Protective Measures

by Maggie K. Black

  “Just give me the girls and let me leave. Please. I’ll take good care of them. I told you, The Anemoi said if I left before sunrise with the girls I’d be okay. But if I tipped you off they’d kill me and the girls.”

  She looked up at him, pain and rage filling her eyes. But it was how gullible she was that hit him hardest. How had she convinced herself that taking his children would make her whole after the pain of losing hers? Had Tommy’s cruel treatment of her damaged something inside her brain or had she been twisted inside from the start?

  “I’m going to let you go, and you’re going to run.” He pulled her to her feet and walked her toward the stairs. “If you stay here, they’ll kill you. You need help.”

  “Not without your girls. If I don’t walk out with your daughters those men are going to storm this cottage and kill you.”

  “I know,” he said. He tore two strips of fabric from the bottom of his shirt. Then firmly but not unkindly, he used one to tie Melody’s mouth and another her wrists. He did it partly in the hope it would save her life, because it would signal to the criminals outside that she hadn’t cooperated with him. But it was also because he needed her to stop fighting him and go. The strips were thin enough that she’d be able to tear them off with some effort, but hopefully not before she’d gotten far away from there. He walked her down the stairs. “Run! Don’t stop until you find help. Go! It might be too late for your fiancé. But it’s not too late for you.”

  Gunfire rattled the trees. Melody hesitated, then ran for the door. He ran back up the stairs, his heart wrenching as he saw the scene unfolding through the glass. Ivy was running down the dock toward the boat, now clutching the dog. Zoe was pelting after her, with Eve in her arms. Ivy dove into the boat. Zoe dropped Eve in after her. The girls pressed their bodies against the bottom of the boat. Zoe struggled to untie the rope. Then a tall, blond figure stepped onto the dock. It was Jason. He raised a gun toward Zoe. She dropped the rope and raised her hands. Zoe and the girls were trapped.

  The window shattered, destroying his view. Smoke grenades smashed through the cottage. Leo ran for the stairs. The enemy had breached the cottage.

  FOURTEEN

  Zoe stood on the dock, her hands raised, as she watched Jason walk down the boards toward her. Behind her, she could hear the girls quivering in the bottom of the boat.

  “Stop!” Jason aimed a gun between her eyes. “You can’t leave yet.”

  If she leaped into the boat and tried to drive off, he could shoot at the boat and sink it before they were even halfway across the lake. If she dove into the water and tried to make it to the trees, she’d be leaving the girls alone with a criminal. There was no escape. She took a step forward, placing herself between the girls and Jason. This was where she was making her last stand. This was where she was going to fight to protect the two precious girls now hiding behind her even if it cost her her life.

  Voices shouted in the woods behind them. Men with weapons were running toward them. Jason’s head turned. She rushed him and went for the weapon. She wrestled him for the gun, the weapon mere inches from her face, waiting at any moment to hear the spray of gunfire erupting. But the bullets never came. Her fist caught him in the jaw. The hilt of his gun caught her in the sternum. She grabbed the weapon and yanked it from his grasp. Then she planted her feet and aimed the barrel at his chest.

  “I don’t want to shoot you,” she said. “I honestly don’t. So, you’re going to back off now and let us leave.”

  “Wait!” Jason said. His hands rose. But the fingers of his left hand were clenched. “I’m not your enemy. The gun’s not even loaded.”

  “You’re a member of The Anemoi. You threatened Leo. You tried to kidnap me.”

  “Yes, but I told you I didn’t want to hurt you and that was the truth. I did my best to stop Prometheus from shooting you and running you over. And I feel really bad for knocking you down the stairs. That was an accident. I’m not really with The Anemoi. I was only using The Anemoi to get information and then get it to Commander Darius.” He opened his left hand slowly. He was holding a flash drive. This was Leo’s informant? Not one of the delegates or a member of the press core, but a criminal disguised as a waiter. “My name is Seth Miles. I’m a hacker. I have proof that people in naval intelligence have been working with European drug smugglers.”

  She gasped. His name was infamous. “You were arrested last year for stealing army secrets. You blew a huge military scandal wide open.”

  She knew Leo’s source might have intel similar to the corruption Seth had exposed. She never imagined it could be Seth himself.

  “That’s me.” He nodded. “And I’m afraid I kind of blew my plea deal by digging this information up and then trying to sell it. But I really was trying to do the right thing, the intel really is legit and I needed the money to escape the country. I’m sorry I pushed you down the stairs. I panicked. I had no idea what The Anemoi was really like. I joined them thinking they were people like me, who were trying to right wrongs. Things got way out of hand. I never expected they’d go after anyone’s children or try to tear a family apart. I don’t hurt people. I don’t hurt kids. I just steal secrets from bad people and try to get them in the right hands. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

  If so, he still had a long way to go. Glass crashed in the distance. The criminals were in the cottage.

  “I have no way to pay you or make good on your deal,” she said. “You’d be giving it away for nothing.”

  “Just take it and go,” Seth said. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Everything I know about drug smuggling routes, criminals in navy intelligence, The Anemoi and the money Melody Young paid them to gain custody of Ivy and Eve Darius, is on that drive. I promise I never told The Anemoi who you are, your team or the work you do. Get your colleague Samantha Rhodes to look at what’s on this drive. She can verify the encryption. Please, Zoe, if I don’t run now they’ll kill me.”

  She snatched it from his hand. Seth took off running through the woods. She hacked the rope free, shoved the boat away from the dock and leaped in. Bullets ricocheted in the trees behind her. Men in fatigues were running through the trees toward them. The girls looked up at her from the floor, wide-eyed and silent. She tried the engine. It didn’t catch. She tried it again. The engine started. She pulled away from the dock. The small boat shot out over the water. Gunfire erupted over the water toward them. A bullet dinged against the side of the boat. Water rushed in through the hole. Zoe gritted her teeth and pushed the small boat forward.

  “I’ve got it!” Ivy pushed her hand against the hole to block the flow of water rushing into the boat. Tears rushed to Zoe’s eyes. Leo’s daughters were so precious and brave. The sound of gunfire faded. She stayed low, pressed her hand protectively against the girls’ backs and fixed her eyes on the dock ahead. Please, Lord, may the boat stay afloat long enough for us to get to safety.

  Then she could see Josh and Samantha on the dock waiting for them. The water was already several inches up to the bottom of the boat. She reached her family cottage. Josh pulled them in, helping first the girls and then the dog onto the dock. Samantha dropped to her knees, pulled Ivy and Eve into her arms, and wrapped giant towels around them.

  Josh reached for Zoe’s hand and pulled her out of the boat.

  “The drug smugglers Leo was trying to expose have infiltrated the cottage,” she said. “They have Leo penned in. Get the girls to safety and then call the police, the military and every other favor you can call in.”

  “On it.” Josh nodded.

  Eve’s hand grabbed her hand. “You’re going to go back for Daddy, right?”

  “You can’t let him fight bad guys alone,” Ivy said, so seriously something broke inside her. “He needs you.”

  Both girls’ eyes were on her face. She looked at Josh.

  “Our highest priorit
y is keeping these girls safe,” she said.

  “We will.” His hand landed firmly on her shoulder. He pressed a small, waterproof walkie-talkie into her hand. “Go help Leo. The girls will be safe with me. I’ll get on the phone and call every bit of firepower I can think of to come to your rescue. I’d suggest we switch roles, but Leo is a fellow military man, we’re dealing with foreign criminals and I still have military contacts. I know exactly who to call and I know you’ll bring him back safely.”

  “I will.” She slid the walkie-talkie into her pocket, pulled out the flash drive and handed it to Samantha. “A hacker named Seth Miles told me to give this to you. He said you’d be able to verify the origin of the contents. He says it contains all the smuggling intel Leo was after.”

  Samantha took the flash drive and turned it over in her hand. “I’m not quite sure what to make of the fact that an infamous hacker knows my name.”

  “I think he knows all our names,” Zoe said. “I almost got the impression that he admires what you do, especially since it looks like he was the person you’ve been matching wits with online.”

  She wondered if he was serious about trying to be one of the good guys, and what the rest of the team would think if a former criminal ever approached them about joining the team.

  “Hang on.” Samantha disappeared into the boathouse and returned seconds later with a sealed, waterproof pouch. “Give Leo this. It’s the original version of the letter Marisa wrote him. She’d backed it up to an online server. If anything happens, make sure he has it.”

  Zoe slipped it inside her pocket. “I will.”

  She crouched down and hugged both girls closely, words failing her lips even before she could speak them. Then she turned, dove cleanly into the water and started swimming.

  * * *

  Leo’s energy was flagging. When the smoke bombs had first exploded through the windows, filling the cottage with smoke, he’d focused on staying hidden and finding an exit, while he prayed Zoe and his daughters had made it to safety. He’d retreated to the master bedroom and pressed himself against the wall, listening, praying, waiting as he’d heard the shouts of men swarming the cottage below him and the rhythmic crash of door after door being burst open, and room after room being tossed as the criminals came looking for him.

  When they’d reached him, he was ready. He leaped, knocking the criminal off his feet and to the ground, followed by a quick punch to the jaw to make sure he stayed there. But now his cover was blown, the enemy was upon him and there was nothing left to do but fight.

  He chose the living room for his final stand, staying low and quick even as the smoke seared his lungs and gunfire erupted around him. He caught a second man in the chest with a flying kick that knocked him to the ground. Then Leo rolled under the cloud of rising smoke as it surged above him. He came up beside another operative, caught him by the shoulder and tossed him into the couch. But as Leo swung back, he was kicked hard from behind. He sprawled to his hands and knees, gritted his teeth and climbed back to his feet.

  Leo fought for his life, blow after blow, six on one, as the men around him pummeled him down in an attempt to take him alive. He had no idea where they were planning on taking him for questioning or what they were going to do with him when they got there, but didn’t much want to find out.

  How many criminals had he taken down, disarming them of their weapons and tearing the guns from their grasp, only to be leaped on by another? He was being overtaken by a swarm.

  He rolled onto his knees. Panting. Praying. He would fight until his final breath. He could continue to take down man after man, criminal after criminal until he could take no more. But he couldn’t fight forever.

  Then he heard the screech of a truck—his truck—and the crash of glass and wood. Sunlight poured through the hole in the wall. He looked up. Someone had driven his truck straight through the window and into the cottage.

  “Leo!” A strong and beautiful voice cut through the chaos. “This way!”

  It was Zoe. She’d crashed his truck right into the middle of the living room, offering him a means of escape. All he had to do was reach the vehicle, get inside and they could drive out of the fight to safety.

  He ran toward her, feeling fresh energy fill his lungs. Men lunged at him on either side. He fought them back. He had to reach her.

  Zoe screamed as a large brute of a man grasped her around the neck and yanked her from the truck. Her feet kicked in the air. Her hands clutched her attacker’s hands. With a decisive throw, Leo tore Zoe’s attacker off her and tossed him to the ground. Zoe fell to her knees. He grabbed her hand and helped her up.

  “Where are my girls?”

  “Safe.” Her hands rose in front of her. “With Josh and Samantha. He’s calling for backup.”

  “Thank You, God!” he prayed.

  “Amen.”

  Leo and Zoe stood back-to-back, protecting each other as criminals rained blows down on them. They reached the truck. Leo grabbed Zoe around the waist and hoisted her into the vehicle.

  “You’re driving,” he shouted. He leaped in the passenger side. “You know Cedar Lake. I don’t.”

  She threw the truck in Reverse. The truck shot backward out the hole in the wall. “I thought you didn’t like me driving your truck.”

  “You already smashed my truck into a cottage,” he said. “I don’t figure you can do much worse.”

  “I told you, I only crash when people are shooting at me!”

  The truck shot backward up the narrow and curving cottage road. Above, he could hear the whir of helicopters. Sirens echoed in the distance. Zoe spun the truck until they were going forward again and gunned it down a tiny dirt track.

  “Josh called everyone,” she said. “Fire, ambulance, police, military, every favor he could pull in. Jason of The Anemoi was your informant. He’s really Seth Miles. I retrieved the intel and then some. Samantha is processing it now.”

  She drove a few minutes down a narrow track, then stopped at a cottage. He looked behind him. No one was following them. Emergency services were arriving. They were safe.

  He reached for Zoe’s hand and squeezed it. She squeezed it back.

  “You came back for me,” he said.

  “Of course I did.” She looked down at their hands. “That’s what partners do. But to be fair, you took on about a dozen international criminals in hand-to-hand combat. I mostly just provided the getaway vehicle.”

  “You got my daughters to safety,” he said. “And that gave me the strength and power to take on an army of foes. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  He pulled her toward him. But instead she pushed him back.

  “Wait,” Zoe said. “I care about you and about your girls, more than I knew it was possible to care about anyone. But we still have real life to worry about and I have something you need to open.”

  She pressed something against his chest. He looked down. It was a waterproof pouch.

  “It’s the letter from Marisa,” she said. “The original one. Samantha was able to download it from an online server.”

  He took it from her. She slipped from his arms, opened the front door of the truck and jumped out.

  “Read it,” she said, “and then tell me what our next move is. Because whatever we think and whatever we feel can’t get in the way of protecting the girls.”

  FIFTEEN

  Zoe slipped out of the truck, leaving Leo alone. To her right, she could see the flashing lights. She reached for the walkie-talkie in her pocket.

  “Zoe!” Samantha’s voice crackled in her ear.

  “It’s me. We’re safe and fine at the Mullocks’ cottage.”

  “Is that Zoe?” Eve’s voice practically yipped. “Can I talk to her?”

  Zoe smiled. “Hi, Eve, yes it’s me. Is Ivy there with
you, too?”

  “Yeah,” Ivy said. “Are you with Daddy? Did you get away?”

  “Yes, I’m safe with your daddy,” she said. Zoe sat down on the edge of the dock, closed her eyes and let the girls’ voices fill her heart. “In fact, I’m calling to see if you guys can come pick us up.”

  Due to the way Cedar Lake curved, the cottage was thirty minutes away by truck. But by boat, Josh could be there in eight.

  Samantha said, “Joshua says we’re on our way.”

  “Fluff is asleep in your dog’s bed,” Ivy said, her voice ever serious. “I hope that’s okay.”

  “I’m sure Oz won’t mind at all.” Zoe smiled.

  “The boathouse has bunk beds!” Eve’s voice filled the airwaves. “Can we stay here tonight?”

  “It’s up to your daddy.”

  “Will you stay here, too, at the lake with us?” Eve asked. “Josh and Samantha can stay, too. And Alex and Theresa. There are lots of rooms. You could go get your dog to keep Fluff company.”

  Tears of sadness and joy mingled together suddenly in Zoe’s eyes. “I don’t know, honey. But I’m sure your daddy would be happy to have some time at the cottage with you.”

  Footsteps on the dock behind her made her pause. She turned and looked up. Leo was walking slowly down the dock toward her. She held the walkie-talkie out toward him. But instead he shook his head and held up a finger to his lips.

  “Okay, I’ve got to go,” she said to the girls. “I’ll see you when you get here. Over and out.”

  She switched the walkie-talkie off. Leo reached down a hand, grabbed her and pulled her to her feet.

  “I was just talking to Eve and Ivy,” she said. “They’re excited to see you.”

  “I can’t wait to see them. But first, I need to read you something.” Leo brushed a finger gently over her lips. “I need you to be quiet and not interrupt or talk until I’m done. Okay?”