CARRIE'S PROTECTOR

by Rebecca York

  They had just reached the third level when Wyatt heard gunfire blasting below.

  He led Carrie through a door into the building, then pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed the safe house.

  Gary Blain answered. “Wyatt? Is something wrong?”

  “Yeah. We’re in the building where Carrie was supposed to meet the prosecutor. Somehow the terrorists knew we were coming.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Yes. But there are shooters in here.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Near the south stairwell. Armed men were blocking the garage entrance. Can you pick us up on the roof?”

  “Negative. Unless we get clearance for a helo flight into D.C.”

  Wyatt answered with a curse.

  A burst of gunfire from below interrupted the conversation.

  “Gotta go.”

  He led Carrie down the hall to another stairwell then up two more levels. He was pretty sure the attackers had thought they’d get him and Carrie in the garage, which meant they probably hadn’t stationed anyone up here. Yet.

  Cautiously he opened the door and looked out into the hallway. Nothing was moving—particularly the dead body lying in a pool of blood in the center of the tile floor.

  When he hesitated, Carrie pressed against his back and looked over his shoulder.

  “Oh, God,” she breathed as she gazed at Skip Gunderson, the Federal prosecutor she’d been coming to meet.

  “We can’t stay here,” Wyatt said.

  But when he glanced back at Carrie, he saw the blood had drained from her face and she had gone stock-still.

  “Carrie!”

  Her gaze stayed on Gunderson. “We have to...” she whispered.

  He gripped her arm, squeezing hard. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing you can do for him now.”

  When she still didn’t move, he tugged on her arm. “Come on. Before we end up the same way.”

  He watched her expression harden as she shook herself into action and let him lead her down the hall, although she kept looking back.

  “This is my fault,” she said, as he tried to determine the best place to hide.

  “You’re not responsible.”

  She made a snorting sound. “Of course I am. He was here to meet me.”

  “Because he was doing his job. Maybe you should blame the building security for letting terrorists in here. Or whoever leaked the meeting information.”

  He hurried Carrie down the hall, opening doors as they went. Most led to small offices, but one was larger, which had the potential for more hiding places. He stepped inside, looking around. The blinds were partially closed, which would give them more cover. Crouching behind the broad wooden desk was too obvious, but a bank of storage cabinets blocked the view from the door.

  “Get back there.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m coming.”

  Carrie hesitated, then crossed the room and wedged herself into the corner. Crossing to the desk, he opened drawers, looking for anything useful. When he found a box of pushpins, he threw them onto the polished tile floor, watching them scatter. Then he crossed to the cabinets and stepped in front of Carrie, gun drawn.

  Of course, if he had to shoot, he’d alert every terrorist in the building.

  As he pressed his back to her front, he could feel the tension humming through her.

  “Wyatt?”

  “I’m here to make sure you get out of this.” He wanted to turn around and take her in his arms. He wanted to stroke her back and hair to comfort her, but he knew that facing the enemy was more important than giving her reassurances.

  Down the hall, Wyatt could hear rapid footsteps and doors opening and slamming shut again. When the door to the office where they were hiding opened, every muscle in his body tensed. He saw a shadow flicker on the wall—the shadow of a man holding a machine gun. The guy stood still for a moment, then started across the tile floor toward their hiding place.

  Chapter Two

  Wyatt waited, his body coiled for action.

  In a couple of seconds, if the trap he’d set didn’t work, the invader was going to spot them—and shoot. But before he reached their hiding place, the man stepped on the pushpins and lost his footing.

  Wyatt sprang around the corner, reaching for the guy’s gun arm and pulling him forward across the slippery surface. Off balance from the pins and the man yanking on his arm, the gunman scrambled to stay upright while he tried to get his weapon into firing position. Before he could do either, Wyatt kicked him square in the back, sending him sprawling on the tile floor, yelping as the sharp points of the pins dug into his hands and face.

  He was a blond guy, young and muscular, and totally unprepared to be attacked by the quarry he was hunting.

  Wyatt was on him as he went down. As the guy struggled to respond to the changed circumstances, Wyatt raised his own weapon and bashed the terrorist over the head with the gun butt. The man went still.

  “Cover him,” he told Carrie, handing her his Sig while he looked for something to tie the guy up.

  She held the weapon in a two-handed grip. He noted that she was savvy enough to stand a couple of yards away so that the man couldn’t grab her leg if he came to and went into attack mode.

  Wyatt’s glance raked the desk. Grabbing the phone, he yanked the cord from the wall, then disconnected the cord from the phone to the receiver.

  While Carrie kept the gun trained on the guy, Wyatt tied him up using both cords. When he was finished, he took a closer look at the terrorist’s appearance. Definitely not from the Middle East. In fact, he looked like a typical Midwestern farmer with sunburned skin, blond hair and pleasant-enough features.

  “You know him?” Wyatt asked. “Was he one of the men in the park?”

  “No,” Carrie answered.

  “Well, that’s a clue to the scope of the organization. Looks like the initial three you spotted in the park weren’t the only ones involved in the plot.”

  She nodded.

  As Blondie started to stir, Wyatt took back the gun while he debated what to do.

  The man’s eyes blinked open. When he tried to move and found that his hands and feet were secured, he swung his murderous gaze from Wyatt to Carrie and back again. Carrie recoiled, but Wyatt ignored the threatening scowl. “How many men are in the building?”

  “Enough to kill you and the bitch.”

  “I don’t think so.” He wanted to ask how the terrorists had discovered the time and location of Carrie’s meeting with the Federal prosecutor, but he knew that would only be a waste of time.

  The guy smirked at him. “You won’t get out of here alive. And once you’re dead, there won’t be anyone to testify against Bobby.”

  “They have the pictures she took of your meeting.”

  “So what? In this day and age, they could be faked. And—”

  To stave off another smart remark, Wyatt bashed him on the head again, and he went still.

  Carrie made a low, distressed sound. “Why did you do that?”

  “Don’t tell me you wanted to keep listening to his line of crap?”

  “No.”

  Wyatt found packing tape in one of the desk drawers, and wound it around the guy’s head and over his mouth so he couldn’t call for help. Then he pulled him behind the desk.

  “It looked like you handled my gun all right,” he remarked.

  “Yes. My father made sure I was able to protect myself.”

  “Good.”

  He handed her his automatic and took the terrorist’s weapon for himself before crossing to the door and looking out. The hall was clear. But they’d come back when they realized their buddy was missing.

  Wyatt led the way, an
d they sprinted to the end of the hall and into another office.

  He locked the door, even knowing it would be a dead giveaway to their position. At least it would buy them a few seconds if somebody tried to get in.

  “Up here the windows open. We can get out,” he told Carrie.

  “Five stories up?”

  “There are step-back roofs.” He hurried to the window and slid the glass open.

  Carrie looked out, seeing the roof below them. “It’s pretty far.”

  “Not if you lower yourself by your hands. I’ll go first.”

  She kept her gaze on him. “You’re all business. All the time. I should be thankful for that.”

  He bit back a retort. There was no time for anything but escape from a building that had turned into a death trap.

  He slung the weapon over his shoulder, then climbed out the window and lowered himself, thankful that he was in good shape.

  Controlling his descent, he eased down the wall, then let himself drop the four feet to the gravel surface of the roof below. Turning, he held up his arms to Carrie.

  She shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

  “You don’t have to. I’ll catch you. Hurry, before they find us.”

  She stuffed the gun into her shoulder bag, which she wrapped across her chest, then maneuvered herself out the window. Turning around, she lowered herself until her body was dangling from the frame. But her grip wasn’t strong enough, and she fell. Wyatt was there to catch her, taking her weight as she came hurtling down.

  They both wavered on their feet, then he steadied them.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “We’ve got to do that again.”

  She made a strangled sound but followed him to the edge of the roof. Again he went first, lowering himself to his full length, then dropping six feet to the roof below.

  When he turned and glanced up, he saw Carrie watching him. She looked as if she wanted to protest; instead, she grimly climbed over the edge and lowered herself by her arms. This time she must have made a concerted effort to control her descent. She didn’t let go until her full length was dangling from the edge. Again he caught her and staggered back, almost losing his balance. But he stayed on his feet, then went to check the next drop-off point.

  A scuffling sound made him whirl around. He saw that Carrie had turned and was holding the pistol he’d given her in two hands—pointed at a man who was looking over the edge of the roof above, his weapon aimed downward.

  Carrie fired, hitting the would-be assassin in the arm. Before he could recover, Wyatt delivered a chest shot, and the man went down, toppling over the edge and landing on the gravel surface a few yards from where they stood.

  Carrie gasped as she stared at the body.

  Wyatt hurried back to her, catching her look of horror as she realized what she’d done.

  “I...I think he couldn’t believe a woman had the guts to fire at him.”

  “His mistake,” Wyatt said in a gritty voice. “Thank God you did.”

  She stood rigidly, and he reached for her hand.

  “Gotta go.”

  At his touch, she shook herself into action, and he hustled her to the edge of the roof. This time there was a bonus feature: a ladder leading down to ground level.

  Wyatt sent Carrie down first, alternately covering her descent and checking for more pursuers on the roof above. When he joined her, she was shaking, and he knew she was still reacting to what had happened.

  “I shot a man,” she whispered as though she were just now taking it in.

  He pulled her toward him, at the same time easing her against the side of the building where it would be harder for anyone looking down from above to see them. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close. “You shot in self-defense. He was going to kill you.”

  “It’s not like shooting at a target.”

  He didn’t point out that he’d fired the kill shot. Or that he’d killed a lot more men. This was no time for a philosophical discussion on the morality of protecting oneself.

  She let her head drop to his shoulder, clinging to him, and he cradled her against himself, breathing in her scent, absorbing the curves of her slender body before easing away.

  “We can’t stay here. Another one of them could come across the roof at any minute. And there’s a big clue up there about which way we went.”

  She shuddered, then looked around. “Why didn’t we see any cops?”

  “They may not know about it yet.”

  While he’d been holding her, he’d been thinking about escape routes. Before coming down to the government building with her today, he’d scouted out the area around the building as well as the interior, and he was mentally plotting a route that would get them onto the city streets.

  He looked up one more time, scanning the roofline for terrorists before leading Carrie away from the building, toward a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. He was wondering how they were going to get over it when he saw that the lock on the gate was broken and the barrier was open a crack.

  “This must be how they were going to get away,” he muttered as he pushed the gate farther open.

  She nodded, following him through and into an alley.

  He looked at the assault rifle in his hand. “I guess I can’t take this out onto the street.” First he used his shirt to wipe off his fingerprints. Then he set the weapon on the ground before hustling Carrie along the alley.

  When they had turned a corner, putting another building between them and the scene of carnage, he called the safe house.

  Gary Blain answered again. “Wyatt?”

  “Yes. We got out of there. We’re coming back. We won’t have the town car.”

  “Thank God you’re okay.” He paused. “What about Collins?”

  “He didn’t make it.”

  Gary absorbed that bit of bad news, then asked, “What are you going to do for transportation?”

  “There’s a Zipcar agency a couple of blocks away. We can rent one of those.”

  “Be careful down there, man.”

  “I always am.”

  When he hung up, Carrie looked at him. “What’s a Zipcar?”

  “Cars you can rent by the hour. Like bicycles in Europe.”

  “I didn’t know about that, either.”

  Probably a function of her living in a million-dollar condo in Columbia Heights with a spectacular view of the city. He was tempted to say something about her dad’s money making it unnecessary for her to rent anything, but he decided there was no point in needling her. Not after they’d narrowly escaped getting killed—and after he’d seen what she was made of. He’d known she had the guts to turn in men plotting against the U.S. government. He hadn’t known the rest.

  “Are you going to call the police now?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts.

  “We still can’t trust them. We still don’t have a handle on how those guys found out about your meeting. For all we know, the terrorists have a spy in the D.C. police department.”

  She winced. “How would that be possible?”

  “It just takes one bad cop who wants to supplement his income.”

  “But he’d know he’d be setting us up to get killed.”

  “Some people will do just about anything for money. Do you know how many people got killed because Aldrich Ames, that turncoat in the CIA, blew their cover?”

  “I don’t know the exact number, but I get your point.”

  “Which means I’m not taking any chances,” he answered as he led her down Tenth Street to the storefront with the Zipcar office.

  The blond young man behind the counter, wearing a dress shirt and tie, looked up as they stepped in.

  “We’d like a vehicle with four-wheel drive,” Wyatt s
aid.

  Carrie looked surprised but said nothing.

  “How long will you be needing it?”

  “At least a day.”

  “There will be extra charges if you turn it in later.”

  “Understood.”

  “Driver’s license?”

  Beside him Carrie tensed. He touched her arm reassuringly, then dug into his wallet and pulled out an alternate ID.

  He handed over a license that said he was Will Hanks.

  The clerk filled out the paperwork, and they were out of the office and on the road in less than fifteen minutes.

  Carrie sank into the passenger seat of the Chevy Equinox, leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. He watched her take a few moments to catch her breath before she turned to him. “You always carry fake ID?”

  “Yeah.” His gaze alternated between her and the road. “You did good back there.”

  “What choice did I have?”

  “A lot of people would have gone to pieces or frozen up when the crap hit the fan. You didn’t.”

  She huffed out a breath. “I guess I didn’t go to pieces when I spotted those guys in the park, either.”

  “True.”

  She made a snorting sound. “One minute I was taking pictures of a happy little eagle family. Then I was in the middle of an action-adventure movie.”

  “More real than 3-D.”

  “Yeah. When they shoot at you in a 3-D movie, you can’t get killed.”

  He turned onto Connecticut Avenue and took that route toward the suburbs.

  “Why did you get a four-wheel-drive car?” she asked.

  “We might not be going in the front entrance to the safe house,” he answered, then switched the subject. “I want to find out who ratted you out. Who knew about your meeting downtown?”

  She sighed. “I did discuss it with my dad because he wanted to stay informed.”

  “He asked me questions about the meeting, too.”

  She turned her head toward him. “But he wouldn’t tell anyone. He doesn’t even trust the government. He hired you and your team because he wanted to keep me safe.”

  Wyatt nodded. “Other people are at his house. Someone might have heard.”