Ronnie pulled the bud out of her ear and slowed long enough to shove the phone in the fanny pack along with her pistol. It made her stomach hurt to think of Jericho going to Russia with his ex-wife, even if it was just a place to stash her and keep her safe. It would have been easier if the woman was a flaming bitch, but Kimberly Quinn was fragile — especially since the shooting. Beyond that, she was the mother of Quinn’s child — and that frightened Garcia more than anything.
Ronnie decided a little tradecraft would help push the jealous thoughts out of her brain. She spun in her tracks halfway down the block to run back the way she’d come. A blue Ford Escape with heavily tinted windows had been matching her pace. It sped up when she turned, passing with both the driver and a passenger staring straight ahead as if she didn’t exist. It was called “conspicuous ignoring.” The nimrods may as well have had government surveillance written all over the vehicle.
Ronnie shook her head. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so sad. She turned back again, heading toward the nearby lake that was surrounded by jogging trails. This was going to be a long five miles.
Chapter 19
Vice President Lee McKeon took the buzzing cell phone out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID. It was blocked, as he suspected it would be. Calls that came in on this particular phone were rarely from anyone who wished to be identified.
Drake was still in the gym on the second floor of the residence, foolishly working on his physique when he should have been attending to important matters of state, but McKeon didn’t mind. It gave him some quiet time with Ran in the privacy of the President’s study. Thin shafts of light filtered through the drawn curtains. He would have rather sat in the Oval Office, but there were too many gawkers walking back and forth along the colonnade. And, as he discovered when they had taken over, the door to the Oval Office had a peephole so staffers could look in and see when the President was about to finish a meeting.
McKeon sat at the end of a leather chaise longue across from Drake’s desk. He’d kicked off his shoes and stretched out his long, somewhat bony legs to rest them on a Queen Anne chair he’d pulled around to use as a footrest. Though the West Wing staff, Secret Service, and Marine guards might not approve of the way the Vice President lounged around in the office while the commander in chief was away, there was nothing they could do about it as long as POTUS didn’t put his foot down. And if POTUS put his foot down, that foot would not remain in the presidency very long. McKeon would make certain of that.
Ran, the Vice President’s slender Japanese aide, lay stretched out on the couch beside him, asleep, with her head in his lap. He toyed with the collar of her silk blouse as he answered the phone, peeking at the dark green ink of a tattoo above her smallish breast. It hurt his heart to think that his wife would return from Oregon soon. He would have to do something about that….
“Peace be unto you, my brother,” the caller said, inhaling sharply to punctuate his words. It was Qasim Ranjhani, but neither man would ever speak the name aloud on the phone. Though their names and accents were miles apart, had the two men been standing side by side, people might believe Ranjhani was McKeon’s shorter brother. They were in fact, distantly related.
“And to you,” McKeon answered. “I assume you have important news to be calling me at this time of day.”
“In point of fact I do,” Ranjhani said, his voice clicking with Pakistani English. “Just moments ago, I received an interesting call from a friend with FSB.”
“Is that so?” McKeon nodded in thought. FSB — Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti — was the Russian Security Service, the modern offspring of the KGB. It made sense that Qasim would have a finger in that piece of Kremlin pie. “And what did this friend have to tell you?” McKeon asked. He ran his hand over the creamy skin on the nape of the sleeping Japanese girl’s neck.
“It was regarding the fugitive,” Qasim said. “The one from that business in Japan. It looks as though someone has booked him airline passage from Alaska to Moscow via Vladivostok.”
“Interesting,” McKeon said. That made sense, considering the sparse reports he was getting from the bumbling Oryx Group regarding their present mission. “When?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Qasim said. “He’s apparently going with his wife and daughter.”
“His ex-wife,” the Vice President corrected. “Priceless.”
“I keep forgetting they aren’t still married.”
“So does he, apparently,” McKeon said. “Do you know what I am thinking?”
“I believe I do,” Qasim said. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“Very well,” McKeon said. “Is there time to make it happen?”
“Only just,” Qasim said.
“I’ll leave it to you to make it happen.”
The Vice President used his thumb to end the call, and then sat staring at the phone for a moment.
The Japanese woman stirred in his lap. Taut muscles rippled under the sheer fabric of her blouse. She was curled into a fetal position, her wool skirt hiked up high on her thighs to reveal the heavy green-and-black shadows of the traditional tattoo that covered her legs like a pair of shorts. McKeon was certain she’d fallen asleep that way to tantalize him. She was a she-devil, of that there was no doubt. There was something about her that would surely drag him down to hell, singing all the way. The swell of a dagger was just visible at her waistline — a constant reminder of just how deadly she was.
She nuzzled his hip with her cheek, but didn’t open her eyes.
“Why do you not just kill him?” she asked.
“Drake?”
“Quinn.” She opened one eye, looking up at him.
McKeon shrugged. “To be honest, I thought we had — but the men I sent were not successful.”
“I would sort him out for you,” she said. “All you need do is ask.” Sorting out was Ran’s euphemism for killing. He’s seen her work. It was always bloody, the bloodier the better for her, but she spoke of it as if she were alphabetizing files or folding socks.
Sometimes, in his dreams, he saw her as he had the first time they had met, completely naked, short sword in her hand, the gaudy art of her full-body tattoo bathed in the blood of her victim. It was a terrifying image. Thankfully, she was on his side.
“He’ll be dead by noon tomorrow.” McKeon put his hand on the swell of her hip, in the little hollow just below her waist. His fingers brushed the dagger. “But, if you need a throat to cut, my wife returns from Oregon at the end of the week.”
Ran brightened at the notion of something to do. “I would have to sort out a couple of Secret Service agents to make it happen.”
McKeon let his hand run down to the back of her knee. “Sacrifices must be made.”
She grabbed his hand before he could move it any farther. “And what does Islam say about murdering your wife so you might take an infidel woman to your bed?”
McKeon let his head fall to one side, looking at this beautiful woman’s face. “Make no mistake,” he said. “My work here is not about my place in Islam. It is about my father’s legacy. I have no delusions about the fact that you and I are both going to burn in hell.”
Chapter 20
Tang Dalu stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows inside security, eyes locked on the plane he and his team would soon blow apart somewhere over the desert of eastern California.