by Amelia Autin
Even though everything was lined up for their early departure tomorrow morning, Cody chafed at the delay. When he’d called Callahan back to let him know they wouldn’t be arriving until midafternoon the following day, the other man’s disappointment had been obvious.
“That the best you can do?”
“Just about, unless you tell me something more than you’ve told me so far,” Cody said reasonably. “Which, in essence...is nothing.”
“Okay.” Callahan wasn’t one to waste time on nonessentials. “I’ll be waiting.”
* * *
Mandy Callahan had just laid her sleeping daughter in her crib when she heard the front doorbell ring, and then ring again. She glanced at her watch as she went to answer it, wondering who could be stopping by way out here at this time of night. The hallway light was out, and she didn’t bother turning it on. But the living room was also shrouded in darkness when she entered, and her brows wrinkled into a puzzled frown. I thought Ryan was in here reading the paper. I wonder where he—
A hand closed over her mouth, and her husband’s arm encircled her waist. “Shh,” he mouthed against her ear. “Stay here and don’t move.”
Mandy froze. No! she thought as her pulse began to race, memories of six years ago as fresh in her mind as if they had occurred yesterday—firebombs ripping her world apart, vengeful murderers after her husband. Not again. Her thoughts flew to the bedroom she’d just left, where her innocent daughter, Abby, lay sleeping; and the bedroom next to it, where her two sons, five-year-old Reilly and little Ryan, only three, were asleep in their bunk beds. My babies, she thought frantically, wanting to run back to protect them, to throw her body over them and shield them from whatever danger threatened, but she knew better than to disobey her husband when his voice sounded the way it had.
His body pressed against hers for a second more, and Mandy could tell her husband was already strapped—the leather holster and the gun it contained had once been Ryan’s constant companions. But it had been years since he’d felt it necessary to be armed to the teeth in their home.
Mandy swallowed hard. She wanted to ask him why, but she was afraid she already knew the answer. Ryan hadn’t said anything, but something had been weighing on his mind this past week. She’d just been so tired and distracted trying to wean Abby, she hadn’t taken the time she normally would to demand he tell her what was going on. And now...now it might be too late....
Her husband took her right hand and wrapped it around something cold and hard—the butt of a pistol. “Use it if you need to,” he whispered. “I’ll be right back.” With that, he was gone, moving down the hallway like a shadow, slipping out the back door into the night.
Her eyes flickering every which way, straining against the darkness and starting at every creak, she waited for Ryan’s return. Not my husband, God, she prayed as she waited. And not my babies. Please, don’t let anything happen to them. Please.
She sensed more than heard movement on the front porch, and her heart began hammering in her breast. Then she heard a low, pained moan, and she almost screamed, thinking it could be her husband making that sound. She darted to the front door, stopping herself just in time as she remembered what Ryan had long ago trained her to do. She flattened herself against the wall beside the door but not too close to it, then waited, gun hand up and ready, counting seconds.
“It’s okay, Mandy,” she heard Ryan call softly. “Open the door.”
She twitched the dead-bolt lock and threw the door open. A large shadow walked through carrying something even larger in its arms. “Shut the door and lock it,” her husband said. She did as he bade her, then followed him as he carried his burden through the dark hallway into their lamp-lit bedroom and gently lowered it onto the bed.
“Oh, my God!” Mandy covered her mouth with one hand to prevent herself from saying anything more. She barely recognized the young man bleeding on their bed as Steve Tressler, their nearest neighbor. His face was a bloody mask, as if it had taken a terrible beating. And there were three wounds she recognized as gunshots tracing across his chest.
She dropped the gun she was holding onto the bed and stumbled to the bathroom, grabbing towels off the shelf and knocking a couple onto the floor in her haste. When she got back to the bedroom, Steve had a death grip on Ryan’s shirt. Ryan was bent over, Steve’s other hand in his and his ear pressed to Steve’s lips, which were moving between gasps for air. And then she saw it—one long, shuddering breath, and Steve’s body went limp.
“No!” she whispered, appalled.
Ryan stood up, his face hard, cold and deadly, the way she’d seen him look six years before. Blood stained his shirt where Steve had gripped it, and he slid something into his jeans pocket, but she couldn’t see what it was.
“Pack some clothes and things for the kids,” Ryan ordered in a voice she hadn’t heard in six years, and it sent icicles down her spine. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
Mandy didn’t hesitate. She’d been there when her home had been turned into a raging inferno by members of the New World Militia. She’d been there when Ryan and Cody had confronted and killed David Pennington, the militia’s founder. And she knew when Ryan looked and sounded like that, questions—and answers—would have to wait.
* * *
They drove through the stillness of the night, the children fast asleep in their car seats. “Where are we going?” she asked finally.
“Walker’s cabin.”
“Why there? Why not Sheridan or Buffalo?”
Ryan didn’t answer at first. Then he said, “Because I need to get you and the kids out of harm’s way. And because Walker will be there tomorrow, with a couple of other agents.”
Mandy felt the stirrings of anger. “How do you know that?” she asked, trying to keep a lid on her temper. “What haven’t you told me?”
Ryan’s voice was harsh in the darkness. “I called him this afternoon and asked him to come up here.”
She breathed deeply. The fear-induced adrenaline that had kept her going at fever pitch for the past hour had finally drained away, and she felt weak and shaky. But not too weak to remind her husband, “Six years ago you swore you’d never keep secrets from me again. So you’d better start talking—fast.”
* * *
Cody jolted awake when the phone rang beside his bed. He fumbled the receiver to his ear and darted a quick look at his alarm clock. After midnight, he thought. Who could be call—
A deep growl sounded in his ear. “DEFCON One.” A click at the other end told him the caller had hung up. But he knew that voice. And he was pretty sure he knew what the code phrase meant.
He bunched a pillow behind him and lay back against it, staring at the phone in his hand, deeply perturbed. Callahan wouldn’t call him at this time of night unless something had happened, something deadly important he needed to warn Cody about.
Cody looked at the phone in his hand, then punched in a number every agent in the agency had memorized, but which few had ever been called upon to use. Cody never had, either, until now.
The phone rang for a few seconds before it was answered by a crisp voice, unmuffled by the dregs of sleep. “D’Arcy.”
“It’s Special Agent Walker, sir. Sorry to wake you, but you did say to keep you posted, and something has come up.”
“That’s okay. What is it?”
“Callahan just called me. He said two words—DEFCON One—then hung up.”
There was a distinct growl at the other end. “How soon can you get up there?”
“It’s a six-hour drive, but we don’t have everything we requisitioned yet. I was told we’d have it first thing in the—”
“Get your team mobilized and be at the agency in one hour. I’ll make a call—if everything you need will be ready in the morning, it can be ready and waiting for you now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m also going to send up two more teams—one to Buffalo and one to Sheridan—as backup, just in case. They’ll be a
few hours behind you, so I don’t want you to wait for them, but don’t hesitate to call for help if you need it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Walker, one more thing.” There was a pause at the other end. “I know you don’t agree with special rule eight.”
Cody was surprised into asking, “How did you kn—”
“It’s my job to know everything,” D’Arcy replied. “You might not agree with it, but I also know you’ll follow it...if you have to. Go with your gut.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get going,” D’Arcy said. “You’ve got fifty-seven minutes.”
* * *
Cody’s team assembled in the ready room on the fifth floor, just down the hall from his office. He noted with approval that despite the late, or rather, early hour, both Keira and McKinnon were alert and sharp, as if they’d had eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. They were both dressed casually in jeans, sweaters and sturdy hiking boots, as he was, with the warm jackets they’d need in the mountains when they got close to Black Rock thrown over the backs of their chairs.
Both agents already had their Bluetooth earphones in place, and Cody fitted his in his ear as he briefed them quickly. He really didn’t have a lot that was new to share, other than Callahan’s warning and D’Arcy’s order, but he reiterated the plan they’d come up with earlier that afternoon, making one change.
“Two vehicles and three drivers means we can drive in shifts, and each of us can get a little sleep on the way,” Cody said. “McKinnon, you’ve got the GPS coordinates for my cabin already loaded?” McKinnon nodded. “I want to drive one of the vehicles on the last leg—I don’t care which one. Even with a GPS it won’t be easy finding the turnoff, so I might as well lead the way. You two sort out who drives when.”
They left just before two in the morning, Cody driving the SUV and McKinnon driving the pickup truck, with Keira trying to sleep in the cab of the truck her partner was driving. Cody had been very careful to make sure no one followed him from his apartment to the agency, and he did the same thing now, just in case. He drove with part of his mind on the road and making sure he had no tail, but another part wondering what could have happened to make Callahan call him in the middle of the night. And what did that mean for Mandy and their three children?
They stopped to switch drivers at a gas station about a half hour before Wheatland, Wyoming. McKinnon quickly downed a cup of black coffee and said, “I’m still good. I’ll sleep on the last leg, if that’s okay with the two of you.”
Cody nodded, finishing his own coffee and tossing the cup in the trash. Keira came over to the SUV and got into the driver’s seat. “You might want to stretch out in the back here,” she told Cody. “The truck’s not all that comfortable for sleeping.”
Cody did as Keira suggested, but found it impossible to sleep—his mind was still trying to analyze Callahan’s cryptic warning and plotting out ways and means; and the backseat of the SUV wasn’t wide enough to stretch out in, either, not for someone as tall as he was. And there was something else on his mind, too. After ten minutes he broke the silence. “I wanted to thank you,” he said.
“For what?” Keira glanced at the rearview mirror.
“For telling D’Arcy the whole story about what happened last Friday night,” he explained.
A long silence followed his words. “I owed it to you” was all she said finally.
“Maybe so, but I appreciate it. Not everyone would have done it.”
She seemed uncomfortable talking about the subject. “He told you, I take it?”
“Yeah.” Cody thought about his conversation with Nick D’Arcy, then added quietly, “He also said you offered to resign.”
“He told you that, too?” From the tight way the words came out, he knew she was embarrassed.
“Only in passing and only because I had to tell him Callahan knows about how you and I met.”
“Great.” The one word spoke volumes, her tone conveying not only embarrassment but deep humiliation.
Compassion for her welled in him. It can’t be easy for a woman in a man’s job, he thought. “I had to tell Callahan,” he explained. “It was the only way to convince him to keep you on the team.”
She didn’t respond right away, and when she did she said drily, “I would have thought telling him that story would have the opposite effect.”
Cody cast his mind back to his conversation with Callahan. “That’s where you’re wrong about him. He might be a throwback where women are concerned, but he respects courage and quick wits.” Then he added, “I also told him you remind me of his wife.”
The silence was electric, and Cody knew somehow he’d said the wrong thing. But all she said was “I guess that’s a compliment.” There was just a hint of something in her voice he couldn’t put a name to, and he realized anew that Keira had picked up on his onetime attachment to Mandy...and didn’t like it.
Putting his theory to the test, Cody said, “If you meet her, you’ll understand just how much of a compliment it really is,” adding more warmth to his voice than he would otherwise have done. “Mandy Callahan and I grew up together.”
“I see.”
She didn’t say another word, and the silence in the SUV was deafening. Cody lay back, pillowing his head on one arm, using his jacket as a blanket. He had a million and one things to worry about, not the least of which was how he was going to keep his team safe if all hell broke loose as it had once before with the New World Militia.
But a tiny smile played over his lips as he dozed off in the darkness.
Chapter 5
An hour outside Buffalo, Wyoming, they switched drivers again, Cody taking the wheel of the pickup while McKinnon moved to the passenger seat. “You could try the backseat of the SUV,” Cody offered. “I won’t mind.”
“That’s okay,” McKinnon said, stretching out his legs and reclining back against the passenger door, bunching his jacket behind his shoulders as a cushion. “I probably won’t sleep much, anyway. Besides,” he added, “I want to talk to you before we get there, without Keira around.”
Cody didn’t speak, just drove up the on-ramp to the highway, watched to make sure the SUV was following him and waited. Eventually McKinnon said, “She told me what happened last week.”
There was an edge to his voice that Cody sympathized with. A man’s relationship with his partner could sometimes be closer than his relationship with his wife, especially when he trusted that partner with his life. And it was a two-way street. Anything bad that happened to a man’s partner was conversely a reflection on him. Cody wasn’t sure exactly how much Keira had confided in McKinnon, but he sensed the other man was berating himself for not being there when his partner needed him. Cody made a noncommittal sound that could have meant anything. No way was he going to reveal what he knew, not even to Keira’s partner.
“I saw the bruises,” McKinnon said softly. “Did you have to hurt her like that?”
Cody kept his face impassive, but it was an effort. There was just a hint in McKinnon’s voice that betrayed the fact he wasn’t sure; he was fishing, and Cody wasn’t rising to the bait.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” He kept his eyes on the road, knowing McKinnon was watching him like a hawk for any sign he knew more than he was letting on. He signaled a lane change and passed a slow-moving diesel truck on the left, then steered back into the right lane.
Eventually McKinnon sighed and said, “Maybe you don’t at that.” Then he slipped in a question so neatly Cody almost didn’t see the trap. “So, how do you know her?”
He almost answered that he’d met her in the agency cafeteria, or something innocuous like that, but then he remembered Nick D’Arcy had mentioned the day before that Cody and Keira already knew each other, and how would D’Arcy know that unless it was related to a special op, or...?
And Keira’s partner since she joined the agency would know Cody hadn’t met her on a special op. “Sorry,” he lied, making ligh
t of it. “That’s classified.”
“Mmm-hmm.” The sound conveyed that McKinnon unmistakably knew Cody was lying, but wasn’t going to pursue it further.
Both men were silent for so long Cody thought McKinnon must have fallen asleep, but when he glanced to his right, he saw the other man was wide-awake. “I was surprised when I heard you worked for the agency,” he said on the spur of the moment. “I thought you were a fixture in the U.S. Marshals Service.”
McKinnon laughed a little. “I heard your name mentioned within the agency last year in reference to a couple of cases that earned you a commendation, and I figured it had to be you—how many Cody Walkers can there be out there? But before that, the last I knew, you were in the DEA. How long since D’Arcy recruited you?”
“Just over four years.”
“Going on five for me, ever since the agency debuted.” He was silent for a moment. “My wife didn’t want me to take the job, but...I’ve worked for D’Arcy ever since I got out of the service, and when he asked me I couldn’t tell him no.”
Cody spared him a quick look. “I didn’t know you were married.”
“I’m not.” McKinnon’s tone was dry. “Not anymore.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he replied automatically.
“Yeah, well, you know how it goes. Most women want a man home nights and don’t understand this job isn’t a nine to five you can just leave at the door.” Cody laughed with wry understanding. “And when I teamed up with Keira,” McKinnon continued, “that was the last straw as far as my wife was concerned.”
Cody suddenly wondered if... But McKinnon answered the question before Cody could voice it. “Not that there was ever anything between Keira and me, not the way my wife suspected.”
