Day Zero (32 page)

“So,” he said, “you’re not from Shanghai after all?”

Gao shook his head. “Not really.”

“I notice a little tan line on your forehead,” Quinn said. “Like you might have if you wore a Hui hat. . . .”

“So what if I do?” Gao frowned. “Do you have something against Islam?”

“Not at all,” Quinn said. “There are plenty of Hui Chinese who have contributed much to the world.” He stooped lower to look Gao in the eye. “But you are not one of those Hui.”

“I think you pick on me because I am a Muslim,” he said.

“I’m picking on you because you’re covered in the blood of the man whose throat you cut,” Quinn spat. He softened immediately, keeping the drug-addled man off balance. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter.” There was no time for a lengthy interrogation—so he guessed. “We have located the bomb. You may go ahead and have a rest.”

“You joke,” Gao said. His eyes shifted to the base of the stairs, trying to lean out so he could see what might be happening. Facial tics, the dilation of his pupils—known as micro expressions—told Quinn he was on to something real. The Valium suppressed his emotions, but it did not yet mask them. Gao chewed on his tongue as if trying to hold back the words. “You have found nothing.”

“Yes,” Quinn said, giving a satisfied nod. “We have. We have your partners who helped you kill the man on the stairs. It is over, my friend.”

“It is my fault we have failed,” Gao sighed. He threw back his head. A tear ran down his cheek. “May Allah forgive my clumsy hands. . . .”

Quinn pinched the man’s thigh again, harder this time, pulling a chunk of skin and giving it a sharp twist before letting it snap back into place. It brought on a yowl of pain, but focused the man a little too much.

He looked up suddenly, regaining what sense he had. “You know nothing.”

“I know you are not from Shanghai.” Quinn shrugged.

The key to a successful interrogation often lay as much in the things that were not said as much as the things that were. One moment Gao’s shoulders slumped in defeat, the next they began to shake. Turning his head slowly so he could look Quinn in the eye, he loosed a cackling laugh.

Quinn stood up, thinking through what to do next. He considered administering one of the epinephrine pens to bring Gao out of his stupor and question him under the added anxiety. The truth was there was no time to do this the right way—especially with Mattie sitting so close.

Carly and Natalie appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Carly’s neck was blotchy and red from nerves. Even the normally unflappable Natalie was mussed as if she’d been in a scuffle, her face drawn and stricken as if she’d seen a ghost.

Quinn stepped away just enough to keep an eye on Gao and spare them another sight of the dead body.

“What is it?” Quinn’s first thought was of Mattie’s safety.

“We found something you need to see,” Carly said.

“Does it look like a bomb?” Quinn said, hope rising. If they’d found it, they could try to disarm it—or at least put it in a spot that would do the least damage to the aircraft.

Natalie took a step back at the word. “A bomb?” she said. “No . . . there’s been another murder . . . two more murders.”

“A woman and the attendant from the coffee station,” Carly said. “Somebody killed them both. Juanita found their bodies down in the crew quarters below first class.”

Quinn motioned Carly across the lounge, farther from Mattie. He kept his voice at a whisper. “Describe the woman to me.”

Carly grimaced. “Juanita came up the stairs like she’d seen . . . well, two dead bodies. None of us went down there. We just came to get you.”

Madonna Foss was sweating from the pain in her broken arm, but she was still coherent and looked like she wanted to punch Quinn in the face. That was good. He needed her mad and ready to fight if she was to protect his daughter. “I need to go check up front,” he said. “You all right here for a minute?”

“We’ll be fine.” Foss put on a tight smile. “Mattie will look after me.”

“I’ll stay back too,” Natalie said. “I still have the stun gun if I need it.”

Quinn nodded. It killed him to leave his daughter, but if he didn’t stop whatever was going on up front, it wouldn’t matter who stayed back to watch her.

A
balding flight attendant in his mid-forties named Andre stood guard outside the door to the crew rest quarters.

“Are you the one that found the body?” Quinn said.

“No, sir,” Andre said. “Juanita found him. She’s the senior flight attendant.”

Before Quinn could ask anything else, the top of Juanita’s head came up the ladder. Ebony eyes flashed at Quinn, daring him to get in her way. She’d been affected by the dead bodies, and though on edge, did not appear to be afraid. There was a fierceness about her that made Quinn wonder if she was afraid of anything.

“Looks like Paxton was beaten to death,” she said. “The woman was strangled with some kind of cord.” Hauling herself up the ladder with one hand, she passed what looked like a coffee grinder to Quinn with the other.

Quinn passed it to Carly and stepped back, helping the other flight attendant onto the deck.

“No one else is down there?” he asked.

Juanita shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “Just poor Paxton and the Chinese woman.” She brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes.

“Wait,” Quinn said. “The dead woman is Chinese?”

“I think so,” Juanita said. “I couldn’t find any ID, but that’s what I’d guess. I’ll keep watch if you want to go down and have a look.”

Carly held up the coffee grinder. “What’s this for?”

“That’s the weird part,” Juanita said. “Somebody plugged it in by one of the bunks. Looks like they used pillows to muffle the noise.”

Quinn opened the grinder and ran a finger around the sides. It came back covered in silver gray dust.

Carly looked at his finger. “What the heck is that?”

“Aluminum,” he said.

Juanita stepped away from the door leading to the crew quarters. “You want to go down and check it out?”

“No need,” Quinn said. A feeling of dread washed over him. He had to get back to Mattie. “I know what’s happening.”

 

B
aka
, the derisive Japanese word for idiot, was nowhere near strong enough to convey Ran’s contempt for Hartman Drake. She stood at the back of the cramped White House pressroom and watched as the president droned on and on about
his
administration and what
he
was doing to counter growing Chinese nationalism and a legion of other threats to the United States. As if this buffoon, this mindless lothario, could do anything but chase women and admire himself in the mirror.

Lee McKeon flanked the president, a few steps to the left, hands crossed at his stomach. He was taller than Drake by half a foot, slender—almost to the point of bony—where the President was husky and, Ran knew, McKeon was brilliant where the other man was overwhelmingly dim.

Few knew the truth, but McKeon might as well have had his hand up the back of the President’s shirt, controlling him like a ventriloquist’s dummy. But that was the thing about McKeon—he was happy to be in the shadows, working as the power behind the throne. She’d asked him once, while he was still the governor of Oregon, if he did not wish to be the president. “Why waste time being the emperor?” he’d said. “When I can be the shogun?”

It was nothing short of amazing how he handled the fool—and Ran was not easily amazed. Though Drake strutted around as if he’d decided on his own to release the Uyghur terrorists in Guantanamo Bay to Pakistan where they could more easily escape and wreak more havoc against China, the idea had sprung from McKeon’s fertile mind. It was all part of his larger plan to push America and China into a devastating nuclear war.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, all his cabinet members, even close members of his West Wing staff, believed Drake was running the show. McKeon wanted it that way. He moved by suggestion and sheer force of will, rarely giving anyone more than a nod, or a word or two to nudge them in the right direction.

Drake was too shortsighted to see the larger picture. He wanted to open borders, allow members of al Qaeda, Lashkar e Taiba, and a dozen other terrorist organizations to slip through and put their little bombs in Disneyland and Times Square. But Lee McKeon was a big thinker. He’d inherited a sense of purpose and destiny from his father that the other man would never comprehend.

Under his quiet guidance, President Drake would chip away at the Chinese economy, throw the full weight of his support behind Japan and the disputed Senkaku Islands. He would start issuing a travel visa to the president of Taiwan and treat him like a head of state.

A cold war stalemate only worked if the US had someone at the helm who was willing to pull the trigger but hesitant to do so. A calculated overreaction, demanded by the American people for supposed atrocities by the Chinese government—like the bombing of an American airliner—would set off a chain reaction that would not stop until it was too late.

Lee McKeon foresaw how it would happen, and Ran had no reason to doubt him.

Chinese cyber experts would do their best to interrupt air defense systems. Ballistic missiles would be sent first, not to land- or sea-based targets, but to space, to destroy communication and military navigational satellites. The next barrage of missiles would rain down on American bases in Japan and South Korea. Chinese nuclear submarines would creep in close enough to fire dozens of Giant Wave nuclear missiles at cities along the west coast of the United States, while ICBMs arced over the North Pole toward New York, Baltimore, and Washington.

Of course, the US would not stand idly by. Theirs was the most potent and deadly air and sea war machine in the world. They would eventually “win,” but it would prove a Pyrrhic victory. Like the great empires of Persia, Rome, Babylon, and Assyria, America was unbeatable—and like all the others she would fall. When she did, Lee McKeon would be there to stomp on her dying neck.

There was something about him, about his vision, that hypnotized Ran. He made her feel like a small child, full of wonder and amazement—the way her father had done, so many years ago when he was teaching her to kill.

She watched as President Drake began to take questions from the media and imagined the time when she could use those skills on him.

 

T
ang steadied himself in the mid cabin lavatory, sifting the ground aluminum powder through the espresso sieve to remove the larger bits of foil. Rather than risk detection by staying in the crew quarters too long, he’d decided to finish the process in the lavatory.

He held up a sandwich bag containing nearly five tablespoons of the silver powder. Ma Zhen had assured him that would be more than enough, but still, he worried. Their device was so small for such a large aircraft. He agonized over the thought of merely damaging the plane and rotting in American jail where officious men would order him around all day. He might as well be back in China if that happened.

Crippling waves of doubt pressed him down, making it difficult to breathe. Hu had seen a man locate Gao in his seat as if it was known that he was the killer. This fact made Tang wonder if there were cameras on board. And if there were cameras, they might have noticed patterns in movement by now. In any case, there was some kind of policeman on board, possibly an air marshal. The way Hu described him, Tang was certain it was the
guizi
child’s father. That made sense. He’d had the predatory look of someone who liked to be in charge.

Tang leaned against the counter, clutching the precious bag of metal in his fist as he stared into the mirror. Bloodshot, stricken eyes looked back at him—eyes that had seen death and knew there was nothing but more of the same in his future. There was no escape when he closed them, only the vision of his wife, strangled at the hand of another while he did nothing to stop it. Tang told himself it was for her own good, to stop her suffering, end her struggle—her jihad. But that did not matter now. Reasons were nothing to a bullet in a gun. He sniffed, steeling himself for what lay ahead, and pushed open the door.

Flight attendants seemed to be everywhere when he came out of the lavatory. He’d washed his face and left it damp so it looked like he’d been sick. A balding man met him mid-aisle and gave him an up-and-down look.

“Where are you seated, sir?” the attendant asked.

“Up front,” Tang said. He let his voice tremble slightly. “Is something wrong? I heard there was a murder.”

“We’re taking care of it,” the attendant said. “Return to your seat and stay there.”

Tang nodded meekly, pressing past the much larger man. Ma Zhen had taken Lin’s seat. It was only right. He was the most righteous, the most zealous. But more than that, he understood how the bomb worked. Now that Lin was gone, he should be the one to detonate it. Tang and Hu would act as guards to make certain he was not stopped.

Another flight attendant passed—this one shorter with dark, intrusive eyes. She moved quickly, counting heads and comparing them to a list in her hand. Not being Chinese, she wasn’t likely to know if Lin was a masculine or feminine name. Tang waited until she hustled by, and then passed Ma Zhen the Baggie of aluminum powder.

Tang leaned forward in his seat, resting his head in his hands. They were so close . . . so incredibly close. He had to succeed now, for the sake of his wife, for the sake of their children. He had never been much of a praying man, but he listened to Ma Zhen’s whispered prayer and found solace in that.

The bomb was brilliant in that it was so rudimentary. In theory, it was much too small to do much more than punch a small hole through the skin of an aircraft as large as the Airbus. But that was the beauty of it. A small hole would be large enough for his needs.

“Your wife destroyed the detonator,” Ma said, nodding to the open backpack on the floor.

Tang’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“Don’t worry, my brother,” Ma said. “I have another. I would never trust the success of this mission to a single point of failure. I must make one more trip to the lavatory.” He held a flask discreetly so other passengers couldn’t see it. He needed to mix the aluminum powder with the PETN and then fill the flasks with water—but that would take no time at all.

Tang craned his head around to look toward the back of the plane. All the flight attendants were still moving backwards, focused on their lists.

“Go now,” he said. “I’ll let Hu know to do his part.”

Ma took a deep breath, his normal frown perking slightly. “In five minutes’ time, our pain will be over,” he said. “And I will see you in Paradise, Allah willing.”

“Yes,” Tang said. “Allah willing.” But he could only think of getting to the back so he could watch the
guizi
child suffer the fate of his wife.