Song took a deep breath and opened her mouth to speak before looking away as if she’d changed her mind.
“You played the violin in high school?” Quinn offered, hoping to get her to talk some more about her past, to learn more about this woman in whose hands he was placing his safety.
“I did,” she said, turning back to him and shaking off whatever funk had been about to overwhelm her. “And now I do not.”
Quinn started to mention her incredible performance at the Bursaws’ party, but decided it might open up old wounds. Instead, he changed his tack. “You promised to tell me more about the Black Dragon.”
“Indeed.” Song slumped in her seat, seemingly relieved to discuss anything but her past. “It’s a shoulder-fired weapon resembling one of your American Javelin or Predator antitank missiles. I cannot divulge the specifics of the design, but it delivers a warhead capable of fifteen times the destructive power of an equivalent weight of a conventional high-explosive charge.”
“Thermobaric?” Quinn asked, committing every word to memory so he could make a record later.
“I am afraid so.”
Having any sort of explosive shot at you was bad enough, but thermobaric devices were particularly unpleasant. An explosive charge dispersed a cloud of fuel — like fluoridated aluminum or ethylene oxide. Anyone near the ignition point would be obliterated as the vaporized fuel used existing oxygen in the air to explode. Thermobaric devices tended to burn a fraction of a second slower than conventional weapons. The pressure wave in any enclosed space, along with the vacuum that followed, took care of anyone else, rupturing lungs, crushing internal organs, and destroying the inner ear. Blindness was not uncommon, but as devastating as the small devices were, the shock and pressure caused little damage to the brain so the victims were left blinded and conscious for seconds or even minutes while they suffocated to death.
“What’s the size of the missile?” Quinn said.
She chewed on her lip, eyes twinkling in the diffused light of the boat. “Classified.”
“We’re past that,” Quinn said. “I need to know so I can figure out possible targets.”
“Approximately twenty kilos,” she sighed.
Quinn did the math. If the entire device weighed just shy of forty-five pounds, the warhead itself was likely to be well over twenty. The Marines had taken out entire mansions in Iraq with a single eighteen-pounder from a Javelin — and Song said this one was even stronger.
“What’s the fuel?”
“Really,” she said. “That is secret informa—”
“If we plan to stop this, I need to know what you know.”
“Beryllium,” she said at length. “This device is a prototype, but believe me, it functions even better than the designers had hoped.”
“I have to make a phone call,” Quinn said, checking the time on his Aquaracer. “It will take us almost a full day to reach Seattle. I have friends who can work on this from that end.”
Song sat up, hands folded at her knees. “If your government finds out that such a weapon will be used on US soil, I am afraid war is a forgone conclusion.”
“There’s a fine line between war and peace,” Quinn said, almost to himself. “We are bound to cross it many times before we’re done.”
Chapter 39
Thibodaux braced himself in the doorway as Camille snapped out of her stupor and scrambled off the bed to launch herself into his arms.
“You’re home!” She burst into tears, burying her head against his neck. “I can explain all this, you know.”
Thibodaux patted her on the back and winked across her shoulder at an embarrassed Kim, who still stood at the foot of the bed with the leather belt hanging limply in her hand.
“Don’t you worry about it, ma chère,” he said. “I’d like to think we have the sort of relationship that if you came home and found me straddlin’ a hairy, fat man, you’d trust I had my reasons.” His grin turned sour when he focused on the man in his bed. “I’d say Joey B’s the one who has some ’splainin’ to do.”
Camille pulled away. “So you do know him?”
“Joey, Joey, Joey… Zeerahb saleau!” Jacques nodded, giving Benavides a long, burning glare: “Disgusting, sloppy thing. What have you gone and let these gals do to you? I mean this is some kinky shit.”
Joey’s face twisted as if in agony and he began to bawl like a baby.
Camille put a hand on Thibodaux’s chest. “Don’t you want to know what happened?”
“I do,” Jacques said. “But not in front of the sob-slobberer. Hang on a sec.” He towered over the bed and yanked the gag out of Joey B’s mouth. “Okay, shitbird, you have bled all over my sheets. You know what that means?”
Benavides shook his head, tears pressing between his lashes as a pitiful squeak escaped his lips.
Thibodaux leaned in close so he was only inches from the man’s face. “It means I gotta buy me a new mattress — and this mattress means a lot to me. There ain’t much to keep me from shooting you in the eye if you make another peep without permission. Understand?”
Joey nodded emphatically but kept his mouth shut.
“Boop! Right there,” Thibodaux said, putting the tip of his index finger to Joey’s clenched eye. “Keep that in mind.”
Camille all but collapsed into her husband’s arms as they left the bedroom with Kim leading the way.
Jacques chuckled softly. “What are you ladies planning, armed up like that with gun belts and such?”
“Hon,” Camille said, taking her husband’s hand. “They have Ronnie Garcia.”
Jacques stood while both women collapsed back on the couch. Camille explained everything with a gush of emotion.
“Oo ye yi,” Jacques said under his breath when she was finished. “You girls did good.” He shook his head and shot a glance toward the TV room. “The little boogs are gonna need some therapy, but I’m so proud of you.” He looked at his watch. “Y’all can go ahead and stand down.”
“What are you going to do about Ronnie?” Kim asked.
“Well,” he said, “I’m working on a plan and it involves our little cupcake in there.”
“I’m not going to like it, am I?” Camille said.
“Probably not, Boo,” Thibodaux said, tipping his head toward Benavides, “but he’s not gonna think too much of it either.”
Fifteen minutes later, Thibodaux stood in the living room holding the handle to a large black rolling duffel that contained all his scuba gear. He kept everything in the bedroom except for the tank, to keep his boys from boogering up the sensitive gauges and regulators.
Joey B slouched beside him, head down, dressed in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. The women had cut away his clothing looking for weapons, and they were the only things Jacques had that would fit him.
Camille looked up with terrified eyes when she saw that Benavides was no longer restrained.
Jacques held up his big hand to calm her. “Don’t worry, Cornmeal. He knows I’m lookin’ for a reason to put a boot in his ass.” He smacked Joey on the back of the head. “Go ahead,” he said. “Say what we talked about.”
“I’m sorry,” Benavides whispered. “I apologize for making you stab me in the hand.”
Thibodaux raised the brow over his good eye. “And?”
“And for making you knock me out with a jar of pole beans.”
Jacques kissed his wife good-bye and gave Kim a hug because that’s the way he did business. He told her Jericho was fine the last he saw him — though that wasn’t really true since he’d just been stabbed with a poison pellet and was being held prisoner in a Chinese hospital. He figured Kim was too fragile to hear the piddly details.