Emiko Miyagi had a way of tailoring each workout to coax out the last drop of sweat. Swimming, running, sparring, more running, and more sparring generally took up at least two hours before she settled in to her favorite pastime of contorting their bodies into complicated and often painful yoga positions.
It would, she assured them, train their bodies and minds to be more resilient and aware. Quinn had to admit that he seemed to heal a little faster since he’d taken up the training.
Generally, the yoga portion of their morning saw her leading them through a vinyasa—or series of poses that flowed from one to the other on measured breaths. But, above all other poses, Miyagi preferred a variation on sirsasana, a headstand on her forearms with her back arched and knees bent so her feet were poised directly above her head. Thibodaux called it the Evil Scorpion and groused about it to no end, coming close, but never quite getting it right.
Inverted like Miyagi and Thibodaux, Quinn should have been clearing his mind. Instead, he let it wander.
So far, Winfield Palmer had avoided talking to him. There was no doubt the national security advisor was upset. Quinn had screwed up and become embroiled with local authorities. The Speaker of the House was in serious condition — though his wounds were far less serious than Quinn had supposed — and Palmer had been forced to call Vegas Metro PD and the governor of Nevada in order to smooth their seriously ruffled feathers.
“Very well,” Miyagi whispered, pulling Quinn out of his thoughts and signaling the end to the morning torture.
Bending gracefully at the waist, she lowered her feet to the grass and stood before the two men, waiting for them to do the same. She arched her back, looking up toward the sky so the dark corner of a hidden tattoo peeked above the scoop neck of her leotard. The mysterious ink had been at the center of many a discussion led by Thibodaux in late-night camps in various corners of the world. Neither man could tell what it was, only catching glimpses during workouts — and neither wanted to be caught staring at this badass woman’s chest. Quinn never would hazard a guess. Thibodaux, keeping his thought process streamlined, decided it was an evil scorpion — just like the yoga pose he couldn’t do.
“Thank you for your work.” She bowed deeply in turn to each man. Her voice held only the slightest hint of a Japanese accent. “Quinn-san,” she added, turning toward him. “Mr. Palmer would like to have a word with you on the telephone, but he won’t be available for another twenty minutes. May I suggest you both take advantage of the traditional bath while you wait.”
“I got a school thing with the kids,” Thibodaux said, situating his eye patch. “Camille insists I go when I’m anywhere near home.”
“As you wish,” Miyagi said.
Quinn sighed at the thought of a long soak. The prospect of a traditional Japanese bath sounded inviting. Mrs. Miyagi had allowed him to use it before, and he found the wood-fired cedar tub a cure-all for many ills physical and mental. What he did not look forward to was the talk with Palmer. The national security advisor had been unavailable since the incident in Las Vegas. Quinn, accustomed to direct access to his boss, had felt cut off and even a little betrayed at the isolation. Now, after the emotional dust had settled and he was able to see what a scene he’d made on who knew how many cameras, he was certain the conversation would be even more one-sided than usual.
CHAPTER 15
Both Quinn and Thibodaux had lived at Emiko Miyagi’s home for a time when they’d first been tapped by Winfield Palmer to work as Other Governmental Agents. Quinn was familiar with the layout as well as the woman’s love for the austere when it came to furnishings. Though the outer brick façade of the home had changed little over the two centuries since it had been built, the interior had been completely gutted and replaced with tatami grass mats, white pine beams, and sliding paper doors.
The bath area was off to the side of the rear patio and — as all traditional baths — located far from the toilet. It was enclosed in a ten-by-ten cedar room with benches and hooks along the inside wall like a pool house. A sliding cedar door led from a lower alcove that contained a shelf stacked with folded white towels used to both wash and dry. Quinn left his running shoes in a small wooden cubby above the floor.
Japanese baths were often social locations, a place to share gossip as well as to clean oneself. Two cedar stools were situated under a row of water spigots, low and easy to reach when seated. The round tub beside the spigots was built from cedar slats and resembled an oversize barrel that had been cut in half. At nearly six feet across, it dominated the steamy room.
Stripping naked, Quinn left his sweats and T-shirt on a cedar shelf over one of the benches inside the sliding door. The faint hint of smoke from an oak fire drifted through the humid air, mingling with the smells of soap and scorched minerals from pipes that heated the near scalding water. Quinn sat in front of the spigots with a bar of soap and a wooden bowl. The stool was small, like something meant for a child, but it got the job done. Though a long soak was traditional, it was customary to scrub until your skin was pink before entering the tub, leaving the water clean enough for the next person to use as well.
Quinn finished washing and fed a length of split oak into the wood-fired heater box. He’d just slipped into the steaming water when his phone rang on the bleached wooden table next to the tub.
Winfield Palmer began talking as soon as Quinn picked up the call.
“I gotta ask,” Palmer began his rant. “Do you have any idea what kind of a shit storm you’ve ignited with your little stunt? Every news outlet in the country is filing Freedom of Information Act requests for the casino security camera footage that shows you trying to drown a man before someone else blows his brains out.”
“As far as they know it was a man who shot the Speaker of the House,” Quinn said, half to himself. He was not the type to try very hard to explain his actions. He slid down so only his head and the shoulders were above the surface.
“One of the men who shot Drake,” Palmer said, as if he had the winning card. “And a lot of good you did. Thanks to you, Drake is back at his residence and demanding answers.”
“He’s out of the hospital?” Quinn sat back up in the water, wiping beads of perspiration out of his face. This was news.
“Yes,” Palmer said. “Shot twice in the chest, but neither bullet got close to anything vital. He did lose a toe in the shootout and, oddly enough, he also had a small-caliber wound through the bottom of his foot. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Quinn chose his words carefully. “Do you remember when we met?” he asked.
“Of course,” Palmer said, momentarily stumped by the sudden question during his tongue-lashing.
“Your sister’s boy had been kidnapped in Iraq. I was sent in to get him back and… take care of things.”
“I said I remember,” Palmer snapped. “What’s your point?”
“You and I both know Hartman Drake murdered his wife. We know he was intimately connected to a terrorist organization that tried to kill the president and the VP. Someone connected to this man tried to shoot my little girl and ended up nearly killing my wife. You said it yourself before I went to Vegas. There is something bigger than an attempt on my family going on here. You are strategy, I’m tactics. I get that. But if all this had happened to someone else, you would have sent me.” Quinn plowed ahead, not giving Palmer a chance to speak.
“Point taken,” Palmer said.
“What are we going to do about Drake?”