The Protector (12 page)

“We know who he is,”
Caine
said, checking the report just faxed over from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. “And the license plate confirms it: Isaac
Thackery
Calhoun.
Ringo
, run NCIC on him right now.
Check with the Sheriff’s Office. Maybe they have a rap sheet on him.”

Jackson gestured to the disappearing vehicle. “Sir, he already saw us. The man has the instincts of a wild animal. No terrorist’s going to get close to her. Aren’t we happy with that?”

Caine’s
expression turned mulish. “He’s only one man, Maddox,” he retorted. “And if I don’t think he’s the right man, then, by God, we’ll get her back.”

It was all Jackson could do not to roll his eyes. SSA
Caine
was going to have to learn this lesson the hard way. Men like Isaac Calhoun were ghosts. In a war, you never heard or saw them coming, but when the sun came
up,
you sure as hell knew they’d been there.

**

Ike exited the parking lot and accelerated swiftly.
Don’t
fucking follow me, he prayed, one eye glued to the rearview mirror.

He drove a hundred yards. The RV didn’t move.
 

Half a mile.
His heart rate slowed. The RV remained in the parking lot, motionless.

A full mile.
Nothing.

Expelling a long breath, Ike reviewed what he’d seen and felt. Maybe it wasn’t the Feds. Maybe it was just a regular old motor coach, belonging to retirees from New Jersey.

With the sweat on his palms drying, he veered off the four-lane highway, cutting through the downtown area before turning right on Red Brush Road, where there was nothing but farms and churches and domestic livestock, all back-dropped by looming mountains. Not a single car passed them on the winding, hilly roadway, and that was just the way Ike liked it.

But what if isolation had wreaked havoc with his instincts? Being alone day after day, month after month, it could have over-sensitized him. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell the FBI could have tracked him down that quickly. Hell, it had taken Cougar twelve days!

“Ike?”

The query drew his gaze to the rearview mirror. The size of
Eryn’s
blue eyes struck him with remorse. He’d scared the crap out of her with his erratic behavior. “We’re good,” he said.

“What did you see?” she asked shakily.
 

The freckles on the bridge of her nose were more apparent when her face was chalk-white.
“Thought I saw something.
It was nothing,” he assured her.

“You said no one followed us,” she reminded him.

“They didn’t. We’re good. I’m just a little out of touch.” He hated to admit he had a problem, but that had to be it. Too much time alone had left him paranoid.

She seemed to accept his explanation, lapsing into thoughtful quiet.

Or had someone who knew the Commander’s plans leaked them to the FBI? That might have been the case if Stanley didn’t play his cards so close. A more likely scenario was that the FBI had put a tracking device on
Eryn
, the fuckers. It was probably in that gargantuan purse of hers.

Eryn
wasn’t going to like it, but when they got back to the cabin, he’d have to do a strip search.

Right.
A vision of him yanking her clothes off and feeling her up flashed through his thoughts like a jag of lightning. If she was his, he’d do that every day, several times a day till he could keep his hands off her.
Made him envy the bastard who eventually claimed the privilege.

Imagine being the love of her life.

He sucked in a sharp breath. One thing was certain:
 
It wouldn’t be him.
 

Eryn
trailed Ike into the cabin. Conscious of his brooding silence, she went straight upstairs to put away her purchases then came back down to help him with the groceries.

“I’ve got this,” he said, his head buried in the refrigerator. “Go get your purse,” he added unexpectedly. “I need to search it.”

She drew up short and stared at him.
 
“Why?”
 
Surely he didn’t think she was carrying more drugs around.

“I want to know if the FBI’s tracking you.”

What?
She groped for the chair, needing something solid to hang onto. “But you said—”

He turned and looked at her. “I know what I said. Indulge me.” He jerked his head, gesturing for her to fetch her purse.

With rising foreboding,
Eryn
trudged back upstairs to retrieve her purse.
 
She didn’t know what was worse: Ike being out of touch with reality or the FBI tracking them.

By the time she brought it down, Ike had put most of the food away.

“On the table,” he instructed, closing the cupboards and stacking the paper bags.

Eryn’s
purse had been a gift from her father who’d found it at an Afghan bazaar. It had more pockets and pouches than the Hindu Kush had caves. Unsnapping and unzipping every compartment, she stepped back and let Ike look.
 

And, boy, did he look. There wasn’t a pocket or pouch or metal catch that didn’t suffer his scrutiny. He sifted through wrappers and pens, an address book, a fingernail file, paper clips and credit cards, the tampon with the worn wrapper.
Eryn
fidgeted. Okay, maybe it was time to toss out extraneous stuff, only you never knew what you might need if you got kidnapped.

She swallowed an inappropriate giggle.

Ike found a business card from Special Agent Jackson Maddox. He studied it dispassionately before putting it back.

“What are you looking for, exactly?” she asked him.

“Transceiver or a GPS device.
Metal or plastic-coated.
Might be circular or rectangular, about an inch in diameter.”
Several minutes later, he gave up. “I don’t see anything suspicious,” he admitted. Frowning thoughtfully, he handed her purse back.

“Then they’re not following me,” she concluded.
 

He cut a glance at her attire. “I need you to take your clothes off. I mean, change your clothes,” he added, a ruddy stain rising up his neck. “Bring me what you’re wearing.”

“You think they hid something in my clothes?” she asked too horrified to analyze his blush.

“In your clothes, in your skin.
Do you have any new cuts?”

Her jaw dropped. He had to be kidding. She shook her head wordlessly.

She thought she detected a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “Bring me your clothes,” he said again.
  

Shocked and wondering if the FBI could have stooped to sticking implants under her skin,
Eryn
replaced the contents of her purse and dashed back upstairs.

Stripping her clothes off, she examined her body as well as she could without a mirror. Nothing suspicious caught her eye—no strange incisions, just lots of bruises from falling down the stairs.
Twice.
With a shrug, she dressed in the new underwear Ike had paid for, while reminding
herself
to pay him back. Trying on the new jeans and the violet sweater, she looked critically down at herself.

The sweater was snug in the chest; the jeans too baggy. But what did you expect when you shopped at Dollar General? With a mutter of disgust, she gathered up her dirty clothes and carried them downstairs.
 

Ike was examining the dog’s collar, paying special attention to Winston’s ID tag. He straightened to inspect her offering as she laid it on the table.
   

Squirming self-consciously,
Eryn
watched him examine the seams and pockets of her jeans. After a while, he set them aside, sifted through her underwear and camisole, then picked up her black bra. Watching him run his thumb along the underwire flustered her. In his rough hands, the satin garment looked especially delicate, sexy. She darted a furtive glance at his profile and noticed his neck was ruddy again.
 

“Don’t see anything,” he muttered, dropping the bra like a hot grenade.
 

She strove for normalcy. “So I can wear this stuff again once it’s washed?”

“Sure.”

She looked around, a little worried. “Um, how do you wash your clothes here?”

“By hand,” he said, with that same suggestion of a smile at the edges of his mouth.

He had to be teasing her again. “You mean, down by the creek on the rocks?” She could only hope she was being facetious.
 

“You have a problem with that?” he asked, his green eyes glinting.
 

Nope,” she said, affecting false confidence and a mountain twang. “Once the laundry’s done, I’ll just hoe the garden and bottle some moonshine,” she told him, angling her face to his.
 

The smile lurking at the edges of his mouth deepened, putting a bubbly feeling in her chest. “You do that,” he said with a slow nod. “But not before you cook some vittles, woman.”

Eryn
laughed aloud at his impersonation of a mountain man. “Wow. It’s scary how well you do that,” she remarked.

“Yeah, well…” All traces of his smile disappeared, puncturing her bubble of contentment. “I’ve been here a while.”

She didn’t know what to say to that.

He tipped his head at the refrigerator. “Go ahead and start.” And then he turned toward a kitchen drawer, pulling out what looked like a bag of beef jerky. Calling for the dog to follow, he left the cabin without a word of explanation.
 

Curious,
Eryn
crossed to the window to observe him. He strode to the middle of the yard where he turned and faced the dog. The sun cast comical shadows onto the virgin grass. “Sit,” she heard Ike command, and the dog immediately sat.

Eryn
snorted. Ike was going to try to put Winston through obedience training? “Good luck with that,” she murmured, watching a little longer before recalling she had a meal to cook.

Maybe Ike would resent her less once he tasted her cooking, she considered.

**

“So, gentlemen, let’s tell Sheriff Olsen, here, who lives on Overlook Mountain, since he doesn’t seem to have a clue.” Brad
Caine’s
mocking tone filled the cramped meeting room in the basement of Town Hall, where the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office was located.
 

Embarrassed by his supervisor’s rudeness, Jackson glanced at the bushy-browed sheriff and realized the man wasn’t the least bit intimidated.

“Maddox, you start,”
Caine
said.

Jackson glanced at the notes in his hand, information supplied by their analysts an hour earlier—none of which had come as a surprise to him. “The landowner’s name is Isaac T. Calhoun. Prior to March of last year, he worked for the U.S. Navy as a SEAL sniper. He served in Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan and is credited with eighteen kills. Last March, he resigned his commission and purchased sixty-three acres on Overlook Mountain.”

“You know, Sheriff,”
Caine
interrupted. “It might pay to get to know the constituents who voted you into office.”