"I'd rather do that," she swore, her voice husky, "than be manhandled anymore by you."
"Don't be a fool," he snapped. His eyes narrowed, their thick black lashes fringing intense hazel. He rose and straddled her legs, then bent over her, digging along the seat cushion for the seat belt.
Eden stiffened. Pain shot through her shoulder and chest. Her head pounded and she felt disoriented and clammy all over. Still, she p~rotested. "I can do that myself."
"Sure you can. But not fast enough to suit me, so just sit there and be quiet."
"When hell freezes over," she grated, grabbing one end of the strap from his hand. "I said I'll do it." ~
The bullet must surely be burrowing deeper with every move she made, but she didn't care, The throbbing never stopped. She would have welcomed a silly feminine swoon. After all this, it didn't seem likely she was going to be spared a single moment of this waking nightmare.
She gritted her teeth to stay strong. She no longer needed Christian Tierney to keep her on her feet and he was invading her space. His proximity unraveled her. His scent. The Unruly, unkempt whiskers. The gentleness. The illusion of safety.
More ~han anything, the illusion of safety.
She didn't want him anywhere near her ever again. "Give me the other end," she demanded-.
He hesitated--as if he were going to back off and allow her this one petty dignity--when an angry voice blared through the radio in the cockpit.
"Clearance for takeoff is rescinded, repeat, denied, You are to power down and deplane," the voice demanded, reciting the aircraft's specific call numbers. "Do you copy?"
Whatever slack Tierney had been about to cut her, he abandoned. He took her end, jerked the latch pieces together, crammed the male end of the buckle into the female and pulled the belt tight against her lap.
If he could have locked her in, Eden thought, he would have. Instead, he turned away and pointed a finger as he would his gun at the pilot.
"You tell them you're acting under the authority of the attorney general of the United States. If the FAA wants to take it up with her, more power to them."
Eden couldn't see the pilot but she heard him clearing his throat. "You'll have to tell them that yourself, sir."
Tierney grimaced and spared Eden one more warning glance, then covered the distance to the cockpit in three strides. KeePing a watch on her, he stood hunched in the doorway with the headset microphone cupped in one hand.
Eden couldn't make out what he said, only the commanding, preemptive tone. He never shouted or spewed off a list of ugly consequences if his demands weren't followed.
He never' drew the gun concealed inside his coat pocket. Still, FBI Agent Dan Haggetty began turning up the power. The jet attained liftoff speed and the rumbling wheels had barely risen off the tarmac when a burst of gunfire~ battered the underbelly of the fuselage.
The pilot swore. A few seconds earlier, a quarter mile back, and the bullets might well have struck more accurately or penetrated the fuel tanks in the wings, vaporizing the escaping aircraft into a ball of fire.
Over her dragging weariness, Eden saw clearly the kind of man Christian X. Tierney must be. Bulletproof. Clever and daring enough to steal her away under the noses of two lawmen and an assassin. Brutal enough to dictate her co operation. Powerful enough to command a hijacking without ever drawing his weapon.
Tierney had saved her life twice in less than three hours, but Catherine's widowed husband terrified Eden.
Chapter Five
Sitting in the copilot position aboard the Learjet, Chris faced two immediate problems.
Pilot, and destination.
Chris hadn't actually pulled his machine pistol. The Feeb pilot, Haggerty, wouldn't doubt its existence, but so far, he'd believed Chris was who he sai~ he was, and that he was acting under an authority that went beyond David Tafoya. Authority extending to the pinnacle of the Justice Department.
Haggerty's continued cooperation depended upon maintaining the illusion, so Chris never considered threatening the guy with his own machine pistol.
Haggerty gave him a sidelong glance. "You so sure your pension's gonna survive this stunt?"
Chris made empathetic noises companionably. A pension meant nothing to him. Less than nothing. He acted as though it did because he couldn't afford to lose the least credibility with this guy.
Sooner or later, Haggetty would know Chris had been acting without any authority at all. When that moment arrived, it would be far better if Haggerty believed that he was doing the right thing himself.
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"I don't know about the pension," he said. "But no one's going to argue that we saved this witness's life."
The pilot shrugged and nodded, obviously willing to be counted a hero for saving a protected witness from an assassination attempt. "Hadn't thought of it that way--but I'm going to have to call ahead. Let Tafoya know"
"Where we're taking her?" Chris interrupted, He shook his head.
Haggerty's gaze roamed his control panel. "You think the woman's in danger even now?"
"More than ever," Chris said. "The hired gun missed, but the lowlife whb wants her dead isn't going to give up and go away."
Haggerty's expression hardened. "Probably add us to his hit list for good measure." The plane hit an air pocket and the pilot watched his flight indicators for a minute. "Hacks me off," he said, "firing at this aircraft. Whatever precautions Tafoya took weren't enough. He damn well better get his act together next time."
"There can't he a next time," Chris answered grimly. "I don't think even the director should know where we've stashed the witness until they nab the assassin and figure out how he got to her before we could."
"How do you intend to pull that off?"
Chris thought quickly about what it would take to l~eep Eden Kelley's whereabouts hidden not only from Winston Broussard, but all the cops in all the agencies of the United States Department of Justice. He might as well fly to the moon as undertake such a feat, but there were factors operating in his favor.
Right now he needed three things. He had to minimize Haggerty's involvement and exposure. He needed a place where it would be possible to hide Eden Kelley for a few days, preferably in the northeast, not too far from Bos ton, or too close. And he needed a landing strip that would accommodate the Learjet--both landing and taking off again--even if that had to be somo mostly deserted stretch of highway.
Simple.
It wasn't, and Chris knew it. What he planned entailed taking on the vast resources of the entire law enforcement community. There had been nothing simple about any of this from the moment he first recognized that he wasn't going to get to Eden Kelley before the FBI. Broussard's hired gun only added one more deadly factor.
It was that, more than anything else, that cinched Chris's resolve in the face of all the daunting complications. Catherine was dead. Ending Broussard's lousy life wouldn't change anything that had gone down. Chris knew that. But the attempt on EdeWs life this morning proved beyond any doubt at all that Broussard would not he content until the woman who had betrayed him was dead.
Chris grimaced. Winston Elijah Broussard III should have been content to serve his measly seventeen months and pick up where he'd left off--peddling death and destruction despite whatever unwitting innocents got in his way.
Cris couldn't ignore it. He couldn't let it happen anymore, not and live with himself, Broussard's immortal soul belonged to his Maker but his murdering, miserable hide belonged to Chris.
He thought then about the piece of land sixty miles inland from Cape Cod Bay that Winston Broussardhimself had once owned. Chris knew the place. He'd 'been there. He knew it just as he knew Broussard's habits, his habitats, his vices--and it all went far beyond knowing Broussard had turned Eden's best. friend into his latest acquisition.
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The hangar and sheds at the ~ntersection of highways near Ware, Massachusetts, had been heavily used to warehouse the illegal munitions
Broussard dealt in. FBI loren--sics had found trace evidence of everything from gunpowder to the most exotic plastiques. That evidence had b~en tossed out of court on a search-and-seizure technicality.
Broussard's real-estate cronies had sold the property to a foreign cosmetics company as the site of a new production facility, but the investors and developers had been locked in some legal battle against the locals ever since.
The location was isolated and provided a landing strip. There would he no way to stash Eden there. Chris doubted there was even running water, but landing on the site appealed to his sense of dark poetic justice. And in practical terms, it put him close to the one place on the Eastern Seaboard where he' knew he could take Eden and not be found.
His sister, in-law, Catherine's older sister, Margo, lived on an estate a few miles outside of Holyoke.
He'd grown up with Margo. Their friendship had gotten him through more troubled days in his marriage to her younger sister than Chris cared to remember. Her husband was a doctor, and such a cold, aloof, self-centered bastard that he barely knew Chris existed,. or that Chris knew more about his wife's hopes and fears and dreams than he did.
Chris could conceal Eden in the guest house buried deep in the woods at the back of the Bancroft estate for days and the man would never know it. He knew Margo also had access to the closet full of sample prescription drugs Edward Bancroft kept at home for treating the children the minute one of them turned up with a runny nose or scraped knee.
Eden was going to need antibiotics to make sure no infection took hold. But Chris didn't know yet whether Haggerty would tumble to this strategy or not.
"Are you saying you're willing to duck Tafoya till I can get the woman stashed?" he asked at last.
"No." Haggerty shrugged. "But I sure as hell don't want to run into another ambush and end up like Paglia. I've got a wife and three little girls."
"Yeah." Chris's jaw cocked to the side. He knew the feeling. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe he just wanted the feeling so much that he'd blinded himself. "I had a wife." Haggerty lifted a brow. Chris didn't want to get into it. He outlined his plan instead. All Haggerty had to do was shut off his encoding transponder, fly below the positive control altitudes, maybe fourteen thousand feet, and follow his original flight plan. There wasn't much likelihood of drawing any real attention, and if the pilot deviated off course long enough to fly them into the private airstrip, he could continue on and then tell Tafoya he'd dropped them off somewhere in the middle of Kansas, maybe cuss and moan about the transponder failing.
"Is that all?" Haggerty mocked softly. "Tell me this. How can you be sure I won't rat out on you and tell Ta-~foya exactly where you are?"
"Because Eden Kelley's life depends on it." Chris looked Haggerry straight in the eye. Man to man. "Because you have little girls."
Haggerty breathed deeply and straightened a bit. Chris could see that his answer had hit Haggetty where he lived.
"Look," he said, "I'm not saying if you did call ahead to bring Tafoya up to speed that we would run into another assassination attempt. That would be pretty frig-ging unbelievable.
"I'm not saying Tafoya is a screw up, either. I think he's genuinely concerned for Eden's life--but her life won't be an issue much longer if something we do now somehow sets her up for the kill. Tafoya can raise hell, but in the end, all you've done is keep this witness alive."
Haggetty chewed on the problem for a while, "then shrugged. " What the hell. It's just a pension. "
EDEN SAT ON THE FLOOR of the passenger compartment,
her back to the bulkhead, listening to the murdered woman's husband smooth-talking even the FBI pilot.
Ch'fils racked her body. Her heart pounded and its beat echoed in her ears. Her right ann had gone numb from either the bullet at the top of her shoulder or the weight of her pack still bearing down. Or both.
She scarcely knew which way was up, which down. Christian X. Tierney, United States deputy marshal, a man sworn to uphold the law of the land, had sworn off instead and gone recklessly renegade. And if he'd saved her life, he'd also refused to release her afterward. Now, he'd convinced even this pilot to circumvent David Tafoya, the one man who had earned her trust.
Tierney needed her,
She needed her freedom. Some way out of this nightmarish experience. A trapdoor. An escape hatch. A stage-left departure and an l~nforgettable exit line.
It wasn't Tierney's fault that her choices had led her to this end, where she was more a prisoner of the system than Winston Broussard would ever be. She would never forget the agony etched in Tierney's features when he'd held his dead, pregnant wife in his arms a year and a half ago.
Her freedom had nothing to do with "nothing left to lose." Her life was at stake, vulnerable as the orchid blossom Winston Broussard had so crudely crushed and flicked over his shoulder.
She wasn't much better off in the hands of Christian Tierue),. Though he was a lawman and a supposedly honorable man, he still considered himself above the rules. He hadn't saved her out of any noble intentions. The only scenario she could envision him needing her was if he somehow used her to find Winston Broussard to exact his own deadly justice.
Tears clogged her throat. She planted a foot and shoved herself to a straighter position against the wall between the cockpit and passenger compartment. She eased the heavy pack from her shoulder and the bag fell with a thud to her side.
Her entire right side prickled viciously as her circulation was restored. The pain in her shoulder splintered back to life. Tierney's black cashmere scarf slid to the floor caked in her blood.
He wanted Broussard~s blood.
What she most feared was her own willingness to help Tierney exact his lawless. revenge She had no life so long as Winston Broussard lived and breathed and wanted her dead out of his need for revenge. fBut if her help was what Tierney was after, and she cooperated, she would have sunk as low as Broussard had himself.
She jerked the pack across her lap with her good left arm and shoved aside the covering flap, qooking for her small pot of lip balm.
Chris ducked out of the cockpit and found her digging fruitlessly through her stuff. By some trick of light at whatever altitude this was, his shadow fell over her.
Shrugging out of his scarred black leather coat, he sank to his haunches beside her. "Eden, what are you doing here on the floor?"
She tried to ignore his effect on her. Everything about him unnerved her. His gravelly voice, his size,-his body heat, the way his heavy, muscled thighs angled about her He must know she'd been listening. "I want you to get me back to David-Tafoya."
He shook his head. "That's not going to happen, sweetheart."
"Well, make it happen!" His mocking familiarity made her stomach clench. "And don't ever call me that again. Not ~eve~;. "
She couldn't breathe. Damn it, where was the lip balm? It wasn't as if she had brought so many P9ssessions that it should take even five seconds to find any one of them. "Let me help you.;'
"If you want to help me, get Tafoya on the phone," she snapped. "Otherwise, I think I've made it clear. I don't want your help." She still didn't look up at him.
He exhaled sharply. "Suppose you just. admit that you need help whether you want it or not."
She shook her head and dug deeper. "I don't need it, either." Tears blurred her vision, and if the small pot of balm had leaped up at her she wouldn't have seen it. Her entire right side felt numb, and even her left hand trembled now. She gritted her teeth. Damn it, why was so simple an act beyond her? A tear spilled over her cheek. Losing ground here. ~. She swallowed. "I just" -- she cleared her throat"--my lips..."
He took the backpack from her lap. Peering inside, he came up with the miniature jar within a few seconds and opened it for her. "Here."
Though he held it easily within her reach, her hand trembled violently and she knocked it out of his fingers. He snatched it up off the floor before the small pot could roll away, wondering why he was bothering with the thi
ng.
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Jabbing his own finger into the balm, he scooped a dollop out of the pot.
Eden's already shallow breath caught in her throat. He brought his finger to her wind burned lips.
She desperately needed the bullet removed from her shoulder. She needed the wound to be cleansed, antisep~ tics and pressure bandages applied and something to deaden the pain, and it was going to be hell enough to stifle her anger and determination not to submit to any man's help even for that.
But she needed the soothing balm on her' lips like a parched and dying man craves water.
Everything in her cried out against allowing the vengeful widower to soothe her or ease her pain or act toward her with even so small a kindness as this.
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