Читать книгу Guarding the Witness - Margaret Daley - Страница 13

THREE

Forty yards separated Arianna from the grizzly, still perched on its hind legs. Watching. “Is this the same one that was at the cabin?”

“Don’t know. I don’t see any cubs around.”

“Oh, good. Another bear. What do we do? Run? Climb the tree behind us?”

Brody turned his head slightly but still kept tabs on the brown bear by slanting a glance toward it. “Don’t look directly at it.”

“But—”

Before she could finish her sentence Brody straightened as tall as he could, raised his arms and waved them. “Bears are curious. I’m challenging it. Follow suit.” Then in a shout he said, “Leave us alone,” over and over.

Arianna mimicked what Brody was doing, hoping he knew what he was doing. She was all for spinning around and running as fast as her legs could carry her.

The grizzly dropped to all four legs. It charged them but stopped about twenty-five yards away.

“This isn’t working.” Arianna’s heartbeat sped, her mouth dry. She might not have to worry about Rainwater’s men.

“Back away slowly, still waving your arms and shouting.”

“Isn’t this calling attention to us?”

“Yep, but a gunshot would make more noise. Carry farther.”

One step back. Then another. Arianna looked sideways at the bear. It stood on its hind legs again, pointing its nose up in the air as though the grizzly was sniffing it. She kept moving, going between two trees.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t climb a tree?”

“Grizzly bears can climb a tree.”

“What else can they do?” Arianna asked, watching the animal lower itself onto all fours again.

“Swim and run fast.”

The bear roared.

Arianna gasped while Brody brought the rifle up.

The grizzly gave one last vocal protest then loped off toward the east, disappearing in the thickness of a stand of pines.

Brody rotated around. “Let’s get out of here before it changes its mind and returns for us.”

“Now you’re talking.” But as she hurried away, she glanced back every few steps to make sure the bear wasn’t behind them. The pounding of her pulse echoed through her mind.

“We need to keep moving. It’s been several hours since we were attacked. If I was running that mission, I’d be wondering why my men hadn’t come back and go investigate.”

“The Marshals Service will investigate when you don’t call in this morning.”

“Yes, so the best thing for us is to put as much distance between us and the cabin. We don’t want anyone to know where we are, not even the marshals. When we get to Fairbanks, we can check the news to see what, if anything, is being said.”

Arianna slowed her pace and twisted around once more to make sure the bear wasn’t following them. She’d heard stories about a bear tracking a person, appearing every once in a while then attacking. She didn’t want to be one of those stories. All she saw was a thick, green forest around her—a perfect place for someone—or some animal—to hide and wait for the right time to strike.

* * *

After a couple of hours of walking as fast as they could through dense woods and rugged terrain, Brody spied a place that probably had been used as a campsite in the past. Thankfully it showed no signs of recent use. “Let’s stop and eat something.” He pointed at a crop of rocks. “I’m going up there to scout out our surroundings.” He took out his compass. “And make sure we’re going in the right direction.”

“Did I tell you I don’t cook?” Arianna said with a laugh. “So all you’ll get is something easy. Like peanut butter sandwiches without the jelly, and I’m afraid the bread has been squashed.”

After finding his first foothold, Brody peered at Arianna already digging into her backpack. “Right now anything sounds good. I’m starving.”

“So am I.”

Her gaze linked with his, and he glimpsed the toll the past hours had taken on Arianna. There were many people he guarded in the Witness Protection Program, but some were criminals. The ones like Arianna always got to him. The ones who weren’t trying to cut a deal or avoid the consequences of their actions, but were simply testifying because it was the right thing to do, no matter what the cost. He couldn’t imagine giving up his life and having to start a new one. But she would have to once the trial was over.

He climbed the outcropping of rocks until he reached a perch where he could lie down and scope out the area without being seen. He was most concerned with the terrain between them and the cabin.

The wind whipped against his face, carrying the scent of burning wood. A campfire nearby? Frowning, he focused the binoculars in the direction they’d come. A roiling mushroom of dark smoke billowed into the sky.

Was the cabin burning? The forest around it?

He trained his binoculars on the area, trying to see anything that would give him an idea of what they were up against. He couldn’t tell. After checking all the surroundings, he scrambled down the rocks and hurried to Arianna.

“We need to keep moving.”

She handed him a sandwich. “Take a few minutes to eat.” Studying his face, she pushed to her feet. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a fire behind us and the wind is blowing this way. I’m guessing it’s four miles back, but it has been dry in this part of Alaska, so there’s a lot of dry timber between us and the forest fire.” He took a bite of the sandwich, hefted his duffel bag and then slung his rifle over his shoulder. “Let’s go. We’ll eat and walk.”

“You think Rainwater’s men started a fire at the cabin? Why would they do that?”

“Maybe to cover up any evidence. To cause confusion. They had to know the U.S. Marshals Service would know when something happened at the cabin.”

“The fire means a lot of firefighters will be in this area.”

“Making it harder for us. Rainwater’s men can infiltrate the firefighters, using that as a cover for being here.”

Arianna nodded as she finished the last of her sandwich. “Which way?”

“There’s a river up ahead of us.” He checked the compass then pointed northeast. “We’ll have to cross it. It should be low because of no rainfall in the past month, but we’ll still have to swim.”

Arianna slowed her gait. “Is there a way around the river?”

“It stands between us and Fairbanks. Why?”

“I can’t swim well. Just enough to get by.”

“You can’t?” He’d never considered that. “Why not?”

“I almost drowned as a child. I was caught in a flood. Rushing water scares me. Is this river like that?”

“Yes. At least when it’s low you can see the rocks.” He wished there was another way to get across other than swimming. Arianna had already gone through enough.

She stopped and swept around toward him. The pallor on her face highlighted her fear. “I can do a lot of things. Climb up tall structures. Parachute out of a plane. Snakes, rats, spiders don’t bother me, but rushing water does. I’m only okay in a pool—still water.”

He hated to see the fear in her eyes, but there was nothing he could say to make it better. “We don’t have the time to find a way around the river. We have to cross it and there isn’t a bridge for miles. Besides, those will be watched.”

Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep breath. “Okay.”

She rotated back around and started forward, her strides long. But Brody had glimpsed how scared she was and wasn’t sure how they would get across the river that was a favorite of those who liked to ride the rapids.

* * *

Brody came down from climbing a tree to check the progress of the fire. His grim expression spoke of their dire situation even before he said, “It’s moving fast. Faster than us. Animals are fleeing the area—an elk herd is off to the right of us. But what is even more alarming is that I saw three dogs with several handlers—all armed. No uniforms on so we need to assume unfriendly.”

Dogs. Tracking dogs were hard to evade. Determined and relentless described the ones she’d worked with in the past in the service. “We’re boxed in then with the river on one side and the fire and dogs on the other.”

“Yes, and they are about two miles ahead of the fire so let’s getting moving.”

Arianna thrust a bottle of water into his hand. “Drink, and eat this protein bar. We’re gonna need to keep our energy up.”

After taking a swig of water, he started out at a fast clip, making his own path through the forest. “We’ve got to eat on the run. No other way.”

As she set into a jog, Arianna wolfed down her food. Her muscles burned from exhaustion and only her strong determination kept her putting one foot in front of the other. She refused to dwell on what she would face at the river. The scent of the fire intensified even as they moved away from it. When she inhaled deep breaths as she ran, she couldn’t fill her lungs with enough oxygen. Pain in her side stabbed her, her breathing grew more labored with each stride she took.

She periodically looked over her shoulder, checking the area behind her. At any second she had to be prepared to encounter people. Whether friend or foe didn’t matter because they couldn’t take a chance on being seen.

Brody came to an abrupt halt, his arm going up to indicate he heard something ahead of them. Arianna nearly collided with him but managed to stop in time.

He pointed to the left then whispered into her ear, “Someone’s coming.”

Arianna glimpsed something orange where he’d indicated. She scanned the forest, saw a place they could hide and tugged on Brody. She just hoped it wasn’t a tracker with a dog or their hiding would be in vain.

As quiet as possible, she crept through the underbrush with Brody at her side. Lying down on the forest floor beneath some dense foliage, she pulled her gun, praying she didn’t have to use it. Brody brought the rifle around and aimed it in the direction where he saw the orange.

Two men dressed as hunters, rifles in their hands, trekked toward the fire. While in Kentucky, Arianna had familiarized herself with every person known to be associated with Joseph Rainwater. She had planned on going back to Alaska as prepared as she could be. The larger of the two that passed within ten yards of their location was Boris Mankiller, an appropriate name for him because he was believed to be one of Rainwater’s most valuable guns for hire.

Mankiller and his comrade halted about twenty feet away. Mankiller made a slow circle, his rifle raised as though he sensed them nearby. Her heartbeat hammered so fast and loud she wondered if he heard it.

Brody signaled he had his rifle pointed at Mankiller. She lifted her Glock and targeted the man’s comrade, her breath bottled in her lungs.

One minute passed. Mankiller pointed at the sky in the direction of the fire. Arianna glimpsed the growing smoke, obscuring the sun and leaving a dimness in the forest as if it were dusk instead of the middle of the day.

The two parted—one went to the left while the other moved to the right and slightly toward the fire, fanning out. She saw through the foliage another pair of guys a hundred yards away. She leaned toward Brody and whispered, “They’re trying to close in on us.”

“They may be part of an inner ring around the cabin. We need to watch for any people forming an outer circle. Let’s go. It’s even more important to get to the river.”

When he said the word river, a ripple of fear snaked down her spine but her fear of the water was far outweighed by fear of the men after her. In this small part of the forest she knew that Rainwater had four men looking for them. Multiply that over the large area of this wilderness and he must have hired a small army to look for her and anyone left to protect her.

Sneaking out from under the brush, she ran while crouched right behind Brody, swinging her attention back every once in a while to make sure no one had spotted them. Her back hurt from being hunched over and her thighs screamed in protest at the punishing pace Brody set but she didn’t dare voice a complaint.

Forty-five minutes later, Arianna stared down at the raging river, its water churning like a boiling pot of liquid. She froze at the sight.

Brody came up beside her. “You okay?”

She opened her mouth to answer him, but no words formed in her mind, her full attention glued to river. Reminders of when she had been young and swept away from her parents in something similar inundated her. Her younger sister had died in the flood. Arianna had tried to save her, but her grip on Lily had slipped away. The last thing she remembered was her sister’s scream reverberating through her head against the backdrop of the gushing sound of the water—a raging turmoil.

Brody grasped her arm and swung her around. He waited until her gaze latched on to his before saying, “All you have to do is get yourself across the river. I’ll take care of everything else. Okay?”

She nodded, her mouth so dry she should be happy to immerse herself in water. She wasn’t. Fear held her immobile, unable to take a step toward the bank.

She hadn’t known how hard controlling her fear had been until her army unit had been forced to cross a swollen river. Watching one of her comrades swept away by the power of the water brought her childhood trauma to the forefront after years buried deep in her subconscious.

“We don’t have much time to get across the river and hide before the dogs track us to here.”

Her attention drifted away from the water to focus on Brody. “What do you need me to do?”

“We need to wade in the water along the edge as far upstream as we can go, then go straight across. They’ll assume the current will take us downstream.”

“Or they might assume the opposite. Either way we’ll be taking a chance. Actually with all the men I have a feeling are out here, they probably can cover both areas.”

“Don’t forget they can’t be openly looking for you. By now the U.S. Marshals Service is all over here, too.”

“If only we knew who to trust.”

“Can’t take the chance. You don’t know how much that pains me to say.”

She stared into his brown eyes, full of sadness. “I was betrayed by a team member, so yes, I do know how you feel.”

“When we have time, you’ll have to tell me about that.” He took her hand and started down the incline to the river.

Scaring off a bear was nothing to Arianna, but this was a big deal. She stepped into the water until it was swirling about her ankles. Still grasping her hand, Brody led her a few more feet out to where the river came up to her knees, then he trudged upstream. The feel of his fingers around her fortified her with the knowledge she wasn’t alone to face her worst fear.

After about a hundred feet up the river, Brody rounded a corner and came face to face with the water racing over a mound of rocks. Blocked from going any farther in the shallow part of the river, he stopped and took her backpack. He opened it and gave it to Arianna to hold.

“You can’t swim holding the rifle and a duffel bag,” she said.

After removing some rope from his duffel bag, he piled it into the backpack then began adding other items. “I know. I’m putting what I think we need the most in the backpack. The rest I’ll sink in the middle of these rocks. It’ll be hard to find.”

He left food or items that would be ruined from being dunked in the river in the duffel bag, then scrambled up the rocks. When he slipped and fell back into the river, Arianna rushed to help him. Suddenly she realized she stood in thigh-deep water with a strong current tugging at her. Panic seized her. She shoved it down. She had no time to be afraid. The alternative was to stay on this side of the river and try to evade tracking dogs and men with rifles.

She waded to Brody and helped him up, taking the backpack from his hand. “I’ll toss you it when you get up on top of the rocks.”

This time he succeeded without the burden of carrying the pack. She threw it to him. He caught it and disappeared from view. Arianna hastened back closer to shore and waited. Two minutes passed and worry nipped at her composure. She thought about shouting his name over the rushing sound of the water, but that might only lead the dogs and men to their location.

Opening and closing her hands, she gritted her teeth. She’d never been good at waiting. Lord, I know I haven’t been talking with You lately, but please help Brody and me get to Anchorage safely. Rainwater needs to go to prison for what he did. I need You.

The last sentence had been the hardest to say because she’d come to depend on herself so much in the past four years. I don’t know if I can make it across this river without Your help.

As she stared at the rushing river, the earlier tension eased. Suddenly Brody popped up over the rocks then lowered himself down into the water.

He sloshed to her and took the rope and backpack. He slung the backpack over his shoulders, then lifted the rope. “I’m tying this around your chest. This’ll be your line to use. As long as you’re attached, I should be able to help you. Don’t go in until I reach the other side.”

He moved farther out into the rapids, water hitting the rocks and spraying up into the air. With long, even strokes, he headed for the opposite bank at an angle. He didn’t stop until he was over on the other shore. Waving to her, he held up the rope and signaled for her to start.

Sucking in a steadying breath that did nothing to fill her lungs, she waded as far as she could, fighting to keep herself upright with the strong current. Even though Brody had swam at an angle upstream, he’d ended up about ten feet downstream. Was that far enough away from where they first went into the river? But even more importantly, could she keep herself from being swept up in the current?

Two seconds later she plunged into the river, using all the strength she had to dog-paddle toward the other side. Water splashed over her head, and she went under, swallowing some of the river water. Panic threatened to take over. Again she fought to squash it as she struggled to the surface. Her head came up out of the water, and she gasped for air at the same time the current slammed her against some rocks. Black swirled before her eyes.