Margaret Daley - Guarding the Witness

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.”