“Well, you know I miss them,” Bedford said, “but it’s not such a bad thing for us to have the house to ourselves right now.” He let his daypack and heavy canvas duffel fall to the porch. The change in weight made him sway on his feet. For a moment, he thought he might pass out. It was to be expected, he supposed, after being awake for so many hours. He winced when Marta reached back and grabbed him over both hip pockets, drawing him to her. Sitting for hours in airplanes and pickups had given him some kind of sore at the base of his spine.
Bedford was a soldier, a father, and a husband. The soldiering had taken up all his time for the last three hundred and thirty-six days. The fatherly stuff he’d get to later, when the girls came home. He wasn’t about to let a little jet lag and a pimple on his butt keep him from the pressing husbandly duties before him. Any thought of discomfort or sleep or Afghanistan bled from his mind as he gathered his wife in his arms and pushed her back inside the door.
The governor of Oregon stepped away from a budget meeting at his office in Salem and answered his second cell phone, the one his aides were not allowed to touch.
“Yes?”
“Peace be unto you,” Qasim Ranjhani said, a strange lilt in his voice.
“And to you,” McKeon said.
Ranjhani’s voice buzzed with excitement. “It has begun.”
“Excellent.” With over seven hundred fifty thousand people of interest on the government’s terrorist watch lists, McKeon didn’t waste much time with worry over whether or not anyone was listening to his phone. “Our friend has his people in place. He will be ready.”
“I have to tell you”—Ranjhani’s breath whistled through his nose—“this man we do business with is a cause for grave concern to me.”
“Focus on the possibilities ahead,” McKeon said, glancing around to see that he was alone. “We will prevail, Allah willing.” He ended the call, preferring not to discuss the specifics of mercenary help in a holy war. In truth, he was as concerned as Ranjhani. Allowing outsiders to assist with their plan could have deadly consequences. But most of the assets his father had worked so hard to put in place had been hunted down and killed — a fact that a certain American agent would very shortly come to regret.
PART ONE
The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
CHAPTER 1
Jericho Quinn wished he was on a motorcycle. The mess dress uniform, the tie, the crowds of wedding guests he didn’t know, all left him with the urge to step away for air. He could put on a good face for a short time, socialize, tell polite stories. He was, after all, an officer and a gentleman trained on the very grounds of this hallowed institution. But it didn’t take long before such talk grew thin and he found himself longing for that quiet place inside his helmet — on a long ride. It really didn’t matter where.
Gunnery Sergeant Jacques Thibodaux stepped up beside him, dipping a Marine Corps high-and-tight toward Quinn’s ex-wife’s date. Air Force Captain Gary Lavin strutted around like a peacock, giving advice to anyone who would listen about all on which he was an expert, which, according to him, was everything under the Colorado sun. Kim appeared to agree.
Jericho couldn’t help wincing every time the man opened his mouth.
“You know, ‘Because he needed killin’ ain’t a valid defense in court,” Thibodaux grunted. His voice was steeped in a gumbo-thick Cajun rhythm. Huge shoulders threw Quinn and much of the real estate around him into shadows. A black patch covered an injured eye, courtesy of flying shrapnel from a gunfight in a Bolivian jungle just weeks before.
Both men were OGAs — Other Governmental Agents, detailed from their regular assignments to report directly to the president’s national security advisor. Quinn with Air Force OSI, Jacques from the Marine Corps.
Quinn chuckled. “Whatever. He’s Kim’s business.” He nodded at Thibodaux’s patch to move the subject away from his ex-wife’s love life. “How’s the eye?”
“It is what it is.” Thibodaux shrugged. “Doc says getting my vision back is still touch and go. I don’t really mind, though.” He gave Quinn a sly wink with his good eye. “Camille likes it when I wear the patch to bed. She says it’s like wrestlin’ with a James Bond villain.”
“You’ve been waiting all day to tell me that, haven’t you?” Quinn said.
“Maybe.” The big man laughed. “Speakin’ of wrestling with villains, how’s your baby brother? Is our pretty little Russian friend still takin’ care of him?”
“He’ll be in the hospital for the next week or so.” Quinn’s younger brother, Bo, had been wounded in the same gunfight where Jacques injured his eye. “And yes, the boss worked it out with State so she can stay in the States for a while. But, her allegiance is to mother Russia. She’ll likely slip away someday soon when Bo’s heart is healthy enough to break.”
Prone to fits of pensive philosophy, the big Cajun turned to gaze across the concrete deck at the bride and groom. He shook his head. “Damn women, they get us all, later or sooner. If you’re single, they sneak up at you when you ain’t lookin’ and convince you you’ll just die if you don’t marry ’em. If you are married, then one comes along, sneaks up at you, and does her level best to make you single. They do it just for giggles, I expect.”
Quinn scoffed, looking at the Marine’s raven-haired wife, where she sat on the concrete wall with a blanket across her shoulder, nursing her baby, Henry — which Jacques pronounced closer to Ornery. Somehow, between Thibodaux’s repeated deployments to the Middle East, he’d found the time to father seven sons. Each of the older six now wore a black eye patch to show solidarity for his daddy.
“I don’t know,” Quinn said, “you seem pretty settled.”
“Oh, I am, l’ami.” Jacques gave a somber nod. “And Camille’s pretty good with a knife, if I ever decide I ain’t.”
“So,” Quinn mused, half interested, half placating his friend’s desire to philosophize about females. “You think a woman will be the end of me?”
The Cajun smacked Quinn on the back with a roaring laugh. “You kiddin’ me, beb? You’re here with the hottest jolie fille at the party, meantime you still broodin’ over your ex. You’re damn right it’ll be a woman to bring you down.”
A thousand meters to the west, the sweet hint of peppermint and gun oil hung in a deadly cloud among the shadowed boughs of a thick juniper. Not so tall as to stand out from its surrounding neighbors, the tree stood on a swell of earth across Academy Drive, with a perfect firing lane to the concrete deck in front of the cadet chapel.
A young Japanese woman settled among the branches, her almond eye behind a powerful Leupold scope. Strong legs entwined gnarled limbs, boots against the peeling bark of the trunk. Braced but relaxed, she melded into the lines and shadows of the tree like a leopardess in the relative comfort of her hide. Thick black hair hung across the oval features of her face like a sniper veil, parting to fall around each side of the .338 Lapua rifle. She was still years from thirty, but the flint-hard look in her eyes overshadowed her youthfulness. She’d learned to mask the hardness, but if anyone with discernment looked at her long enough, the age of her experience showed through. Two men had questioned her — each during an intimate moment when she’d let her guard down. She’d answered each in turn with a dagger to the throat.