Brute Force (31 page)

 

“I
don’t like this,” Quinn said, standing at the top of the Harbor Steps and looking down the broad gray stairs that tumbled from First to Alaska Way, ending across from the waterfront. A low sun peeked under the ragged cloudbank across Puget Sound, casting a pink glow on the wet sidewalks and pavement above, but darkness already gathered under the Alaska Way viaduct at the bottom of the steps. Pockets of aimless youth and a handful of lost tourists moved up and down the broad terraced steps.

Big Uncle had given them the address to an apartment building located below Seattle’s lively Pike Place Market. It was a high-rent district for a terrorist flophouse, but the building was supposed to be under construction. There was a better than average chance the triad boss was sending them into a trap, so Quinn and Song ignored his suggested route directly below the market and decided to take the Harbor Steps and approach from what they hoped would be an unexpected route.

Like Quinn, Song had worn stylish but sensible enough shoes that she’d be able to run in them if the need arose. The tight dress might pose a problem, but that’s where the spandex shorts would come in. She stood directly beside Quinn, close enough he could feel her shiver.

“I do not believe Big Uncle would lie to us outright for fear of retaliation by my government,” she said. “I don’t think he knows we are essentially operating on our own.”

“He doesn’t have to lie,” Quinn said. “He can just tell the Fengs we’re coming. He wins either way.”

Song’s face grew dark, her mouth pinched. “If I find that he has betrayed me, I will kill him myself. I do not care if he has toes.”

“Come on,” Quinn said, starting down the stairs. “We can worry about Big Uncle later. If we don’t locate the Fengs tonight, my boss will have to warn the Secret Service of the threat. They would call off the President’s meeting with Prime Minister Nabe tomorrow morning.”

“And the Fengs would know we are closing in,” Song said, thinking it through. “They would simply readjust their plans to utilize the Black Dragon somewhere we do not expect.”

“Yep,” Quinn said, already moving down the stairs.

He pulled up short a few steps before the bottom. A steady thump of even traffic pounded down from the Alaska Way viaduct above, echoing off dusty concrete pillars and puzzle-piece stacks of orange construction barriers along a paved jogging trail.

It didn’t take long to locate the apartment building, six stories of dark red brick. Sections of eight-foot chain link lapped against concrete Jersey barriers to form a semblance of a security fence around the construction zone. Scaffolding ran up the south wall where the renovation project had been started. At the north end, a dim light flickered in a fifth-floor window, behind dusty panes of cracked glass.

“You think that’s them?” Song nodded at the light.

“Maybe,” Quinn said. He checked his watch. Jacques and Emiko would land in less than an hour. The first rule of a gunfight was to bring a gun. The second was to bring a bunch of friends with guns, so the wisest course of action would be to watch and wait. A low building that looked like some kind of small warehouse ran off the end of the brick apartments, back to the south. Heavy foliage covered the hillside along the active train tracks, providing a likely spot to set up a hide until reinforcements arrived.

Two homeless men sat hunched on their blankets outside the fence panels. The shopping cart beside them overflowed with plastic bags and other bits of tattered treasure. The hulking shadow of a yellow backhoe loomed above them, heavy arm and bucket drawn up and back, throwing the men in even darker shadows. Both met Quinn’s gaze, their dark faces shining with the shellac of open-air life, with no bath for weeks on end. He stared back, sizing them up as threats.

When he was young, Quinn’s mother had seen the direction life was taking him and implored him to “be kind,” but his father had pulled him aside for a little deeper counsel. While not exactly going against his wife’s admonition for kindness, the elder Quinn had explained to both his sons that there were those on whom kindness did not work. “Dig deep,” he had said. “Get inside yourself and find that part of you that makes anyone who happens to look in your direction want to do nothing but escape.” It was good advice and Quinn had taken it to heart.

“Got a match,” the nearest homeless man mumbled around a dangling hand-rolled cigarette as Quinn walked by with his arm around Song, still playing the part of a vacationing couple.

Quinn had bought a packet of two disposable lighters as soon as they’d arrived at the hotel lobby, in keeping with his habit to carry a knife, a light, and something to make fire with at all times—even if he didn’t have a gun. Years of experience in surveillance and investigation had taught him that the homeless were often ignored and overlooked, making them a wealth of information as long as they weren’t alienated.

Quinn tossed the guy one of the lighters. “Keep it,” he said.

Song laughed softly. “You are an interesting person,” she said. “I would have expected you to stare a dagger into him and you decide to be nice.”

“I’m not nice.” Quinn shrugged. “Just practical. We’re operating in their backyard. Best to stay on their good side.”

The homeless man waved in thanks and lit the cigarette, blowing a huge plume of smoke into the darkness. A bright beam of laser light pierced the cloud an instant before a red dot tracked across Song’s chest.

Quinn dove sideways, pushing her toward the cover of the backhoe. Chips of concrete flew through the air. Metal clanked and sparks flew as bullets from at least one suppressed weapon stitched the side of the machine. The homeless men dove for cover, upending their shopping cart as they scrambled for the nearest concrete column.

Quinn drew the Sig Sauer he’d taken from Lok and did a quick peek around the side of the backhoe’s thick boom. More shots pinged off the metal.

“I count two of them,” Quinn said, glancing over his shoulder to check on Song. He heard an odd metal squeak, almost a groan, and turned in time to see the shadow of a heavy length of chain arcing directly at him from high on the scaffolding. The blow threw Quinn fifteen feet, flipping him into the air and slamming him into the security fence like a baseball against a backstop. He slid to the ground with a sickening thud, completely still.

 

J
acques Thibodaux unfolded his right leg and stretched it into the narrow aisle, trying to regain some semblance of circulation, and resigned himself to the fact that the other leg was just plain doomed. He knew a man of his bulk should really buy two seats, but thankfully Emiko Miyagi had decided to sit beside him. Tough as a leather boot, Miyagi was small enough they didn’t fight over the armrest and play dueling shoulders for the entire five-hour flight out of Reagan National.

Thibodaux fished the cell phone out of his pocket as the plane settled in over the runway, turning it on before the tires squawked on the asphalt.

He tried Quinn twice and got nothing.

“The boy’s gone dark,” he muttered half to himself.

“I will call Palmer-san as soon as we’re off the plane,” Miyagi said. “You can try him again then.”

“I got a bad feeling,” Thibodaux said. “If I don’t get ahold of him pretty damn soon, I say we head straight to Big Uncle’s party and start crackin’ heads.”

Miyagi turned slowly in her seat and raised a thin black brow. Endowed with what Jacques called “relaxed bitchy face”—at least when it came to their relationship—the Japanese woman was so stoic it was sometimes painful to talk to her. “Crack heads?” she said.

“That’s what I’m sayin’,” Jacques said.

“For once, Thibodaux-san,” Miyagi said, “we are in complete agreement.”

 

Q
uinn woke unable to move anything but a back tooth. A throbbing jaw told him he was still alive and with a little effort, he was able to spit out the loose molar. It landed with a
tink
on the porcelain that pressed against his face, mixing with the slurry of water and what appeared to be his blood.

He held his breath, straining to hear over the whoosh of his own pulse that convulsed in his ears. A constant drip tapped at the porcelain and a hollow gurgle came from some kind of drain near his feet. He blinked his eyes, bringing the grime ring of a decrepit bathtub into view, a few inches from his nose. About this same time, he realized his ankles were bound with duct tape and his hands were trussed behind his back. It occurred to him that the gurgling was caused as much by his blood draining away as it was the dripping water.

Quinn caught a bit of conversation over the top of the tub and turned his head to try to get a better angle. The movement brought a fresh gush of blood down his face and a stab of pain that arced from his shoulder blades to the small of his back. He had the fleeting notion that he might have broken his spine, but decided there was nothing he could do about it if he had. This was definitely one of those times his father had warned him about when it was better to fight through the objective and die in the assault than lie around and wait to be killed. Bound and tossed bleeding into a grimy tub—the outcome did not look promising. Quinn had found himself in worse predicaments, but not many.

Straining through the searing pain in his neck, he did a half sit-up to look at his feet. He had little feeling there, but as he suspected, they were bare and wrapped at the ankles with several turns of duct tape. On his back, Quinn lifted his legs and touched the mouth of the ancient faucet with his toe, feeling the years of mineral deposits even through the numbness. It was rough and jagged, crusting the lip of the faucet enough that by hooking his ankles under the spout and pulling toward his head, he was able to cut the tape.

Feet free, he collapsed into the tub from the effort, and tried to make sense of the voices coming from the other room. Some were brassy and scripted and Quinn recognized it as a Chinese-language television drama. The other voices grew more animated and spoke in rapid-fire Chinese.

“. . . and you thought it wise to bring them here?” A male voice dripped with derision.

“You forget your place, Jiàn Z
u,” another voice said, also Chinese but with a heavy Turkic accent. The man in charge—this one had to be Ehmet Feng.

“You could not have just killed them and been done with it?”

“What is it to you?” Ehmet said. “We have time. I want to work on this one a little, see what she knows. Go ahead and kill the other one if you want. He’s almost dead anyway. I plan to take my time here.”

“There are others with us!” It was Song’s voice, panting and tightly drawn. “They will arrive at any moment.”

Quinn felt his heart race with silly hope. As long as she was alive, there was a chance.

“Ha!” Ehmet’s voice dropped so low Quinn could barely hear him. “You have severely misjudged the situation.”

“Yaqub Feng!” Song said, her voice frantic. “It is not too late to walk away. You are much too smart—”

Quinn heard a loud slap as someone, presumably Ehmet, shut her up. Song growled, fighting through the pain of the blow.

“Chinese bitch!” Ehmet spat, hitting her again. “My brother and I are one. He will have a turn with the iron when I grow tired of your screams. You would like that, wouldn’t you, Yaqub?”

“I . . . suppose . . .”

Quinn heard the hiss of steam. “I think it is ready,” Ehmet said.

“You are such a fool,” Jiàn Z
u said, sounding preoccupied, as if he could not be bothered with something as trivial as torture.

Song’s pitiful scream filled the room. A second cry followed on the shattered peals of the first, trailing off in a series of breathless sobs as she worked through the pain.

Quinn thought of the poor college student, intent on nothing but the study of her violin, pressed into a life she wanted no part of. He peeked over the lip of the tub to find Song tied to a chair ten feet away, just outside the bathroom, facing the door. The stunted form of Ehmet Feng stood behind her. Quinn had known he was not a large man, but was unprepared for how small the Uyghur actually was. He looked like a child, dwarfed by the remnants of a dilapidated kitchenette. A line of sagging cabinets ran along the wall, their doors in various stages of falling off. Quinn noted the loose vinyl tile that would give him little footing when he did decide to move.

Someone stood directly to the Uyghur’s right, beside an old mattress on the scabby shag carpet. Song was tied to a high-back chair, her lips and nose battered and bloody. Strands of matted hair hung down in front of a swollen face. Her purple dress had been pushed up to expose her thighs—where the Uyghur had pressed the hot iron.

Boiling with rage, Quinn bolted upright, twisting in the tub. Song screamed a third time, panting, begging Ehmet to stop. Quinn jammed his wrists backwards, sawing them against the jagged lip of the faucet. He’d hoped to free his hands, but only managed to flay off a layer of skin, just nicking the edge of the tape before Ehmet Feng glanced up from his work and looked directly at him.

Quinn used his chest to clamber over the side of the tub, then launched himself through the bathroom door. Hands still taped behind his back, a single thought pushed him forward—killing Ehmet Feng.

The threshold of the bathroom door blocked all but a sliver of his view so Quinn had no idea if the men who belonged to the other two voices had guns or where the third was even located. He knew he’d find out soon enough. Blood flowed freely from a wound above his right eye, blurring his vision but adding to his rage. It took several drunken steps to get his feet back under him after the cramped quarters of the bathtub, but he’d picked up a full head of steam by the time he plowed into Ehmet Feng.

Stepping deftly around a clumsy swing with the steam iron, Quinn impacted the snarling Uyghur center chest with the point of his shoulder, effectively using the other man’s rib cage as a spring to send him flying backwards. Feng kept a death grip on the iron as he fell and Quinn knew he wouldn’t stay down long.

Quinn spun long enough to get a quick assessment of the other two men. Yaqub Feng stood almost within arm’s reach, mouth hanging open, pistol still shoved down the front of his jeans. Quinn caught a glimpse of movement across the room. Whoever it was, he was too far away to deal with under the present circumstances. His best course of action was to keep moving, making himself a more difficult target in case the man had a gun and more gumption than Yaqub Feng.

Hands still taped behind his back, Quinn bent at the knees, staying as centered as he could with his head spinning from the wound. Bringing his shoulders down in a low crouch, Quinn threw the full weight of his body against Yaqub’s knee, wrenching the joint laterally with a sickening crunch as cartilage and ligaments stretched and tore. Both men fell hard against the thin mattress, with the Uyghur’s demolished knee breaking Quinn’s fall.

Quinn sensed Ehmet before he saw him and rolled to escape a wild swing of the heavy iron. Yaqub fumbled with the pistol, yanking it out of his waistband as if he were scared to touch it. Quinn took advantage of the indecisiveness and sent in a snap kick that launched the gun across the room. He bobbed back, using the injured man as a shield when Ehmet brought the steam iron around with a whoosh.

Step-dragging to keep a kneeling and sobbing Yaqub in front of him, Quinn worked to focus Ehmet’s attention away from the terrified Song, who still sat bound and helpless in the chair.

One eye on Ehmet, Quinn tried to wipe the blood off his face with a shoulder, bringing another wave of nausea. The Uyghur saw the momentary flutter and pressed his attack.

“Kill him, you fool!” Ehmet screamed at the other man across the room. Quinn heard a door slam, bringing some measure of relief that he didn’t have to deal with an extra gunman.

“No!” Song screamed.

Ehmet’s face screwed into a ball of rage. He swung again, clobbering his own brother on the point of the chin. It was a glancing blow, but kept Yaqub reeling, still on his knees. Circling quickly so both men now faced him, Quinn sent a low kick with his right leg flying past Yaqub’s right ear, putting Ehmet on the run. Instead of trying to connect with the smaller Uyghur, Quinn brought his foot around behind Yaqub’s neck in the same motion, striking the Uyghur in the back of the neck just below the skull, driving him into the floor face-first, leaving him motionless on the filthy carpet.

Too dizzy to deliver the follow-up stomp that would have finished the downed Uyghur, Quinn stepped back to regain his footing. Ehmet screamed in rage, rushing him with the iron. Quinn saw the blow coming. He was able to bob out of the direct line, but the point of the iron grabbed the material of his suit jacket and spun him like a drunken dancer. Quinn moved with the blow, corkscrewing to the floor and sweeping the Uyghur’s legs out from under him in the process.

Ehmet cursed and scrambled to get away. He flailed with the iron, but the lack of space on the ground robbed him of a backswing and took the power from his blows. Quinn’s wound made him nearly impervious to the pain and he ignored the slapping iron, pulling the Uyghur down with the crook of his leg. Being on the ground gave Quinn the added benefit of not having to worry about the birds spinning in his head. He could fight through the nausea if he didn’t have to worry about toppling over.

The tape around his wrists felt looser after the hard fall and Quinn struggled to pull free as Ehmet continued to swing the iron. Both men ended up on their backs, with the Uyghur perpendicular to Quinn. Shrimping toward him on feet and shoulders, Quinn chopped viciously at the stunned Uyghur’s throat with his heel. His hands came free of the tape and he was able to trap the flopping steam iron before it struck something vital.

Flexing his fingers to bring the circulation back, Quinn managed to pry the iron from Ehmet’s hand at the same moment Song let loose a shattered scream.

“Stop him!”

Quinn turned to find Yaqub staggering to his knees, his hands wrapped around a wooden chair he intended to use as a weapon.

Quinn swung as he stood, bringing the iron across in a tight arc with all the torque and backup-mass his exhausted hips and shoulders could muster. He connected with Yaqub’s temple with a resounding
thunk
and sent him back to the floor for good. Quinn continued with his swing to impact Ehmet in the jaw, staggering him but not knocking him out. Instead of chambering for another swing, Quinn caught him again on the backswing, snapping his head around with a loud crack. A nauseous fury filled Quinn’s belly as he dropped to his knees over the fallen Uyghur and struck him again and again with the heavy iron.

“Stop it!” Song panted. “Stop it now. He is getting away!”

Covered in blood and gore, Quinn let the iron fall to the floor and stumbled over to her.

“We must hurry.” She yanked against her bonds, her voice slurred from her swollen jaw. “Jiàn Z
u. We have to stop him.”