“If it helps,” the surgeon went on, his voice calm and earnest without a hint of condescension, “I’m an old Air Force surgeon and I’ve seen hundreds of wounds like this one. I could have had an OR table set up right beside her when she was shot and we still wouldn’t have been able to save that leg.”
He put a hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “Son, you had about three minutes out there to keep her from bleeding to death. You did a hell of a job. I’ll get her set up with a good rehab and prosthetics guy, a friend of mine. He can work miracles.”
Special Agent Torrance cleared his throat as the surgeon walked away. DeKirk stood next to him, seething like a smoldering coal. Apparently the phone call had done the trick, but he wasn’t happy about it.
Agent Torrance spoke first. “We don’t have much yet, sir, but you get all we have.”
Quinn said nothing. The last thing he wanted to do was turn this into a turf war.
“The shooter abandoned the rifle in a tree that looks like the shooting platform,” Torrance went on. “A heavy-barreled Remington 700 MLR in .338 Lapua.”
“Hmmm.” Quinn mulled the information over. It was no wonder Kim had lost her leg. MLR stood for Medium Long Range rifle. The .338 Lapua had been purpose-built as a sniper round, capable of sending a 250-grain bullet downrange at a thousand meters per second.
“Looks to have some custom work done on it,” the young OSI agent said. “But nothing outside the realm of what a neighborhood gunsmith could do.”
“I’m sure you won’t find any prints,” Quinn said. “It takes a professional to make a shot like that.”
“My thoughts exactly,” DeKirk said, finally calm enough to join the conversation. “We interviewed a bunch of German tourists at the Visitors Center who said they saw an Asian woman walk down the trail from the woods near where we found the sniper rifle. They describe her as small but strong looking, maybe in her mid-twenties. One guy said she had”—he consulted his notebook—“den bösen Blick.”
Torrance nodded. “I did a Google search. It means ‘evil eye.’ Anyway, a quick review of the security tapes looks like she knew where the cameras were. We have her walking down the trail and through the Visitors Center lot, but she never lets us get a view of her face. She must have parked in a spot without a camera, because we lose track of her after that.”
“What about cameras at the exits?” Quinn asked.
Torrance smiled. “That’s where we got something. Seven minutes after Major Moore called in the shooting, a white Hyundai Santa Fe left through the North Gate with an Asian female behind the wheel. She had a ball cap pulled down low so we didn’t get much of a shot of her face, but the LP comes back to a rental company out of Colorado Springs. The clerk there says it was rented by someone named”—he consulted his notes—“Roku Yamamoto.”
“Hmmph.” Thibodaux scoffed. “That’s fittin’. Isoroku Yamamoto planned the attack on Pearl Harbor.”
“Anyway,” DeKirk said, unimpressed by the Cajun’s knowledge of history. “I put a BOLO out on the car. I have Colorado State Patrol scouring the highways north and south of here. Denver and Cheyenne airports are on alert as well. But I gotta tell you, trying to locate someone when our only description is ‘Asian female’ gives us pretty grim odds.” He narrowed his eyes at Quinn. “So, what I really hope is that you can give me something else to go on. You know of any Japanese women who’d want to hurt you?”
Quinn shook his head. “No,” he said honestly, but stopped there.
“Look,” DeKirk forced a tight smile. “Believe me, I understand the whole ‘need to know’ thing. Hell, I’m with the FBI. The Bureau practically invented the shutout. But I’m not one of the counterintel spooks. Someone attempts to assassinate a civilian on a military installation, so it falls to me to investigate. I happen to be a damn good investigator — and all I want to do is catch this person. Here’s my card. If you find yourself in a spot where you can help me do it, give me a call. Otherwise… these guys can fill you in on the damn little we know.” He shrugged. “I hope your ex gets better soon.”
Torrance gave Quinn his card as well, noting his cell number written on the back. “Call if you need anything, sir. I’ll have my reports in I2MS today, so you’ll have access to everything I do.”
Quinn shook hands with both men. They were just doing their jobs. DeKirk, keeping up the FBI tradition of trying to run the entire show, and Torrance, the dutiful subordinate.
Quinn turned to Garcia and Thibodaux after the elevator doors closed on the other two agents. The Marine’s dark uniform hid most of his stains, but Garcia’s sunshine yellow dress showed broad swatches of red, like a Jackson Pollock painting.
Quinn closed his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts. “What else did you see out there?”
“No tracks good enough to follow,” Thibodaux said, shooting a glance at Garcia. “The kid here noticed something, though.”
“It’s probably nothing.” Ronnie shrugged. “But I could have sworn I smelled peppermint around the tree where the shooter left the rifle.”
“Peppermint,” Quinn mused, making a mental note. “Sucking on a breath mint’s not like a professional assassin. .”
Thibodaux’s eyebrow crawled above his black patch. “Maybe she was aimin’ at you and missed. That ain’t very professional.”
Quinn’s head spun at a sudden realization, remembering how Mattie jumped just before Kim fell, how her ponytail had been neatly clipped away by the bullet. “The shot wasn’t for Kim. It was for Mattie.” Quinn reached in the pocket of his uniform slacks and pulled out the lock of dark hair. He swayed on his feet, dizzy, letting adrenaline overwhelm him for the first time since the attack. He fell back, collapsing in one of the waiting-room chairs.
Ronnie sat beside him. Strong thigh pressed alongside his, she stroked the back of his hand.
Thibodaux hunkered down in front of him so they were face-to-face. “Who would do that? Who’s out there that would kill your little girl but leave you alive?”
Quinn sat very still, remembering his confrontation with a handful of Japanese punks while he’d been following Hartman Drake. A plan began to form in his mind. With every breath, his strength and resolve returned. At length he stood, letting Garcia’s hand slide away.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “But the Speaker of the House will. I’ve been wanting to talk to him for some time now.”
“What are you thinking, l’ami?” Thibodaux stood as well.
“I’m going to call Palmer and find out where Hartman Drake is, then I’ll book the first flight there after I get Kim settled.”
“We’ll come with.” Thibodaux gave a somber nod. “You better change clothes first. You look like you been choppin’ off zombie heads.”
“It’s better if I do this alone.”
“The hell you say.” Thibodaux frowned. “You were half a breath away from ripping that FBI guy’s head off — and, it pains me to say it, but he’s one of us. The way you’re feelin’, ain’t nobody gonna blame you for showing some emotion. But the last thing you ought to do is go in by yourself. You need a wingman.” He looked at Garcia. “And woman.”
“This is liable to be bad,” Quinn said. “I can’t risk getting you two involved.”
“For a guy who speaks umpteen languages you can be pretty dense, Chair Force. It’s because things might get bad that you need us along.”
“No,” Quinn said.
He took a tight breath through his nose, staring into space. In defensive tactics they called it a thousand-yard stare. It was almost always the precursor to a fight.
“Okay.” Jacques threw up his hands. “I’ve seen that look before. You get like this and you can’t even get out of your own way. There’s no arguing with you. Even if I happen to be right and you happen to know it…”