Читать книгу The Prime Objective - Ginna Gray - Страница 7

Through the lace curtains covering the parlor window Kate watched the headlights of a car as it turned off the highway, about a quarter of a mile away. The vehicle cruised down the dirt road toward the farmhouse with unnerving slowness.

Her heart began to pound. This was the only house for miles around, and the land on both sides of the entire length of the road was part of the farm.

Granted, occasionally someone did take a wrong turn, mistaking the narrow country lane for a shortcut to the Broom City highway. It was also true that in the past, friends and neighbors had dropped in now and then to visit with her aunt and uncle. But those days were long gone. Uncle Quincy had passed away the previous year and Aunt Rose had followed two months ago.

Being childless, Rose and Quincy Dolan had willed the registered Hereford breeding farm to Kate and her sister. Since both she and Colleen lived and worked in Houston they left the running of the place to the farm’s longtime foreman, Isaiah Brown, who lived in a small cottage at the back of the four-hundred-acre property. Though fond of Kate and her sister, in his old curmudgeon way, Isaiah preferred his own company. Everyone around Elkhart, Texas knew that.

These days few people traveled this road. Certainly not at this time of night.

Kate had spent most of the past twenty-eight hours or so since her arrival pacing the darkened farmhouse and peering out the windows every few seconds. She’d tried to sleep but, except for snatches now and then, that proved impossible. Her nerves were wound too tight.

Lucky thing for her, she realized. Otherwise she wouldn’t have seen the car approaching.

Behind her, the grandfather clock chimed two. At the first bong Kate jumped as though she’d been shot, but her gaze never wavered from the vehicle.

“Drive on by. Drive on by. Drive on by,” she whispered.

Her chant did not get through to the powers-that-be. The car stopped about forty feet shy of the driveway in the shadows beneath the giant sweetgum tree that grew along the west pasture fence line. The driver doused the car’s headlights, and Kate’s chest tightened even more.

Oh, dear. This couldn’t be good.

Surprise darted through her when another car turned off the highway and headed her way. She took an involuntary step back from the window, her hand over her mouth. Dear Lord. Just how many men did it take to murder one woman, anyway? she wondered, trying to whip up her temper against the fear that bubbled inside her.

Without so much as slowing, the second car drove past both the parked vehicle and the farm entrance and disappeared around the bend in the road. Kate wanted to believe that was a good sign, but she could not help but wonder if their plan was to block every entrance to the farm before making their move.

Her gaze returned to the area where the first car was parked. The shadows beneath the tree and the rosebushes that draped the fence across the front of the property obscured most of the vehicle. All Kate could make out was an occasional glint off the top of the car when the branches of the sweetgum tree bobbed in the night breeze and allowed the glow from the front yard security light to filter through.

How many men were out there?

Without taking her gaze from the spot, Kate reached for the .30-06 deer rifle that leaned against the wall beside the window.

Moments after arriving at the farm the previous night she’d loaded her uncle’s guns and placed them and extra ammunition in strategic locations around the farmhouse. She’d put the bolt-action .22 rifle in the kitchen, the old pump-action shotgun, which was good only for close range protection, in the bedroom where she’d been trying to sleep, and just to be on the safe side, the Colt .45 single-action revolver lay on the counter in the bathroom.

And, of course, there was the .38 Special that Jack had gotten for her and insisted that she carry at all times. It was unusual for an agent’s cover to be breached, and even more unusual for his or her family to be targeted when that happened, but it wasn’t unheard of. She and Jack were no longer married, but she’d gotten used to having the protection of the gun and felt safer carrying the weapon.

Thank goodness Uncle Quincy had taught her how to shoot years ago during one of the many summers that she and her older sister Colleen had spent at the farm.

He had wanted to teach her sister, as well, but, as usual, she had been too afraid to even try. Kate, on the other hand, had taken to target shooting like a duck to water and had developed into a decent markswoman.

Her eyes narrowed. Experimentally, she lifted the weapon, placed the rifle butt to her shoulder and drew a bead on the shadows beneath the tree. If those men meant to kill her, as her sister had warned, Kate knew she probably didn’t stand a chance against them, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.

Nothing moved or made a sound for what seemed like an hour. Kate’s arms began to tremble from holding the heavy weapon in the firing position, and after a while she lowered the rifle and leaned it back against the wall. Still, she did not move. Growing antsy, she glanced over her shoulder and squinted at the grandfather clock. In the darkness she could barely make out the ivory moon face. Twelve minutes? That’s all the time that had passed?

Grinding her teeth, she refocused her gaze out the window. What the heck were they doing out there? Playing some sort of mind game with her? Waiting for her to crack?

Without warning, from behind an arm hooked around Kate’s waist and snatched her back against a hard, unmistakably masculine body. Simultaneously a large hand clamped over her mouth.

A scream exploded from her throat, but the sound was muffled against the calloused palm. Instinctively, she began to buck and kick, biting at the hand and tearing at the encircling arm.

“Easy, sugar. Easy. It’s me,” her captor whispered in her ear.

The scent of that vicelike hand penetrated her panic an instant before the familiar voice and hard contours of the male body registered on her brain. Recognition came in a welcomed rush. Kate closed her eyes and sagged back against him.

“Atta girl,” he whispered, and relaxed his hold.

Kate spun around and looked up into those vivid blue eyes that she knew so well. “Jack. Oh, Jack.”

She surged forward, throwing herself against his chest. Instinctively, she slipped her arms beneath his heavy winter coat and around his lean middle and burrowed against his chest. “Thank God. Oh, thank God. You came home.”

“Of course I did. You sent for me, didn’t you,” he murmured against the top of her head, wrapping his arms around her. “I’ll always be here for you if you need me. No matter what. Don’t you know that?”

She nodded against his chest, but the truth was, though she’d wanted to believe that, she had not been at all confident that Jack still felt any loyalty to her. Not after what she’d done.

Except for the condolence cards he’d sent after the deaths, first of Uncle Quincy, then Aunt Rose, Kate had neither seen nor heard from Jack since she’d divorced him almost two years ago.

At that moment, however, his embrace seemed like the safest place in the universe. She longed to stay right where she was and forget about the men outside and the terrifying call she’d received from her sister. But she couldn’t. Drawing a deep breath, Kate stiffened her spine and forced herself to release her ex-husband and take a step back. Clasping her hands together against her midriff, she gave him a wan smile.

“Nevertheless, I am grateful that you came back. I know that I don’t have the right anymore to—”

“Ssh.” Giving her one of his mysterious smiles, Jack tipped his head to one side, and his eyes glinted at her with that look that used to make her heart skip a beat—a look made up of equal parts lecherous intent and deep affection. Even now, years after she had gotten over loving this elusive, enigmatic man, her foolish heart gave a flutter.

Reaching out, Jack cupped her cheek with his hand. He rubbed his thumb back and forth along her jaw and murmured, “Hey, Mick.”

Kate gritted her teeth, trying to control the shiver that rippled down her spine. How stupid to let two simple words, uttered in that raspy growl, have such an effect on her.

Truth be told, if anyone else dared to call her Mick they’d get the sharp edge of her tongue. Possibly even a fat lip. But somehow, coming from Jack, the ethnic slur was an endearment. He’d called her that from the moment they met.

There’s no time for this, she scolded herself. Focus on the predicament you’re in, for Pete’s sake.

She opened her mouth to tell Jack why she’d asked for his help when a sudden thought sidetracked her and sent her gaze skittering around the room. “I didn’t see you drive up. How did you get in here? Where did you come from, all of a sudden?”

“I let myself in through the back door with Aunt Rose’s hideout key. Just as I suspected, it was still under the flowerpot on the back steps. You really ought to find a better hiding place.”

He nodded toward the window. “When I turned off the highway onto the road and saw those guys out there watching the house alarm bells went off, so I drove on by and came in through the east pasture. My car is out of sight in the woods behind the barn.”

“That was you?”

Kate closed her eyes. Thank the Lord, Jack’s training and experience had taught him to observe everything, even the most minute detail.

“What a relief. That means they’re the only ones I have to worry about right now.”

“You want to tell me why two dangerous-looking characters have your farmhouse staked out?”

Kate looked up into his piercing eyes and caught her lower lip between her teeth. Jack always played his cards close to his chest, which made gauging his mood next to impossible in most situations. “Well…according to Colleen, they’re trying to kill me. And her.”

She expected at least a flicker of reaction—shock, anger, disbelief. Something—but Jack merely continued to look at her, his expression as unreadable as ever.

“Well? Say something,” she demanded after a moment of frustrating silence.

“Like what? I knew as soon as I got your message that you were in a life-or-death situation of some kind. As independent as you are, anything short of that you would have handled yourself. It would never have occurred to you to ask for my help.”

Kate bristled. “That’s right. It wouldn’t have. And it’s a damned good thing that I am a self-sufficient woman, since you were never around throughout most of our marriage.”

“Hey. Hey. Take it easy, Mick. That wasn’t criticism. Just a statement of fact.”

“Oh. Sorry.” She rubbed the back of her neck and gave him a sheepish grimace. “My nerves are so frayed I guess I’m overreacting.”

“No problem.” His lips twitched in that infuriating ghost smile. “And for the record, your strength and self-confidence are two of the things I’ve always admired about you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, suspecting sarcasm, but even in the dim light she could see that he was sincere. “Thank you,” she murmured finally, feeling foolish.

“Now…who is trying to kill you and Colleen? And why?”

“I wish I knew. Two days ago I had just gotten home when I got a call from Colleen. She was in a panic, screaming, over and over, that I had to get out of my condo at once. Then—”

“Wait.” Jack held up his hand and stopped her. “I think you’d better save the rest for later. If those guys out there really are here to kill you we need to get out of here. Now. It looks like they’ve decided to make their move.”

Following the direction of Jack’s gaze, Kate looked out the window again and gasped. In the glow of the security light she saw two men walking down the road toward the driveway entrance. Both were carrying weapons.

Jack snatched up the rifle and the box of ammunition from the nearby lamp table, grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the back of the house.

“Wait. Why do we have to leave? They can’t know for certain that I’m here.” Kate tried to resist, but he towed her along with him with ease. “Jack, listen to me. I haven’t turned on any lights or gone outside since I arrived last night, and my car is hidden in the barn behind a stack of hay bales. I haven’t even let Isaiah know that I am here. Why don’t we just sit tight and not make any noise and let them think the house is empty? Surely they’ll go away then.”

“Damn, Mick, for a bright woman, you sure are naive about some things. Trust me, if those guys are killers, they’re not going to walk up and ring the doorbell. They’ll kick the door down.”

“Oh.” The weak, one-word reply was all she could manage. She trotted along behind Jack, visions of what would have happened if he hadn’t arrived when he did playing in her head with terrifying clarity.

In the kitchen he snatched her coat off the rack beside the door and shoved it at her. “You got any more weaponry around?”

“There’s Uncle Quincy’s old shotgun in the front bedroom and a single action in the bathroom.”

“Good. I’ll run get the shotgun while you put your coat on.”

In seconds he returned carrying the shotgun in the crook of his arm alongside the two rifles. He scooped the extra boxes of ammunition off the counter and dumped them into his coat pocket with the rest.

Pointing to the teal duffel bag sitting on the floor beside the back door he said, “I assume that’s yours.”

“Yes. I left Houston with just the clothes on my back. When I got here I packed some of my farm clothes and toilet articles in case I heard from Colleen and had to leave in a hurry.” Plus, the chore had given her something to do other than pace the floor. For a while, anyway.

“And your purse?”

“In the duffel.”

“If you’ve got a cell phone with you, for God’s sake, turn it off. The last thing we need is a ringing phone giving away our position.”

“Oh. Right.” Kate snatched the phone from her shirt pocket and punched the Off switch. “Okay, it’s done.”

“Good. Grab your duffel bag and let’s go. Hurry.”

She did as he said, and the next thing she knew they were out the door and racing across the back lawn.

Jack’s steady, low-key demeanor gave the impression that he never got agitated, never got in a hurry. Kate, however, was discovering just how fast he could move. He ran flat out, his long legs eating up the ground. Being pulled along with him she felt almost airborne, her feet touching the ground only now and then.

The barn sat in the pasture nearest the house, about three hundred feet beyond the backyard fence. They had almost reached the gate when they heard a crash from the front of the house.

A squeak of alarm escaped Kate. Jack did not so much as flinch.

“That pretty much erases any doubts about their intentions,” he muttered without breaking stride.

Kate didn’t have the breath to reply, but she couldn’t help but notice that her ex-husband wasn’t even winded.

“No time to deal with the latch,” he announced.

Before Kate could question the cryptic comment he scooped her up on the fly and tossed her over the fence. Her surprised squeal ended in an oof when she hit the ground and the duffel bag went flying.

The rifles came sailing over the fence and landed with a clatter a few feet away. Jack vaulted over the gate next and dropped down beside her.

“You okay?”

“You could have warned me.” Sitting up, she brushed off her jeans and massaged her stinging palms. “Isaiah harvested hay from this pasture. It’s full of prickly stubble.”

“Sorry. There wasn’t time. Just be glad you didn’t land in a cow paddie.”

“Eeeow.” Squinting through the darkness, Kate twisted and contorted, conducting a frantic inspection of her hands and clothing for any suspicious foreign matter.

“Shush,” Jack ordered, and placed his hand over her mouth.

The back screen door banged shut and the distant murmur of voices floated to them on the crisp night air. Over the top of Jack’s palm, Kate’s eyes grew wide.

With a warning forefinger across his lips, he signaled for silence and removed his hand from her face. Staying low, they gathered the duffel and weapons, inched beneath the thorny rosebushes, as close to the fence as they could get, and peered through the almost leafless stalks twined around the boards. Behind them a few cows, disturbed from their slumber by their arrival, moved like ghosts through the darkness.

The farmhouse sat in the middle of an acre of manicured lawn enclosed on all sides by a white rail fence on which hundreds of climbing rosebushes were draped. As a child Kate had teased her aunt Rose about her passion for her namesake flower, but at that moment she sent up a little prayer of thanks for the almost solid cover they provided.

The men slowly walked out into the yard, scanning the area. Each held an AK-47 angled across his chest. Kate didn’t move. She did not so much as blink.

She couldn’t make out the men’s features in the darkness. They wore dark suits and overcoats that looked expensive and ridiculously out of place on a farm. Despite their natty attire, however, there was something rough and uncivilized about the pair. They gave off an almost palpable aura of menace. Of violence.

Both men were big and beefy. The taller of the two had a bull neck. The other one didn’t appear to have a neck at all. His head sat on his shoulders like a melon.

They stopped about ten feet shy of the fence to avoid the rampant snarl of thorny rose canes that waved in the breeze. Kate held her breath. Her heart beat so hard she was certain they would hear it.

“You see anybody?” the taller man asked.

“Naw.”

“Yeah, well, keep your eyes peeled. The boss said that both women may be here.”

“Maybe. But I doubt it. Only one bed’s been slept in.”

“That don’t mean nothing. They probably took turns standing watch. But one or both of ’um was here. An’ from the looks of the firepower in that house, they’re probably packing.”

“I’m telling you, they made us. By now they’re long gone. We shoulda drove right up, rushed the house and kicked in the damned door, like I wanted to, instead of sittin’ out there in the open casin’ the place.”

“An’ I told you, the boss wanted us to keep a low profile and not draw attention to ourselves.”

“Attention? From who? A bunch of cows? There ain’t no other houses around here.”

“Just ’cause you can’t see ’um don’t mean nothin’. There could be a dozen places hidden in these woods. Hell, those women could be hiding out there in the trees. Or in that barn. Why don’t you go take a look?”

“Me! Why me? I ain’t goin’ out there. There’s cattle out there. Maybe a bull.”

“You afraid of a bull?” the tall one questioned with a snicker.

“You ever seen one of them rodeo shows on TV? Bulls can run fast. I can’t. Even if you shoot the sucker it can still do some serious damage before it goes down. You want the barn checked, do it yourself.”

The taller man appeared to consider, then shook his head. “Naw. You’re probably right. They ain’t here.”

“Huh,” Melon-head grunted. “That’s what I thought.” He fished a cell phone out of the inside pocket of his coat. “I’ll call the boss an’ tell ’im we struck out.”

Relief left Kate weak.

“It’s me. Nobody here, boss. Somebody’s been here, but there’s no tellin’ who or when or if it was one or both of ’um. Anyway, whoever it was, they’re gone now. Could be they made us and took off out the back.” There was a pause, then, “Hell, yes, we was careful. As careful as we could be, but stakin’ out a place up here in shitkicker land ain’t easy. There ain’t no other people or cars or buildings around. How’re we suppose to blend in?”

Another pause followed, this one longer than the first. Finally the man bobbed his melon head and said, “You got it, boss. See you then.”

He disconnected and returned the cell phone to his coat pocket. “The boss said head back to Houston. He wants us at his place by three tomorrow afternoon. He’s got another job for us.”

“Yeah? Who’re we gonna pop this time?”

“You’re gonna love this.” A hard smile stretched Melon-head’s thick lips. “It’s the bigshot. We’re not ’spose to kill him. Just give him a little tune-up to keep him in line.”

“Great,” the taller man said. “This is one job I’m gonna enjoy the hell out of. C’mon, let’s go. All this rural crap gives me the willies. The sooner I get out of kicker country the better.”

Through the tangle of rose canes Kate and Jack watched the men walk away. The instant they disappeared around the back corner of the farmhouse, Kate made a move to stand, but Jack jerked her back down. “Be still.”

“Why? Shouldn’t we get out of here?” she whispered back. Before Jack could answer Kate felt something cold and wet touch the side of her neck.

“Eeee—”

“Jesus.” Jack slapped his hand over her mouth and cut her off midshriek, and the curious cow that had nudged her gave a startled bellow and skittered away a few feet.

The two men popped back around the corner of the house.

“You heard that, right?”

“Yeah. What the hell was it? It didn’t exactly sound human. Man, this place gives me the willies. All these thick woods and animals around.”

Cautious, guns raised, the men started walking back toward the pasture fence. Jack looked around, picked up a clod and sent it sailing in a sharp, side-handed pitch. The missile hit the cow in the backside, and the startled animal gave an indignant bawl and trotted away.

The men stopped walking. “Shit. It was just a cow,” Melon-head said. “You see, I told you there was cattle over there.”

“An’ I told you there was no point in hiding around the corner waiting around for those Mahaffey women to come out of hiding. Like I said, they ain’t here. So c’mon. Let’s get the hell outta here an’ head back to civilization.”

This time Kate remained motionless and silent beside Jack and waited while the men returned to their car. From where they were crouched they could not see the sedan, but after what seemed like an eternity they heard the car engine turn over and headlights came on out on the road. Jack kept a restraining hand on Kate’s arm while the car pulled forward and turned into the driveway, then reversed out again and headed back down the road toward the highway. Even then they stayed put until the taillights disappeared.

“Okay. Let’s go. And stay low,” he whispered finally, latching onto her hand.

Kate’s instinct was to run hell-for-leather in a beeline for the woods behind the barn, but Jack towed her across the pasture in short bursts, running between the milling cattle, from the fence to a stack of hay bales, to a watering trough, to the old farm truck parked next to the barn, to the cattle chute that led into the dipping vat. The sporadic, zig-zagging route confused Kate at first—until she realized that Jack was using the objects for cover. Which meant that he still wasn’t convinced that the men had given up.

That brought another wave of terror and a fresh burst of adrenaline that put wings on her feet.