Kentucky Confidential

by Paula Graves

  “I train all of my people to handle dangerous situations,” Cooper had explained, slanting a proud look at his wife. “Evie can hold her own.”

  “But you obviously have a reason to think there might have been a link,” Risa said.

  “He’s been on our watch list for a while, but we hadn’t really seen any signs that he’s working a personal agenda,” Evie explained. “But our analysts did some poking around this afternoon after Jesse called in the details of your suspicions about Akwat and the deaths of the two founders. Like I said, he’s on our watch list, and you two seemed to think you might be under surveillance by someone with government ties.”

  “And they found something?” Connor asked.

  “About eight months ago, shortly after you filed your preliminary report on Akwat, he requested and received permission to open an investigation into the company’s American investors.”

  Next to Connor, Risa made a skeptical noise in the back of her throat. He couldn’t blame her. “That sounds like a fairly reasonable thing for Homeland Security to investigate,” he said.

  “Which is probably why it didn’t ping our radar before now,” Jesse said. “But the thing is, he was given carte blanche to form his own investigation team from State, Homeland Security and the Pentagon. And guess what all of the people he tapped had in common?”

  A sinking sensation roiled through Connor’s stomach. “They were all on your Barton Reid–related watch list?”

  “Bingo,” Jesse said.

  “How did you get this information so quickly?”

  “Having the Akwat part of the puzzle speeded everything up. Everything we’d gleaned about the activities of the people on the watch list had been entered into a searchable database. Once we searched for ‘Akwat,’ the pattern became clear.”

  Connor rubbed his forehead, where a tension headache throbbed. “That’s a lot of manpower for something you’re not getting paid to do.”

  Jesse met Connor’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Who says we’re not getting paid?”

  “So what makes you think we’re in imminent danger?” Risa asked.

  “Two hours ago, I made a call to a friend I served with during my Marine Corps days,” Jesse answered. “Gunnery Sergeant Ken Halsey, Gunny for short. He’s now the chief of police with the Sunset Mountain Police Department. I thought I’d see if he and his wife could meet us for dinner somewhere. But he had to work—some suit from Homeland Security believes there’s a terrorist on her way to Kingdom Come Park to scout the place for a terrorist attack once the park opens this spring.”

  “On her way?” Connor echoed.

  “Yeah. Seems this woman is a Kaziri. Pregnant and probably traveling with her American lover she’s helped radicalize. Ring any bells?”

  “Son of a bitch,” Connor muttered. “They’ve come out of the shadows with their search.”

  “Yeah. And want to take a stab at the name of the Homeland Security suit Gunny was talking about?”

  “Garrett Leland,” Connor and Risa answered in quiet unison.

  “I told him he was looking for the wrong person, and it was important that we got out of town without running into Homeland Security,” Jesse said quickly.

  “And that was good enough for him?” Risa asked.

  “Marine’s word,” Connor murmured.

  “Gunny trusts me, and I trust him—” Jesse’s voice cut off abruptly, his body going tense.

  “Oh no,” Evie murmured, gazing forward through the windshield.

  Connor leaned to the center of the SUV and saw the red glow of a string of taillights on the road ahead. Beyond the backed-up traffic, a bank of flashing blue-and-red lights illuminated the scene about a mile away, blocking both lanes.

  They’d run into a police roadblock.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As he tapped the brakes to slow the SUV, Jesse’s cell phone rang. Evie answered and listened for a moment, then looked at him. “It’s for you.” She held the phone to his ear.

  Gunny Halsey’s gravelly voice rumbled like distant thunder in his ear. He was obviously trying to speak quietly. “We’ve set up roadblocks on the major arteries in and out of town. Where are you?”

  “About to run into one of those roadblocks on Bald Eagle Road.”

  “How far out?”

  “A mile?”

  “Anybody behind you?”

  Jesse checked the rearview mirror. “No.”

  “Kill your lights. The taillights ahead should be enough light for you to see Black Creek Road turnoff on the right. Spot it yet?”

  Jesse turned off his headlights manually, slowing as he neared the traffic snarl ahead. As his eyes adjusted to the lower light, he spotted the sign to his right. “Got it.”

  “Take it. It’ll be dark as an Afghan cave, but you’ll be blocked by trees almost immediately. Put on your parking lights until you think you can risk headlights again.”

  Jesse slowed into the turn. The glow from the taillights on Bald Eagle Road disappeared almost immediately, blocked out by the thick evergreen canopy that closed in Black Creek Road. He decided he could risk the parking lights, which offered a little illumination of the gravel track ahead of him. “Okay, I’m on Black Creek Road. What now?”

  “Go until you hit Mill Hollow Road. Take a left and follow it until you hit a T intersection on Grassley Road. From there, take a left and you should be able to get to Cumberland without hitting any of the major roads. Gotta go.” Gunny hung up.

  Jesse told Evie and the McGinnises where they were going.

  “And you trust this Chief Halsey?”

  “With my life. Several times, as a matter of fact.”

  He was far enough into the woods to hit the headlights. They lit up the road ahead, almost painfully bright until his eyes adjusted again.

  They drove in silence until an intersection appeared in the gloom ahead, four-way stop signs bringing them to a brief halt. The words Mill Hollow Road gleamed in fading fluorescent paint at the corner of the crossroad. Jesse took a left, as Gunny had directed.

  Risa broke the silence. “You haven’t told us what’s waiting when we get to the motel. Something about a second plan of action?”

  “Are you familiar with Senator Gerald Blackledge?” Jesse asked.

  “Of course,” Risa answered. “He’s been a senator since the Lincoln administration, right?”

  “He may be a politician down to his bone marrow, but he gives a damn about national security and nothing pisses him off more than corruption in the government. He knows where a lot of the bodies are buried, and he’s been instrumental in protecting many of the key witnesses against Barton Reid and his cronies. He’s setting up a satellite feed so you can testify to everything you learned about Akwat. You don’t have to name names or anything else—just report what you were going to report before your plans were cut short by the plane crash.”

  “It’s going to catch some people by surprise, since your name was on the list of casualties in that crash,” Connor said.

  “This is good,” Risa said. “I think the only reason I’ve been targeted is because of my unfinished report on Akwat, right? It’s the only thing that makes sense, given all the rest of the things we know.”

  “It seems likely,” Jesse agreed.

  “It took almost seven months for them to figure out you were still alive and where you might be,” Connor said thoughtfully. “I wonder if that’s because they managed to get information out of Dalrymple before he was murdered.”

  “We believe he was working this case off the CIA’s radar, so yeah. If somebody found out I was still alive, it was probably through Dal in some way. Or dumb luck, the way Connor did.”

  “Do you have the original report somewhere you can access it?” Evie asked, turning around in the
seat to look at the McGinnises.

  “Yes,” Risa answered, the hint of a smile tinting her voice. “I do.”

  * * *

  “NO SIGN OF them at either checkpoint?” Garrett Leland’s accent reminded Ken Halsey of a greenhorn captain he’d been burdened with during a tour of duty in Iraq during the first Gulf War. Complete ass who thought his master’s degree in logistics made him God’s gift to the Corps. He’d been from somewhere in Massachusetts. Somewhere rich and privileged. His accent was a lot like Leland’s. Same attitude, too.

  “Afraid not,” Halsey answered in the same careful tone he’d used when talking to the idiot captain of yore.

  “We’ve confirmed they’ve vacated their last known whereabouts,” Leland growled, his brow creasing as he started to pace. “We’ve got the two ways out of town covered. Where the hell could they have gone?”

  Another voice piped up. “There’s another way out of town, sir.”

  Alarm rippled down Halsey’s spine. He turned to look at the deputy who’d spoken, Josh Phelps, sending him a warning look.

  But Phelps was looking at Garrett Leland with a mixture of awe and eagerness to please. Stupid damn pup.

  “What way?” Leland asked.

  “There’s a back road—Black Creek Road, just off Bald Eagle Road. They coulda seen our roadblock and taken the detour. Black Creek Road takes you to Mill Hollow Road, and from there you can get out of Sunset Mountain without going through either of the roadblocks.”

  Leland turned to look at Halsey. “You didn’t tell me about the detour.”

  “Nobody except locals know anything about it.” Halsey tried not to grit his teeth with frustration. “You said they’re not locals.”

  Leland’s expression darkened, and his voice sharpened to a diamond edge. “I said, I wanted to block off every road out of town.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and made a call. “It’s me. I need a chopper in the air now. Grab a map and find Mill Hollow Road. Make sure every exit off that road is covered. Now!”

  Halsey swallowed a profanity. “I’ll get you some extra bodies out there to help you,” he told the Homeland Security agent, pulling his phone from his pocket. He texted his assistant deputy and gave the order, then pulled up Jesse Cooper’s number and typed in a quick message.

  Before hitting Send, he glanced up and found Leland watching him, his dark eyes suspicious. Halsey faked a smile. “Should have four more deputies on board in ten minutes. They’ll meet your folks at the T intersection off Mill Hollow Road.”

  He pocketed his cell phone again, but as he slipped it in his pocket, he hit Send.

  * * *

  “OH, HELL.”

  Evie Cooper’s voice roused Risa from a light doze. She looked up to find the woman peering at her husband’s cell phone, the light from the display casting blue light across her face.

  “Text from Gunny. Leland’s ordered a roadblock at the end of Mill Hollow Road.”

  Risa went from drowsiness to instant alertness. “Can we get there before the roadblock’s set up?”

  “Unlikely,” Jesse answered. “We haven’t even reached Grassley Road.”

  “How big a net are they throwing?” Connor asked. He was on his phone, Risa saw, looking at a map program. “Just the roads?”

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “We could go on foot,” he answered. “Just the two of us, through the woods. Jesse and Evie stay in the SUV and get through the checkpoint. Then we meet back up on the highway past the checkpoint and go the rest of the way to the motel.”

  Risa saw Jesse and his wife exchange a quick look before he gave a nod. “That could work.”

  “It’s really cold out there.” Evie looked worried.

  Risa glanced at Connor, smiling. “We’ve trekked ten miles up a mountain in Kaziristan in winter. We know about dealing with the cold.”

  “We’ll bundle up. Plus, we’ll be moving, so that’ll keep our body heat up.” He was still looking at the map on the phone. “About a quarter mile from the intersection with the highway back to Cumberland, Mill Hollow Road crosses a large creek. If we get out there and start hiking, we can follow the creek to the highway, bypassing the roadblock.”

  “I’m not sure I like being out of contact that long,” Jesse said.

  “Do you have another one of those handheld radios?” Risa asked. “We’ll have the phone and if we had a radio, we’d have two ways to stay in touch. Then, if something went wrong, we’d know we’d have to come up with a plan C.”

  “I think this is plan C,” Jesse murmured. But he waved his hand toward the glove box, and Evie opened it to retrieve an extra radio. She checked the radio’s channel setting and handed it to Connor.

  * * *

  THEY CROSSED THE creek and stopped on the other side of the small bridge, pulled over onto the sandy shoulder. There were no headlights visible behind them on the curvy road, but that could change quickly, so Risa and Connor didn’t drag their heels. They left Risa’s laptop with the Coopers—they’d have no use for it in the woods. Evie had directed them to stow it away in a hidden lockbox tucked under the middle row of seats for just such a purpose. It wouldn’t be found in a cursory search, and if the search went any deeper than that, the laptop would be the least of their worries.

  Instead, they stashed a change of clothes in a large rucksack Jesse provided. “There’s a first-aid kit, some protein bars and a liter of water in there,” he told them as he helped Connor strap the sack to his shoulders. “There are night-vision goggles in there if you need them.”

  By the time Risa and Connor climbed down the shallow incline to the rocky creek bank, the Coopers were back on the road, their taillights casting a faint red glow over the area for a few brief seconds before they disappeared, leaving them in utter darkness.

  Connor retrieved the night-vision goggles and slid them onto his head, adjusting the straps until they fit snugly but comfortably. He was well-accustomed to using the goggles, so adjusting to the green glow of the landscape stretching out ahead of him took only a couple of seconds.

  “Just follow me,” he told Risa. “I’ll let you know if there’s an obstacle to worry about, trust me.”

  “I do,” she said with quiet confidence.

  He swallowed a smile and started walking.

  For a while, they stuck close to the creek bank, avoiding the tangled underbrush of the woods in favor of the clearer, if rockier, path the bank provided. But within a half mile, the creek narrowed considerably, the woods encroaching on the bank until there was no clearing left.

  There was no choice but to venture into the underbrush, and their forward progress slowed.

  “How’re you holding up?” Connor asked Risa as he picked his way around a half-hidden stump in the middle of a tangle of vines.

  “I’m okay,” she answered, but there was a tightness in her voice that made him turn and look at her.

  She smiled at him, her teeth bright through the goggles. But her brow was slightly furrowed, and she had both gloved hands pressed over her stomach.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “You having pains?”

  “Just twinges. I’ve had them before. I’m okay. Let’s keep going.”

  Stopping to argue, he decided, would just prolong their time in the woods. What she needed was a clean bed and full night’s sleep. The sooner they rendezvoused with the Coopers, the sooner she’d get what she needed.

  They were coming to a part of the creek where the trees and underbrush receded, leaving the bank relatively clear for a long stretch. There was also a fallen tree near the edge of the clearing that offered a tempting place to rest for a few moments. “Let’s take a load off for a minute. Get some water.”

  Risa followed him to the fallen tree trunk and sat, gratefully accepting a drink from t
he liter bottle of water. “How far are we?” she asked as he flipped up the night goggles and pulled out his phone.

  He checked for reception. One bar, but it might be enough to check the map. He pulled up the GPS app and got their current coordinates, then plugged it into the map. “A little over halfway there.”

  Risa swallowed a sound that sounded a lot like a groan. “Any messages from the Coopers?”

  He checked. There was a text message, posted about five minutes ago: Do you want pizza?

  “They’re at the checkpoint.” With any luck, the Coopers would be allowed to pass through the checkpoint unmolested, especially since, during the quick stop to let Risa and Connor out to start their hike, they’d packed away their weapons and firearms—all legally owned and licensed to possess even in Kentucky, Jesse had assured him—in hopes that they wouldn’t raise any suspicions. “Hopefully the name Cooper won’t trip any alarms.”

  “I don’t know.” Risa was rubbing her stomach rhythmically, as if trying to calm both herself and the baby. “If Garrett Leland really is part of the old Barton Reid network of corrupt government employees, I’m guessing he’d be pretty wary of anyone named Cooper.”

  Connor pulled off his glove and touched her face. Despite the cold, she looked and felt a little flushed. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m okay. Let’s just keep going. The sooner we reach the rendezvous point, the better.”

  He stashed everything back in his rucksack and pulled the goggles down over his eyes, letting them readjust to the night-vision glow. He stood and reached out for Risa’s hand, helping her to her feet. “You sure you don’t need to rest a little longer?”

  “Positive.” Her voice sounded stronger. “Let’s go.”

  Over eight months pregnant, he thought. Almost thirty-eight weeks.

  Most airlines stopped letting pregnant women fly at thirty-six weeks, didn’t they? But here he was, dragging his pregnant wife through the woods in the middle of December.