Protected Secrets

by Heather Woodhaven

A more terrifying thought emerged. If the hackers could get into law enforcement databases and forge federal agent identifications, she wouldn’t be able to trust anyone she didn’t already know.

  The alternate bursts of static and voices from Fred’s police radio served as an incessant reminder that the next few hours would be steeped in paperwork and phone calls. At least the ability to delegate was one benefit of serving as lead deputy. “Sanders, please serve as liaison with the police. I need to check on our witness.”

  Delaney removed the key card from her pocket and prayed Winnie wouldn’t be traumatized by what had just occurred. She pressed the handle until the door reached the limit of the safety latch. “Bruce, it’s me.”

  He leaned out of the bathroom door until he saw her face, then stepped out, holding a rifle at the side of his right leg.

  She jolted at the sight and pointed at the weapon. “Where’d you get that?”

  “The deputy left it on his table.” He closed the door to remove the latch before he reopened it to face her. “I’ve never used one, but I figured a stranger wouldn’t know that.” He gingerly placed the rifle on the top shelf of the closet as she closed the door behind her.

  The events replayed in her mind. Her heart pumped faster. She stepped closer to him. “So you were watching through the door that whole time?”

  His eyes widened and he pulled his head back. “Not the whole time. The rest was spent hiding, ‘finding’ and rehiding Winnie so she would stay quiet.” He folded his arms and gave her an appreciative nod. “Though I would love to learn how you flipped that gun out of the man’s hand. A slow-motion repeat would be best. I imagine it took a lot of practice. Plus, remind me not to make you angry.”

  Judging by how fast he spoke, Bruce still had adrenaline coursing through his veins. “Wait. You saw that happen? You were the one who shoved the paper out?”

  He shrugged. “After I alerted the other deputy. I just wanted to cause a diversion, do something to help you. I know it wasn’t much.”

  Her mouth dropped open. Did he think he had to protect her? How could he be confident in her ability to keep him and his daughter safe if he was worried about her needing help to do her job? “You also shoved me down when the gunmen approached us on the highway earlier. You can’t do stuff like that, Bruce. You need to stay out of it.”

  “You can’t expect me to stand idly by. What was I supposed to do, let them try to kill you?”

  “Yes!” She threw her hands up in the air, but her cheeks heated. “That’s exactly what I expect you to do,” she said in a much softer voice. She wanted to tell him how much it meant to her that he cared enough to do something, but she couldn’t. “It’s my job to protect you, not the other way around.”

  * * *

  Delaney had a point. He knew they probably didn’t let untrained slackers into the Marshals, but it went against his every instinct to let Delaney defend him, even die for him. “That must’ve been in the fine print I skimmed,” he said instead.

  His father had taught him at a very young age to think of women first. It was old-fashioned, sure, but it was how he’d been raised. Whenever he went for a walk with his mom, he’d been taught to step to the outside to make sure he was the closest to the cars driving past. To be fair, his mom only allowed it if his dad was on the other side, also protecting him from traffic. The memory stuck, though. He knew being the protector was Delaney’s job and after he’d witnessed her take down that gunman, he’d seen for himself that she was better trained for it. He might’ve made things worse by trying to help.

  “Excuse me for a second.” He walked to the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain. “Found you.” Winnie squealed and he reached down to pick her up and carry her back into the bedroom. “Okay, all done with that game. How about we get one of your toys out of our bag?”

  Winnie jumped from his arms and onto the middle of the bed. Delaney stood in the open doorway between the connecting rooms, the duffel bag in her hand. “Is it a problem for you that I’m a woman?”

  A problem for him to stop thinking about her? Yes, but that was probably not what she wanted to know. “Are you asking if I have a problem with a woman assigned as my protection detail?”

  Her face scrunched up. She looked even cuter than when Winnie flashed the same expression. “What else would I mean?”

  “No, Delaney.” He sighed. He understood that Delaney was worried he’d step out of line again and try to protect her. He couldn’t promise that his instincts wouldn’t kick in, but he would try to stay out of her way as long as he could be of help from the sidelines. “You’re competent and clearly well suited for your job. I’m sorry I tried to help. I’m not used to people trying to ki—” He pulled out a matching game for Winnie. “Well, you know.”

  Her shoulders dropped. “I do know. I’m not really upset with you. I’m angry that you were ever put in this position in the first place.”

  “You and me both. Where are our uninvited guests now anyway?” he asked.

  Delaney’s fists were curled at her sides, but she looked at Winnie and relaxed her fingers. “One of them got away,” she said in a lighthearted voice. “So we sent some men to find him.”

  Winnie looked up. “Hide-and-seek?”

  “Yes...sort of. Except these men were naughty. They didn’t follow the rules.”

  “They were naughty? Did they go in time-out?”

  Delaney looked as if she’d choked on something for half a second. “I guess you could call it a final time-out for the one who didn’t get away.” She shook her head and gave Bruce a pleading look. “I’m not good at this, at wording it differently.”

  Winnie went back to her game. Bruce held a hand out toward her. “You satisfied her curiosity.”

  Delaney blew out a heavy breath and addressed Bruce. “One guest down, if you know what I mean. Another was injured but managed to exit via the vending hallway.”

  Bruce hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “The shots I heard?”

  “I think most of those came from our side, but yes.” She nodded gravely. “We wanted a safe location with many exits to get you out quickly. Unfortunately, it sometimes means more access points for unfriendlies, as well. We had police covering them all, but our...company had identification that matched real FBI agents in the computer system. The police even called to verify them as real agents with the Bureau.”

  “Who is Kurt?” The question flew out of his mouth without much thought, but it’d been driving him crazy the past few minutes. “I noticed in the other room that you wrote ‘What would Kurt do?’”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Oh. Kurt is a fellow deputy marshal, a mentor really. I used to work with him in Coeur d’Alene. I learned a lot from him during my time there.” She shook her head and stared at the carpet. “I’m afraid I sometimes doodle what I’m thinking. It’s a bad habit.”

  “It’s a habit of creative thinkers.” He raised a hand. “Fellow doodler. Were you and he...? I mean, it’s none of my business. I think I’m starting to feel the effects of isolation.” He sank onto the edge of the mattress. Winnie took the opportunity to lunge for his neck and hang on his back like a monkey.

  “We weren’t a couple, if that’s what you mean.” Her shoulders relaxed and she smiled. Such a small thing made the world seem less dangerous. When she smiled her whole face lit up. “In fact, on the first case I worked with Kurt, he went and fell in love with his witness protectee.” Her back and neck stiffened and her lips clamped shut, as if she couldn’t believe she’d admitted it aloud.

  Bruce’s throat felt a little dry. “Is that common?” His attempt at acting nonchalant backfired. Even Winnie noticed, making a face at him as she abandoned him as a jungle gym and returned to her matching game.

  “Uh...no.” Her cheeks turned a lovely shade of pink. She looked down at her empty hands as if something should have been there. “I don’
t have the statistics in front of me, but I don’t think it’s common.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  The pink flamed to crimson. “A marshal has to know a lot about the person they’re protecting. And it’s only natural that the witness would want some reciprocity to know about their assigned protector.” She moved her hands to her hips, crossed her arms and finally dropped them at her sides. “I mean, not that you want reciprocity, just some...some witnesses do. So the marshal and the protectee sometimes do get to know each other fairly well. But it’s not common for a romance to blossom. I’m sure, now that I say it aloud. Definitely not.”

  He frowned hard, so as not to outright laugh. “So, in the case of Kurt and his witness, was it Stockholm syndrome?”

  “No!” Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped. “I didn’t kidnap you, Bruce.” She leaned up against the door frame. “You’re not trapped here. It would be foolish of you, but you can leave and go back home anytime you want.”

  “I want to go home,” Winnie said.

  Delaney placed a hand over her mouth for a second before dropping it. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  Bruce couldn’t take his eyes off Delaney. He didn’t want their conversation to end—talking to her filled him with sparks of electricity that made him feel alive again. But Winnie needed his attention right now.

  He turned to his daughter. “Sweetheart, we can’t go yet. We get to visit some more places first.”

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  He turned back, relieved she’d been put off so easily. Experience had taught him that probably wouldn’t be the case the next time. “So what did you decide Kurt would do?”

  She tilted her head and frowned for a moment. Her eyes cleared and she looked directly at him. “Know the enemy.”

  SIX

  The answer seemed so clear now. Bruce and Winnie would never be safe until she learned more about how the criminal organization worked, how they hunted their prey. Once she had all the facts, she could approach their protection more proactively. All it took was a small spark of hope to regain her focus.

  “No one has even told me which hacking organization they suspect was behind Andy’s—” Pain washed over his face.

  Delaney wanted to yell at the Assistant US Attorney for skipping procedural steps. If she had Bruce’s file, she’d know exactly what he witnessed without having to ask him. Delaney only knew the basics of Bruce’s testimony. He’d walked in on the hacking and had notified security. Then he had seen the security guard be killed. But all the details were missing. She hadn’t been fully briefed, and neither had Bruce—they’d just been thrown in together.

  Although, if the attorney had waited any longer to send protection, Bruce and his daughter might’ve been dead by now.

  “You should’ve been briefed,” she said, “but since the attempt at a pretrial meeting went horribly wrong, I don’t think it’s out of line to tell you what little I know. The suspected cybercriminal group that we believe is behind the attacks stays under the radar, though in law enforcement circles they’re pretty well known. They call themselves the CryptTakers, but I don’t know much more than that about them.”

  He exhaled. “Thanks for telling me.” Bruce moved to one of the wingback chairs on the left side of the round table next to the closed curtains. “What do you want to know about them?”

  She frowned. “Are you asking to help me think it through? Or you already familiar with the CryptTakers?”

  “The latter. I’m pretty familiar with most hacking groups. But, if it helps, I’d be glad to help you think things through, as well. I’m pretty good at out-of-the-box thinking, and I’ve been told I’m good listener.”

  She pulled up the chair opposite him. “You didn’t say anything earlier.”

  His eyes twinkled. “I don’t like to brag.”

  She fought against rolling her eyes. “Not about your listening skills. You know about most hacking groups? You know about the CryptTakers?”

  He held up both hands and rolled his eyes. “This is the first I’ve heard about the CryptTakers being involved. Why would I bring something like that up out of the blue?”

  So he was human after all. If she’d been in his situation, she’d be irritated and grumpy all the time, but Bruce had, until this moment, constantly focused on the positive. The trait grated, partly because she used to be accused of the same thing. “Like I told you from the start, there’s been an accelerated timeline and we’re playing catch-up. You can rest assured the US Attorney’s Office knows exactly who they’re dealing with.”

  Bruce placed his elbows on his knees and rested his forehead on his fists. “Okay. Stop me if I’m telling you what you already know. Everything the CryptTakers do is for money. There’s no Robin Hood mentality, political alliance or moral boundaries for this group.”

  “You’re not telling me anything new so far. The group stays pretty hush-hush. You don’t see them listed by name in the news.”

  “I’m a programmer. I need to know what I’m up against, especially seeing as banks use my software. At one point in my life, I considered becoming an ethical hacker. I even started a group and launched a competition when I was a student at Iowa State. It drew corporate sponsorship every year—still does—because businesses need good guys to help them find weaknesses before cybercriminals do.”

  “You used to be a hacker?”

  “Back in the day, yes. I’m out of practice.”

  She tilted her head. “Did you know people in the CryptTakers?”

  “I don’t know who’s involved with them so I can’t say for sure, but that organization is more recent than my time in school, so I doubt there would be any overlap.”

  “Did you ever have to kick people out for unethical behavior? People that may have taken the way of groups like the CryptTakers?”

  “Not really. We started by volunteering our time at some of the biggest companies, and if we found a weakness, we’d let the business know. No one was making money off of it—we saw it as a community service. The worst thing I can say about anyone is that if a company didn’t take our suggestion under advisement, some members of our group thought it was their duty to release the vulnerability to the dark web.”

  “What do you know about the dark web?” she asked.

  “It’s essentially an online marketplace for drugs, money laundering...”

  “I know that much, but I’m not as familiar with details.”

  “Well, the name says it all. It’s where you can buy things that a legitimate vendor would never sell, which means it’s where groups like CryptTakers get their assignments. They work using cloud technology to communicate, so it’s pretty much impossible to shut it down.”

  “So you know how they work and how they think.” The information gave her a better framework of who they were up against, but she wasn’t dialed into this world and didn’t know enough about how they operated. She needed practical tips to keep them safe. Her focus was drawn to the closed hotel door. She’d almost died. Her insides still fluttered from the near miss. A dead man was in the hallway. One more wrong move and Bruce and Winnie might’ve been killed, as well.

  “How are they finding us?” Her voice shook ever so slightly, but she hoped Bruce hadn’t noticed.

  He pointed to the screen behind her. “If that’s a smart television, they could hack into it to watch and listen to us if they wanted. A group like CryptTakers is going to find the technology on your phone, no matter how secure you say the Marshals made it. Electronic locks, newer vehicles, any devices...” He let his voice drift off. “They can get us through all of it. We need to think like our grandparents.”

  She grabbed a blanket from the closet and threw it over the television. “I don’t follow.”

  “The only way we’re going to stay hidden is if we go old-school. Literally.”

  “Old-sc
hool.” She let her voice trail off, detailing a mental list of what that would involve. Where could they go to be cut off from all new technology? “It’s a good thing you’re already packed. I want to get back on the road as soon as the other deputies clear the perimeter.”

  Four hours and a ridiculous amount of phone calls later, Delaney pulled a crusty old moving van into the basement parking garage. Deputies waited for her in the pickup truck and an ancient Jeep parked on either side. Gone were the smartphones. It was imperative that everyone on her team knew the area well because their flip phones were without web and navigation capabilities.

  She opened the car door and the humidity, without air-conditioning, hit her like a heavy, wet blanket. Bruce picked up a sleeping Winnie from the car seat and stepped out. Little ringlets stuck to the side of Winnie’s face that wasn’t pressed against Bruce. “Where to?” he whispered.

  She threw his duffel bag, as well as hers, over her shoulder. Deputy Sanders hopped out of the passenger side of the pickup truck and took the keys from Delaney before getting behind the wheel. Bruce arched an eyebrow and watched as all three vehicles left the parking garage.

  “Sorry. They’re serving as decoys. One more small trip.” In the corner of the parking garage a boxy vehicle waited underneath a tarp. She pulled the beige cover off.

  “A golf cart?”

  In any other situation, she would’ve laughed at his reaction. “It’s as old-school as you get.” She unzipped the clear door of the four-wall enclosure that allowed passengers to ride inside despite sideways rain or whatever weather Iowa had to offer on any given summer day.

  She placed the duffel bags in the back. The key was underneath the visor, just as the owner had said it would be. As soon as her protection detail was over, she would lecture him about theft prevention.

  A friend of a friend on the force owned the golf cart and the network of apartment buildings. While he never intended any of them to be used as safe houses, Delaney knew from a football party years ago that the owner never sold the model apartment unit that was used as a showroom, even if all the other units were full. He liked to keep the furnished space reserved for guests and entertaining. As such, the apartment was tastefully decorated, but standard amenities such as a television, which she’d asked to be removed prior to their arrival, internet and phones would be nonexistent in the three-bedroom unit.