Christmas Witness Protection

by Maggie K. Black

  Too late, she saw a man leap down in front of her. He landed in a crouching position, on the balls of his feet. Then he unfurled to his full height, filling the space ahead of her and blocking her way. She was trapped. She couldn’t turn around. There was nowhere to run. The only way out was through.

  The man in front of her raised his hands, and all her mind could focus on was that there was a gun in his right one. She didn’t wait to give him the opportunity to point it at her. Holly squared her shoulders, lowered her head and ran right at him, like he was nothing but a tackling dummy back in basic training. Help me, Lord!

  “Corporal Asher!” His voice, deep and warm, spoke her name. “Holly!”

  Detective Noah Wilder? She knew his voice. How did he know her real name? But it was too late for her to stop. She crashed into him, keeping her head low and her body strong. But instead of knocking him out of the way, she felt his arms part, as if to catch and receive her. She landed against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. They tumbled onto the ground, with him on his back and her on top of him, her hands still tied behind her.

  Two sets of footsteps were coming toward them now.

  “I’m sorry,” Noah started. “Are you hurt?”

  Sorry for what? Startling her? Catching her?

  “You with them?” she asked.

  “No—”

  “Then let’s get out of here before they kill us.”

  “Hang on.” He didn’t even hesitate. “We’re going to roll.”

  Hang on how? And to what? He holstered his gun, tucked her head into the crook of his neck and lowered his own head over hers. His arms clasped tighter and then he rolled, taking her with him and sliding their bodies under the shelter of a thick blue tarp covering a pallet nearby. Footsteps and voices grew closer. He yanked the tarp down, covering them like the flap of a tent.

  “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!”

  THREE

  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.

  “Hey, over there!” the Ghoul shouted.

  A bullet flew past her head, followed quickly by a second. She dropped to the ground and began to crawl.

  “Holly!” Noah’s voice drew her gaze toward the gap beneath the garage door.

  “I’m coming!” She gritted her teeth and dragged her body across the floor.

  Noah leaned his torso through. “Here! Take my hands!”

  She did, grabbing on to both his wrists as he grasped hers. He yanked her through the gap and out into the snow. She lay there on the ground for a moment, feeling cold wind and thick flakes lash against her skin as prayers of thanks rose within her. Unexpected tears rushed to the corners of her eyes. She blinked fiercely, feeling them freeze before they could fall.

  “Are you sure you’re not hurt?” Noah knelt beside her.

  “I’m fine.” She gritted her teeth yet again. “I just have a really, really bad headache and it’s making me dizzy. It got better briefly when I was lying under the tarp. I just need to rest quietly for a few minutes somewhere until it goes away.”

  She pulled herself up to her feet. Sirens sounded around her, echoing off the buildings and surrounding her with noise. Her knees buckled.

  “Let me carry you,” Noah said.

  “I told you, I’m fine—”

  “Corporal!” His voice rose. “If you were on the battlefield and a fellow soldier was too dizzy to keep up, would you carry them?”

  “If the situation warranted it.” Her chin rose. “And for the record, if need be, I’d carry you.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “Now, please let me help you.”

  “Fine.”

  She felt one hand slide beneath her knees then and the other along her back, as Noah swept her up into his arms, cradled her to his chest and ran. He dashed through the snow, weaving quickly down back alleys, away from the warehouse, emergency vehicle sirens and flashing lights. Then stopped suddenly in front of a plain, unmarked metal door, where he pressed a button on the speaker box.

  “It’s me,” he said. “I’ve got Holly. Let me in!”

  The device beside the door looked broken and stayed silent. Then it hissed quietly.

  “Look,” Noah added, “I know you can see me, and I know you can hear me. I promise there are no Imposters on my tail. Let me in. Now!”

  The door finally opened. A man stood there, slender and good-looking, in an intense and scraggly way. His blond hair was down to his shoulders and his jaw needed a shave. He narrowed his eyes. “You decided to bring her here?”

  “Holly Asher,” Noah said, “meet Seth Miles, Canada’s most notorious hacker.”

  * * *

  “Hi.” Holly waved briefly in greeting. Then she glanced at Noah. “I think you can let me down now. Unless we’re going to keep running.”

  Noah put her down carefully. They stepped through the door and Seth closed and locked it behind them. Then he turned to Holly.

  “Corporal Holly Asher,” Seth said, as he reached for her hand. “I can’t tell you how big an honor it is to meet you. I have huge respect for what you’ve done in risking your career to speak out against a superior officer. I have all the admiration in the world for anyone who stands up to authority and abuse of power. If there’s anything I can do to help you, I will.”

  She shook his hand. “Thank you,” she replied. “But I’d like to think I just did what anyone in my position would do.”

  “You’d like to think.” Seth shook his head, then turned back to Noah. “So, witnesses are expected to just double up on safe houses now?”

  Noah rolled his eyes and didn’t answer.

  “I don’t want to put Seth in danger,” Holly said. “Can’t they track us here via security cameras?”

  “Not if I’ve already knocked out all the security cameras in the area and replaced them with dummy feed,” Seth said. “I’ll also doctor the footage to look like you guys ran north, not south. I’m not saying it’s foolproof, but them finding you here definitely wouldn’t happen fast and would take a whole lot of fishing. You’ll be long gone before they think to check this block.”

  He flipped open a panel in a wall, revealing a keypad, and pressed in a code.

  “I don’t remember installing that,” Noah said.

  It was Seth’s turn to snort. He started up a narrow stairway to the top floor of the building, with Holly after him and Noah taking up the rear.

  “I gather from the sirens outside that all imaginable emergency services have arrived at the crash site?” Noah asked.

  “They have,” Seth said. “Bad news is I can’t guarantee who out there is the real deal and who’s an Imposter. Tell me you saw the Ghoul and the Wraith.”

  “Not up close,” Noah said. “I never saw their faces. But I can tell you that one’s big, one’s thin and I’m pretty sure both are men.”

  “Helpful,” Seth said.

  “Holly got a lot closer to them that I did,” Noah added. He waited for her to jump in and agree with him, but she didn’t. “Are you any closer to determining if there’s a leak in the RCMP?”

  “Not quite,” Seth said. “But I did pinpoint the person who gave the Imposters Elias’s route today and told them how to target him.”

  “Do we have a name?” Noah asked.

  “No, just a handle. Snitch5751.”

  “Any idea who that could be?”

  “Someone with high level security clearance,” Seth said, “and current access to a law enforcement or military server. That’s all I’ve got for now.”

  Well, that narrowed it down. Noah and Holly stepped into the wide and brightly lit loft. Tall windows ran from floor to ceiling on one side, with rough redbrick on the other three. The furniture consisted of a couch, two overstuffed chairs and a coffee table that looked like it had once been a door. A futon bed sat high on a platform by one wall, accessible by a ladder. Not a single computer was in sight.

  Holly walked over to the couch and sat down. Seth looked down at her and crossed his arms.
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br />   “You actually tangled with the Imposters and lived to talk about it,” he stated. “Any idea what they wanted or why they targeted you?”

  “None,” Holly replied. “It’s possible their real target was Officer Crane, and I just happened to be the person he was transporting. I don’t think he thought much of the assignment.”

  “Elias was past retirement,” Noah said. “He could pick and choose what assignments he took. I think he requested your case personally.”

  “Did they get you to read something on camera?” Seth asked.

  “They tried,” she said. “But they didn’t succeed. And no, I didn’t see what it was.”

  “What would happen, hypothetically, if someone managed to see one of their faces and could identify them?” Noah asked.

  “They wouldn’t stop coming after them until they were dead,” Seth said, and Noah felt a shudder run down his spine. “But that still doesn’t explain why your transfer into witness protection was targeted. They don’t risk coming out of the shadows unless it’s a really big job. We’re talking huge. Bigger than big. I mean, that inquiry you’re testifying at is a big deal for General Bertie’s career, but if he could pay big bucks to have you killed, it’s unlikely he’d hire cyber terrorists for the job. Hit men have got to be way cheaper than what the Imposters would charge. And it’s not like either you or Elias was in possession of something worth millions. No offense.”

  “None taken.” Holly lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes. Her face was way too pale for Noah’s liking.

  “I still think you should talk to a doctor,” he said.

  “I don’t,” Holly retorted. “It’s just a headache. I’ll be fine in a moment. Seth? Have the Imposters ever impersonated medical personnel?”

  “Yup, all the time,” he answered. “It’s one of their main go-to methods for kidnapping, killing or poisoning people. They’ve been paramedics, nurses, doctors and other hospital staff.”

  Was Holly trying to make a point about not wanting to see a doctor? Either way, she’d succeeded in making Noah think twice about just rolling up to a hospital. He looked around the loft, surprised at how hard he found it to drag his eyes away from Holly. “Where are you hiding your computer? Clearly, you have one. Otherwise you wouldn’t have tipped me off.” Not that he much liked knowing someone he was supposed to be protecting had violated the rules of his agreement.