Liam's Witness Protection (Man On A Mission 4) (10 page)

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

L
iam 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 around 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?”

Cate shook her head. “Is this some guy thing, like you giving Alec a black eye?”

Liam grinned. “Not exactly, but close. Shane gave him a medium set of lumps, but Cody gave as good as he got, then offered to take the rest of us on. But at that point Shane laid down the law, said anyone who pounded on Cody would have to pound on him first. Shane’s the oldest, so...” He shrugged. “We welcomed Cody into the family.”

Cate shook her head again, as if she would never understand the workings of the male mind.

“Sorry,” Liam said. “I was supposed to be showing you around. This is your bed,” he said, pointing to the double bed her suitcase was lying on.

“Where will you sl—” She stopped short, as if she wasn’t sure he was staying there with her, but Liam knew what she’d been going to ask.

“There’s a cot in that closet,” he said, pointing. “I’ll use that while I’m here.” He continued as if she’d never interrupted. “That door leads to the bathroom, and that’s obviously the kitchen.” A kitchen table and two chairs stood neatly in front of the stove and the sink. “And that’s the back door. The generator’s out there, and I guess now’s as good a time as any to crank it up so you can have water. I’ll be right back.”

He started toward the back door, then reversed course and returned to stand in front of Cate, trying to reassure her with his presence. He very carefully didn’t touch her, but he wanted to. And he knew he wasn’t entirely successful keeping that out of his expression. “You’ll be okay?” he asked. “I’ll only be gone a couple of minutes. Feel free to look around.”

* * *

Cate waited until the back door closed behind Liam, then her curiosity got the better of her and she started on a voyage of discovery where the cabin was concerned. The cabinets in the kitchen contained not only dishes, coffee cups and glasses, but row upon row of canned goods of all kinds and boxes of prepackaged dry food—the nonperishables Liam had mentioned earlier. The closet contained the cot Liam had told her about, and tidy stacks of sheets, pillowcases, pillows and blankets on the shelves. She took one book out of her precious bag of books and put it on the nightstand next to the bed to start reading that night, then stashed the bag out of the way on a lower shelf.

She opened the door to the bathroom and saw a smallish room, with much of the space taken up by a large, old-fashioned claw-foot tub. She wasn’t big on baths—when living in boardinghouses a bath meant cleaning out the tub each time, before and after using it. So she was glad to note there was also a showerhead. Towels, washcloths, soap and other toiletries were stacked neatly on the shelves between the sink and the tub. Liam had told her no one actually lived here, but she’d never have known it. Everything they needed was readily available.

She was just closing the bathroom door when Liam returned. “I started the pump on the well,” he told her. “There will be water soon.” He opened another closet door, one Cate hadn’t gotten around to, and made a sound of satisfaction. “I thought I remembered the water heater was in here,” he said. He searched in a drawer next to the stove and found a box of kitchen matches. “I’ll get the pilot light going so you’ll have hot water later on.”

When he was finished, he dusted off his hands and tucked them in the back pockets of his jeans. “Is it okay?” he asked her. “I know it’s not fancy, but—”

“But it has everything we need,” she finished for him. “I already found that out.”

“And it’s safe,” he added. “About as safe as you can possibly get.”

The sound of footsteps thudding on the front porch drove the smile from Liam’s face, and he pulled his SIG SAUER from its shoulder holster so quickly Cate didn’t even have time to draw a breath. Then he was pushing her inside the bathroom just as someone knocked on the front door. “Not a sound,” he breathed before he shut the bathroom door with her on the inside, himself on the outside.

Cate strained to hear what was going on in the other room, even going so far as to place her ear against the door, but all she could hear was the rumble of deep male voices. Then the bathroom door opened, and Liam smiled at her.

“False alarm,” he told her, indicating the tall, dark-haired man standing just inside the front door, wearing a uniform and a cowboy hat with some kind of insignia on both. “Cate, this is Ryan Callahan, sheriff of Black Rock. Sheriff Callahan, this is Caterina Mateja, but she goes by Cate.”

The sheriff moved until he could reach out and shake Cate’s hand. “Glad you made it safely,” was all he said. Then he glanced at Liam. “So you found the place without any trouble?”

Liam caught Cate’s eye, and she knew from his expression he had no intention of telling the sheriff about the two false turns he’d made on the way here, and would prefer she not say anything either. She smiled a little at that. She was starting to read Liam, and she liked that idea. She liked it a lot.

* * *

An hour later Callahan rose from the kitchen table where he’d been discussing the situation with Cate, making sure she knew everything he had planned. He pushed in the paddle-back chair, settled his hat on his head and turned to Liam, leaning against the kitchen sink. “I had the propane tank topped off, and stocked the cabinets with enough nonperishable provisions to last a month. But now that the generator’s going, I’ll bring up milk and eggs and a few other perishables you might need when I come tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll check on you at least twice a day. But I don’t want to set a pattern someone might get curious about, so I’ll vary my times.”

“Okay by me,” Liam said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“Your cell phone will work up here, but coverage can be a little spotty. It works better outside the cabin than inside—just giving you a heads-up. You’ve got all my numbers, so don’t hesitate to call if you need me...but I don’t think you will. I think you’re safe here because no one knows where you are except Nick D’Arcy and me.” He glanced at Cate, then seemed to reach some kind of decision, because he turned back to Liam and said, “I’ve got some stuff in the back of my SUV to rig an extra security system for you, just in case. It’s worked before. But you need to know the location of each trap I set on your perimeter, and how to avoid them. So you’d better come with me.”

Liam nodded. “Sounds like a good idea.” He looked at Cate. “Stay inside for now, okay? I’ll be back in a little while.”

Callahan didn’t say a word until they reached his SUV, parked next to Liam’s. He pulled out coils of rope and wire, several of which he handed to Liam before looping some across his own shoulders. Then he grabbed a box containing what looked to be nothing more than odds and ends, and said totally out of the blue, “Your sister saved my life, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Liam knew the bare fact, but little more than that.

“She took a bullet for me and almost died because of it.” Callahan shook his head, admiration coloring his next words. “She’s a hell of an agent.”

“Yeah, I know that, too.”

“I owe her. So whatever you do, don’t get yourself killed on this op, okay?” Callahan started walking back toward the cabin without waiting for a response. “I’d never be able to look your sister in the eye again if I let her brother get killed.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

Callahan grunted. “Nick asked me to keep Cate safe until the trial, and I will. He also mentioned you were going to hang around for a bit.”

“How the hell did he know that? I wasn’t even sure myself until this morning.”

Callahan laughed, softening his saturnine face. “He’s omniscient, didn’t you know?”

“Keira and Cody call him Baker Street. McKinnon, too. Sherlock Holmes, you know? But D’Arcy told me maintaining that reputation takes constant vigilance, and even with that he slips up every now and then.”

Grimly serious all at once, Callahan said, “Don’t I know it.” Then he relaxed...or what passed for relaxation for him. “But I’d never bet against him. There’s only a handful of men I trust, and he’s three of them,” Callahan joked. He stopped just outside the clearing and dumped the box he was carrying on the ground, then slipped a coil of rope and one of wire off his shoulder and laid them beside the box. He moved around the clearing’s perimeter, then stopped again and dropped the same two coils. Liam followed him. Eventually, when Callahan had dropped his last coils, he took the ones Liam carried, and completed his circuit.