He’d purchased the ring nearly two months before, while Garcia was still in the hospital. It started to burn a hole in his pocket immediately after he picked it up, but he knew the time wasn’t right. Ronnie Garcia had a prideful streak. She could take being slapped around by the bad guys, stabbed, or even shot, but she would not accept pity.
So Quinn had been patient, playing a game of watchful waiting, looking for the moment when she felt good enough about herself to feel good about them. In preparation, he’d brought her to Alaska to spend more time with his parents and the wild state that had raised him.
She and Mattie hit it off like long-lost friends. Quinn’s mother spent an entire day with her shopping in downtown Anchorage and getting pedicures together — which to Quinn’s mom had always been a right of passage for any of her sons’ girlfriends. Quinn’s old man, who had never been much of a talker, had invited Ronnie into the sanctum of his mancave, going so far as to open his walk-in gun safe and show her his prized Holland & Holland double rifle. A match to Theodore Roosevelt’s. 500/450 Nitro Express, “Big Stick,” the rifle, was worth well over a hundred thousand dollars. Few people outside the family even knew of its existence, let alone got to hold it in their hands. The old-school double barrel was once tough and ornate, functional and elegant, and a perfect metaphor for the elder Quinn. The fact that their father hunted with a rifle that had no scope and was easily worth twice what he’d paid for their house had caused many a hushed discussion between the two brothers as they grew up. The sacred but old-school Holland & Holland was a personification of their father, and there was a considerable amount of contention between Bo and Jericho over who stood to inherit it.
Quinn’s phone started to buzz inside the pocket of his leather jacket as he pulled alongside the curb in front of a parking meter on Third Avenue a half block from Marx Brothers.
Quinn sighed and answered the phone while Garcia gathered up her purse and raincoat. She’d wait for him to come around and open the door, as was their agreement when they weren’t on the job.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Chair Force, you go through with it yet?” Jacques Thibodaux’s rambunctious Cajun voice spilled out of the phone. Extremely intelligent, Thibodaux had graduated cum laude from LSU and was fluent in French and Italian. Some who didn’t know him took his hulking size and Cajun accent for a sign that he was slow — they were universally mistaken. If Quinn hadn’t known the giant was a square-jawed brute, straight out of a United States Marine Corps recruiting commercial, it would have been easy to picture him as the energetic and bouncy Tigger from the Winnie the Pooh stories he read to Mattie.
“Did ya? Well, did ya?” Thibodaux’s words bounced over the phone. Quinn pressed the device to his ear so they didn’t keep bouncing and wind up in Garcia’s ears. “If you didn’t, you’re a coward, and if you did, you’re an idiot.”
“No,” Quinn said.
“No, you just haven’t gotten around to it yet?” Thibodaux said. “Or no, you’ve come to your senses?”
Quinn gave a wan smile to Garcia, who was hopefully getting only his side of the conversation.
“Not yet,” Quinn said, keeping things noncommittal.
Thibodaux snorted. “Them’s the words of a man who feels compelled to walk up the gallows steps without bein’ ordered to.”
“The arrangement seems to be treating you all right,” Quinn said. There was no need to remind the big Marine of his supremely happy marriage and seven sons.
“It do, it do, l’ami,” Thibodaux said. “But what’s good for the goose… well, you know the rest—”
There was an audible click on the line and Thibodaux’s voice cut out for a moment. Quinn looked at his phone and saw it was a call from Palmer.
“I gotta go.”
“Okay,” Thibodaux said. “But seriously, I’m happy for you, beb. Just don’t want you to come crawlin’ to me down the road and say I didn’t give you no warning.”
Quinn ended the call and felt a creeping twinge of dread as he answered the next one. The national security advisor to the president wasn’t calling to encourage him on his date with Garcia.
“Ready to go?” Win Palmer said.
“That depends on where I’m going,” Quinn said.
“Don’t you people have television in Alaska?” Palmer said. His voice was pinched and more than a little annoyed.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, sir.”
“There’s been a second attack,” Palmer said.
Quinn held the phone away from his ear so Garcia could hear.
“Another deployment of lethal gas,” Palmer continued. “This one happened during the taping of some kind of celebrity-dating reality TV show in Los Angeles. A hundred and three dead at last count — cast, crew, and much of the studio audience. Cameras caught the whole damned thing on live television. It’s not enough that these bastards attack us at home. They have discovered the extra boost of terror from keeping the attacks in the media from the start. Every network and cable channel is running an endless loop of death and carnage — giving them hours of free publicity.”
“I’m with Garcia now,” Quinn said, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Palmer didn’t call just to give him news.
“I may have something for her,” Palmer said. “But I want her back here until we get a better read on her shoulder.”
Ronnie closed her eyes and groaned at the confirmation that she was on the injured list.
“Quinn.” Palmer plowed ahead. “There’s someone I need you to meet.”
Quinn looked at his Aquaracer. “We can catch a flight to Seattle in a hour and a half. Should be able to get a red-eye to DC or Baltimore.”
“Don’t bother,” Palmer said. “She’s already en route to you.”
“Coming to Alaska?” Quinn said. Garcia cocked her head to one side. Thick black hair pooled over her injured shoulder throwing her already dark face into deeper shadows.
“ETA at JBER is just before midnight Alaska time.” JBER was Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson, adjacent to the city of Anchorage. “In the meantime, I need you packed and ready to fly to Nome.”
Quinn shrugged to Garcia. This was odd. Nome, Alaska, wasn’t exactly the cradle of terrorism.
“We’re still putting everything together,” Palmer said. “I’ll brief you all at the same time. I’m not sure how long you’ll be out, but be prepared to act as a guide for a Russian speaker who has never set foot in Alaska. I’ve arranged for a C12 to take you to Nome tonight.”
“Is Jacques coming?” Quinn asked.
“I have Thibodaux working on another matter,” Palmer said offering no more on the subject. “Be ready by 2100.”
Quinn returned the phone to his pocket, next to the lump that was the engagement ring.
Garcia turned in her seat so she faced him. “Why do you think he wouldn’t tell you who he’s sending?” she said. “What’s up with that?”
“I am not sure,” Quinn said working through the possibilities.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’m sure of,” Garcia said, her full lips set, absent their normally humorous perk at each corner. “Palmer knows I speak Russian, but for some reason he has decided I’m not fit enough to go on this mission with you.”
“They nearly killed you,” Quinn said. “You know he’d bench me too if the roles were reversed.”
Garcia scoffed. “No, he wouldn’t. He hasn’t. I’ve seen you beat to hell, and he still let you work.” Her amber eyes narrowed, thick, black lashes fluttering with tension. “What the hell, Jericho? I can play through the pain as well as anyone. And I don’t need you and Palmer to coddle me.”
Quinn bounced the back of his head on the seat, watching rivulets of rainwater braid and crease the windshield. Garcia was right. He’d fought on after being shot, having his ribs broken, even after having a toe snipped off with pruning shears — all without Palmer so much as flinching.