Pete Quinn’s large gray eyes held the same look they had one winter when Jericho and Bo were boys and he’d told them their favorite dog had been eaten by a pack of wolves.
“What is it?” Jericho said, bracing himself for the worst.
“She banged her leg pretty bad when those guys tried to get her and Mattie in the van,” he said. “I think she’ll be fine, but doctors are worried about blood clots. She’s in the hospital at Bethesda. I know you’re worried, son, but Bo is with her night and day. Your friend Jacques is pulling security and helping out more than seems humanly possible. He’s a good man. I like him.”
“Me too,” Quinn said. “But he’s got his own family to worry about.”
Quinn’s mother handed him the folder with Mattie’s passport and the visas Thibodaux had given her. Quinn gave her a hug at the base of the escalators leading to the second level and through security, apologizing for turning her into a mule for forged documents. She gave him a tense smile, tears welling in her eyes.
“Don’t cry, Mom,” he said. “Dad always said God counts a woman’s tears and blames them on us guys.”
The matriarch of the Quinn family smoothed the front of her light Windbreaker. “Well,” she sniffed, “if that’s the case, you boys are going to have a lot of explaining to do someday.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek before gathering Mattie in for one last hug. “Now remember,” she said. “Your name is Mattie Hackman. Don’t forget that.”
“Ten-four, Nana.” Mattie grinned, giving a little mock salute.
Jericho shook his father’s hand. “I wish you’d let me make some calls. I’ve kind of turned you into a target over here.”
The elder Quinn shook his head. “Have you seen the fish runs this year? I have a boat to tend and a crew who depends on me. We’ll be so far out in the ocean, nobody’s going to bother with us.”
“Don’t you fret over us.” Quinn’s mother waved off any thought of worry. She seemed soft, but Quinn knew she was tough as barbed wire underneath the façade. She had to be to be married to his dad and raise the two boys she’d been given. “We’ll be fine.”
“All right.” Jericho sighed. “I don’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
His mother gave him a half grin. “Those are the exact words I used when you told me you were taking up boxing.”
Since they were taking an international flight, Quinn produced a notarized letter at the security checkpoint, signed by Kimberly Hackman, giving him permission to leave the country with their child. Kim had signed it, and Bo had used his charm to get one of his girlfriends to notarize it. The heavyset TSA officer, who was all of twenty-four, had still quizzed Mattie with some halfhearted questions and consulted with his most recent Amber Alerts and NCMEC Missing Children photos to make sure Quinn wasn’t stealing his own child. Thankfully, he worried more over that than checking out their false identification. The ID was plenty real. It was, in fact, manufactured by the government and presumably off the books. But allegiances changed and unless Miyagi or Palmer had printed the passports themselves, someone else knew of their existence. Quinn had never worried about it before, but Mattie’s presence added an entire new level of tension.
When they finally made it past security and were sitting at the gate, Quinn found himself mildly surprised that he wasn’t dog piled by law enforcement. Still half an hour away from boarding, passengers crowded around the podium so they could be the absolute first to board. Quinn suppressed a smile in spite of his nerves. It was easy to see why airline personnel called such impatient passengers “gate lice.”
Mattie had calmed down quickly, as she always did, and now sat listening to music on her iPod. A multitasker at seven, she swung her legs off the edge of her chair while she flipped through the pages of her Lemony Snicket book. Her mother had been shot, her father was a fugitive, and armed men had tried to shove her in a van just hours before, but she appeared to share Quinn’s ability to compartmentalize and carry on in the face of events that would cause other people immobilizing stress. She’d not skipped a beat in giving the TSA agents her fake name, jabbering away with just enough details about their long-planned vacation to Russia. Quinn couldn’t help but wonder how many other traits she’d inherited from him — and worried over how much of a problem this special talent at lying would be when she hit her teens.
He took a deep breath and willed himself to be as calm as his daughter. The next big hurdle would be clearing Immigration and Customs once they reached their destination. If anything, Russians were known for their convoluted bureaucracy. He’d been through plenty with Aleksandra Kanatova and he knew she was trustworthy enough to keep up her end of the plan. But even with her help, the odds were overwhelming that they would run into all manner of problems entering the country — even on clean passports.
Quinn consoled himself with the idea that the twelve-hour flight would give him time to rest and make plans. The plane would stop in Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula first, then Vladivostok, before continuing on to Moscow, where he’d have to make first contact with Russian immigration officials. He hoped Kanatova would be there and waiting.
Quinn looked at the information board above the Global gate, and then checked the Tag Aquaracer on his wrist. If nothing happened for the next half an hour he’d be able to relax — at least while they were in the air.
Chapter 37
August Bowen located Garcia with little trouble amid the crowd of families, flirting teenagers, and screaming children at the outdoor water park. It was ironic that a woman who seemed bent on playing spy games should possess oh so many traits that made her do everything but blend in. She lounged up to her shoulders in a raised tile hot tub that was tucked in behind a gigantic, spaghetti-like yellow waterslide. Deeply bronzed and well-muscled, she was still supremely feminine. The parts of her that lay above the surface shouted for everyone in the park to guess what lay beneath the water.
Bowen walked barefoot across the concrete, smiling, happy to feel the heat against his toes. He’d changed into a pair of blue board shorts in the locker room and shut his clothes up with a combination lock that reminded him of his days back in junior-high gym class. Even a halfhearted thief would be able to defeat such a basic padlock in a manner of seconds, so he kept the dive watch on his wrist and submitted his wallet to fate. He congratulated himself for having the forethought to leave his gun locked in the center console of his Charger.
A blinding sun reflected and refracted off the rippling blue surface of the many small pools and rivers that made up the park. The warm Virginia air, heavy with the odor of chlorine and Coppertone, mingled with the must of oaks from the greenbelt that ran between Manassas and Centerville before sliding like a leafy delta into Battlefield Park.
Bowen worked his way through scattered deck chairs and gangs of barely dressed teenagers. Screaming toddlers ran by on stubby legs or washed back and forth with their mothers in the nearby wave pool.
With so many big-armed, khaki-clad federal lawdogs wearing all the latest gadgets, August Bowen strove for practical over practi-cool, both in gear and physique. Blue jeans and a T-shirt beat out khakis and polo shirts when the marshal didn’t force his hand at work. Like many boxers, he rarely lifted weights, feeling they slowed him down and gave him mirror-muscles instead of true, usable power. He worked hard to keep the body of a fighter, hardened by hours of skipping rope, long runs, and years of pounding the heavy bag.