Code Name: Willow

by Paula Graves

  God help him, he'd do it all again for her. Maggie was in danger. Someone with a whole lot of connections didn't want her back in New Orleans talking to the wrong people and asking the wrong questions. She needed Jack's help and protection, and he was going to give her all he had.

  It's what he did best.

  "Laundry?" Remy looked at her as if she were crazy.

  "There's a laundry place down the highway. It'll be nice to have clean clothes to meet the F.B.I. agents once Jack sets things up." She forced herself to smile at the scowling boy, not wanting him to catch a glimpse of the bitter anger driving her into action. He didn't need anything more to worry about.

  During her sleepless night, Maggie had given a lot of thought to all the possible outcomes of Jack's trip into Mobile. It would have been nice to comfort herself with the rosier outcomes she'd considered, but the odds weren't in their favor.

  Especially now that she knew Jack called Laura Sandoval last night, putting them all into grave danger.

  If everything went to hell in Mobile, Maggie needed a back-up plan, a way to get Remy and herself to a safer place. For all his attention to details, Jack hadn't given much thought to what they would do if something happened to him in Mobile.

  But Maggie had.

  Remy scowled. "I don't think Jack'd want you drivin' around. The cops'll be looking for his car."

  His concern made Maggie's heart turn flips. Sweet kid, trying to be the protector like his hero Jack. "It'll just be a couple of hours. I'll wash and dry and be right back." She guided him toward the sofa in front of the television. "Just think, two hours of non-stop Squirrel Smash on the big screen."

  Remy's lips twitched. "Better get a little game time in while I can. I don't reckon they have an X-Box in the cages."

  She cupped his face. "I promise, Remy, you won't be going to jail. I won't let that happen, no matter what."

  Moisture pooled in the boy's dark eyes, and he looked away. "Just be careful, Doc, okay? Don't run any stop signs or—"

  She gave him a swift hug, blinking back tears of her own. "I'll be back before you even miss me." She grabbed the garbage bag full of dirty clothes and headed out to the car.

  She dashed away tears as she pulled the Beretta onto the main road leading to the highway south to Picayune. She hadn't been lying; she had seen a sign for a Laundromat on their drive to the lodge. She was even going to wash clothes.

  But the Laundromat wasn't her primary destination.

  The traffic in front of the F.B.I. building was moderately heavy, normal for a weekday morning after rush hour. Five minutes of simple surveillance of the building and the street that ran in front of it had revealed nothing to give Jack reason for alarm. So why did he suddenly have a very bad feeling about what he was about to do?

  Think like a security expert, he reminded himself. What was one of the first rules of security?

  Safety in numbers.

  They'd run out of options and nearly out of money. They just had to take a risk and ask for help from the authorities.

  He stepped out of the Blazer into bright sunlight, squinting until his eyes adjusted to the glare. Weaving through the parked cars between the Blazer and the street, he'd made it to the next to the last row of cars when he spotted a man striding down the sidewalk in front of the F.B.I. building. He was tall, with sandy brown hair cut military-short and an air of authority evident even from Jack's position several yards away.

  Heart racing, Jack changed course, moving behind the bulk of a Land Rover to his right. He peered around the windshield just as the man turned his head, giving Jack a good look at him.

  Travis Cooper, New Orleans F.B.I.

  As Cooper turned up the walk and entered the building, Jack sagged against the Land Rover, mind racing. What were the odds a New Orleans F.B.I. agent would just happen to be in Mobile the day after Jack asked his old girlfriend for the name of a Mobile F.B.I. agent he could contact?

  As much as he didn't want to think it, he was forced to face a very unwelcome possibility: maybe Maggie was right.

  Maybe Laura Sandoval had been setting them up all along.

  The pawn shop was a small cinderblock building a few doors down from First Federal Bank. A sign towered over the building's face, visible from the highway, with "Lowry's Title and Pawn" written in sprawling red block letters. Paint on the large front windows promised big savings on furniture, heirloom jewelry and "like new" electronics. Heavy iron bars fortified the building's front, a reminder that even in a small, friendly town like Picayune, Mississippi, crime was a fact of life.

  Maggie took a few deep breaths to settle her nerves and walked into the pawn shop. A bell tinkled overhead as she entered, drawing the attention of the grizzled man perched on a stool behind the cashier's counter, reading a newspaper.

  He looked up with mild curiosity, gave her a quick once-over and returned his attention to the newspaper.

  Maggie fingered the ring in her pocket, pressing the sharp ridges of the platinum setting, the pain giving her focus. She walked up one of the aisles and looked over the items for sale. Mostly junk, things people pawned all the time for quick cash—radios, cameras, musical instruments.

  Near the front, however, Maggie found some nice antiques, items that would go for hundreds of dollars even in a place like this. The glass case in front of the clerk held even more valuables, including jewelry, guns, and collectibles, some marked with prices in the thousands.

  Tears pricking her eyes, Maggie pulled the three-diamond ring from her pocket and clutched it in her palm, tightly enough that the stones bit into her skin.

  She glanced at the pawnbroker. He was reading the sports page, the rest of his paper lying at his feet. The front page lay face down, neatly folded as if he'd simply extracted the sports page and thrown the rest away. So he wasn't a big news reader.

  That could definitely work to her advantage.

  She approached the counter. "Checking up on spring practice?" She nodded toward the sports page.

  The man made a face. "L.S.U. ain't gonna be worth a tinker's damn this year. You a Southern Miss fan?"

  "No, Tigers all the way." She leaned against the counter. "I think we've got a chance at the Sugar Bowl."

  He snorted and waved her off. "Sugar, Bama's gonna take it this year, I'm afraid. Tiger's ain't got a defensive line." He folded the sports page and laid it on the counter next to him. "But I don't reckon you're here to talk football with an old fool like me. You buyin' or sellin'?"

  Maggie licked her lips, took a deep breath and opened her hand, letting her mother's ring slide onto the counter. "How much can you give me for this?"

  Rain settled in by midday, hard and steady, drenching the Gulf Coast. By four p.m., the downpour began to abate, leaving behind localized flooding and a few downed trees along highway embankments. From Louisiana to Florida, flooding had snarled traffic, according to the newscasts Maggie watched all afternoon when it became clear that Jack wasn't coming back.

  She tried to tell herself he was stuck in the miles-long traffic jams plaguing the interstates and major highways. There was flooding in Mobile area; maybe he'd had trouble reaching the F.B.I. building. Or he'd decided not to go to the F.B.I. after all and was stuck somewhere on I-10.

  Maybe he'd never even gone to Mobile at all. Maybe he'd met up with Laura and the cops somewhere and they were planning the raid on the lodge to take Remy and her into custody. Not out of the question, was it? After all, Jack had his reputation and his business license to protect, right?

  She fed her anger with that thought, let the heat of it drive away the icy dread sitting like a stone in the pit of her stomach. Believing Jack had betrayed her was a hell of a lot easier than facing the remaining possibility.

  The possibility that Jack was dead, a victim of Laura Sandoval's treachery and Mark Blevins' murderous intent.

  She closed her eyes, unable to hold back the full force of terror roiling in her gut, a sick, cold sensation that flushed through her v
eins and made her bones ache. Jack was power and vitality and strength.

  The idea of him lying somewhere, cold and immobile . . .

  There was another explanation. There had to be.

  Maggie lifted her hand to her throat automatically, her fingers finding only a serpentine chain lying flat against her collarbone. Tears pricking her eyes, she dropped her hand to her lap. She had spent most of the morning trying to convince herself that the four thousand dollars the pawnbroker had given her for the ring was what mattered. Four thousand dollars could get her and Remy to Mexico if Jack's plan went wrong.

  Funny, now that she feared that she and Remy really were on their own, she was beginning to wish she'd never sold the ring. It had been like a good luck charm most of her life. That ring had gotten her through some of her roughest times. She could touch the ring and conjure up a comforting memory of her mother's gentle eyes and musical laughter.

  Tears ran down Maggie's face, uncheckable. She clutched the gold chain between her fingers, tugging convulsively, as if to conjure up the old magic. But she found no comfort there.

  By eight p.m., she gave up all hope.

  She found Remy in front of the X-Box in the great room, playing Squirrel Smash with a manic concentration she knew masked his rising anxiety. He didn't seem to notice her approach, though her footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor.

  She touched his shoulder and he jumped, whirling to gaze at her with wide eyes. "Geez, Doc, you scared the sh—you know what out of me."

  She blinked back the tears pooling in her eyes. "Remy, pack your things. We're getting out of here."

  Jack peered through the cheap binoculars he'd bought at a military surplus store a few hours earlier. He had left most of their remaining money supply with Maggie and Remy, so the binoculars had been purchased at the expense of lunch, leaving him cold, hungry and increasingly cranky.

  He hunkered down between a couple of prickly holly bushes deep in the woods behind his office building, waiting for the last of his co-workers to leave the office for the day. The sharp points of the holly leaves dug into his arms, a painful reminder that he'd left his jacket back at the lodge.

  Movement at the back door of the office caught his attention. Hank Carr was leaving for the day. As Hank locked up, he kept his head up, scanning the perimeter of the parking lot. Jack remained very still, knowing that the early dusk was not enough to hide him from the sharp eyes of the former Special Forces captain. Though his arms had begun to ache, he didn't even lower the binoculars, knowing that one flash of reflected street light on the glass lenses would reveal his position.

  Hank paused in the middle of the parking lot, his hand moving to his back, where he wore his beloved Ruger. He peered into the woods, seeming almost to look Jack right in the eyes.

  Jack stayed frozen, not daring to breathe.

  Hank finally gave a little shrug of his shoulders, as if shaking off a weird sensation, and crossed the lot to his truck. He slid behind the wheel, cranked the engine and drove away.

  Jack lowered the binoculars and stretched out his cramping arms. He crouched a while longer, watching the office building for signs of movement. There were none. Jack started working his way through the dense underbrush as quietly as he could.

  He'd spent twenty minutes hunkered down in the cab of the Blazer across the street from the F.B.I. building earlier that day, trying to figure out what it meant that Travis Cooper of the New Orleans F.B.I. had suddenly shown up the same morning Jack had decided to take his chances with the Mobile feds. Jack didn't believe in coincidences. And all his doubts took him back to the phone call he'd made to Laura the night before.

  He didn't want to believe she'd betrayed him. There could be other explanations-maybe she'd trusted someone in her office with Jack's plans and been betrayed herself. Or maybe there was someone new in her life, someone who'd overheard the late night call and put the pieces together.

  Not that it mattered. The outcome was the same: Jack's plan was blown. He couldn't risk turning himself in now. Maggie and Remy were depending on him to get them out of this mess, not dig them in even deeper.

  They couldn't stay at the lodge much longer, however. If the police hadn't already searched his files, they'd do it soon enough. It wouldn't take long for someone to check around and find out that one of his clients was out of town for six months on an overseas consultation. Investigators could follow the clues to Archer's lodge. Jack estimated they had maybe one or two days before they would have to find somewhere else to stay.

  But first, he had to get the money.

  Maggie took a final turn around the lodge, checking under beds and in the backs of closets for anything she and Remy might have missed while they were packing up. When Remy had offered to handle getting Jack's stuff together, she'd gratefully let him. She was already blinking back tears as it was.

  She couldn't allow her emotions to paralyze her. She didn't have that luxury. She was all Remy had left, the only thing between him and the people who wanted to see him dead. No matter how scared she was, she would put everything on the line for Remy. She'd made a promise.

  Any thoughts about leaving Jack behind, she pushed aside with stubborn resolution.

  Right now, she needed to be strong. Thinking about Jack would make her weak. There'd be time for thinking later, after they were safely away from the lodge.

  She took a steadying breath and finished looking through the lodge for anything that might betray the fact that they'd ever occupied the place. Satisfied that they had left nothing behind, she went out to the great room where Remy waited for her. He'd already taken their bags out to the Beretta and now sat on the sofa watching television, flipping channels in a slow, almost rhythmic cadence, staying on a station only long enough to hear a few words before moving to the next.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her, then looked back at the television screen. "Almost nine." He pushed the channel button on the remote and the channel switched again. Maggie caught sight of Jack's face. Her heart skipped a beat.

  ". . . sources are reporting that the investigation into the kidnapping of Maggie Stone is officially expanding to look into the possible involvement of retired Secret Service agent Jack Bennett," a pretty brunette correspondent reported. "Bennett, who retired from the Secret Service a little over three years ago, now runs a security firm in Fairhope, Alabama. F.B.I. sources say Bennett became a person of interest in this investigation after New Orleans police sources received an anonymous tip that Ms. Stone had been seen with Bennett in the Fairhope area after her abduction."

  So it was no longer just her father's conspiracy theory, Maggie thought. No surprise, really—having Jack in the F.B.I.'s crosshairs would be a plus for Blevins.

  Tightening the noose around them, inch by inch.

  Well, she could cross one more theory off her list; apparently, Jack wasn't colluding with Laura against them. Small comfort, that. Because it made the other possibility, that Jack was dead, all the more likely.

  She closed her eyes, willing away the paralyzing images the thought of Jack's death sent racing through her brain. Don't think about it now. You can think about it later.

  Remy shut off the television. "Bastards."

  She didn't correct his language. He wasn't saying anything she wasn't thinking. How had Blevins and his crew of thugs gotten this kind of power? Contrary to public perception—and its own checkered history—the New Orleans police department had made huge strides in recent years. Systemic corruption was no longer the rule. In her own dealings with the N.O.P.D., she'd found most cops to be honest and helpful, if deeply cynical.

  But Maggie and Remy weren't going to get any help from them. They'd already proven that cops stick together.

  Remy crossed to where she stood. "Ready to go?"

  She nodded. Slipping her arm around his thin shoulders, she walked with him to the door. She set the alarm and followed him outside, locking the deadbolt behind them with the key Jack had left with her when he heade
d out fourteen hours ago.

  Funny, it seemed more like fourteen years ago.

  A lifetime ago.

  Would that be how she viewed things from now on? Would she see her life in two distinct parts—life before Jack left for Mobile, and life after?

  She made herself slide behind the steering wheel, belt herself in and crank the engine. She turned the car around and headed down the narrow driveway from the house to the main road. The driveway was a winding, grassy path through the woods, at least a quarter of a mile long if Maggie's memory served her. She should be nearing the road—

  A pair of lights suddenly sliced through the darkness ahead, bright enough to make her squint.

  Headlights.

  A car was moving up the driveway toward them.

  Chapter 12

  Maggie slammed the car into reverse. It lurched, the tires sliding on the grassy undergrowth as she put the gas pedal to the floor. How could anyone have found them so soon?

  The headlights kept coming, two bright orbs in the blackness. She gripped the steering wheel tighter, holding the car to the path as she backed up the drive. Could they get inside and get to the bolt hole before whoever was behind those blazing headlights could reach them? And what then? There was no vehicle waiting at the other end of the tunnel, since Jack had taken the Blazer to Mobile. Think, Maggie.

  The bolt hole was still the best option. Nobody would find it right away, giving them precious time to reach the other end. Jack had said the bolt hole exited a hundred yards from a main road. It would be a long walk to Picayune, but she had enough cash to pay a motel clerk to keep his mouth shut.

  The headlights kept pace with them as she backed into the side yard and slammed the car into park. She released her seat belt and opened the car door. "The bolt hole!"