Cowboy Command (2 page)

That almost pissed her off more than a car bomb. 
“A pawn?  I’m just a fucking pawn?  That’s great.  Fucking story of my life.”

She pulled the handkerchief down from her forehead and saw the stain of blood.  She must have really slammed her head into the cement to be imagining all of this. 

The Marshal grimaced.  “Early conversations seemed to point to you as their fall guy.  Lately, that seems to have changed.  Either way, we suspected Simon might need to get rid of you at one point.  We’ve been following you for weeks.”

The SUV drove into a parking garage and pulled into a spot
near the elevator.  The Marshal drew his gun from his shoulder holster with a grim smile.  “Stay here while we check the perimeter.”

Check the perimeter?

This was all too much like a spy novel.  Her head pounded and her muscles protested when she turned to the woman sitting next to her, really seeing her for the first time.  She was younger than she first thought, probably near Katie’s own age of twenty-six.  She tossed the handkerchief into her purse.  “He’s kidding, right?”

The woman shook her head. 
“No.  You’re in a great deal of danger.  Actually, less danger now.  They think you’re dead.  We want them to keep thinking it.”

The door of the SUV opened and t
he Marshal beckoned to Katie.  “It’s clear.  Let’s get you inside.  Quickly.”

Before she could protest, a blanket was wrapped around her head and torso, and she climbed out of the SUV awkwardly.  The world spun and the floor seemed way too close.

“Marshal Davis?  I think I’m going to be sick.”

The earth bucked underneath her and she pitched forward into a welcoming blackness where no one was blowing her up or making her a pawn.  She heard voices calling her name in the distance but she shunned them and headed straight for the cool darkness of oblivion.

* * * * *

Katie was wrapped in a hotel robe, freshly showered, her forehead and knee rocking Spiderman
Band-Aids from the doctor that had visited.  He had looked her over, cleaned and bandaged her wounds, and decided she needed to be watched closely for the next twenty-four hours.  The Marshal had nodded and said that was exactly what they planned to do.

She was a little embarrassed she
’d passed out in the parking garage but considering what she’d been through since lunch she was contemplating passing out again just so she wouldn’t have to hear any more words out of Marshal Davis’s mouth.  Every word seemed worse than the last.

She sipped the ginger ale. 
“So you think he’s selling arms to terrorists?”

Marsh
al Davis nodded.  They’d gone over this once, but dammit, they were going to do it again and again until she believed them. 

“
You think I might know something that could incriminate him?”

“
You’ve worked for him the last six months.  You may have seen or heard something you didn’t realize was important at the time.  We can help you put what you know into perspective.  That’s why we’ve been so open with you about what we suspect him of.”  He pushed three photos in front of her.  “Are you familiar with any of these people?”

She leaned forward and pointed to the picture on the left. 
“That’s Steve Tessler.  He’s a purchaser for the Federal government.  I’ve seen him at parties.”  She tapped the photo in the middle.  “That’s Don Keigh.  He works for a shipping firm that does big crating jobs for overseas.  I met him my first day in the office.”  She gestured toward the last picture.  “I don’t know that person.”

The Marshal
picked up the last photo.  “This is Tim Mordon.  He works for another defense contractor.  We think he’s been selling out his boss and giving trade secrets to Randall.”  Marshal Davis picked up the second picture.  “Don Keigh is an alias.  He’s actually a for-hire arms runner.  I’m surprised you saw him at the office.  Simon would have wanted to keep him away from there.  What day was that?  We can go back and look through our surveillance tape.  We may have missed something.”

“
April the eighth.  That was my first day of work.”

Evan Davis scratched something in a notebook and then picked up the last picture. 
“Steve Tessler is more than a purchaser for the Federal government.  He is also the go-between for arms dealer and small terrorist cells around the world.”

“
You mean like Al Qaeda?”  This was starting to sound like a James Bond movie.

“
Sometimes, although Tessler isn’t fussy about his clients.  He deals with the former Soviet Union, Al Qaeda, drug dealers in South America, and independent so-called patriot militias in the United States.”

“
American citizens,” she gasped.  “Like Timothy McVeigh?”

Evan Davis nodded grimly, his lips drawn flat. 
“Just like that.  We think that’s how Simon was drawn in to this.  They appealed to his patriotism and talked about the evils of a government that had all the weapons and power.  We think that’s when he decided to arm rebels against the U.S. Government.”

“
‘If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.’”  Katie shook her head.  It was all so unreal.

“
Pardon?”  The Marshal was frowning.

“
It was something Randall said a lot.  He talked about how citizens had a right to be armed and how the government was becoming too powerful.  He talked about Big Brother knowing our every move and controlling us.”

“
That makes sense from what we know about Simon.  From the transcripts I’ve heard, we believe he thinks he is doing the right thing for the country.”

“
Arming Al Qaeda is the right thing for the country?”  Randall wasn’t a stupid man.

“
He may not even know that’s where some of his weapons ended up.  Tessler probably only told Simon what he wanted to hear.”

“
So where do I come in on all this?”

The Marshal
gathered up the photos and tucked them in a folder.  “You can place them together.  You can help connect the dots between the men.  Plus, you may have seen something in the office that seemed innocent at the time, but could mean something to our case.”

“
So he had me blown up?”

Marshal
Davis nodded again.  Damn, the man had patience, she’d give him that. 

“
Everyone thinks I’m dead?”

Marshal
Davis walked over to the television and turned it on to the local twenty-four hour cable news network.  Immediately, video of the burning wreckage of her car was playing before her eyes along with the words “Tampa woman dead in car explosion.”

He d
idn’t need to turn the sound on.  The grisly pictures said it all.  No one would believe she’d survived it.  They’d bundled her in the car before the smoke cleared.  He snapped the television off with a definitive click, bringing her out of her daze.  Seeing it in this way had brought it home.  She’d almost been blown up by a car bomb. 

“
I have to call my sister.  I can’t let her think I’m dead.”

Nora must be losing her mind right about now, frantic at the news.  Despite their chilly relationship through the years, they were all the family each other had.

Marshal Davis patted her hand.  “Ms. Johnson, listen, can I call you Katie?  You can call me Evan, okay?”

“
Sure,” she shrugged.  “May I call Nora now?”

“
You can’t call your sister.  No one can know you’re not dead.”

Katie jumped up from
her seat and her head spun until she grabbed on to the back of the chair.  “I have to call Nora.  She’s my only family.  She’ll be beside herself if she thinks I’m dead.”

The enormity of the day started catching up to her and tears welled up in her eyes.  She needed someone familiar, not these strangers who were trying to tell her what to do.

“Your sister is friends with Randall Simon.”

“
So?  Nora got me the job.  She won’t tell him.  I’ll make her promise.”

Evan stood and scraped a hand down his face. 
“I can’t keep you safe on a promise, Katie.  That’s my number one job, keeping you alive.  Nothing else matters to me.  To do that I have to make sure everyone thinks you’re dead and to remove you from where people might recognize you.”

“
Remove me?  What does that mean exactly, I ask with deep fear of your answer?”  Katie’s fingers squeezed the chair, her knuckles white.  She was being sarcastic and bitchy but she’d had a hell of day.

“
Put you into protective custody.  Civilians call it Witness Protection.  We’ll give you a new identity.”

She dropped down into the chair, her knees giving out.  The right one still ached from her fall on the pavement.  She was pretty fond of her current identity.

“For how long?”

“
Perhaps until we bring Simon to trial, definitely until you’re able to testify for the Grand Jury.”

She buried her face in her hands, tears starting to leak from her eyes. 
“This gets better and better every moment.  So, I’m going to be stuck in this hotel room until then?  I’ll go crazy.”

Evan shook his head and started pacing the room. 
“No, we won’t keep you here.”

Katie scrubbed at her wet cheeks.  Crying wasn
’t going to solve this.  “Then where?”

“
Montana.”

“
Montana?”

“
Harper, Montana to be exact.  I have an old Army buddy there who is now the sheriff.  He said he’d take you in, watch over you.  I’ve already talked to him.  He’s a good man.  You’ll be okay there.”

She shook her head. 
“No, thank you.”

His face went slack and his eyes widened.  She
’d managed to shock the Marshal.  Good, it was time someone else was surprised in this little scene.  “What do you mean, ‘no thank you?’”

“
Just that.  No, thank you.  I appreciate what you’re trying to do but I think I’ll pass.”  She shook her head when Evan started to protest.  “You’re telling me Randall wants me dead.  Listen, Randall can be an ass sometimes, but he’s no killer.”

A muscle worked in Evan
’s jaw.  “Then explain your car being blown up.”

She licked her dry lips. 
“I can’t.  I just know I can’t let you hide me in the wilds of Montana until you figure this out.  I can’t do it.  I don’t want Nora to believe I’m dead.  Hell, I don’t want my friends to think I’m dead.  You can release a statement saying that I miraculously survived or something.  They can say they assumed I was dead but then they didn’t find a body. See?  That makes sense.”

“
We’ve already fixed it with local first responders.  The body was blown into tiny bits and then burned beyond recognition.  Trust me when I tell you we’ve dotted every
i
and crossed every
t
.”  Evan rubbed the back of his neck.  Katie assumed she was the cause of the pain located there.  “So you think this is all a mistake and we should let you waltz out of here?”

He was starting to understand. 
“Yes.  I’m a nice person.  I volunteer at the animal shelter.  I let people with one item go in front of me at the grocery store.  I brake for squirrels crossing the road.  Nice people don’t get blown up by would-be terrorists.”  Too late, she realized how stupid her statement sounded.  “What I mean is, yes, sometimes nice people get blown up but this was some kind of a mistake.  I want to go home.”

He couldn
’t possibly realize how much she wanted to go back to her own house and her own bed and curl up for a week.  She craved something, anything, familiar. 

Evan closed his eyes, his expression a mask of frustration. 
“Katie, I can’t let you go home.  You’ll end up dead.”

“
Isn’t it my choice?  Don’t I get a say in this?  If I don’t want protection, can’t I refuse?”

“
Do you have some kind of death wish?”  Evan’s eyes snapped open and he practically yelled the question.  “Do you want to die?  Because you will.  You’ll be dead within days.”

Katie bit her lip. 
“I don’t want to die,” she said in a small voice.  “I just want to go home.”  She tugged at the robe she was wearing.  “I don’t even have a change of clothes.”

“
I sent Marisa to your home to pack you a bag.”

She planted her hands on her hips. 
“Did you take my keys?” These federal agents were high-handed and pushy.

“
Let’s just say there was no need.” Evan smiled. 

She threw up her hands and whirled around at the sound of the hotel room door.  The other agent, who must be named Marisa, was striding in with a grim, pale expression.  Katie searched for a suitcase or even a duffle bag but saw nothing.  Her hopes of a fresh change of clothes sank like a stone.

“We need to talk, Evan.” Marisa looked at Katie.