Time of Attack (19 page)

T
he Korea Air flight from Dulles to Seoul took fourteen hours. Miyagi had booked Quinn a seat in Business Class so he could lean back and try to get some sleep. He would, she’d reminded him, need all his wits about him if he wanted to locate Oda and her daughter while avoiding capture himself.

The brutal training regimen and long months of Air Force Special Operations training had taught Quinn to grab sleep when the opportunity arose. But being hunted by his own government was new territory, and he tossed and turned for most of the flight. At length, he gave up and found a Japanese channel on the video player at his seat. If he couldn’t sleep, at least he could get his brush-up on the language by watching inane comedy shows with lots of whipped cream and water gags.

An hour before they landed at Incheon International, the flight attendants went on high alert. There was a curt announcement in Korean and English asking everyone to stay in their seats. Quinn watched as one attendant, a slender Korean woman in her forties, hustled up the aisle to answer a call on the bulkhead phone. He couldn’t be certain, but it looked as though her eyes kept darting to him and then away, as if she was trying not to stare.

All the attendants, including the gray-haired Korean purser who had remained unflappable during the agonizingly long flight, bounced around the aircraft as if on ball bearings.

Quinn craned his head around to look behind him, but the aircraft was too big to see much without getting out of his seat. He thought about defying orders and getting up to go to the restroom, but the look on the purser’s animated face said that might get him sent out on the wing at thirty thousand feet.

There was another announcement as the plane squawked onto the tarmac at Incheon, asking . . . no, ordering, everyone to keep their seats for a few minutes after the plane arrived at the gate.

Whispers of indignation and curiosity spread among the passengers like paper burning. Some worried they would miss connecting flights. Others had to go to the bathroom. Quinn was in a center bank of seats so couldn’t see out the window, but the flashing strobes of approaching emergency vehicles were impossible to miss.

He unbuckled his seat belt and slid the leather satchel, his only baggage, from under the seat in front of him. There was a slim chance he could make it past them and disappear if he bolted. No one would expect that.

B
owen parked the black Charger on the grassy shoulder a half block away from the spot where Officer Chin had been murdered. He’d heard someone on news radio say she’d been killed, but he couldn’t get his head wrapped around that term. Spiders were
killed
when you stepped on them. Cancer
killed
you. Soldiers
killed
the enemy in battle. But when someone looked a pretty young officer like Jenny Chin in the eye and then shot away most of her face, you couldn’t call that anything but murder.

Bowen had arrested a fair number of murderers in his career. Most were hopped up on something—drugs or emotions. It took a brazen killer to do this, and those were few and far between.

A ribbon of yellow crime scene tape still fluttered from the smooth bark of a slender redbud tree along the street ahead, muted in the early evening gray. Bowen sniffed the chilly air and walked toward it, unsure of what he might find, or what he was even looking for. Hunting—tracking of any kind—required an open mind. If you looked for one thing too hard, you skimmed over a half dozen more tidbits that were just as important, maybe more so.

Bowen found the tracks left by Quinn’s knobby-tired BMW and the divot in the grassy shoulder left by the bike’s side stand. Squatting low at the edge of the pavement, he studied the brown stains in the gravel that would be Officer Chin’s blood. He found a small, white fragment of bone in the stones, still shiny with a film of dried blood and fluid. Marshals were manhunters, not evidence gatherers, so he didn’t have any bags with him. He used his handkerchief to pick it up, then dropped it into an open latex glove. He tied a knot in the glove and stuffed it into his pocket. Every piece of Jenny Chin deserved a decent burial.

From the position of the blood, Chin had been standing by the motorcycle when she was shot. The case report said her partner, a veteran officer named Larsson, had been standing behind her while she made the approach. According to him, Quinn had been distraught and when he saw the officer was Asian, he just drew his gun and tried to kill both of them. That certainly wasn’t the Jericho Quinn that Bowen knew.

He could still see the man’s eyes from their fight all those years ago—focused, intense. There was a cold science in the way he fought, the precision of a fine machine—but no malice. Though Bowen liked to blame the judges, Quinn had knocked him down twice and handily won the fight. Afterward, he’d come up to shake hands, pointing out that Bowen had broken his nose. There was a grace in Quinn’s win, a certain humility that said he could do it again with no trouble at all, but he didn’t want to rub your face in it.

Bowen ran his fingertips across the surface of the road, thinking. From this close range, Jericho Quinn didn’t
try
to shoot anything. He shot it or he didn’t.

Bowen looked up to watch a woman about his age walk down a nearby driveway to join him. She wore tight jeans and a wool sweater with the design of a llama on the front. Her arms were folded, her chin to her chest as if she was praying.

Bowen didn’t get up but fished his badge out of his jacket pocket and held it up.

“U.S. Marshals,” he said.

“Hmm.” The woman scuffed the toe of a white tennis shoe on the dead grass.

“You see what happened?”

“Nope.” She nodded to the row of tightly spaced cottonwood trees growing like a giant hedge between her house and the road. “As far as I know, nobody did. This is the perfect spot to murder someone so nobody who lives along here could see it.”

“I noticed that,” Bowen said, tapping his credential case against his open hand.

“I have some coffee on if you need a place to write your report or anything.” She was flirting and cute enough, but he ignored her.

Bowen looked up and down the street, thinking. This was too perfect. If it had happened like Larsson said, Quinn hadn’t planned on shooting anyone until he saw Jenny Chin was Asian, after they’d pulled him over. It was too coincidental that he’d stopped in the perfect spot to commit a murder.

“U.S. Marshals? I didn’t know y’all solved homicides. I thought you chased bad guys. You know, Tommy Lee Jones and all.”

“You’re right.” Bowen smiled. “Sometimes, though, you have to do one before you can do the other.”

S
econds before he jumped from his seat, Quinn heard the agonized scream of a woman in the back of the plane. The exit door hissed open and four Korean paramedics in blue jumpsuits poured onto the plane, rushing past Quinn with medical bags and a slender stretcher used to evacuate people from aircraft.

The paramedics rolled back by with the woman a few moments later. She was obviously in the final stages of labor and likely to have the baby before she left the airport.

Quinn let out a long breath, willing his body to calm. He’d not survive long on this kind of emotion. Sooner or later he’d overreact, make a mess of things. If he intended to find Ran and Oda, he had to calm down, get a good night’s sleep—or as close to one as he could—and start fresh. He’d not lied when he told Miyagi that he did not fear death. He did fear getting captured and stopped from doing his job. He feared failure above most other things in the world.

Breathing easier once he was off the plane and moving in a crowd again, Quinn bought a large SLR camera and the bulkiest telephoto lens he could find at the airport store, then hopped the subway to Seoul Station in order to make his connection.

Less than three hours after he’d arrived in Korea, Quinn was standing on the docks in Buson. The sun was going down over the hills behind him, casting long shadows over stacked containers, loading cranes, and superstructures of row after row of cargo vessels.

There were several fast ferries that made the trip to Fukuoka, Japan, in less than three hours. But those passengers would be required to undergo the same scrutiny they would at Narita Airport upon entering Japan: a photo and two index fingerprints.

Instead, Quinn opted to try for a slower, commercial ship that would cross during the night. He looped the camera and long telephoto lens around his neck and approached the captain of a car hauler, heading over with a shipment of new Daewoo sedans and likely picking up a load of high-mileage vehicles to bring back for resale in China or Russia.

Quinn stuck a wad of cash in his passport and held it up to the squat Korean man who smoked a cigarette along the flaking rail of his ship. He pointed to the east, held up the camera, and said “Japan.”

The captain spoke no English beyond “Hello,” which he said over and over again with a slight, ducking bow of his head and shoulders, but the cash spoke loudly enough to get the point across. He didn’t care about the passport, but the fact that Quinn had offered it to him was enough to show he wasn’t trying to hide anything. The bulky camera put a finishing touch on his cover. Standing out was often the best way to blend in.

The ship cast off a half hour later, and Quinn spent the next forty-five minutes walking up and down the deck, snapping photos of anything and everything. The captain said hello each time they passed.

Eventually, the sun set and the lights of Buson disappeared from view. Quinn found the captain again, returned his fiftieth “hello,” and made the universal sign for sleep by tilting his head against an open palm.

The captain lit another cigarette and gave a vigorous nod, ecstatic at being able to communicate with his new guest. He motioned for Quinn to follow him to the foredeck and the captain’s quarters. He gave a sweeping motion of his arms and pointed inside, repeating Quinn’s sleep gesture. Quinn said thank you and ducked inside.

Surely the nicest accommodations on the ship, they smelled of fishy mildew and whiskey—but Quinn didn’t care. He fell into the hard berth, pulling his jacket tight around his neck for warmth against the cold metal bulkhead inches from his back. Resting his face against the leather satchel to protect it from the greasy blanket, he let the rhythmic slap of waves against the hull push him into a welcome unconsciousness.

L
ee McKeon walked his Bichon Frise puppy in the backyard of the governor’s estate as he talked. His advisors had told him he needed a dog to help him look all-American. It seemed to him that a freakishly tall Pakistani man dragging a fluffy dog along the grass looked anything but American. But his approval rating had gone up when the photos were leaked to the press.

“I haven’t heard anything yet,” the governor said, trying not to trip over the leash as the stupid animal ran around him in circles. “There have been no reports.”

“Be patient, my friend,” Qasim Ranjhani said on the other end of the line. He paused as if checking a clock. “A few hours at the most. It will be in the news by then. I assure you.”

A
ugust Bowen left the meeting with Veronica Garcia with more questions than he had answers. For starters, he couldn’t understand why a man with a woman like the strong and curvaceous Latina would still be bothering with his ex-wife.

There was little doubt that Garcia would have lied to protect Quinn if she’d had any information, he but felt pretty certain Quinn hadn’t contacted her since the shooting. She had an ache of betrayal in her eyes that was hard to fake, but Bowen recognized Quinn’s recent lack of communications was his way of shielding her.

Gunnery Sergeant Thibodaux had been tougher to read, answering most every question with another question. He was good natured and congenial enough but as impenetrable as a concrete wall.

By the time Bowen pulled off the quiet, tree-lined residential street into Emiko Miyagi’s long circular driveway, he knew only that Quinn’s friends cared little about what aiding a wanted fugitive would do to their respective careers. They had all, no doubt, spilled blood together. Bowen could see it in their eyes. It was a look he knew all too well.

He left the file in the car, keeping both hands free as he walked up to the front door of the colonial red brick home that was supposed to be Emiko Miyagi’s address. A chilly wind had kicked up from the north, swaying the high crowns of the big sycamores along the driveway and whistling through the boxwood shrubs that surrounded the house. Bowen shivered, as much from the feeling in his gut as from the cold.

Years in federal law enforcement and two deployments on active duty with the Army had given him the ability to smell spy games—and this whole deal reeked of it. So far, he had an unknown Asian sniper shooting at an OSI agent who had an encrypted phone—whose personnel file had vanished—teamed up with a decorated Marine and a beautiful Latina who had wanted to meet near the CIA’s training facility at Camp Peary. Oh, yeah, this was definitely spy games. He preferred head-on, out-in-the-open law enforcement to all the sneaking around and intrigue.

Bowen rang the doorbell, counted to ten, and listened for footsteps. He rang it again. Still nothing. The backyard, which looked to be the size of some British castle estate, had a ten-foot stone wall running all the way around it. He rattled the gate. Locked.

He was just about to give in to the thought of climbing over, when the BlackBerry buzzed in his pocket.

“This is August,” he said, stepping back to consider what it would take to leap up on the fence. He hadn’t quite given up on the idea.

“Gus,” Geoff Barker said. His voice was antsy, as if about to pop with news. “You’re not gonna believe what I’ve found.”

“Let me have it,” Bowen said, trying a nearby ash tree to see if it would bend enough to get him on top of the wall.

“Dude, this phone has some seriously good tech,” Barker said. “Real cutting-edge shit. They don’t just hand this out to everyone, if you know what I mean.”

“Funny,” Bowen said. “I’ve come to the same conclusion.”

“Well, considering that is the case,” Barker continued, “I figured if this Miyagi woman is involved in the same line of work, she’s too smart to leave much in the way of a call record on her number. I checked it out anyway and was right. There was nothing outgoing. I mean she doesn’t even order pizza unencrypted.”

Bowen peered through a tiny crack between the curtain and frame of a side window. The inside hall was bare polished pine, orderly and clean. There were few decorations but for a wooden stand on which sat a Japanese sword.

“This lady doesn’t seem like the pizza ordering kind,” Bowen mumbled into the phone, half to himself.

“You know she had to make some calls,” Barker said. “But she was smart enough, or at least had the right tech to wipe them.”

“Okay,” Bowen groaned. He paced the fence line, looking for some way through.

“But get this,” Barker said. “I figured her friends may not be so savvy in tradecraft so I went back three years. In all that time, there’s a record of only one incoming call from Japan.”

“Can you get subscriber info?”

“Dude.” Barker scoffed. “Have faith. I told you I had contacts with the Japanese National Police. It’s already done. Number comes back to Ayako Shimizu in Fukuoka, Japan. According to my buddy, Ms. Shimizu is a fairly successful hooker who plies her wares near Hakata Harbor.”

“That’s where he’s going,” Bowen said. “A prostitute would hear everything that was going on in her area. If Quinn’s looking for information in Japan, Shimizu would be a good place to start.”

“That’s where I’d be,” the other deputy said.

“You think you can get your friend to arrange a contact for me with the police over there? I’ll call AD Nelson and see if he’ll let me take a road trip.”

“Sure,” Baker said. “I’m on it. You speak Japanese?”

“Yeah, right.” Bowen laughed. “There’s a big need for Asian languages in Kalispell, Montana. I’ll do what I always do when I book someone in who doesn’t speak English. I’ll speak louder and slooowwwwer.” He matched his volume and speed to the words .

“Yeah,” Baker said. “Tell me how that works out for you.”

“Come on,” Bowen said, turning to go back to his car. “We’ll be brother lawmen. We should all speak the same language. Right?”

“Hmmm,” Baker groaned. “I’ll see if they can find you someone who speaks English.”

“We have a photo of Shimizu anywhere?”

“Coming your way, brother,” Baker said. “Be careful, though. She looks like she could carve out your liver and fry your cojones up as a side dish.”