Rebecca York: Carrie's Protector

She choked back a sob. Another casualty. On her account. “No.”

Wyatt put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her against his side, and she turned toward him, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead against his chest.

“Well, we know why he didn’t answer the phone,” he said in a raspy voice.

“What about the rest of them?”

“We’ve got to assume they’re dead, too. Probably in the house. And Gary almost got away.”

“My fault—again,” she whispered.

“No. The bastards are determined to get you. When we escaped from the Federal Building, they probably came here. Or maybe they sent a team here as a precaution in case we got out of the trap they’d set.”

“How did they know about this place?”

“Obviously, somebody gave away this location.”

“Could they have followed you? I mean, sometime earlier?”

“I don’t think so,” he answered, but she heard the tiny note of doubt in his voice. Still, he continued, “We have to assume it’s the same person who told them about your meeting this morning.”

Carrie fought the sick feeling rising in her throat. Death and destruction were following close on her heels. It was hard to imagine everything that had happened today and harder still to believe that someone was deliberately trying to kill her. But apparently, that was what happened when you ratted on terrorists.

“What are we going to do?” she murmured.

“For starters, thank God that we didn’t go charging in there.”

“You mean thank your instincts.”

“Whatever,” he answered dismissively. “We’d better get the hell back to the car before somebody spots us.”

Even as he spoke, it was already too late. Lookouts must have been stationed in all directions, because in the next second, gunfire erupted from inside the house, and men charged outside, sprinting in their direction.

Wyatt grabbed Carrie’s hand, leading her back the way they’d come, heading for the screen of trees. Behind them she heard running feet closing the gap.

Lord, no.

“On my own turf, I’ve got a little surprise to slow them down,” he said. He reached into his pocket, pulling out something that looked like a cell phone. As they ran, he pressed a series of buttons. In back of them, small explosions began to erupt from the grass, sending sprays of dirt and stones into the air.

She heard a loud curse, as someone behind them took a hit.

The explosions continued, but Wyatt didn’t slow his pace, so she kept running beside him, her lungs burning as she struggled to keep up with him.

She was beginning to think they were in the clear when the gunfire stopped. But after the last explosion, she heard a sound that made the hair on her arms prickle. Someone must have escaped Wyatt’s trap and he was pounding along behind them.

At first the thuds were faint. Whoever was back there had lost ground because of the charges, but he was catching up, and now he began shooting as he went.

Wyatt whirled and returned fire, but his weapon was no match for his opponent’s. Unfortunately, they were still a long way from the electric fence and the car, and she could hear the pursuer steadily gaining on them.

She glanced at Wyatt, seeing the grim set of his jaw. Apparently, he didn’t think they were going to make it to the fence.

When they came to a place where the land had been contoured into several small hills and valleys, Wyatt stopped.

“Get down. And stay down, no matter what happens.”

She remembered when she hadn’t liked Wyatt. Now she obeyed his orders without question, because she knew that was the only way she was getting out of this trap alive.

Dropping behind a hillock, she dragged in great gasps of air and pressed her hand against her side, her gaze fixed on the man who was charging toward them, firing his weapon as he ran.

She ducked and slung her arms over her head, as if that would stop a bullet. Her heart was pounding as she waited for Wyatt to drop the guy. But in the next moment, Wyatt made a strangled sound and fell back against the ground.

Carrie felt her heart stop. He’d been hit!

With a whoop of victory, the gunman closed the last few yards between them and swung his weapon toward her, taking a long moment to meet her terrified gaze.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

But Wyatt obviously had no intention of letting her get murdered. He leaped from behind the mound and shot the guy in the back at point-blank range. The attacker went down with a gasp of surprise.

Wyatt charged toward her, snatching the assault rifle from the man’s grasp.

“Why didn’t you shoot him before he got so close?” she gasped as she stared at the terrorist. He was another perfectly normal-looking young man. If you saw him on the street, you never would have known what was in his mind.

“Because I only had one bullet left, and it had to count,” Wyatt answered.

He turned to look back the way they’d come, and she followed his gaze toward the bodies of two men sprawled in the field. Neither was moving.

“Are they dead?”

“We can’t go back to find out. Come on. Before another one comes after us,” he said.

Reaching down a hand, he helped her up. She swayed on her feet for a moment. Then they ran back toward where they’d left the car. She was out of breath when they reached the fence, and he held it up for her. She dived beneath the wires, and he followed.

They made it to the vehicle, and she allowed relief to flood through her as she climbed in and locked the door. Wyatt shoved the weapon he’d appropriated onto the floor between his seat and the console, then turned the ignition and slammed the shift into Drive, speeding away before any other terrorists could figure out what had gone wrong with their foolproof plan.

She sat for a few moments gripping the edges of her seat, willing her heart to stop pounding and her breath to slow. Against all odds, they had gotten away again. Thanks to the man beside her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Then she remembered the sound he had made as the terrorist was charging toward them. When she opened her eyes and swung her gaze to the left, she saw the blood oozing through the fabric of his shirt.

“You really are hit,” she gasped out. “You weren’t just pretending to get his attention.”

“It’s not bad.”

“How do you know?”

“I can move my arm all right. I can drive. The bone’s not broken.”

“You have to—”

“—get us the hell out of here before they figure out which way we went.”

She saw the set of his jaw as he kept driving along the narrow country road, watched him grimace when he had to turn the wheel, putting distance between them and the safe house that was no longer a refuge.

She wanted to ask what they were going to do now, but she was sure he’d tell her when he figured it out. It was amazing how much her thinking had changed in the past few hours. She’d thought Wyatt was a grim lone wolf, and she had wondered why her father had hired him. Now she understood that he was the best man for the job. Maybe the only man. Could anyone else have saved her life so many times today?

She heard him curse under his breath, and alarm shot through her.

Jerking upright, she looked in all directions but saw no suspicious cars.

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have gone back there,” he muttered, and she knew he was blaming himself for the latest shoot-out.

“You had your reasons.”

“They were a mistake.”

He clenched his teeth, and she could tell he was fighting the pain in his arm. If she’d known where they were going, she would have ordered him to let her drive, but the safe house was in an isolated part of the county, accessible only from a series of narrow, winding roads, an area she barely knew.