. There was something about him, a palpable smell that made Ran’s blood boil with rage. She hated the way he used his position to prey on young women, she loathed him for his ignorance… and she absolutely despised his stupid bow tie. It was early, so Drake was still in his gym clothes. Had he been wearing one of his signature ties, she might not have been able to stop herself. McKeon needed the idiot in place at least for another day — and that was the only reason Ran left him alive.
McKeon turned back to the phone conversation, springing up from the sofa as he spoke to pace on the opposite side of the room from Ran. He’d barely been able to contain his giddiness since the arrest. It had imbued him with an energy that made the muscles in his angular face appear to twitch with anticipation, his words breathless and rushed. Veronica Garcia was in custody. It was only a matter of time before Palmer, Virginia Ross, and all the other conspirators were brought in as well. The death of Mike Dillman would serve notice to others in Congress about the danger of crossing the administration. The IDTF would sweat Senator Gorski to see what she knew before making her disappear on a more permanent basis. He hadn’t said as much, but Ran knew the way he worked.
“Whatever you have to do,” McKeon said. “I don’t have to remind you how important this is.” He’d already given Glen Walter carte blanche in his treatment of the prisoners but wanted to make it perfectly clear. As long as one arrest kept leading to another, all the gloves should come off during interrogations. The arrests not only yielded valuable intelligence, but had the added effect of destabilizing alliances and derailing any attempted putsch.
“Call me when she gives you something,” McKeon said, nodding his head like a child about to open a present. “No, I don’t care about the hour.” He ended the call. “This is outstanding. Walter will be there this evening.”
“Holy hell, Lee,” Drake scoffed. “Do you realize you are actually rubbing your hands together like some kind of fiendish villain? You might give some thought to the whole vice-presidential bearing thing.”
Ran spun in her tracks, her chest heaving.
McKeon stepped in between her and the President’s desk, resting a hand on her shoulder. “I know,” he whispered. “Forget about—”
She cut him off with a voice as sharp as her dagger. “I must do something to settle my mind, something productive.”
Drake chuckled. “I could probably find you a sack of kittens to kill. Shit like that seems to calm you down.”
McKeon’s hand tightened on her shoulder. She let him keep it there and shut her eyes, working to control her breathing. She was a professional, dispassionate, and would not let her anger at this fool prove otherwise.
“I think I will go to Oregon,” she said, opening her eyes to gauge McKeon’s reaction. “Everything is happening quickly. It’s time for me to sort out your wife.”
McKeon let his hand fall away. “I need you with me,” he said, a little too quickly. A flash of something Ran hadn’t noticed before crossed his face. The familiar beguiling look returned to his eyes. He spoke so both she and Drake could hear. “Things are happening fast, but they are happening just as we have hoped they would. In two days’ time, the President of the United States will stand with the newly elected Prime Minister of Japan and reassert our support for Japan’s claim to the Senkaku Islands — and publicly condemn China’s blatant aggression towards her weaker neighbors, who happen to be our allies. China will see it for what it is — a declaration of war without the actual words. The Fifth Fleet will be out of the Arabian Sea by that time, on its way to the Pacific. I do not know if the United States is strong enough to win a war against China, but I am certain she cannot do it while leaving assets in the Middle East.”