The big Cajun stood, staring down at the gaping wound in the old woman’s neck, jaws loose again as if he might be sick. “I don’t reckon I was ever around a people so keen on cuttin’ one another’s heads off…”
“Do me a favor,” Quinn said.
“Huh?” Thibodaux looked up as if from a trance.
“Get Smedley back on the horn. Ask him to get his Osprey here on the double. We have to get out to that wedding.”
“She said, ‘he,’ ” Thibodaux mused. “Got any notion who ‘he’ is?”
“Could be anybody,” Quinn said, waiting for his call to connect.
Thibodaux grunted his agreement and went to work.
“Dammit,” Quinn spat. He got the fast busy signal that told him something was going on with the cell tower handling his call. He pressed redial but heard the same rapid series of beeps.
“Mine’s not going through either.” The big Cajun met his gaze. “I’m gettin’ zip.”
“Then we’ll deliver the message in person.” Quinn was already trotting toward the stairs.
Thibodaux still had the cell phone pressed to his ear as he ran beside Quinn. His face suddenly brightened. “It’s ringing.” He handed Jericho the phone.
Smedley picked up on the third ring. His phone was connected via Bluetooth to his Lightspeed headset and the lawnmower thump of the V-22’s Rolls-Royce engines was barely audible in the background.
“Smeds,” Quinn said. “It’s me, Copper. Where you been? Your phone wasn’t working.”
“Just dropped off a load of Castle Guards at the venue,” the pilot said, referring to the Secret Service detail. “The place is swarming with those sunglass-wearin’ dudes-and I gotta tell you, they all look like they’re itching to shoot someone.”
“Yeah, well, me too, Jared,” Quinn said. “Me too. So where are you now?”
“Setting down at the heliport by the ferry terminal. Why?”
“The moles must have a cell phone jammer on the island,” Quinn mused, as much to himself as Smedley. “I can’t get through to Palmer and your phone was in-op while you were over there.”
“Want me to get a message on the military frequency?” the major asked. “It was working fine.”
Standing at the Ducati now, Quinn paused to sort his thoughts. He was hurt and exhausted, dead on his feet. It was moments like this when he couldn’t afford to make snap decisions. But it was one of the great paradoxes of his life that in moments like this, snap decisions were all he had time for.
“Do you have someone on the ground out there you can trust?” he asked. With an unknown number of moles infiltrating the government, sending out an open message could have deadly consequences.
“I trust all my guys,” Smedley said. “Without a doubt.”
“Okay then.” Quinn paused. “Think for a minute. Do you know Tara Doyle?”
“Sure,” the pilot shot back. “I’d heard of her.”
“Did you trust her before today?”
There was silence on the line. “Roger that.” Smedley gave a long sigh. “From now on I don’t trust anyone.”
“I hear you,” Quinn said, twirling his open hand in the air above his head as he spoke, signaling Thibodaux to get ready to go. “I need you to get your bird over here as quick as you can.”
“The ball field where I dropped you off?”
“No time for that.” Quinn threw a leg over the Ducati. “It may already be too late. We’re just around the corner from Canal and Bowery. What do you need for clearance?”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Smedley almost shouted into the phone.
“Aren’t you the one that said you’d set her down in Times Square if I asked?” Quinn said.
“That’s cocky pilot bullshit and you know it,” Smedley said. “I can’t be held accountable for stuff like that.”
“Come on, Smeds. You know you’re itching for a reason to do this. What’s your wingspan?”
“I need thirty yards, give our take, just to have a few inches on either side. Fifty would be better.”
“Canal and Bowery should work then,” Quinn said, giving at best, an educated guess.
“Traffic in Chinatown is murder any time of the day.”
“Just bring her in,” Quinn said, starting the Ducati. “When the taxis see your giant gray pterodactyl swooping down on them, they’ll scoot out of the way like a bunch of canaries.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Quinn rode up over the curb with a healthy bounce and stopped beside one of the gray lion statues in front of the HSBC bank building when the tilt-rotor Osprey thumped in from the south.
“This is gonna be a tight fit, beb,” Thibodaux said, pulling in beside him and flipping up the visor of his helmet.
Quinn clenched his teeth, willing the Osprey in. There was no room for error, but Smedley was as good a pilot as there was-and though he talked a tentative game, he was fearless. “He can do it.”
The major brought his bird in fast and low, screaming in at well over a hundred knots just above the brick fortress of tenements known as Knickerbocker Village. Keeping the Manhattan Bridge on his right, he didn’t flare until he reached Confucius Plaza.
Two helmeted crewmen in green Nomex flight suits craned swiveling heads out each side of the aircraft, guiding the pilots down through the maze of light poles, neon signs, and electric wires. Trash, dust, and road grit whirled under the cyclonic effect of the two thirty-eight-foot rotors. Metal trash cans toppled and rolled down the street. The blue and yellow cloth umbrella on a hotdog cart vanished in the whirling gray cloud.
Deafening vibration and flying debris activated car alarms up and down the street for two blocks. Taxis and delivery trucks crashed and squealed attempting to back out of the path of the descending aircraft. A traffic cop in a bright yellow vest stood in tight-lipped awe. He squinted, leaning into the wind with his hand holding down his hat.
The Osprey’s rear ramp yawned open as Smedley settled her expertly in the middle of the intersection, now deserted as if it had been swept clean. The crewmen waved Quinn forward and the two men gunned their bikes into the darkness and relative quiet of the cabin.
Quinn ripped off his helmet, still straddling the Ducati. One of the crewmen handed him a headset that was attached to a wire on the wall.
“Now that’s what I call some slick flying.” Smedley craned his head around in the cockpit, grinning at the adventure of it all. “Don’t I even get a thank-you?”
“You should thank me for giving you the opportunity.” Quinn said. “When else would you get to make good on your pilot bullshit?”
CHAPTER S EVENTY — SIX
A manda Deatherage waited less than ten feet behind the receiving line beside the fat iron cannon where she’d tied the bow earlier. Perspiration beaded on her upper lip.
So far, the president had been trapped on the far side of the lawn talking to an endless parade of foreign dignitaries who wanted a piece of his time. Mrs. Hughes and the vice president stood to the right of their daughter. The groom, the secretary of state, and the national security advisor stood beside them, shaking hands and chatting brightly with well-wishers as they came through the line.
They were all so handsome and arrogant-and doomed.
Amanda knew full well Mrs. Hughes thought her odd and erratic at best, but she’d gained the hag’s trust and that’s what was important. She hoped her quirky behavior would mask any last-minute jitters.
