“She does look a little crazy,” Garcia whispered as a small woman with a frosted blond pixie cut stepped to the aircraft door and stopped, her neck moving birdlike, as she looked around. Quinn estimated her to be about five three.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Garcia, he leaned his head sideways, his eye still on Beaudine. “What do you mean?”
“I got ways of picking up on these things,” Garcia said. “Jacques is right. You should watch yourself.”
“It’s her figure, isn’t it?” Quinn said, earning an elbow in the ribs. “You’re jealous because she’s in shape.”
Garcia assured him she wasn’t the jealous type — but Quinn knew she didn’t relish the idea of him traveling into bush Alaska with a woman who wore a pair of Wranglers as well as Khaki Beaudine.
Along with the form-fitting Wrangler jeans, Jacques’s cousin wore a black turtleneck that highlighted her athletic build. Quinn felt the same way about turtlenecks as he did neckties, which was to say he hated them both. They made him feel as though a small and sickly child was trying to choke him to death. Khaki Beaudine wore hers well enough to earn an extra moment of glare from Ronnie.
Beaudine carried an earth-tone 5.11 backpack in her hand like a briefcase. She had a black parka shell draped over her left arm, exposing a Glock pistol, two extra magazines, handcuffs, and a gold FBI badge on her belt.
She nodded at Quinn as if she recognized him. Her eyes were bright aquamarine under the harsh light of the hangar, but they did not look particularly happy to see him.
“FBI.” She stuck out her hand. “Khaki Beaudine.” Quinn noticed a heavy twang, but wasn’t sure anyone in the world could say the words “Khaki Beaudine” without having an accent.
“Welcome to Alaska.” Quinn smiled, sizing her up without staring. “You’re Jacques’s cousin?”
“That’s right.” A half smile pulled into a pinched grimace as if she’d caught the odor of something unpleasant. “I can only imagine the things he’s told you about me.”
“Just that you were related,” Ronnie said, covering for Jacques.
“Well, I guess I got more to worry about than a tale-tellin’ cousin.” Beaudine dropped her backpack on the hanger floor and fished out a small tablet computer. She wagged her head at Quinn while she slid the computer from a black neoprene case and folded out the screen. “Truth be told, I never wanted anything to do with you spooks. Bureau counterintelligence is like a bunch of English professors who see some hidden meaning in every damn thing. ‘The whale represents evil… the whale is Ahab… the whale is a quest…’” Beaudine scoffed. “No Counter Intel secret squirrel mumbo jumbo for me. The Violent Crime Squads, they know how to handle their shit. Call stuff what it is, straight up — a dangerous whale that needs to be hunted down and killed.”
“I see,” Quinn said, wondering if she’d ever even read Moby Dick.
“Anyhow,” Beaudine said. “I’ve got orders to link up with the national security advisor as soon as I’m off the plane.”
Beaudine typed a password on the tablet, then consulted a small key fob from her pocket for the numbers she’d need to get through the second layer of security. This passcode changed every sixty seconds and only worked once she’d logged in with her password. The tech was years old, but the cumbersome nature of it made it secure, and changing the methods of the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country could be glacially slow.
Winfield Palmer’s ruddy, pixilated face appeared on screen a moment later. With the intense look of a man with heavy purpose, the national security advisor sat behind his expansive mahogany desk. Quinn recognized the off-site office he kept near Crystal City, Virginia. Still inside the Beltway but across the Potomac from DC proper, the quiet shopping district was a stone’s throw from the Pentagon and a dozen different intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.
“Here’s what we know,” Palmer said a few moments later. “Preliminary test results on the stuff used in Dallas show it’s a binary nerve agent akin to VX and Soman — maybe one of the Russian Novichok agents that have worried us for the last decade.”
“Newcomer,” Garcia said, translating the Russian.
Special Agent Beaudine nodded at the translation.
“Correct,” Palmer said. “Only our guys say this stuff looks to be at least a dozen times more powerful than Sarin. It’s made of two relatively harmless components, but they become a fulminating compound when mixed, producing a heavy and lingering vapor. Extremely toxic stuff.”
“Twelve times as powerful?” Garcia frowned.
“At least,” Palmer said. “They’re telling me that if Aum would have had this stuff in the Tokyo subway attack in ’95 most of the thousand injured would have died instead of just twelve.”
“Not easy to manufacture, I’d imagine,” Quinn mused. “At least not without some serious lab equipment.”
Ronnie nodded. “I doubt the Islamic State or any one of the other wannabe groups of that ilk even have the glassware to produce something like this. They’d probably gas themselves in the process.”
Beaudine shrugged. “The Islamic State has been trying to recruit scientists,” she said. “But we don’t think they’ve been successful as of yet. This gas used in Dallas and LA was weapons grade, not some homemade pickle-jar variety. It takes a government facility to manufacture this stuff.”
“How does all this lead back to Nome?” Quinn asked. He caught the flightiness in Beaudine’s eyes. It was clear she’d rather be somewhere else.
Palmer laid both hands flat on top of his desk. The huge mahogany thing was big enough to warrant its own zip code, but he was meticulous about keeping it free of clutter.
“At any given time, the FBI keeps tabs on seventeen chemists,” Palmer said. “Men and women who they believe are capable of developing sophisticated nerve agents. Some work for foreign governments, some live right here in the U.S. We’re not ruling anyone out at this point.”
As if on cue, Agent Beaudine pulled a light-blue folder from her pack and handed it to Quinn. It was marked Top Secret in bold letters with a red diagonal stripe across its face. “Passport records show that a little over seven hours ago one of those seventeen scientists, a Russian named Kostya Volodin, passed through Immigration and Customs at the Nome, Alaska, port of entry.”
“That is odd he would come to the U.S. the day of the attacks,” Ronnie said.
Agent Beaudine rolled her eyes. “That’s true,” she said. “We have a contact in Russia who saw the doctor some four months ago and believes he’s in the early stages of dementia. The Customs official in Nome confirms that he seemed addled, which makes him an even less-likely candidate for developing a gas of this complexity. More likely he’s on a holiday. Guess that’s why the Bureau sent a junior agent to check him out.” She gave a little toss of her head. Quinn noticed she was smart enough to keep off camera so Palmer couldn’t see it.
“I thought they sent you because you speak Russian,” Quinn asked.
“I guess there’s that,” Beaudine said, still pouting like a child being forced into a chore.
Ronnie took a half step forward, making certain Palmer could see her on the screen. “Don’t forget, sir, my father was Russian. I speak the language fluently. I know I can help on this. I’m ready to go to Nome now if needed.”
“Durakov ne seyut, ne zhnut, sami rodyatsya,” Beaudine said under her breath and off camera.
Garcia shot her a hard look but said nothing, focusing instead on Palmer.