Quinn stepped into the moving sea of animals, with Garcia close behind. In the darkness it was imperative they stay together.
“Gotcha!” Quinn grabbed a young lamb by the back leg as it came to the grain. It wasn’t much larger than a poodle. He turned away from the herd and used the Benchmade to cut the animal’s throat, holding it tight until it ceased to struggle.
Garcia hadn’t been happy about the idea of killing a baby sheep. He was thankful for the darkness so she hadn’t seen him do it.
“You hear a growl?” Garcia said, moving in to give him the rifle.
“That would be our Goliath,” Quinn said.
Garcia moved in behind, next to the milling sheep. The power of food kept them from panic.
The mastiff came in fast, galloping like a horse toward the smell of blood. Quinn braced himself, rifle in one hand with the lamb carcass in the other.
As the black shape of the dog launched toward him from the darkness, he pressed the muzzle of the Kalashnikov to the lamb’s ribs and fired.
There was a muffled pop as the woolly carcass absorbed much of the rifle’s report. A split second later, the huge dog slammed into Quinn, knocking the dead lamb and the AK from his hands.
Quinn rolled, bracing for another attack that never came.
“Pretty good at shooting by Braille,” Garcia whispered as she helped him to his feet. “Now get my ass out of this snow. I’m from Cuba, for crying out loud. I’m not built for this.”
“Okay, then,” Quinn panted, slowing his pulse. “Let’s go see if they lock their door.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Quinn left the rifle hanging on a sling around his neck as they approached the door. He and Garcia were dressed as natives, and a native without some sort of weapon in the high mountains would stand out.
Quinn banged on the heavy door, snow piling up on his shoulders as he stood, hunched over against the building wind. Garcia stood next to him, a scarf pulled piously over her head.
A short man wearing a wool hat and carrying a black Makarov pistol answered the door. He motioned them both inside the dark cave. Quinn explained that they were travelers who’d lost their way and needed a warm place to stay. The man kept the pistol pointed at Quinn’s chest, motioning them inside. He spoke irritated, rapid-fire Tajik, but Quinn spoke enough Dari, the Persian language of Afghanistan, that they were able to communicate.
He didn’t shoot right away, saying he needed to speak with his boss.
A second man, younger, but much taller than the first, appeared from around the corner and helped secure Quinn and Garcia’s wrists with plastic flex cuffs.
Both men shook their heads and muttered in amazement that their stronghold had even been found in the darkness, much less approached. They left Quinn and Garcia in a small holding room, not much larger than a closet, and slammed a dented metal door. The place smelled of sulfur and stale water.
“That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped,” Garcia said as she leaned back against the rough granite wall. A single bare lightbulb cast a dull yellow glow on the tiny room. She’d heard apocryphal stories of spies caught in worse jams and somehow managing to escape-but more often than not, they ended up an unnamed star on the Memorial Wall at CIA Headquarters. She found some solace in the fact that she was finally living her dream-and living it with the most amazing human being she’d ever met.
“They didn’t kill us first thing.” Quinn, who seemed a man always in motion, worked his hands under his butt and past his feet as he spoke. “And we got inside. That’s a win in my book.” He tipped his head toward the exposed lightbulb. “They must have some sort of generator inside the mountain. It would have to be vented outside. That’ll give us something to target when we get out of here.”
With his hands in front he was able to remove the five-fifty-cord laces on his right boot. The Haix P9s were high-tops and the lace was nearly three feet long. Garcia watched as he tied a six-inch loop in one end of the cord, and then ran the free end through the inside of the plastic flex cuffs before tying another similar loop. He looked up and grinned like a schoolboy as he put the loops over the toe of each boot and began to pedal his feet as if riding a bicycle. The friction of the five-fifty cord sawed through the cuffs in a matter of seconds. Once free, Quinn quickly replaced the lace in his boot. “Never know when I might need to run without my shoes falling off.”
“What about my cuffs?” Garcia said. She could see he already had a plan in the calmness of his eyes.
He reached inside the front of his pants. “These guys never do a good job searching the manly man areas.” He produced a red knife no larger than his thumb.
“The Swiss Army teeny-weenie knife,” she said, turning so he could cut her free. “Don’t leave home without it. You got any more surprises?”
Quinn chuckled, his usual enigmatic self. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise…”
The lock on the cell door was a crude, pot metal affair and fell easily to Quinn’s small knife blade. He peered out to find a long corridor cut into the mountain like a mine shaft. Bare bulbs, similar to the one in their room, hung on twisted wire along the stone ceiling. Water ran in inky black blotches down the curved walls. Every few yards, a thick timber beam had been knocked in place to help support the structure. Even with the bulbs, the tunnel disappeared into a vacant void at the far end.
As soon as he stepped into the hallway, he was met by children’s laughter coming from the depths of the corridor. He motioned for Garcia to follow him.
“Wish we had the gun now,” she said.
“Keep an eye on our six o’clock,” Quinn said as he tiptoed down the tunnel toward the laughter. “If we need a gun, I’m sure there’ll be one available.”
Another eruption of laughter stopped him short. He peered through a six-inch-square cutout in the wooden door to his left to see a group of seven boys seated on thick cushions watching an episode of M*A*S*H on a color television. Ranging in age from what looked like seven or eight to their early teens, the boys were dressed in blue jeans and wool sweaters. They sipped on cans of soda and chatted to each other in perfect English. Across the room, slouched against the wall with her head between her knees, was a brunette woman in a white robe. Her hands and bare feet were bound, her face a bruised and swollen mess.
Quinn moved from side to side to check out as much of the room as he could. Relatively satisfied there weren’t any guards inside, he took a deep breath and opened the door.
“Hey, guys,” he said as the startled boys turned to see who was interrupting their program. “How are things?”
“Who are you?” A dirty-blond boy with heavy freckles and an evil sneer stood up from his cushion. Maybe eleven, he didn’t appear the oldest, but the other boys stood back in respect as he spoke, deferring to him. “I haven’t seen you before.”
Quinn played a hunch.
“I’m from another school in Iraq…”
The boys glared at him through narrow eyes, chewing over the concept.
“Another school?” A pimple-faced teenager with a gap between his front teeth whispered, as if in awe of such a notion. A hushed buzz ran through the group.
“We haven’t ever heard of another school.” The blond boy in particular remained stone-faced. He stared at them with hard green eyes.
“We’ve come to take a look around and see how things are going,” Quinn added. He prepared to quiet the kid should he start to raise the alarm. “Are you well taken care of?”
“Dr. Badeeb tells us if we will have important guests,” the glaring kid muttered.
“ Wo Xin Chang Dan, ” Quinn said in Chinese, taking a gamble. He shifted back to English immediately. “I was once a boy just like you. American commandos killed my parents, but I was rescued and trained at just such a school as this.”
It worked. The group pressed closer, reaching to touch him. “Have you been to America?” A dusty boy no
