Читать книгу Guarding the Witness - Margaret Daley - Страница 12

TWO

The distinctive sound of a gun with a silencer discharging nearby yanked Brody from sleep. As he rolled out of bed, he grabbed his Glock from his bedside table. Kevin and Mark didn’t have silencers on their weapons, which meant someone had made it inside. Had there been more than one shot? Since he hadn’t heard his partners’ guns going off, he had to assume something happened to them. What had he slept through?

Hurrying toward his door, he shoved deep down the thought of the worst occurring. He couldn’t afford to be sidetracked. He had to be as detached and professional as possible. There would be time later for emotion.

He eased open the door a crack and listened. Silence ruled. For a second he wondered if he’d dreamed hearing the sound. Hoped he had. Then a whisper of a noise alerted him to Arianna easing her door open slightly. His gaze seized hers, and he knew she’d heard the same thing. It wasn’t a dream.

The cabin had been compromised. Fortifying himself with a deep breath, he swung the door open wide and stepped out into the hallway with his Glock pointed toward the living room. To his side he noticed Arianna stepping into the corridor. He shook his head. She ignored him and continued out into the hall with a gun in her hand.

He shouldn’t be surprised she’d brought her own gun to the cabin. He would have in her place. But still he frowned and tried to convey silently that she get back into her room.

A low moan coming from the living room refocused his full attention on the threat in the cabin. Short of handcuffing her to her bed, she would be backing him up. Waving her behind him, he crept down the hallway. At least this way he could shield her.

Toward the entrance into the living room, he slowed and flattened himself against the wall then inched forward. Much to his dismay Arianna copied him but on the other side of the corridor. She brought her Glock up, both hands clasping it. She ignored the displeasure he knew showed on his face, her gaze trained on the living area.

At the moment, survival was the most important objective. He gave up trying to have Arianna hang back. He knew from all the reports she was very capable of handling herself so he indicated she cover the left side of the room while he took the right. They entered in unison.

One large man was dragging Mark’s body out of sight while Brody glimpsed another intruder by the front door.

“Drop your weapons,” Brody said, preparing for them not to obey.

The guy moving Mark ducked down behind the kitchen counter while the one at the door raised his gun and fired. Arianna squeezed off a round at the shooter then stepped back behind the wall into the hallway for cover. While that intruder went down with a wound to the chest, Brody dived behind the couch and crawled forward to get a better angle on the attacker in the kitchen. He popped up at the same time Brody aimed his Glock and took the man out. The thud resounded through the cabin when he crashed to the floor.

Brody rose, swinging around in a full circle to make sure there were no more assailants in the cabin. Arianna had disappeared down the hallway, and the sound he heard now of doors opening and closing as she checked each room raised his admiration for the lady’s skills.

When Arianna came back, he said, “I’m checking outside. There may be more. I need to see where Kevin is. You’ll have to see if Mark is alive. From his injury, I don’t think he is.” But he prayed his partner was. And Kevin.

“Be careful. Sending two men to kill four doesn’t make sense.”

“I know. That’s what concerns me.” As he approached the intruder by the door, he leaned over and felt for a pulse. “This one is dead.”

Arianna arrived in the kitchen. “So is this guy.”

He opened the door. “What about Mark?”

Ducking down behind the counter, Arianna answered in a heavy voice, “Dead.”

That was what he’d thought. With a head wound Mark hadn’t had a chance to get a shot off. And to get into the cabin they had to go through Kevin. A young marshal with only a year’s experience. Again he reminded himself to tamp down his emotions. Later he could mourn the dead. His only goal was to protect Arianna.

“Lock this after I leave.” Dread at what he would find blanketed him as he slipped through the front door out onto the porch. Already the night sky started growing light as sunrise neared at four-thirty.

No one was on the porch. Alert, every muscle taut with tension, Brody descended the steps and slinked toward the left side of the cabin. When he rounded the corner, a man plowed into him, sending him flying back. Brody managed to keep a grip on his gun even while his arms flung out. The impact with the ground caused the air to swoosh from him. The bulky assailant crushed him into the dirt, sitting on him, knees pinning down his arms and fists pounding into Brody’s upper body and face. Stars swam before Brody’s eyes. From deep inside him he drew on his reserve, fueled by a spurt of adrenaline. He was the only thing standing between Arianna and death.

Between punches Brody sucked in a shallow breath, laced with the scent of sweat, then poured what strength he had into freeing one of his pinned arms. When he did, Brody cuffed the brute on the side of the head with his Glock. The man’s drive slowed. Brody struck him again with the butt of the weapon.

His assailant growled and swiveled his upper body, grasping the hand that held the weapon. His attacker wrestled Brody for the gun, trying to twist his arm—possibly to break it. The Glock hovered between them. Brody focused all his will on an effort to regain control of the weapon. His chest burned with the lack of oxygen. The gun wavered inches from Brody, the barrel slowly turning toward him. A dark haze edged into his mind. Brody sent up a silent plea to God, and with a last burst of strength, he halted the Glock’s momentum, then he began turning the end toward his assailant’s torso.

Brody pulled his finger around the trigger with the man’s hand still covering his. Brody stared into his attacker’s dark eyes as the bullet exploded from the weapon, striking his assailant’s chest. He jerked then slumped over, pinning Brody to the ground.

His ears ringing, the scent of gunpowder filling his nostrils, he shoved the man off him and scrambled away, never taking his eyes off his attacker. In the dim light of predawn he felt for a pulse. Gone. He checked the man’s pockets for ID. There was none, but he found a switchblade with blood on it. Brody searched the area.

What happened here? Where is Kevin?

Tension stretched every nerve to beyond its limit. Rising, Brody kept scanning the terrain as he circled the cabin, using the shadows to cover his presence as much as possible. By the time he reached the porch again, he was even more confused by what had happened. Kevin was nowhere he could see, and he hadn’t encountered anyone or anything else suspicious.

When he knocked on the door, he said, “It’s Brody.” He noticed the drapes over the window move, then a few seconds later the click on the lock sounded in the quiet. Too quiet. No birds tweeted. No howls of the wolves he’d heard earlier. The hairs on his nape stood up.

How did the assailants arrive? Not by helicopter. He would have heard that. By four-wheel drive? By foot?

The door swung open. Arianna took one look at him and dragged him inside. “I hope the other guy looks worse.”

“He’s dead. I can’t find Kevin. At least he’s not near the cabin or in the open area.”

“I almost came out when I heard the gunshot to check on you.”

“What stopped you?”

“Whether you believe it or not, I can follow orders. I figured if someone killed you, my best chance was in here, and if you got the jump on one of them, you’d be back. I was going to give you another five minutes before reassessing what I needed to do. In the meantime, I checked the pockets of these two. No identification on them. All they brought with them was their Wilson Combat revolvers and this.” She held her palm flat with a piece of paper on it. “A detailed map to this cabin.”

“Great. They didn’t just stumble upon us.”

“You thought they did?”

“No, but I could dream they had and no one else knew about the cabin yet. At least until I could get you safely away from here.”

Arianna’s mouth pinched into a frown as she stared at the nearest dead assailant. “As you know, we have to assume the worse. Did the guy outside have anything on him?”

“He had a switchblade with blood on it and no ID.”

Her gaze returned to his face. “No gun?”

“In a holster at the small of his back under his jacket. Not the best place to draw quickly. I surprised him coming around the corner. We’re getting out of here.”

“You’re not calling this in?”

“No. Something isn’t right. How did these guys find us? Where’s Kevin?”

“Do you think he’s dead, too, or that he let someone know I was here?”

“Don’t know, and since I don’t, I can’t trust anyone until I know more. My job is to keep you alive to testify. I intend to do my job. Even more now. Rainwater has made this personal.” Brody strode into the kitchen and washed the blood off his hands and face. “Get one of the marshals’ duffel bags. Stuff what you think we can use in it. We don’t have transport out of here, so we’ll have to go on foot and find a place to camp. Bring food that is easy to carry. We won’t use a fire to cook.”

“Yeah, too risky.”

He gestured at his bloody clothes. “I’m changing and gathering what I can from the bedrooms. I imagine the ranger has a lot of what we may need for camping.”

Arianna snapped her fingers. “Be right back.” She rushed down the hallway and returned a half minute later with her camera.

“I don’t think this is a good time to take pictures of the wilderness.”

She smiled. “Not the wilderness but these two animals. When we get back to Anchorage, I want to make sure we find out who they are and who they work for.”

“That’s easy. Rainwater.”

“But who they are might help us get Rainwater for a murder of a federal agent.”

He covered the distance to the hall. “Are you sure you weren’t a cop before this?”

“No, but when you protect others you learn things. Change and take care of those cuts or I will. There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom.”

“Don’t have the time. I’ll do it later. I want to leave in ten minutes. We don’t know who else is out there and how long it will take them to realize these guys didn’t succeed. When they figure that out, they’ll come looking for us.”

The thought there could be more than three sent to kill them spurred him to move as fast as his throbbing body allowed. Now that the adrenaline had faded, the pain came to the foreground. But he wouldn’t allow it to interfere with what had to be done.

* * *

After snapping pictures of both of the intruders, Arianna found a backpack in the storage closet off the kitchen and decided to use that instead of one of the marshals’ duffel bags. Easier to carry and since it was large it would hold about the same amount of items. As she stuffed what food she could into the bag, she glimpsed Mark on the floor nearby and steeled her resolve to bring to justice the person responsible for his death.

As a soldier she’d seen death, sometimes on a large scale. As a bodyguard she hadn’t been exposed to it much in the past four years. She’d worked hard to keep it that way by protecting her clients the best she could. But now there were three dead bodies in the cabin and at least one outside, possibly Kevin’s, too. She’d wanted to help and protect people without the death. But it had found her that evening when she’d witnessed Thomas Perkins’s murder and wouldn’t let go.

After scouring the kitchen and living room for anything they could use, she hurried to her bedroom and grabbed what she might need from her own possessions. The last things she put into her backpack were the camera and flashlight. Although the night was only about four hours long, they might need the light, especially if they had to find shelter in a cave.

“Ready?” A rifle with a scope clutched in one hand and his duffel bag in the other, Brody stood in the entrance to her bedroom, dressed in clean jeans and T-shirt with hiking boots, a light parka and his Glock strapped in his holster at his waist. His face still looked as though the man had used him as a punching bag. When they were safely away from the cabin, she intended to treat those cuts.

She slung the pack onto her back. “Yes. Do we have all the ammunition?”

“Yes, what there is. I wish we had more rounds for the rifle, but for the handguns we should be fine. I found a map and a compass in the ranger’s bedroom closet.” He swung around and started for the front door.

Arianna followed. “I hate leaving Mark like this.”

Brody stepped out onto the porch. “I can’t call this in. I don’t want anyone to know the assassins didn’t succeed in killing us all. I don’t know how they found us. I can’t trust anyone.”

“And we can’t even take the satellite phone with us,” she murmured, thinking about the GPS in cell phones. Great way to track someone.

“Not if we don’t want more assassins finding us. We’re on our own and I don’t intend to make it easy for anyone to track us.” Brody used the pair of binoculars hanging around his neck to scan the terrain stretching out before them.

“What happens when we reach Anchorage?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to stash you someplace safe until you can testify because I intend to get you to that trial. Rainwater isn’t going to win this one. One of my men, possibly two, are dead because of that man.” He checked the compass then descended the steps. “Let’s go.”

“If they come after us, they’ll know we’re heading for Anchorage. There aren’t too many ways in.”

“I know. That’s why we aren’t going straight there. We’re heading east toward Fairbanks, not southwest. They’ll be watching all the direct routes to Anchorage.”

“But we have to still get to Anchorage.”

“Once I find some transportation, I’ll figure out a way. I can’t see us walking the whole way to Anchorage anyway. Time is against us. If they can’t kill us, they’ll still succeed in freeing Rainwater if you don’t show up to testify.”

“That isn’t going to happen.” She’d already waited so long for the chance to testify, spending almost two months in Kentucky until the U.S. Marshals Service had moved her back to Alaska. Two months separated from her family and friends. Her employer at Guardians, Inc. only knew that she had gone into the Witness Protection Program, and after that, she had to cut all ties. “I didn’t go through the last two months for nothing.” She ground her teeth, wishing she could grind her fists into the face of the person responsible for giving the cabin’s location away.

“Even if you didn’t get to testify, I doubt Rainwater would want you alive.”

Arianna slanted a look at the harsh planes of Brody’s face. Determination molded his features and steeled the hard look in his brown eyes. “That’s my thinking, too. If I have to give up my life, I want it to be for something.”

After Arianna took a picture of the third assailant, she and Brody headed toward the trees. The sun hung low on the horizon as it started its ascent. A dense stand of spruce, willow and birch up ahead offered them shelter from being in the open. Brody increased his pace the lighter the day became. When the thick wooded area swallowed them into a sea of green, he slowed his gait.

“If you need to rest, let me know. I tend to push.”

“That’s fine by me. But I do think we need to stop and take care of your cuts. Did the guy have a ring on?”

“You know at the time I didn’t think about that. I was just trying to stop him.”

“The cut over your eye is oozing blood. So is the one on your right cheek. Doesn’t the scent of blood attract predators?”

“I guess it could. I didn’t think about that, either. Too busy trying to figure out the best way to proceed. We’ll stop for a brief rest after we’ve gone a little deeper into this forest.”

“Maybe the U.S. Marshals Service will discover we’re missing before the bad guys realize their assassin team didn’t succeed.”

A frown descended on Brody’s beat-up face. “But who do we trust? I still can’t figure out how they knew where we were. Few did. And the map that guy had was very precise.”

“And another burning question is Kevin’s whereabouts.” Arianna pictured the young marshal with the ready smile. Did he betray them? What happened to him? Money lured a lot of people to do evil things. “I don’t want them to find him dead, but what if he gave the cabin’s location away? That was the first time he was on duty outside, and the assassins just happened to get inside the cabin without anyone knowing. They surprised Mark or we would have heard a commotion.”

“That’s what I’m wrestling with. I don’t want to think it’s one of us, but I have to consider that. Or—” Brody paused for a long moment “—it was someone from the first team at the cabin, especially because of the detailed map. Until we were flown in, I couldn’t have drawn the kind of map they had. If it was Kevin, how could he have gotten the map to them ahead of time?”

“It has to have been an inside job, especially in light of the safe house being compromised in Anchorage. I don’t believe in coincidences. Two places compromised in a case? Doesn’t happen without inside information.”

“And Rainwater has deep pockets. He’s a crook but money can be influential.”

As they went through a thicker area of trees, branches slapped against Arianna’s arms while she threaded her way through the woods right behind Brody. “In a perfect world, money and power wouldn’t count.”

“It does in this world, and Rainwater has a lot of both. But somewhere along the line, we’re going to have to trust someone, especially if we want to figure out who’s behind this.”

“I have to. My life will depend on that. I can’t go into the Witness Protection Program with the thought that some marshal might have betrayed me and could do it again. Rainwater, even if he gets off, won’t stop until I’m dead.”

“Agreed.” He halted and faced her, intensity vibrating off him. “We have to discover who is behind this and get you to Anchorage to testify.”

Blood trickled down his cheek. The urge to touch him and wipe it away assailed her. “This looks safe enough to stop for a few minutes. I need to take care of your cuts. You’re still bleeding.”

“A limb hit me in the face. Probably opened a few cuts that had clotted.” Brody glanced around. “How about over there?”

“Fine.” Arianna trekked to a less dense patch under a group of mountain alders. Dropping her pack on the ground, she relished the weight being off her shoulders for a few minutes. “Sit while I clean your cuts and bandage a couple of them.” She retrieved the first aid kit and opened it.

“Did I tell you I’m not a good patient?”

“No, but too bad. I can’t afford for you to get an infection.”

“I doubt—” At that moment, she wiped the deepest cut on his cheek with a pad doused in alcohol, and he yanked back. “It’s obvious you’re no Florence Nightingale.”

She grinned, winking at him. “Never claimed to be. I’m sure we shouldn’t stay here long so speed is important.” She moved on to the next wound.

“Yeah, the farther away we are from the cabin the safer we’ll be.”

He stayed perfectly still, his gaze fixed on her. She tried to ignore it, but it was hard. Her stomach clenched into a tight ball. His eyes seemed to penetrate deep into her—as though trying to discover her innermost secrets. She had no intention of sharing those with him or anyone.

“Close your eyes. I want to take care of the one near your left one. I wouldn’t want to get alcohol in your eye.”

His gaze narrowed for a few seconds before he shut it completely. She dabbed the pad on the cut, relieved for the short break from his intense look. Slowly the knots unraveled in her gut. With his eyes closed, she got a chance to scrutinize him without him seeing. His features weren’t handsome, but there was a strength and ruggedness to them that gave a person the impression he knew how to take care of himself. That appealed to her. Probably too much.

Caring about a person who was protecting you wasn’t wise. Just as caring about a person you were protecting wasn’t wise. Her hand quivered as she pressed a small bandage over the cut near his eye, then proceeded to put two more on the other ones that kept bleeding.

“What made you go into the private sector as a bodyguard?”

His question surprised her, and yet it shouldn’t have. He no doubt was assessing her and deciding if he could trust her to protect his back. Whether he liked it or not, they were in this as a team. “Instead of law enforcement?”

“Yes.”

“Money and the freedom my job allows me. When I left the service, I knew I wanted to use my skills to protect people. In my different tours in the army, I saw a lot of defenseless people who were victims of their circumstances. Guardians, Inc. is a business but Kyra Hunt, my boss, also helps people who can’t usually afford to have a paid bodyguard.”

“When I knew I would be protecting you, I did some checking into Guardians, Inc. It’s a top-notch company with a good reputation.”

“Kyra only employs the best.”

“And she hired you?”

She laughed. “I’ll try not to be offended by that remark.”

“Don’t be. I’ve read about your assignments. You’re very good at your job.”

Ignoring his remark, she taped the last bandage into place. “I’m finished. You’re not as good as new, but it will have to do.” She put the packaging from the items she’d used back into the first aid kit, not wanting to leave any evidence they had been there behind for someone to find.

His eyes remained closed.

“You didn’t fall asleep on me, did you?”

“No, I was running through my mind what went down at the cabin, trying to figure out what happened, how they might have known where we were. How did they get there? Who would have talked with them?”

“Any clues?”

His eyelids slowly rose, and his look snared hers. “No, and now we don’t have the time to dally and try to figure it out. Let’s go.” He pushed to his feet.

Arianna stood, stretching to ease the tightness in her shoulders and back. “I’m ready.” She reached for her pack when a roar echoed through the stand of trees. A familiar roar.

She shot up and whirled around. Through the woods a large grizzly bear standing on its hind legs stared right at them.