He could see Lin’s reflection in the glass. She leaned back in her chair, pallid face toward the ceiling, eyes closed as if she was asleep. Tang knew better. His wife rarely slept anymore. Many evenings he had returned home from his work as a Qingyang City policeman, to find her sitting in the same chair where he’d left her when he’d gone. The cup of tea he’d made her for breakfast, the cake, all untouched. At first he had pled with her, begged her to eat, to see a physician for something to help her sleep. Then, he’d screamed until frothy spittle had flown from his mouth. He’d even slapped her, knocking her from her chair, telling himself it was for her own good, to snap her out of her stupor. She’d merely knelt at his feet, soft hands clutching pitifully at the pistol on his belt, and begged him to put it to her head and end her misery. To his shame, he’d struck her again, harder this time — because he had not known what else to do.
He had locked his gun away in the box beneath their bed and gone to sleep, leaving her to climb back in her chair and stare at nothing.
Even when the man from Pakistan had come and given them purpose, that purpose had only given her blank eyes something on which to focus. It did not help her sleep.
Tang watched the last few passengers pull their roller bags off the plane, milling with the waiting crowd that would soon take their place. A man with a heavy suitcase stepped around him to take a seat by the window so he could get better phone reception. In his haste, the man kicked over the camera bag that sat at Tang’s feet. Even through his misery Tang felt it deliciously ironic that a rude man would shove his way past the very object that would soon bring about his death.
Tang drew the bag closer with the toe of his shoe, holding it safely between his feet. Across the aisle from Lin, Hu Qi clutched his bag to his chest. They had decided against assembling the bomb in one of the airport restroom stalls. There was too great a chance that the hawkish TSA guards milling around in the gate area would decide to flex their inviolable muscles one last time during the boarding process.
Hu and Ma stood together, just outside the gate. Gao had put his last dollar bill into one of the slot machines in the middle of the terminal and now sat quietly, stooped over, head resting in his hands. Any talk was pointless. There were no more dreams to discuss, no more women to conquer, no more riches to seek — no more tomorrow.
Each man had long ago made peace with his decision. They waited quietly and thought about the things men think about when they stand on the bittersweet edge of death for a greater cause.
The gate agent called for their row, causing Lin to open her eyes. She did not smile, but looked at Tang and nodded, as if let him know that everything would now be all right. Tang hung his head, mired in a mixture of religious fervor and regret. He had never really made his wife happy, and now the only way to ease her misery was to watch her die.
The cell phone in his pocket rang as he bent to pick up the camera bag. He jumped a little when he felt the unexpected sensation. Other than the members of his team, only one person had the number.
“Yes?” Tang said, turning to face the window again. For some reason, it helped calm him to look at the skin of the plane he was about to destroy.
“There has been a change of plans,” Qasim Ranjhani said, breathing deeply through his nose.
“We are boarding,” Tang whispered.
“Well, stop boarding,” Ranjhani said, calmly, not realizing that what he asked was akin to ordering a man not to kill himself once the blade was half into his belly.
“But, sir,” Tang gasped. “We have prepared. We cannot abandon—”
“There will be no abandoning of anything,” the Pakistani said, voice clicking away. “You will all accomplish the same mission, but it must be tomorrow — and with much greater effect.”
“As you say.” Tang felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He glanced quickly at Ma Zhen, who was in the lead, just three away from the head of the line. Tang shook his head. He waved his hand, motioning for the young man to step aside. The others followed, heads bowed, eyes closed. Gao looked a little relieved, another problem Tang would have to deal with.
Ranjhani continued with his explanation. “The next flight to Alaska leaves in two hours. I have made arrangements for you and your people to be on it. I have booked you all on Global Airlines flight 105 from Anchorage to Vladivostok tomorrow morning. You will have to pass through Customs, but I have taken care of the necessary paperwork.”
“Of course,” Tang said.
“Believe me, my friend,” the Pakistani said. “Nothing has changed but for the time and place. You will all make a great difference.”
The others crowded around Tang by the time he ended the call. Lin slouched in a chair a few feet away. She had no stomach for petty details and wanted only for this to be over.
Tang explained their new orders.
“Tomorrow?” Gao said, his thick face twisting into a scowl. “I will need to borrow some money so I can eat.”
Gao was chosen to be their muscle. He was a depressed psychopath whose mother would be well taken care of after his death. It was only right that he keep his strength up. Tang dug a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket and shoved it at the frowning man. It was all the money he had left, but that didn’t matter, he had no appetite.
He was a bullet in a gun, with no will of his own — and bullets did not get hungry.
Chapter 21
Quinn had been so busy trying to connect with Ronnie and Jacques before he lost the cell tower that he hadn’t had time to notice how cramped the interior of the little Super Cub actually was until they were well away from Mountain Village.
Rain streaked the Plexiglas, buzzing with the growl of the 150-horse Lycoming engine as the plane wallowed its way through guncotton clouds. Hundreds of silver lakes ghosted in and out of the heavy mist, pocking the tundra just five hundred feet below.
Not one to balk at any sort of danger, Quinn had never really been comfortable in small airplanes. He’d jumped out of a few to get his wings as an Air Force Academy cadet, then later, during training as a combat rescue officer or CRO — the commissioned rank of the Air Force PJs. It was an odd reality that he felt more comfortable dangling under the canopy of his chute, held aloft by only a few dozen lengths of skinny cord, than he did cooped up in a tiny winged box over which he had no control. He supposed that was the problem. If he’d ever taken the time to learn to fly, he might have felt better about the whole notion. Placing his safety in the hands of another had never been easy — and now he’d turned his life over to a twentysomething girl who was addicted to punk-ash tobacco and appeared to be dancing to Queen behind the controls of the airplane.
Lovita’s small shoulders and peroxide-orange hair bounced in time to the music, just inches in front of him. Her green David Clark earphones had a large piece of sheepskin running along the top to cushion her smallish head, making her look like an elf wearing a ridiculous hat. Every so often, she gave in to the urge and belted out the notes with Freddie, causing her husky voice to buzz across the intercom into Quinn’s headset. She was amazingly good, though her voice was an octave lower than any member of the Queen ensemble.
Quinn shifted in his seat, trying to readjust in the cramped quarters. He tried to imagine someone as big as Jacques crammed into the tiny plane behind Lovita and realized such a thing would have been impossible. She was so close that it felt as though she was flying with her shoulders between his knees. She would have been wearing the big Cajun like a backpack.