“Yeah, he’s a real bastard,” Joey said. “But he’s good at what he does. Probably because he enjoys it so much. The guy’s ready to go all medieval on anybody’s ass to get them to talk. I’ll tell you this though: He gets results. That’s for sure.” Benavides laughed, snorting through his nose as if he couldn’t quite contain himself. “Ross was out running when we arrested her. Walter sent us in to take her little shorts and T-shirt away from her.” Benavides’s voice grew quieter as if he was confiding a secret. But he’d drunk enough beer that it was still plenty loud for Bowen’s phone to pick it up. “He made her think we were going to rape her.” Joey paused to take a drink of his beer. “The poor bitch was so scared she pissed herself.”
“Geez!” the kid whispered. “I’m not cut out for that. I’ll stick with surveillance.”
“It’s part of the job.” Joey laughed. “You get used to it. Sometimes you have to close your eyes and do the hard things for your country. I’ll tell you this though, if she doesn’t talk, Walter has some things planned for her that will make sittin’ naked in a cold cell seem like a cakewalk.”
Bowen took a long, deliberate breath through his nose. He slowly opened and closed his fist, feeling the knuckles pop. It took every ounce of self-control to keep from reaching around the partition and turning the greasy excuse for a human being into fry sauce. Instead, Bowen watched the bouncing needle on his phone and took some measure of solace in knowing that he was recording every vile word that spewed from Joey Benavides’s mouth.
Deputy August Bowen paused the recording long enough to ask the waitress with grumpy boobs if he could borrow the phone behind the bar.
“What’s wrong with your cell?” she asked, bending a painted eyebrow.
“Almost out of juice,” he said. “It’s a local call. Those sweet potato fries are awesome, by the way. Just like you said they would be.”
The corners of her mouth perked into what was not quite a frown. For all Bowen knew it was her version of giddy.
“Sure.” She nodded at the second glass of water. “You still waiting for your girlfriend?”
“Not my girlfriend,” Bowen said. “A work associate. That’s who I’m calling.”
“That so?” She blew him a pouty kiss. It gave him chills — and not the good kind.
Before he asked to use the phone, Bowen had checked contacts in his cell and found the number for Jacques Thibodaux.
The big Cajun picked up after the first ring.
“Hallo.”
“This is Deputy Bowen with the US Mar—”
“I remember you,” Thibodaux cut him off.
“I’m helping out a mutual friend,” he said. “I could use some assistance.”
“Where and when, cher?” Thibodaux said. “You call it and I come runnin’.”
Bowen expected he’d have to provide a long explanation. “Okay then,” he said. “I’m at a place called Madam’s Organ in—”
“I know that place.” The Cajun laughed like they were old friends. “Been booted out a time or two. I’m downtown now, but I can be there in twenty minutes if traffic cooperates.”
“You don’t want to know why?”
“I surely do not,” Thibodaux said. “Not on the phone anyhow.”
“Watch your back trail,” Bowen said, almost as an afterthought.
“Always, cher,” Thibodaux said, then hung up.
Bowen barely knew the big Marine. They’d met during the initial interviews when Bowen was assigned the fugitive warrant for Jericho Quinn. They’d crossed paths again in Japan. Quinn, Garcia, Thibodaux, and their badass friend, Emiko Miyagi, had all been involved in some deadly spy games that were miles above his pay grade.
Bowen had been around long enough to know that the big world was really a very small place. Whatever it was that was going on in the highest levels of government, it was very likely related to that group’s bloody adventures in Japan.
Bowen needed backup, but he wanted someone who wasn’t committed to the wrong side. He had no doubt Ronnie could handle herself in a confrontation, but his chivalrous bones couldn’t bear the thought of exposing any woman, even one as tough as Garcia, to the likes of Joey Benavides — or what he planned to do to him.
Chapter 43
Tang clutched the end of his armrest in a death grip, turning his knuckles white. He closed his eyes and worked to slow his breathing. There was little else he could do.
Intermittent turbulence and an overly cautious pilot kept everyone in their seats for nearly an hour after the aircraft reached its cruising altitude. Unable to keep still, Tang snatched the phone from the cubby beside his seat and checked the clock, like he’d done every two minutes for the last half hour. The window of opportunity was slamming shut before his eyes and he was powerless to fight it.
It was imperative that the plane be brought down over the Bering Sea. Apart from the fact that the icy waters would ensure there were no survivors, an investigation over international waters made it much more likely that the Americans would find the necessary clues regarding the cause of the plane’s destruction. The Russians were far too cozy with Beijing to let the US find out Chinese operatives were behind the crash if Global 105 went down over Russian soil. There was too great a risk the investigation would be mired in the black hole of Kremlin bureaucracy and the whole thing would simply be written off as another unexplained aviation disaster. That was all good food for conspiracy theorists, but useless for Tang’s purposes — or the purposes of the man from Pakistan.
If the death of his daughter was to matter, the device had to be deployed within the next ninety minutes. It would take half of that to assemble — leaving very little room for error.
Virtually chained in place by his seat belt, Tang turned to check on his wife. Her seat nearly all the way back, she hummed softly to herself, facing the window. For months, through all his begging and pleading, she’d been silent as a stone — and she chose now to show her emotions. He recognized the song immediately as one they used to sing to Mei Li, their little girl.
Over the last hour he’d watched her come undone before his eyes, thawing from her two-year emotional freeze. It would not last, he was certain of that. The American girl had touched a delicate nerve. That was all. All too soon, Lin would slip back into her miserable trance. Their daughter was dead and no saccharine-sweet words of clumsy Chinese from a guizi child would do anything to bring her back.
Lin’s humming grew louder until it threatened to fill the quiet cabin of the aircraft. Tang watched in horror as a smile crept across the reflection of her face. This newfound flash of happiness, this… counterfeit joy, made him want to slam her head against the wall.
Oblivious to his inner turmoil, she turned on her side, looking at him as she used to when they talked together in bed. “I worry for that little one if we continue,” she whispered.
Tang’s mouth fell open, dumbfounded. “What do you mean if we continue?” he hissed. “We have no choice but to continue.” He’d thought she might feel pity for the American child, but he never dreamed she would consider not following through with the plan.
Lin studied him without blinking for a long moment. Wispy lengths of hair, thin and dull from her two-year diet of little but tea and crackers, fell across gaunt cheeks.
Heavy turbulence continued to creak the giant aircraft, reminding Tang that he was trapped. It felt as if they were riding over a badly maintained road.