Christmas Witness Protection

by Maggie K. Black

  Help me, Lord. I feel like I’ve found an incredible man who’s worth risking my heart for, but have completely lost who I am.

  Two sharp raps came from the window behind her. She glanced back at Seth, still sitting in the back seat of the SUV. His worried eyes met hers. “We’ve got company.”

  “Where?” Her hand snapped to Anne’s gun as she scanned the lot.

  “On this Wi-Fi network,” Seth said. “Somebody else is trying to hack the same network I am. It’s like they realized I was coming and tried to get here first to download everything they could access and then wipe it clean.”

  She closed her eyes and prayed, while she reached for the walkie-talkie button to alert Noah.

  “Hey! Is there a problem?” His voice crackled in the earpiece before she could even push the mic button to speak to him, and she knew in an instant from his tone the answer to his question was yes.

  She glanced instinctively toward the house.

  “Don’t move!” The voice speaking to him was rough, coarse and familiar.

  The back of her head began to pound.

  “Who are you?” This second voice was high and thin. “What’s your connection to Corporal Asher?”

  She turned back to Seth and his terrified eyes met hers through the window.

  Time froze as she waited to hear what Noah would do, her heart aching as she anticipated his response. Instead, she heard the sizzle and pop of a stun gun and the thud of a body landing on the floor.

  “John Smith,” the Ghoul said, and she realized they must’ve found the fake ID Drew had created in Noah’s wallet. “What do you want me to do with him? Take him to the van?”

  “Nah, take Mr. Smith upstairs,” the Wraith said. “You interrogate him there while I deal with the server. Figure out who he is, what he’s doing here and what happened to Hildegard Asher. If anyone asks, say he passed out drunk and we’re giving him a chance to sleep it off.”

  “Will do.”

  The memory of their faces might’ve been a blur, but those voices would haunt her nightmares for years It was the Imposters and they had Noah.

  She glanced back at Seth. “I’m going in!”

  His face paled even more, so ashen it was almost gray. “You promised Noah you’d stay in the car!”

  “No, I promised him I wouldn’t do anything foolish!” She yanked the door open and shoved the keys into his hand. “Leaving him to get tortured by a couple of evil criminals is definitely foolish!”

  “What do I do?” Seth’s voice rose in panic.

  “Get behind the wheel,” she said. “Keep hacking the Wi-Fi. Grab everything you can off Bertie’s server to help us determine who Snitch5751 is. Let Liam, Mack and Jess know what’s going on. Call in the authorities and let them know the Imposters have infiltrated General Bertie’s charity Christmas gala. And please don’t drive away and leave us here, unless someone runs up to the car and you think something bad’s about to happen. Then floor it.”

  “You’re going to get yourself killed!” Seth said.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Hopefully not. But this isn’t about me. Or Noah. It’s about the hundreds of lives that are going to be destroyed if this auction goes live.”

  She ran for the tree line, away from the path the guests were still taking, sprinting as quickly as she dared along the rows of colored lights, watching the snow turn from red to green at her feet.

  Thankfully, Noah’s earpiece was still transmitting, enough to let her know the Imposters were now carrying him up to the second floor. They hadn’t found his microphone yet, but she was sure it wouldn’t be long until they did. Right, Lord, now what? She reached the far side of the house and stood in the darkness against the wall, away from the lights and the noise of the gathering. Now what? Even with a disguise she couldn’t just walk in the front door. Light shone down from above, spilling over a stone balcony. She glanced at the rock wall, felt the stones, and her fingertips brushed the space between them. She glanced up.

  I can do it, Lord. I’m sure I can. Please, keep me from falling.

  “I’m going downstairs,” the Wraith said. “Wait until the music starts and then wake him up.”

  There was a grunt, a string of swear words and then her earpiece went dead. Looked like they’d found Noah’s device. She wasn’t going to wait. God, please have my back. She dug her fingertips in, gritted her teeth and started climbing, slowly feeling for hand-and footholds, ignoring the pain pounding through her head0 and praying with every breath.

  She reached the balcony, grabbed the edge and tumbled over. For a moment she just lay there, panting and waiting for the pain to clear. Then she heard the strains of string instruments filtering up from the floor below. The music had started.

  She dragged herself to her feet and stumbled toward the nearest sliding glass door. The latch was locked, but she forced her shoulder into the frame and popped it free. She tugged the door open and stumbled through, into a study, holding Anne’s gun at the ready.

  A man rose from behind the desk, grabbing for a weapon as he did so. He was elderly, nearing seventy, with a full white beard and a firm, unwavering stance that told her he would put his ability to pull a trigger up against hers any day.

  It was General Bertie. The man she was testifying against. The reason she was in this whole mess.

  “Drop your gun!” he ordered.

  “General, listen to me.” She risked a step forward. “Please. I’m not going to hurt you. The Imposters have infiltrated your party and I need your help to stop them and save a good man’s life.”

  ELEVEN

  It was a standoff. Holly stood in the study, keeping her weapon trained on the general even as she stared down the barrel of his gun.

  “Who are you?” he started. She watched for a second as the question hovered on her former mentor’s lips. Then something clicked behind Bertie’s eyes. He nodded. “Corporal Asher.”

  “Yup,” she said. She tightened her grip on the gun. “Please, put down your weapon, sir. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to stop some criminals and save some people.”

  The general didn’t move. The music below grew louder. Her heart ached.

  Lord, please be with Noah and keep him safe until I can find him.

  “Drop your gun, Corporal.”

  “I can’t do that,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the Imposters. They’re cyber criminals who’ve stolen the entire RCMP witness protection database and are about to auction it off online tomorrow unless we stop them. Now two men, one big and one small, dressed in some kind of uniform that implied they belonged here, just carried a man upstairs. He will be tortured if I don’t stop him. Please let me go find him.”

  Bertie’s head shook. He didn’t believe her. He thought she was standing there, making up lies. “I’ll do no such thing! I don’t know why you’re really here, but you will put down your weapon and get off my property before I have you arrested!”

  “No! Listen to me—”

  “Asher!” His voice was sharp and direct, with the tone she’d followed so many times, automatically. “There is no need for any of this. All I want is an opportunity to testify honestly before the inquiry and clear my reputation. I’m sorry you decided to go this route and try to make a name for yourself with cheap theatrics and lies. But whatever game you think you’re playing, it stops here and now.”

  “You bartered away weapons to the local warlord families, which they then used to slaughter innocent people!” Her voice rose. She didn’t know if she was going to be able to dissuade him from turning her in and convince him to help her find Noah before it was too late. But succeed or fail, she was done holding back any punches. “I don’t care what your motivation was! I don’t care what story you told yourself to make that okay! You betrayed your country. You betrayed the mission. You betrayed everything you taught me we believed in!
You betrayed me!”

  Her voice broke as, to her surprise, hot tears filled her eyes. Suddenly she found the words she’d never thought she’d say stumbling unexpectedly from her mouth.

  “I looked up to you, General,” she said. “I respected you and served faithfully under you. When I stepped forward to tell the truth—a truth you refused to tell—you did nothing to stop your defenders from coming after me, threatening me, blackballing me and trying to silence me.” Her voice broke. “Did you know three men came after me, trying to stop me from testifying against you? Three criminals, hired by someone who claimed to be defending you, attacked me just to shut me up!”

  Bertie’s face reddened. “I had nothing to do with that!”

  “You heard about it, though, didn’t you?” she asked. “And you did nothing to stop it! You did nothing to stop people from trying to harass me into silence. Someone who went by the handle Snitch5751 arranged my attack, the death of Detective Elias Crane of the RCMP, the theft of the witness protection files—all of it—from this Wi-Fi address. And if you’d just put your gun down, let me find the undercover detective I’m working with and let investigators search your devices, we could stop him and figure out who he is. Unless the fact that you’re standing here, holding me at gunpoint, means that it was you. And you’ve been behind all of this all along.”

  “I assure you, I did no such thing!”

  “Then prove it!” Her voice rose again. “Be a better person than this! Be the person everyone downstairs thinks you are. Who I thought you were. Tell me where my friend is! Help me find him! If you want to get me arrested for breaking and entering and threatening you, fine! Just be the man you claim to be, stop these criminals and let me save my friend’s life.”

  She gasped a breath, feeling her head pound and emotion surge through her brain. Tension crackled through the air.

  “Drop the gun, Corporal, and I’ll take you to your friend,” he said, his voice as firm as steel. “I imagine he would be the Mr. Smith I hear you’re marrying?”

  She didn’t answer. Just how effective had Seth’s online rumor mill been?

  “I’m having you both arrested,” he continued, “filing a restraining order against you and petitioning to have you banned from testifying against me on account of your clear personal vendetta and instability. As for the rest of your ridiculous story, you can tell it to the authorities.”

  She raised her hands and let the gun drop to the floor.

  “Hands on your head,” he said. “Fingers linked.”

  Lord, I really hope I’m doing the right thing right now. But what other choice do I have?

  She did as he asked. Bertie let out a sigh, then gestured to a door in the side wall that she’d thought was a cupboard.

  “I saw the man you may be describing passed out, apparently drunk, being escorted and carried by two of the catering team—”

  “They’re criminals,” she said quickly. “They’re behind the witness protection auction. They’ll torture and kill him. I’m not lying. You have to believe me—”

  “They took him into a lounge at the end of the hall,” he went on, talking over her. “I’m not about to walk the key witness against me through an event at gunpoint, so we’re going to go through the back. You’re going to walk in front of me, nice and slowly. Got it?”

  Yeah, she got it. She walked where he indicated and felt him press the gun into the back of her head. The thought of spinning around, fighting back and battling for her life against the man who’d ruined it rose up inside her. But all that mattered right now was finding Noah. Even if all she could do after this was sit in a jail cell, praying that the Imposters were caught and that Seth, Liam, Mack and Jess had stopped the auction.

  “Open the door,” he said. “Nice and slow.”

  She did. They walked forward into another office and crossed through it, to a door on the other side. She opened that second door and saw Noah.

  He was sitting in a chair, facing the wall to her right. The Ghoul stood behind him with a gun pressed to the back of his head. Cold air whipped at them through the open patio door. And then it was as if everything happened faster than she could think. Sirens sounded outside. The fire alarm screeched. Water poured down from the sprinklers in the ceiling. The Ghoul turned, his gun rose and Noah shouted at her to get down.

  A bullet flew. And she watched as the Ghoul shot General Bertie.

  * * *

  Bertie fell to the ground, shouting in pain. Noah swung back, catching the Ghoul in the jaw and knocking the weapon from his hand even before he could think to fire again. Then Noah sprang to his feet, his eyes searching out Holly’s face as she dropped to the floor beside the general. There was a crash behind him as the Ghoul knocked over a table, dived through the open door and out onto the balcony. In an instant, the criminal had vaulted over the railing and disappeared into the snowy yard below. The flashing lights and sounds of approaching emergency vehicles filled the air outside. And still, water from the sprinklers rained down around them.

  “Holly!” In a heartbeat, Noah had crouched by her side. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay.” She clutched his hand, linking her fingers through his. “But Bertie’s losing a lot of blood. Where’s the Wraith?”

  “I don’t know,” Noah said. “I only saw the Ghoul when I came to.”

  The sirens grew louder. Water soaked their skin. His teeth chattered. By the sounds of things, guests were streaming from the building below. The two of them could find a way to slip out the back without being seen.

  “Before you ask, I dropped the gun,” Holly said. “It was the only way to save your life.”

  “We’ve got to leave,” Noah said. “We can go through the back hallway and climb down from a different balcony.”

  He tried to pull her to standing. But she clutched his hand and held on tight.

  “Not without General Bertie,” she said. “We need to get him to paramedics immediately. I don’t know if he has anything to do with the Imposters or Snitch5751 or not. But either way, I’m not about to just let him die.” As he watched, she slid the man’s body over her shoulder and tried to stand. “You need to carry him. I can’t.”

  He blinked. “He ruined your life.”

  “Yeah! Now help me save his!”

  Seriously? There was so much on the line and she was insisting they risk their lives to save that of the man who was behind several crimes and might be behind more. Her eyes met Noah’s, fierce, brave and every bit as stubborn as he was. And his heart swelled as he realized how unbelievable she was. In another time and another place, he’d have given anything to have a woman like her by his side.

  “Okay, fine.” He dropped to one knee and turned to the general, whose eyes were open, though his face was pale. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m going to have to lift you.”

  Noah slid his arms underneath the old man and lifted him in a fireman’s carry.

  “Look on the bright side,” Holly said. “Now we both know what at least one of the Imposters looks like! So we’ll have no trouble finding a paramedic to trust.”

  Yeah. His body was still tingling and sore and smarting from whatever jolt of electricity they’d shot through him. It had been much stronger, more painful and long-lasting than any legal stun gun. And then they’d topped it up by shoving some kind of drug-soaked handkerchief in his face that had made him drowsy. And now he was carrying the bloody body of the man who’d put Holly through all the pain, fear, recovery time and anguish Noah had watched her go through. He was risking both their lives to carry this man to safety. Because Holly had asked him to and it was the right thing to do.

  “Come on,” Noah said. He stood up taller and steadied Bertie on his shoulders. “Let’s do this.”

  They pushed through the study door and out into the hallway, feeling the cascading sprinklers pounding on their skin and following t
he flowing water as it streamed down the stairs. The blaring scream of the fire alarm sounded around them, blending into a cacophony of noise with the sirens outside and the babble of people fleeing the building. He burst out the front door and immediately felt the wintry air start freezing his clothes to his skin. He made a beeline through the crowd and the chaos toward an ambulance.

  “Help!” He ran up to a pair of paramedics, who were flanked by a uniformed female cop, wishing he could flash his badge, but knowing until Snitch5751 was discovered it wasn’t safe. “General Bertie Frey has been shot and needs immediate medical attention.”

  The paramedics scrambled, helping the elderly man off his shoulders and onto a stretcher. Noah grabbed an emergency blanket from an outstretched arm.

  “Who shot him?” The red-haired female detective was to his right.

  “One of the Imposters,” he said. “They’re the urban terrorists behind the theft of stolen witness protection files and the threatened release of them tomorrow.”

  And probably long gone by now.

  “Holly?” He turned back, clutching the blanket, and for a moment panic welled up inside him when he couldn’t spot her. He ran back through the crowd, pushing past upset party guests and emergency personnel. “Holly! Where are you?”

  Then he saw her. She was huddled on a bench by the edge of the parking lot, with her arms wrapped around her skull and her head buried deep in her hood. He ran to her, dropped to his knees in the snow and pulled the blanket around her. She lifted her head to look at him, and his heart ached to see the pain in her eyes.

  “Let me guess,” he said softly, feeling something catch in his chest. “Your head hurts?”

  “Yeah.” The faint glimmer of a smile floated on her lips. “I’ve really got to start taking a break from flashing lights and sirens. They’re not great for concussions. Thankfully, my coat and boots are waterproof. But I can barely feel my legs.” She closed her eyes for a moment and he watched as pain crossed her face. Then she let her hands drop to her lap. “How’s Bertie?”