Читать книгу Enemy Agents - Don Pendleton - Страница 8

Lake County, California

“I don’t like all these trees,” Jeff Deacon said. “They make me nervous.”

Ed Johnson, one of his protectors, frowned at him and said, “I thought you were some kind of big outdoorsman. Camping, hunting, all of that.”

“I am,” Deacon replied. “But down where I come from, it’s mostly desert. You can see for miles and know if anybody’s watching you.”

“Still worried?” asked Dan Smith, the other bodyguard. “You know we’ve got you covered seven ways from Sunday.”

“Right. The two of you,” Deacon said, making no attempt to cover his disdain for what the Feds deemed adequate protection.

“You’re about to hurt my feelings, Jeff,” Smith said. “And you know that we’ve got reinforcements standing by in Sacramento.”

“Fifty miles away. Does me a lot of good, if something happens,” Deacon groused. “That’s nearly half an hour by air, if you’ve got people suited up and waiting in the chopper when you hit the panic button.”

“You just need to relax,” Johnson, the taller of the two deputy U.S. marshals said. “Nobody followed us up here. We’ve used this place before without a hitch. It’s off the grid.”

But Deacon couldn’t just relax. His spit-and-polish watch-dogs didn’t have a clue to what it meant when you were really off the grid. They’d been to school, learned weapons and karate and a lot of codes for talking on the radio, but what in hell did either of them really know about the threat he faced?

In two days Jeff Deacon was supposed to testify before a federal grand jury in San Francisco, and damn near anything could happen before then.

Was it too late to change his mind? Hell, yes.

At this point it wouldn’t matter if he recanted all his statements to the Feds and crawled back to his former comrades on his hands and knees, begging for mercy. There was no forgiveness in the real world. He’d be lucky if they only shot him, without making an example of him for the rest.

Deacon had witnessed one such lesson, and it still cropped up in nightmares that he couldn’t shake. The thought of dying that way made him want to snatch a pistol from his bodyguards and finish it right then.

And if he lived to testify, even survived the long trial that was sure to follow…then, what? Even with a new name, maybe some plastic surgery, how long could he survive as a “protected” witness?

Deacon knew the score on that game. While they needed you, before a jury voted “guilty” on whichever scumbag they were trying to convict, the Feds were your best friends. But afterward, even when they’d delivered on the promise of a new life, last week’s courtroom VIP was cut adrift, the coverage reduced to spot checks at erratic intervals, or maybe phone calls on his birthday.

Deacon imagined such a call. Hey, Jeff…er, I mean Englebert! That’s it! How’s every little thing out there in Numbnuts, Alabama? Are you loving it?

But Deacon hated it already.

“It’s my turn to barbecue,” Smith said. “You feel like steak or burgers?”

“Burgers,” Deacon answered, like he gave a damn.

“I’m on it,” Smith said, detouring through the A-frame’s kitchen for supplies, then on to the rear deck. “You want to get the door, Ed?”

Smith’s partner put his newspaper aside, got off the couch and ambled to the sliding door. It was a lot of glass for a safe-house. Deacon had asked, first thing, if it was bulletproof, and one of his protectors had advised him not to worry. Maybe it was bulletproof, which wouldn’t help him if the sliding door was open.

And he had to give the snipers credit. Deacon didn’t know how long they had been watching, waiting, but they fired in unison as soon as his two babysitters were exposed. He didn’t hear the shots, but saw their impact. Crimson spouting from the wounds in two slack bodies as they toppled to the hardwood floor.

Shitshitshitshit! was all Deacon could think.

He bolted, knowing that the back of the house was covered and he had no place to hide inside the A-frame. He considered doubling back to grab one of the Glocks his late protectors carried, but that would’ve meant exposure to the riflemen outside.

Which left the front door, with the marshals’ two-year-old Jeep Cherokee standing outside. He didn’t have the keys, of course, so there’d be no escape with gravel spewing out behind him. No high-speed pursuit along that winding mountain road.

All he could do was run, and Deacon knew that it would be a freaking miracle if he made more than twenty paces from the cabin.

But he didn’t even get that far.

Three men were waiting for him when he yanked open the front door. Deacon recognized the tallest of them, and the other two were suddenly irrelevant.

“Hey, Jeff,” his killer said, “we’ve missed you. Aren’t you gonna ask us in?”