by Cindi Myers
“I vouched for her. Doesn’t that count for anything?” he said.
Blessing leveled his gaze at him. “You had a long-term, close relationship with Ms. Carlisle, the nature of which, I note, you did not fully divulge,” he said.
Travis didn’t flinch. “I told you I knew her, and that we went to school together. I didn’t lie.”
“Are you familiar with the term ‘sins of omission’?” Blessing shook his head. “That’s all beside the point now. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that your judgment might be clouded by the fact that you were once engaged to marry the woman.”
Travis shot a look at Luke, who shrugged and looked guilty. The two of them would talk later. He turned his attention back to Blessing. “There’s nothing wrong with my judgment,” he said. “Leah is innocent.”
“And she is perfectly safe where she is right now.” Blessing put a hand on his shoulder, his gaze locked on Travis’s. There was sympathy in those dark brown eyes, as well as the stern concern of a father for a troubled son. “You’ve had a rough four days. I’m ordering you to go home and get a shower, a good meal and a decent night’s sleep. I want you fresh and ready in the morning to take the train with the rest of us to Needleton Station. We still have a number of Braeswood’s associates to pick up.”
“You’re waiting until the morning?” Travis asked. “Why not go right away?”
“The tourist train is the only way into the area where we believe the men are located. Unless you want to make a multiday hike over rough, roadless terrain.”
“Then send the train in tonight,” Travis said. “Don’t give them all night to get away.”
Blessing grimaced. “You can’t exactly sneak into an area on a steam train. They’ll hear us coming from miles away. We’ve commandeered a car on the first morning train. We’re posing as a group of friends on a hiking trip.”
“What about Braeswood’s body?” Travis asked.
“We’ve got a recovery team on the second train that will handle retrieving it,” Blessing said. “They’ll transport it to the La Plata County Coroner.”
“You said he jumped from the train?” Agent Harris asked. “How did that happen?”
The others gathered around him. “Leah distracted him by pointing out a gold mine in the mountains above the tracks,” Travis said. “He’d gotten cocky, believing we were subdued and trapped. He let down his guard and I grabbed him. I was trying to cuff him when he fought me off. I had him cornered and was trying to persuade him to come with me quietly when he jumped.”
“Any chance he survived?” Agent Hsung asked.
Travis shook his head. “No way. He fell at least four hundred feet into a rocky, shallow creek.”
“Without him, we might have a harder time making a case against the others,” Luke said.
“Leah can help us there,” Travis said. “She lived in the same household for six months. She doesn’t know everything Braeswood was up to, but she can identify many of the people who worked with him. And we’ve got the house outside of Durango. That might turn up documents or computer files that could link Braeswood to his crimes.”
“No luck with the house,” Harris said. “They torched it.”
“Probably cleaned it out before they set the blaze,” Hsung said.
“They burned Gus’s body along with the house,” Wade said, his expression grim.
For the first time since rejoining the team, Travis realized Agent Gus Mathers wasn’t with them. Neither was Jack Prescott. He remembered the khaki-clad figure he’d seen lying in front of the house. “They killed Gus?” he asked.
“He was trying to get to the van and they gunned him down,” Blessing said.
“What about Jack?” Travis asked.
“He was injured when we fled from the house into the woods,” Hsung said.
“He took a couple of bullets,” Blessing said. “He’ll recover, but for now he’s on medical leave.”
Travis swore under his breath. Another murder Braeswood was responsible for. “You need to let Leah out of jail,” he said. “She can help us stop these guys before they act again.”
“She’ll have her chance to prove her innocence,” Blessing said. “I want to stop these terrorists as badly as you do, but we’re going to do this the right way. No slick lawyer or tabloid journalist is going to accuse us of favoritism or taking shortcuts. When we send these guys away, they’re going for life.”
He turned to agent Luke Renfro, Travis’s closest friend on the team. “Agent Renfro, take Agent Steadman home. He needs to get some rest. And frankly, I can’t stand the smell of him any longer.”
* * *
SAN JUAN COUNTY, COLORADO, didn’t have the population to support a jail of its own, so the San Juan County Sheriff’s officers escorted Leah to the La Plata County Detention Facility in Durango, where she was photographed and fingerprinted. She was allowed to take a shower and dressed in loose orange scrubs. She could have wept with joy as the hot water and soap washed away days of sweat and grime, but instead she shed tears of anger and frustration. She had known she was wanted as an accomplice of Duane’s, but she had never actually believed the authorities would arrest her. She was with Travis, and he would explain that she was innocent, a victim, not a criminal.
But Travis had been helpless when the sheriff’s deputies handcuffed her and led her away. Speaking up for her might even jeopardize his career. She was on her own again, stranded in a strange world full of enemies. She would have to learn how to cope, as she had when she was with Duane. At least here she didn’t have to worry about the daily threat of rape and violence—she hoped.
Alone in her cell, segregated from the general population of the jail, she lay on the hard bunk and tried to sleep. Maybe when she woke up, she would discover this was all a horrible nightmare, a variation on the familiar theme of being trapped and helpless. But, exhausted as she was, sleep eluded her. When she had lost Travis the first time, she had grieved hard, but had eventually resigned herself to the loss. He was better off—safer—without her in his life.
Being with him again had made her believe they had a second chance at happiness. To have that chance snatched away hurt even more than the first loss, a sorrow too deep for tears.
“You don’t look like I thought a terrorist would.”
She sat up and stared at the man who spoke—a young guard with buzzed hair and a prominent Adam’s apple. His name tag identified him simply as Lawson.
“I’m not a terrorist,” she said.
He ignored her plea of innocence. Probably everyone who came here claimed not to have committed their crime, she reasoned. “What makes you hate this country so much you want to destroy it?” he asked.
“I don’t hate this country,” she said.
“That’s not what I heard.”
“When do I leave here?” she asked. She had already had enough of this guy.
“Don’t know. I guess the Feds are still arguing over where to send you. Maybe you’ll go to Denver, maybe you’ll go to Washington—or maybe somewhere else. Wherever you end up, the penalty for treason is the same.” He made a slashing motion across his throat.
She knew she shouldn’t rise to his bait, but she couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “The FBI agent I was with when I was arrested will vouch for me,” she said. “He knows I’m innocent.”
“Some men will say anything for a pretty face and figure.” Lawson looked her up and down. “There’s no accounting for taste.”
She lay down again and turned her back to him. Duane had said worse to her—much worse. His abuse wasn’t anything she would have ever thanked him for, but at least he had helped her develop a thick skin. Something that would come in handy in the days ahead.
* * *
LUKE INSISTED ON coming inside the apartment Trav
is had rented in a complex that housed several of the team members on temporary assignment in Durango. After only four days standing empty, the air in the place smelled stale. “Thanks for bringing me home,” Travis said when they both stood in the one-bedroom unit’s entryway. “I won’t keep you.”
“I’ll stick around a while.” Luke slipped off the light jacket he wore against the evening mountain chill and dropped it over the back of the cheap beige sofa that had come with the furnished unit. “Want me to order a pizza while you shower?”
No. He didn’t want a pizza and he didn’t want to talk to anyone about what had happened—not even his best friend. But his stomach growled at the mention of pizza, and the prospect of a long evening spent pacing the floor while he worried about Leah was too bleak to contemplate. “Yes, sure,” he said. “But what about Morgan?” Luke had met the pretty sports reporter while the team worked a terrorism case in Denver a couple of months ago and the two had been an item ever since. She had followed him to Durango, and they were planning a spring wedding.
“She understands about my work.”
Travis narrowed his eyes at his friend. “So I’m work now? Did Blessing ask you to pick my brain?”
“Morgan understands about friends, too,” Luke said. “And Blessing didn’t tell me anything but to bring you home.”
“And to make sure I stayed here. Don’t worry. I’m too beat to go anywhere.” The only person he wanted to see was in jail and the sheriff wouldn’t let him anywhere near her. He might as well stay home and rest up for tomorrow.
“Hit the shower,” Travis said. “I’ll call for the pizza.”
Half an hour later, showered, shampooed and shaved, wearing clean clothes and feeling better than he had in days, Travis dived into the large sausage and pepperoni pizza Luke had ordered. “I had dreams about a pizza like this while I was out there,” he said, wiping sauce off his chin. “And steak and cheeseburgers and cherry pie.”
“I’ve always been partial to peach pie, myself.” Luke polished off the last bite of crust from his first slice of pizza.
“I’ve never been so hungry in my life,” Travis said.
“Were you ever worried you wouldn’t make it?” Luke asked.
“The first night was bad, when we knew Braeswood’s men were chasing us. But once we spotted the train and knew which way to go, it was just a matter of slogging it out.”
“How did Leah do?” Luke asked.
“Leah was amazing. I know grown men—trained agents—who would have cracked under the pressure she was under, but she didn’t. She never complained, either. She just kept going.”
“Not what I expected,” Luke said. He moved a piece of pizza onto his plate and contemplated it.
“You told Blessing she and I had been engaged, didn’t you?” Travis asked.
“It was going to come out,” Luke said. “Maybe not right away, but a reporter would have dug it up eventually. And I thought the information was relevant. Blessing did, too.”
“Yeah. I probably would have done the same in your position.”
Luke gave him a questioning look. “None of my business, but are you two an item again? Even after she dumped you?”
Were they? He wanted to try again with Leah, but was that even possible? “She dumped me because she was afraid Braeswood would kill me,” Travis blurted. He hadn’t meant to discuss this with anyone, but now the need to tell someone overwhelmed that reticence. “She stayed with Braeswood because he had kidnapped her sister. He took over all her assets and made her a prisoner. Then he killed her sister and made her believe if she left him, he would hunt her down and kill her.”
Luke let out a low whistle. “She told you all this?”
“I believe her, Luke. And her sister is dead. I remember reading the obituary a few weeks after Leah left.” His first instinct had been to call Leah and offer his condolences, but then he had realized he had no idea how to reach her. Her apartment had been rented by a stranger, and her cell phone number no longer worked. She had made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him and had done everything to make sure he couldn’t find her. “I should have known something was up when she broke our engagement,” he said. “That wasn’t her. She was always so open and straightforward. If she had really wanted to leave me, she would have told me to my face, not in some ‘Dear John’ letter left on the kitchen table.”
“So why didn’t she tell you to your face?” Luke asked. “Why didn’t she ask you to help her, instead of running away like that?”
“Because she was afraid for her younger sister. She thought if she did everything Braeswood asked, he would leave Sarah alone. He did let her go after Leah turned over everything she owned to him. But he arranged for Sarah to have an ‘accident’ not long after.”
“How do you know it wasn’t really an accident? One with really bad timing?”
“Apparently Braeswood got a charge out of telling Leah what he had done to her sister. It was another way he played with her mind and made her believe he had total control over her life.”
“Why did he pick on Leah?” Luke pointed a slice of pizza at him. “What’s the connection?”
Travis shook his head. “I don’t know. She worked for Senator Wilson, who was head of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Braeswood used Leah to try to get to the senator. But if that was all he wanted, he didn’t have to keep using her the way he did. Maybe he wanted something in her assets. Her parents left her a lot of money and property when they died. Or maybe he saw her one day and was attracted and decided she would be the target of his sick game.”
“We need to find out why he targeted Leah,” Luke said. “It could be important.”
“I’m not going to let it drop, if that’s what you think,” Travis said. “But first, I have to get the charges against her dismissed. She’s no more a terrorist than you or I. And she can be a big help to us in this case. She knows Braeswood and the people he worked with better than anyone at this point.”
“If she knew about his planned attacks and she never turned him in to the authorities, that could be a big strike against her,” Luke said. “Enough to get her some serious jail time.”
“She didn’t know any of that,” Travis said. “He made sure she was kept in the dark.”
“Still, it’s going to be tough,” Luke said. “No judge or other elected official wants to look like he’s soft on terrorists.”
“She’s not a terrorist!” He slammed his fist on the table, making their water glasses jump.
“Okay. Calm down.” Luke sat back, looking thoughtful. “I’ve got a lawyer friend we can call. He might be able to persuade the courts to release Leah on bond.”
“Call your friend,” Travis said. “But you said it yourself. No judge wants to be seen as going soft on terrorists.”
“It would help if we could get Blessing on our side,” Luke said. “A special agent in charge vouching for her would carry a lot of weight.”
“Fat chance of that,” Travis said. He sat back also, suddenly bone weary. “Blessing is the one who gave the order for her to be arrested in the first place. He’s never going to back off of that.”
“He might surprise you,” Luke said. “He plays by the book, but he’s not above writing new chapters when it suits his purpose.”
* * *
AFTER LUKE LEFT, Travis wouldn’t have believed he would sleep a wink. He lay in bed, imagining Leah in a stark cell, with no blanket or mattress and a lightbulb that burned twenty-four hours a day. Here in his own comfortable bed it seemed a betrayal for him to get a good night’s sleep.
But sleep he did. He woke at six when his alarm blared, took another shower, had two bowls of stale cereal for breakfast and went to meet the rest of the team at the train station. He recognized a few of the workers—the conductor, Russell Waddell and Marc
ie—from the previous day’s trip, but they made no show of recognizing him. They had probably been thoroughly prepped on the importance of secrecy.
The five active members of Search Team Seven and four other agents brought in to help with this mission rode together in an open gondola car near the rear of the train. In keeping with their cover story of a group of friends on a hiking trip, they had stashed loaded backpacks in the cargo hold and wore stout boots, hats, cargo pants and long-sleeved T-shirts under light fleece jackets.
“This is incredible scenery.” Cameron Hsung swiveled his head from side to side, trying to take in everything as the train chugged out of Durango, headed for the mountains.
“It gets better the farther we go,” Travis said. But he could muster little enthusiasm for the journey. The thought of hiking through the woods again made every part of him ache, and every step would be just one more reminder that this time Leah wasn’t with them.
“How are we going to find the guys we’re looking for?” Wade Harris asked as the train chugged along beside the highway, blasting its whistle at every crossing.
“Agent Steadman, perhaps you’d like to address that question.” Special Agent in Charge Blessing, dressed like the others in hiking gear, wearing mirrored wraparound sunglasses that made him look more like a Secret Service agent and less like a vacationer, turned to Travis.
“You’ll recognize them,” Travis said. “And not just because you’ve probably seen some of them before. They’re wearing black tactical gear and they move like trained fighters. Not to mention your average hiker isn’t armed to the teeth. These guys have sidearms and semiautomatic rifles, and I suspect at least some of them are wearing body armor.”
“How many of them are there?” Luke asked.
“We think at least eight,” Travis said. “The last time I saw any of them was the day before yesterday. They were chasing us and we managed to evade them. We overheard two of them stating the plan was to watch the bridge for our approach, since that was the best way to get to the train, and the train was our fastest ticket out of the wilderness. They knew we had no food or supplies and that we were getting desperate.”