Maggie Black - Christmas Witness Protection

“You’re Wilder, right?” she whispered into his ear.

“Yeah. But I told you to call me Noah.” His voice seemed to surround her in the darkness. “I’m an RCMP detective specializing in witness protection, and I’m here to get you out of this alive.” Got it. “Is it okay if I call you Holly?”

“Sure.” Right now that was the least of her worries. Her kidnappers grew closer, until she heard them pass just inches away from where they hid.

“Where did she go?” The man’s voice was thin, whiny and matched his slight frame.

“I don’t know!” the larger one snapped back.

“She saw our faces! She can identify us! We can’t let her out of here alive!”

They were right that she’d seen her kidnappers’ faces, and yet, as the pain pounded through her brain, somehow she couldn’t seem to draw a clear picture of them in her mind. She held her breath and prayed silently as the sound of their footsteps faded into the distance. Then she turned her attention back to the strong man who was lying beside her and still holding her in his arms.

“Don’t worry,” Noah whispered. “I’ve got you.”

Had he now? Did that mean he had any idea what was going on and how they were going to make it out alive?

“Now,” Noah added, “if it’s okay with you, I’d like you to roll over onto your other side so I can check your wrists and untie your hands.”

He loosened his hold on her body and she rolled away from him. Her head was hurting less now that she was lying down and the world had gotten quieter. The headache was probably nothing and she’d be fine just as soon as she rested.

She felt his fingers move against her wrists. “Hang on... Did you actually ask permission to free my hands?”

“Not a big fan of touching someone who might be upset without asking first,” he said. “Well, anyone, really. Now, I’m going to use my knife, okay?”

“Go for it.” She listened. She couldn’t hear her kidnappers’ footsteps or voices anymore, but that didn’t mean they’d gone far.

“Who are they?” she whispered. “Why were they dressed as cops?”

“They’re cyber terrorists,” Noah said, also keeping his voice low. “They’re called the Imposters. Two-man crew. Big one goes by the handle the Ghoul. The hacker is the Wraith. Really big on staying in the shadows and not being identified. They tend to disguise themselves as law enforcement or emergency services personnel to infiltrate places without being detected. They also kidnap innocent people to do their online missives for them, which I’m guessing is why they set you up in front of the camera.”

Well, that would explain why she’d ended up tied to a chair with a camera in her face.

“Why did they target me?” she asked. “Why did they kill Elias? Does this have something to do with my testifying to the inquiry against General Bertie Frey?”

Her hands fell free. She rolled back toward him.

“I really don’t know.” Noah lifted the tarp a couple inches, enough to let a little light seep through. He was more handsome up close than she’d expected him to be. He had that slightly rugged look of a man who was over thirty and had seen his fair share of battles. His hair was dirty blond, with a short and slightly rumpled cut that, despite his age, made her think of a fresh recruit, and somehow matched the politeness of his tone. “Once I’m sure they’re gone, I’ll get you out of here to safety. We can regroup and reevaluate from there, as well as get you medical attention.”

“I’m okay,” she said reflexively. “I don’t need medical attention.”

She just needed her head to stop pounding.

“Why were you outside the safe house this morning?” she asked. “And why did you follow Elias’s car?”

The niggling in the back of her mind told her there was something else Elias had told her about Noah that she should probably ask about. But her memory of the whole past hour was a little fuzzy.

“According to one of my informants, there’d been some bad internet chatter overnight about the Imposters targeting your route this morning.”

“But why?” she pressed.

“Like I said, I don’t know.”

She suspected Mr. Polite Detective wasn’t used to having rapid-fire questions thrown at him, but now was no time for waffling. They were hidden and whispering in their impromptu foxhole, but they couldn’t stay there forever. Before she made a tactical move, she was going to learn all she could about the situation they were facing.

And the man who’d leaped to her rescue.

“Did they tell you anything?” he asked. “Do you know what they’d wanted you to read?”

“No.” She frowned. They hadn’t said much at all. “But I was left with the distinct impression they hadn’t been planning on leaving me alive when they were done with me.”

His eyes widened. They were gray like the sky before a winter’s storm. She watched as a question floated there.

“What?” she asked.

“You turned down witness protection repeatedly,” he said. “Why?”

“Because I love my life in the military, I love serving my country and didn’t want to give it up. Even temporarily.”

Her frown deepened. But to her surprise he grinned. His smile was warm, cheerful and oddly comforting.

“Now, just in case you were worried, I want to reassure you that I really am a cop,” he said. “Not that I have any way of proving it to you right now, besides flashing my badge.”

To her surprise, she felt a smile curve at the corner of her lips. “It’s okay. I trust you on that.”

“Good.” He lifted the edge of the tarp slowly. “Fortunately, I got a pretty good look at the layout of this place when I was up on the catwalk. So here’s the plan. We get somewhere safe, talk to people I trust, figure out what’s going on and make a plan from there.”

She appreciated that he’d said “we” and not “I.”

“Well then,” she said, “let’s go.”

Noah whispered a prayer under his breath. But before she could figure out what she thought about that, he’d pulled the tarp aside and slid out. “Come on!”

She crawled out from under it, leaped to her feet and ran after him. Immediately, the headache hit her again, as unexpected as a left hook. Her knees buckled and for a moment she thought she was going to fall.

Noah stopped, turned back and stretched out his hand. “You okay?”

She looked at the palm extended toward her and hesitated.

Come on, Corporal. Just push through the pain.

“I’m fine.” She forced herself forward. “Let’s go.”

Voices sounded in the distance. Her kidnappers were searching the warehouse, no doubt looking for them. She ran on autopilot, pushing her legs to move, one after the other. Noah started jogging, matching his pace with hers. He rounded a tight corner, then stopped at the end of an aisle. A cargo loading bay lay ahead, up a steep ramp that led to a garage-style door. Light seeped through a two-foot gap at the bottom.

“Okay, so we’ve got a clear line to run from here to there,” Noah said. “We’ll have to be fast, then when we’re outside, we can lose them. Got it?”

His eyes searched her face. They were worried. She didn’t like that.

“Yeah, I got it. Let’s go.”

He ran, and she followed, keeping her head low as they pelted across the empty space and up the steep incline. So far, so good. He reached the garage door first, dropped to the ground and slid through. Then he looked back at her through the gap and waved at her to hurry. She was trying to. But it was like her legs weren’t cooperating and the ramp was growing steeper with every step. She stumbled forward, lost her footing and grabbed a metal loading cart for support. It slipped from her fingers and rolled down the ramp, crashing into the pallets below.