by Amelia Autin
* * *
Vishenko’s men swarmed around the government official the minute he entered the airplane hangar. The pat down one of them gave him was much more thorough and intimate than any airport screener, but he didn’t protest. Another man ran a metal detector over him that pinged on his artificial left knee—he was forced to roll up his pants leg and show them the vertical surgical scar, then take out his wallet to display the ID card he used when he went through the metal detector at the airport, the one with a graphic X-ray picture of what his knee looked like now. A third goon ran an electronic scanner—a scanner that would detect any listening device he might be wearing—over his entire body with the exception of the artificial left knee that had already set off the metal detector. His heartbeat was a little faster than normal, but that was only to be expected...given what he was about to do.
In a long-ago era he’d been a US marshal. He’d protected witnesses with his life, and had the scars to prove it. But it had been years since he’d handled field assignments, since he’d put his life on the line. Not since he’d assigned himself to the team backing up Reilly O’Neill—aka Ryan Callahan—and Cody Walker when they confronted David Pennington. How long ago was that? he wondered, mentally trying to add up the years.
It had never been about the money. Even at his level within the government, his salary and benefits paled in comparison to what he could have earned elsewhere, so money had never been a motivating factor for him. But every man has his price, he reminded himself with grim smile. Every man has something he will risk everything for. He was no different.
Incorruptible. Everyone who knew him believed as much in his incorruptibility as in his omniscience. So no one would suspect what he was about to do. No one. And that dovetailed nicely with his overall plan.
* * *
“If you need a rest stop,” Liam told Cate when they were back on the road, “don’t hesitate to tell me. I know guys tend to forget women usually need to stop more often.”
“Okay.” There was a hint of reserve in her voice, a little shyness, and Liam guessed this probably wasn’t a conversation she was used to having. She glanced down at the bag in her hands—the one she’d refused to let Liam put in the back with their limited amount of luggage—then over at him. “Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate this, and I...well...thank you.”
“My pleasure.” And it was, he realized—just as much a pleasure as holding her had been last night. He’d never given a woman a gift that brought him as much joy as seeing the warm glow in her eyes at the thought of owning so many books. If he’d given her expensive jewelry it wouldn’t have meant as much to her.
They whiled away the next hours talking about books they’d read. Liam was surprised and yet not surprised to learn they’d read some of the same books, and had similar takes on them.
“Wasn’t it unbelievable how Isaac Cline played such a critical role in two of the worst natural disasters in US history?” Cate asked, referring to both Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History and John M. Barry’s Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. “And because of him, because of his actions so many years apart, both disasters were immeasurably worse than they could have been.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Both times he did the wrong thing,” Cate said softly. “But with the best intentions. It had to be heartbreaking for him.” She was silent for a moment. “That’s why I feel responsible for what happened the other day—the prosecutor who was killed, the men who were shot.”
“You’re not responsible,” Liam insisted, taking his eyes off the road for a few seconds to make sure Cate understood. “Vishenko—assuming he’s behind the attempt to kill you, which is a pretty fair assumption—is responsible. For all of it. Not you.”
Cate shook her head. “But I am. Because I was a coward for so many years...until Alec convinced me otherwise. If I had—” She broke off, and Liam wondered what she’d been about to say. She finally continued. “If I had gone to the police years ago with what I knew...with the evidence I had...who knows? Things could have been so different.”
Liam was sure this wasn’t what she’d originally been thinking, but all he said was “You can’t second-guess yourself like this. That’s the first thing you learn when you become a bodyguard. All you can do is the best you can do at the time.”
“That’s what Alec and Angelina said.”
“They’re right.” Cate still didn’t look convinced, so Liam added, “Remember what D’Arcy said? That Vishenko was working hand in glove with Pennington back in the day? They could have stopped him then, same as Pennington, if they’d known. But they didn’t. Everything that happened to you at Vishenko’s hands could have been prevented...if they’d stopped him years ago. Same goes for what happened in the courthouse. But they didn’t know. D’Arcy, Callahan and my brother-in-law, Cody, did the best they could with what they knew at the time. That’s all any of us can do. If we clutter up our minds with what-ifs and might-have-beens, we’ll be frozen with fear of making a mistake. Then at the critical moment we won’t do anything. And that’s worse than doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.”
The GPS beeped at that moment, announcing a rest area five miles ahead. “Do you need to stop?” he asked her.
“No, I’m fine for now.”
Liam thought for a moment. “The past is the past, Cate,” he said finally, returning to their original conversation. “It is what it is, and we can’t change a single thing. Would I change things I’ve done over the years if I could? Sure. I don’t think anyone can say they’ve never made a mistake they’d give anything to fix. But we can’t fix it. We can only learn from it, and try not to make the same mistakes in the future.”
He took his right hand off the steering wheel and laid it over her left one. Once again she didn’t flinch away from his touch, and Liam drew courage from that lack of negative reaction. He drew a deep breath. “Last night you said there’s nothing you want more than to be able to come to a man clean and whole, but you can’t because of what Vishenko did to you. If that’s the only thing holding you back—because he made you feel broken and unclean—don’t. Don’t let the past color your future. Don’t let him win.”
“That’s what Alec said when he was trying to convince me to testify against Vishenko. He said, ‘You can’t let him win...not ever again.’” She turned away and stared out the window, her face a mask of repressed emotion. “Do you think I want to let him win?” she asked in a desperate undertone. “Do you think I want to remember?” She swallowed hard. “I don’t want that, but I’m afraid, Liam. Afraid that if I try to...to...do as you say, that I will remember. And I don’t think I can bear it.”
* * *
Vishenko sat back in his leather seat in the cabin of his private Learjet, and stared across the short distance at the government bureaucrat he was attempting to bribe. Despite the fact that it was early afternoon, he’d served them both snifters of Courvoisier L’Essence, his favorite cognac, and both men were savoring it.
Vishenko gave the other man points for being a good negotiator by the simple expedient of saying absolutely nothing. He had not named a price. He had not mentioned a name. He had merely sat silently in the seat he’d been offered...and waited for Vishenko to make the first move. To make the first offer.
“One million,” Vishenko said finally.
The man chuckled softly, his teeth gleaming white in his dark face. “That has been offered to others for more than a year. And it got you absolutely nothing.”
True, Vishenko acknowledged to himself. “What would you consider a fair offer?” he asked, wanting the other man to state his price...so he could negotiate down from there. If he made the first offer himself, he could easily overshoot the mark and end up paying more than the man would settle for.
The bureaucrat shrugged his shoulders. “I’m here at your request. I’ll listen to what you have to say. But that’s all. If you want something from me, tell me. Then I’ll decide if it’s worth it...to me.”
“Three million,” Vishenko said.
The man smiled to himself, sighed regretfully and shook his head. He put down his cognac, stood up and turned as if to go.
“Ten million, and that is my final offer,” Vishenko said on a desperate rush. He had to silence Caterina Mateja. He had less than four weeks to do it, so time was of the essence. This man knew where she was hiding, and he was the only one Vishenko knew who knew. Others had to know her location, but Vishenko didn’t know their names. It was certainly possible one of the others would accept far less than ten million dollars, but he couldn’t afford to wait.
“Ten million.” The other man considered the offer. “That is...a possibility. But what exactly do you want for your ten million?”
Vishenko spoke in Russian. The other man shook his head. “Sorry, but I don’t understand.”
Vishenko wasn’t sure about that. The bureaucrat’s reputation was one that led him to believe the man spoke many languages, including Russian. But he wasn’t positive. He hesitated, then was reassured their conversation couldn’t be recorded. My men would have found it if he was wearing a wire, he reminded himself, just as they would have found a gun if he’d brought a gun. “Caterina Mateja has been a thorn in my side for far too long,” he said. “I want her dead.”
The bureaucrat shook his head again. “I’m not a murderer,” he insisted. “Not for any price.”
The admission reduced him in Vishenko’s eyes. Vishenko had ordered men killed over the years, but had never hesitated to kill with his own hands when called upon...if necessary. Early in his career he’d made his reputation as a ruthless, cold-blooded killer, and nothing had changed. He could kill Caterina Mateja himself, despite his one-time obsession with her.
“Then I want to know where she is,” he said. “I can take it from there.”
The other man nodded slowly. “I’ll think about it.”
Vishenko cursed foully, but in Russian. Then said in English with more than a touch of contempt, “What is there to think about? I want Caterina Mateja. Now. Do you know where she is or not? Ten million should easily overcome any scruples you might have about her.”
The other man smiled, but his smile was as cold as Vishenko’s usually was. “I know where she is,” he said softly, meaningfully. “But you will never find her...without me.”
Vishenko lunged to his feet and grasped the lapels of the man’s suit coat. “Give me her location,” he shouted as he vehemently shook the other man.
The man crossed his arms, and with a swift movement freed himself from Vishenko’s hold. Then he stepped back, and brushed down his crumpled lapels. “I will think about it,” he said once more. “Do that again, however, and I will see you in the courtroom and not a minute before.” He turned his back, opened the plane’s door and walked down the stairs.
Vishenko moved to the doorway and watched the other man stride across the tarmac. He cursed again in Russian, relieving his anxiety and frustration by calling the other man every derogatory name he could think of. Then he stomped back into the center of the cabin and knocked the other man’s snifter against the wall with a tinkling sound of splintering glass.
When he finally calmed down, he picked up his own snifter and refilled it, then dashed off the contents in one abrupt move. “Every man has his price,” Vishenko reminded himself. Ten million dollars was more than most men dreamed of, even this government bureaucrat. “He’ll be back,” he asserted, believing it because he wanted to believe it. “He’ll be back.”
Chapter 10
Liam pulled the SUV into the clearing at the end of a dirt road and parked with a small sigh of relief. He hadn’t been absolutely sure he knew the way to Cody’s cabin near Granite Peak—he’d been here only once before, shortly after Keira had married Cody—but he wasn’t about to call his brother-in-law for directions. And he would have called Callahan only as a last resort. He smiled ruefully. Why did guys have a thing about asking for directions anyway? A GPS was different. He didn’t mind relying on the GPS, which had gotten him most of the way here. The rest had been trial and error, a little blind luck and a sudden memory of what the turnoff looked like.
The good news was that even if someone knew Cate was here in Cody’s cabin, unless that person had specific directions and a better GPS than Liam’s, they’d be hard-pressed to find it. And even if that person got as far as this dead-end road, there was still the issue of finding the cabin itself. It wasn’t visible, no matter which direction you looked. And there were several openings that looked like paths, but if he remembered correctly, those led to nothing but hiking trails—and not easy hiking trails, either. None of those paths led to the cabin.
Liam got out and quickly unloaded the back of the SUV. He slung his duffel bag over one shoulder and handed Cate’s small suitcase to her, leaving his gun hand free. Then he slowly rotated around the clearing. If he didn’t miss his guess...yes! There it was. It didn’t look like a path, and as he recalled there would be places they’d have to walk single file, but eventually the rough path would widen out and lead to the clearing where Cody’s cabin stood.
“Come on,” he told Cate, leading the way. He wasn’t worried too much about their safety at this point. While he wasn’t familiar with the Big Horn Mountains in general and Granite Peak in particular, his family had a cabin the Rockies, and he’d spent a lot of time in the mountains growing up. Sound carried. Especially man-made sound—such as a car engine. His ears were already attuned, and he knew if anyone followed them he’d hear it.
A little more than fifty yards later a clearing materialized, and there in the center stood Cody’s split-log cabin. Liam started forward, then turned around. “Wait here,” he told Cate. “Let me check it out first.”
“Do you have the key?”
“Don’t need a key,” he told her. “Cody doesn’t keep it locked.”
She looked startled. “He doesn’t?”
He shook his head. “Cody said he doesn’t keep anything valuable here, anything worth stealing. Other than nonperishable food, that is. If someone needed his cabin, he’d rather they just walk in instead of break in. There’s a generator out back—that runs the pump for the well in addition to electric lights, so he’s got running water. It’s a great place to hole up, and I’m not surprised Callahan suggested it. My sister, Keira, told me the Callahans have used this place more than once in an emergency.”
Cate’s eyes asked a question, but all Liam said was, “Long story. I’ll tell you sometime, but right now I want to check the place out and make sure no one’s inside. Once I know you’re safe there will be time for other things. Stay here, okay? If something happens, drop your suitcase and run like hell.”
Liam strode across the clearing, but paused halfway. “Callahan?” he called. He didn’t think Callahan was inside—the fact that no other car had been parked at the dead end in the road was a good indication they’d arrived first. But just in case...
When there was no response after a minute, he mounted the steps, then reached for the door latch, opened the door and walked inside. The cabin had that disused smell. Not rank or moldy, just...uninhabited. A thin layer of dust on the Spartan furniture told him no one had been at the cabin for quite some time, which was just fine with him. He dropped his duffel bag on the kitchen table, then went back to fetch Cate.
“All clear,” he told her. Then, “Here, I’ll take that.” He took the suitcase from her right hand, but let her carry her bag of books.
Once inside, Liam bolted the front door, then went and did the same for the back door. “I’ll go out in a little bit and start the generator,” he told Cate, “but let me show you a
round first.”
The cabin was one large room. He placed Cate’s suitcase on the double bed that stood in one corner, half-screened from the rest of the room by a large carved wooden folding screen that Liam recognized as having once belonged to his mother. A rocking chair held pride of place in front of the fireplace, and a child’s bed stood against another wall. For Alyssa, no doubt, he acknowledged, thinking of his young niece. The one and only time he’d been here before, he and his brothers had all brought sleeping bags, and they’d bunked down in front of the fireplace.
That had been before Alyssa was born, shortly after Keira had married Cody. Cody had invited the Jones brothers to stag it with him at the cabin, as a way of getting to know each other. Even Shane had made a point to get leave from the Marine Corps, Liam remembered, and he chuckled softly to himself.
“What is it?” Cate asked. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” he told her. “I was just remembering the last time I was here.” When she lifted her eyebrows in a question, he added, “I told you this cabin belongs to my brother-in-law. He married my only sister, and boy! Were we tough on him at first!”
“What did you do?”
“Put him through the wringer, that’s what we did. Cody’s a couple of years older than my oldest brother, Shane, which means he’s quite a bit older than Keira—eight years. We gave him the benefit of the doubt because he was a US Marine at one time, same as us. Same as Keira. But we were all pretty ticked off he’d let her get shot when they were working a case together for the agency—you know the agency I mean. Keira threatened us all with dire consequences if we did anything to her new husband, but...” Liam spread his hands out. “We had to make sure he was right for her. Know what I mean?”