Silent Partner (24 page)

Angela spread her fingers slightly and peeked through them up at the helicopter as it hovered. Out of the corner of one eye, she was vaguely aware of a sparkling trail of light arcing through the darkness like a comet.

As the searing light reached the helicopter, Angela screamed, aware of what was happening. But her voice was drowned out by a violent explosion as the helicopter disintegrated in a mushrooming fireball. A wave of searing heat blew past her and she was hurled back violently into the underbrush near the trees. She was unable to see, temporarily blinded by the explosion’s flash, and she curled up into a ball as fiery pieces of helicopter rained down on the field around her.

A small shard of something clipped her upper leg and she came out of her tucked position, crawling wildly toward the trees for protection, her sight beginning to return. The trees were ghostly images ahead, illuminated by the intense fire behind. The field was ablaze and she tumbled into the trees, aware that she had to get out of the area. Aware that the fire could quickly race from the field to the woods and ignite the dead leaves covering the forest floor.

She pulled herself to her feet, then glanced back for a moment. Against the flames she spotted the silhouettes of two sprinting guards, then heard a burst of automatic gunfire over the crackling of the flames and saw the guards tumble to the ground. Mowed down by someone up in the trees to the left.

Instinctively, she staggered into the forest, guided by the intense light from the fire. As she moved forward, the light dimmed and she had to slow down for fear of plowing headlong into a tree. Then she was plunged into total darkness, and she was feeling her way along, hands extended in front of her. Slowly, her eyesight improved, but her progress was still slow. And she was certain she could hear footsteps behind her, crashing through the leaves.

She forged ahead, dodging trees that loomed out of the darkness. And then she was down, tumbling over and over until she reached the bottom of a steep ravine and splashed into a creek. She was up instantly, wiping leaves, twigs, and moss from her face and her soaking hair as she stood thigh-deep in water. She had to keep moving. She knew that.

She stepped forward and slipped off an unseen ledge in the stream bed, totally submerged for a moment until she could fight her way back to the surface of the freezing water, the breath ripped from her lungs by the intense cold. Despite her soggy clothes, she was able to make her way to the far bank. She glanced up the ravine, decided it was too steep to climb, and moved further downstream. Finally, she found a spot that seemed scalable, grabbed a thick vine tightly with both hands, and began pulling herself up.

As Angela made it close to the top of the embankment, she heard voices. Quick, muffled commands from the other side of the ravine. And then there was a beam of light playing on the trees to her left. Moving toward the spot where she would emerge from the ravine. She clawed at the soft earth, frantically trying to pull herself the last few feet to the top, but the soil was unstable and gave way. She caught herself on a root, then glanced over her left shoulder and saw the spotlight being aimed down into the stream and quickly scanning the water. There were several dark forms on top of the ravine on the other side. Friends or foes? No way to tell, and finding out was not a risk she was prepared to take right now.

With all her strength, Angela lifted herself the rest of the way up the embankment, tumbled into the woods, then quickly scrambled behind the base of a thick tree, aware that she’d made a good deal of noise crawling through the leaves. Instantly, the light was streaming past her on all sides, reflecting off the trees. She glanced up and saw the animal bearing down on her. It seemed monstrous, but somehow she kept herself from screaming as the massive buck darted past and along the top of the ravine, crashing away into the darkness. Then the light was pointed in another direction, and she heard the people moving off. She waited for several moments, shivering in her wet clothes, then made it to her feet with the help of the tree and jogged deeper into the woods.

Several hundred yards farther into the forest, Angela turned right and walked for a quarter of a mile along the top of a ridge. As best she could tell, she was headed away from the logging road she and Tucker had come in on. Her plan was simple. Keep moving until she reached civilization. If she came upon one of the narrow roads back here, she wouldn’t flag down a passing car. There could be no telling who they were or who they represented. Jake Lawrence hadn’t been paranoid at all. He was a hunted man. Even his army hadn’t been able to protect him this time. No, she would keep going until she reached a major road or a residence. She had learned her lesson.

Angela stopped, turning instantly into a statue. There was a voice in the night. A single speaker, words coming quickly, demands being made. Then another voice in answer. A voice she recognized. As she lowered herself to her hands and knees and began to crawl along the forest floor, she felt her heart pounding. The voices she had heard were close. No more than fifty feet ahead and slightly down the slope to her left. Every sound she made seemed loud, every leaf that crunched beneath her palm and every twig that snapped under her knee amplified by the stillness of the woods. But she kept going.

Her eyes had now become accustomed to the darkness and she could see two people in a small clearing. One man—the one with a rifle—standing behind another who was kneeling, hands clasped behind his head. She was only twenty feet away and they were unaware of her presence. As she focused on the rifle, her instinct was to run, to turn and get away as fast as she could. But that was not an option.

“Tell me!” the man holding the rifle demanded. “I know you have important information.”

“You don’t know anything,” Tucker replied calmly, despite the barrel of the rifle pressed roughly to the base of his neck.

Angela’s hand came to rest on a thick branch a foot and a half long.

“Tell me about the network! Tell me how it works. Give me details.”

“Piss off.”

She was at the edge of the clearing now, just ten feet behind the man pointing the rifle at Tucker.

“I’ll kill you right here.”

“That wouldn’t do you much good.”

Angela took a deep breath, tightened her grip on the branch, and rushed from her hiding place, aiming for the man’s head. A step before she reached him, he turned. She smacked his forehead with the piece of wood, and he toppled to the ground.

Tucker was on him like a cat, grabbing the rifle and slamming the butt end of it directly into one eye. The man went limp, unconscious.

Tucker stood up, rifle in hand, breathing heavily, staring at Angela. As he gazed at her, he slowly brought the gun down until the barrel was pointed at her chest.

She took a step back, struck by the eerie feeling that she had just made a horrible mistake, that somehow she had misjudged everything, that Lawrence had been right, that in her attempt to help someone she thought was her friend, she had sealed her own fate instead.

Then Tucker smiled. “I’m not a very religious man, but I’ll believe in angels from now on.” He lowered the rifle. “When your parents decided on a name, they sure picked the right one.” He moved to where she stood and took her hand. “Come on. Let’s get your little tattooed ass out of here.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Colby tapped gently. “Sir?”

“Come in.”

He pushed open the door and noticed right away that Jake Lawrence was not sitting in front of the farmhouse window, and that the three-way bulb of the lamp on the desk was illuminated at its lowest setting. “It’s time to go. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

When the helicopter carrying Lawrence’s decoy had exploded in the field ten miles from the farmhouse, Colby’s men had been smuggling the real McCoy to the nest in a rusting, twenty-year-old Torino station wagon. Now it had been two hours since the explosion and Colby was growing increasingly uncomfortable about having Lawrence so close to the hot zone.

“Any word on Angela Day?”

Colby had delivered the latest update ten minutes ago. “Nothing yet.”

“Who did this, William?” Lawrence demanded, teeth gritted.

“We don’t know yet. But believe me, we’ll find out.”

“You better.”

“The investigation is already under way. We are using every means at our disposal to identify the perpetrator.”

Lawrence looked up. “You must locate Angela Day, too.”

“We will,” Colby said. “One way or the other.”

“What does that mean?”

“She may be dead, sir. We have to consider that possibility.”

“But you said she was right next to you when the explosion occurred. You’re okay.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well?”

“Well, she may have died after the explosion. Two of my men were killed by sniper fire.”

“But it was pitch-dark!”

“The light from the fire was intense for several minutes after the explosion. Or the enemy may have had night-vision capability.”

Lawrence let out a quick, frustrated breath. “I don’t understand how individuals armed with surface-to-air missiles could have gotten so close with all of your men around. Don’t you sweep the area before I arrive?”

“Of course. Several times.”

“Then how in the—”

“I didn’t want to have to tell you this.”

“Tell me what?”

“That there may have been help from the inside.”

Lawrence frowned. “Go on.”

“You’ll remember that I told you about a man we apprehended who was following Angela Day. We took him down one evening on a lawn across from her apartment in Richmond.”

“Yes.” Lawrence’s eyes narrowed. “And that man has escaped. You told me that.”

“Right. But what I haven’t told you is that the guard who was on duty at the time the prisoner escaped is missing.”

“You think he helped the prisoner?”

“Yes. And this guard was in the group that thought you were actually coming in by helicopter.”

“You’re right. That’s not good.”

“And that’s not all.”

“My God, what else is there?”

“I believe John Tucker may know something about the prisoner’s escape as well.”

“What!” Lawrence rose from his seat and moved to where Colby stood. “John Tucker?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes. I believe Tucker may have been involved in the incident on the mountain in Wyoming, and that he may know a great deal about what happened this evening, too. I suspect that John Tucker may have convinced a small cadre of my men to become soldiers of fortune, so to speak. I think Tucker may have been approached by people who don’t appreciate the causes you involve yourself in. People who want to see you dead,” he said bluntly.

“Angela Day trusts him. Without him close to her I may lose her participation.”

Colby cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, participation in what?”

Lawrence gazed silently ahead.

At first, Colby had assumed that Angela Day was simply a physical distraction. Now he knew that wasn’t true. But it irritated the hell out of him not to know what was really going on. “Sir?”

“A matter of great importance.”

“Sir, I feel in this case that I must have full disclosure if I’m expected to protect you. I insist that you tell me what’s really going on here. Otherwise, there could be terrible consequences.”

Lawrence shook his head. “I can’t tell you any more at this time.”

“Well,” Colby said after a short pause, “perhaps it’s a moot point.”

“Tucker hasn’t surfaced either?” Lawrence asked, aware of what Colby was implying.

“No.”

“Were you able to apprehend any of the men who were involved in the attack on the helicopter?”

“Just one, and he isn’t talking.”

“But you have ways of getting what you want, William.”

Colby nodded. “I do, sir. And I will use those ways.” He hesitated. “But the man we’ve apprehended may not really know much. If the people responsible for tonight’s attack are as sophisticated as I believe, the foot soldiers will not be privy to any important information. They may not know who they’re really fighting for. In fact, they may have been given misinformation to throw us off track.”

“I understand.”

Colby placed a hand on Lawrence’s shoulder. It was the first time he had ever done so, and he saw the surprise in the other man’s expression. “Don’t worry, Mr. Lawrence. You’ll be fine.”

Lawrence nodded. “I trust you, William.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Is there any possibility that Angela Day was somehow involved in what happened tonight?”

Colby stared at Lawrence evenly. “I think that’s a very real possibility.”

It was after two o’clock in the morning, and Angela stood on the landing of her apartment. She and Tucker had hiked through the woods until they’d reached a house at the edge of a field. There they had convinced the elderly couple inside to allow them to dry off and warm up, and to call a cab—neither Angela nor Tucker could get a signal on their cell phones. The cab had taken almost an hour to arrive, and the drive to Richmond had taken another hour.

“Thanks for taking care of the fare.”

“No problem,” Tucker answered. “It’s the least I can do for the woman who saved my life.”

“Jake Lawrence is dead,” she said quietly.

“Yes.”

“That was one of the most awful things I’ve ever seen.”

“Terrible.”

“What will happen?”

Tucker shrugged. “I don’t know.” He looked into her eyes. “I know you were counting on Mr. Lawrence to help you get your son back.”

Angela stepped forward, put her arms around Tucker’s neck, and hugged him. It felt wonderful when he hugged her back.

“It’ll be all right, Angela.”

“What was that man talking about?” she whispered, closing her eyes as Tucker moved his hands beneath her ski jacket and caressed her back through her sweater.

“Which man?”

“The one who was holding you captive when I found you.”

“What do you mean, what was he talking about?” Tucker asked, leaning back so he could look into her eyes.

“He wanted you to tell him about the ‘network.’ ”

“I have no idea what that was about, Angela. Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. Or, more likely, he was fishing for something. Look, there are many secrets in the Lawrence world. People assume someone like me knows something important, but it isn’t true. When it comes down to it, I really am just a ranch hand.” He shook his head sadly. “I guess there’ll be a lot fewer secrets in the Lawrence world now.”

Angela gazed up at him in the moonlight. He was right. She
had
saved his life. She had acted on instinct. If she’d thought about it at all, she might have hesitated and lost her courage. It was as if something had been guiding her. Communicating to her silently that she had to save this man.

She curled one hand around the back of his neck, and pulled him close. “Kiss me, John.”