“I’m working on that,” Palmer said. “He’s become a media darling again — attacked twice by terrorists and survived. The conspiracy blogs have fuzzy photos of you in Vegas from a half dozen tourists’ smartphones. Some call you a government agent; others have branded you one of the terrorists.”
“I can’t help that now,” Quinn said. “But I can find this Japanese girl and get some answers from her.” He kept the Foo Dog information to himself for the moment.
“All right,” Palmer snapped. “Just do us all a favor and keep your head down. Listen, I’ve got to go. We have some kind of plague outbreak in southern Utah. That’s not too far from Vegas. You don’t have anything to do with it, do you?”
“I do not,” Quinn said, feeling worse than he had before the call. “I’d better let you get to it.”
He reached over the edge of the tub and dropped the phone on the wooden table beside his towel before letting his back slide down the slick cedar boards of the tub. The slightest movement brought prickling pain in the near scalding water. He welcomed the feeling, hoping the heat and sweat would purge his body and his mind.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the heavy scent of the oak fire and mineral odor of steam. A whisper-like rustling at the sliding door caused them to flick open.
He sat up straighter, ignoring the burn at his movement, and wiped a hand across his face when he saw the form of Emiko Miyagi through the cloudy haze. She stood in front of the curtains that blocked the doorway as if waiting for permission to enter her own bath.
Quinn wasn’t uncomfortable with his own nudity. Miyagi had seen him naked before, when she and Thibodaux had rescued him from three of Doctor Badeeb’s men. But there was something oddly out of place about this visit. Japanese baths were often communal, but in the year and a half since he’d known her, Miyagi had drawn a strict line between teacher and student, remaining ever aloof and distinct.
She tilted her head to one side, studying the situation before she committed herself by stepping fully into the room. Dark hair fell in damp strands, dripping against the indigo cloth of a cotton summer kimono, known as a yukata. It was printed with large white chrysanthemums as big as a fist. A bright red sash wrapped around her narrow waist. Her face was flushed, presumably from a hot shower of her own before she was to enter the bath.
“I apologize.” Quinn grabbed his towel from the nearby table and started to get out of the tub. “You expected me to be finished with my bath by now.”
Miyagi raised her hand to stop him.
“It is quite all right, Quinn-san,” she said. Her voice was soft and matter of fact, as if she did not want to mar the contemplative mood of the bath. “Please, wait a moment longer if you do not mind.”
Jericho settled back into the water.
“I…” She paused, taking a tiny step forward, her hands clasped at her waist. The wet hair and bright kimono made her look girlish, more feminine and fragile than he knew her to actually be. “In light of all that has happened…” She nodded, moving forward again. Her steps were small, constrained by the tight kimono. “… I feel that I must tell you a story.”
She stood a mere two feet from the tub now, close enough that Quinn could see the slight tremor in her lips.
“I believe it will explain much that you need to know.” Her hands moved behind her back. “But it will also produce many questions. It is a story of youth and heartbreak — of violence and death.”
Quinn, who was surprised by little in the world, let his mouth fall open when Miyagi drew away the red sash and let the kimono slip from her shoulders and fall to the floor.
Completely nude, she gave a shuddering sigh, fragile, and completely out of her normal character.
“It is a story of my tattoo.”
CHAPTER 16
The cell phone in the breast pocket of Governor Lee McKeon’s camelhair blazer began to vibrate the moment he cut into his French toast at the Sassy Onion. He considered ignoring it. His breakfast mate, the president of Willamette University, had a lot of powerful and, more important, wealthy friends who were potential political backers. It wouldn’t do to snub him by answering a cell phone.
“Go ahead and take that, Lee,” the bow tie — wearing academic said around a mouthful of bread and syrup. “I’m sure it’s important gubernatorial business.” It was he who’d insisted they have the French toast. What else would one order for breakfast at the Sassy Onion?
McKeon thanked him for his understanding and answered without getting up, though he knew that would severely hamper his side of the conversation. Since the call was international, it would likely be monitored by one of the alphabet-soup government agencies anyway. The phone was a burner, purchased at a convenience store in Portland. Ranjhani would have a similar device that he’d picked up in Lahore. Everyone expected a governor to have more than one phone, so even his aides didn’t give him a second look.
“Yes,” McKeon said.
“Peace be unto you,” Qasim Ranjhani said.
“And to you,” McKeon said in English.
“Can you talk?”
“Yes, for a moment,” McKeon said.
“Very well,” Ranjhani gave a long nasal breath. “I believe we should meet to discuss a few options.”
“I’m not sure that is advisable,” the governor said. “There are a lot of delicate issues with that project.” Though it was no secret that his biological father hailed from the subcontinent, the last thing McKeon needed was for some photo of him with an unknown Pakistani to end up on the Internet. Americans loved to showcase their minority candidates as long as they associated with the correct sort of people.
“As you wish,” Ranjhani said. “Your father would be very proud of you, you know. We are going to change the course of history.”
“I look forward to it.”
Governor McKeon ended the call. His hand shook as he cut into the French toast. He tried to keep up his side of the conversation with the university president, but all he could think about were the words Qasim Ranjhani had spoken. The course of history would indeed make a sharp bend and he, Lee McKeon, would be at the forefront. McKeon smiled as he swallowed the sweet toast and syrup. He would be a good son, and, Allah willing, see his father’s plan to the glorious finish.
CHAPTER 17
Doctor Todd Elton peeled off blue nitrile gloves, using the thumb of one to pull off the other so they ended up in a neat, self-contained ball without the outside of either ever touching his skin. He let them fall into the red infectious-materials bag lining the bin in the corner, then scrubbed his hands in the exam room sink.
A serious runner with seven marathons under his belt, Elton was slender with a mischievous glint in his eyes and the deep dimples of someone who smiled in his sleep.
He did not remove his protective glasses — meant to keep any errant fluids out of his eyes — and spoke over his shoulder while he washed. His scrubbing and speaking were more animated than usual.
“Well, okay, Mrs. Johnson,” he said, working the Betadine soap into a thick lather all the way up to his elbows. “Sorry about causing you so much pain there.” He pushed his glasses back with his shoulder, hoping his patient didn’t notice the sweat beading on his forehead.
Draining a boil on an elderly woman’s neck was not unknown to him in his nineteen years of medical practice — but treating so many people for the same such sores in one day was like something out of a horror movie. Surely this was a record. And no boil he’d ever treated had a sore throat associated with it. He had already lanced three boils for his brother-in-law and then sent him home with a prescription for a steroid inhaler that the doctor hoped would ease his labored breathing. A half hour before Mrs. Johnson arrived, Bedford’s army buddy, R.J., had come in with six of the cursed little boils. And that had just been the beginning.