Utah, p.14
Utah, page 14
She twisted as best she could, searching for Tayla.
Her daughter was held tightly against the man wearing blue coveralls. The cap he’d worn had been knocked from his slick, bald head. He looked across the van at her, his lips pulling back in a sneer. “Hey, Fly. You didn’t think I’d forget about my favorite recruit and her brat, did you?"
Her heart sank into the pit of her belly, where it roiled and pitched.
The hand over her mouth moved, but the arm around her remained firm, pinning her arms to her sides.
“Spike.”
“Did you miss me?” he leered. “I missed you. We all missed you. Especially Skeeter. He got tagged with your assignment when you decided to take one of our trucks for a joy ride.”
Liza’s chest tightened. Skeeter had been one of the young men who’d trained alongside her and PJ. He’d been young and impressionable enough that they’d managed to brainwash him into believing he was one of them in the fight to save the country from rotting from the inside. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old. A kid.
His was the body the sheriff had found on the side of the road with more bullets in him than the one Dax had hit him with.
“You killed him,” she said.
“He failed his first assignment, and his face was seen by too many people.” Spike shrugged. “He was of no further use to us and a liability if he was caught. We can’t leave loose threads lying around, now, can we?”
“Is that what we are?” Liza shook her head. “Do what you want with me, but let my daughter go. She’s only three years old.”
“A perfect age to begin training. They’re like clay that can be shaped and formed any way we need.”
“I’m not clay,” Tayla said. “Let my Mommy go.”
Liza hoped they wouldn’t kill them quickly and dump them on the side of the road like Skeeter. She needed time to come up with an escape plan. She’d be on her own this time, without PJ’s help. But, damn it, she had to do it. Tayla deserved a life longer than three short years, and Liza wanted to be with Utah again. She prayed he hadn’t been injured when the car had exploded. “What are you going to do with us?”
“Well, now, that’s totally up to you.” Spike’s eyes narrowed. “Your target is still alive and well and poisoning this country with her lies.”
“And you expect me to eliminate the target,” she said, her tone as dead as her heart.
“It’s simple. You take out the target, and you get your daughter back.” Holding Tayla clamped under one arm, Spike dug into a pocket of his overalls and pulled out a burner cell phone. “This is your lifeline to your daughter. You have twenty-four hours to get it done. At that time, you’ll receive a call letting you know where you can find your brat. You show up with proof that you did it, and you’ll get your daughter.”
“How do I know you won’t do to me what you did to Skeeter?”
“Easy,” Spike said. “Don’t be seen, and don’t get shot.” With his free hand, he smacked the back of the driver’s seat.
The van skidded to a stop on the side of the road.
The man holding Liza yanked open the sliding door and shoved her out.
As she scrambled to her feet, Spike shouted, “Twenty-four hours begins now.”
“Mommy!” Tayla cried.
The door slid shut, and the van sped off, kicking up gravel in its wake.
“Tayla!” Liza ran after the van, tears streaming from her eyes. The van disappeared around a curve in the road.
Liza staggered to a stop and bent double, sobs wracking her body. “My baby.”
The echo of Spike’s voice cut through her grief.
Twenty-four hours.
Liza straightened and scrubbed the tears from her eyes. Twenty-four hours was barely enough time to get to wherever Congresswoman Lightfeather might be.
Liza’s breath lodged in her lungs. What if congress was in session, and Liliana Lightfeather had flown to Washington, D.C.? Could Liza get there and do the job in the time allotted?
Not that she considered killing the woman. But she had to do something. She needed a plan. She needed help, and she wouldn’t find it running after the van carrying her daughter farther away with each passing second.
An image of Tayla’s stricken face and the sound of her voice crying out made Liza’s heart ache so badly that she pressed a hand to her chest. The only thing that would ease the pain was to get her daughter back.
She turned around and headed back the way they’d come. How far was it back to the lodge? The van had been moving fast. They could have gone a couple of miles before they dumped her on the side of the road. A couple of miles on foot took time to cover. She didn’t have much time.
Liza walked faster and faster until she was running. Time was the enemy. She didn’t have nearly enough to do whatever had to be done.
And if she didn’t do what they wanted, she’d never see her daughter again.
She stared at the burner phone in her hand. Her only link to her daughter. “Oh, Tayla,” she whispered. “Hang on, baby. I’m coming for you.”
She’d been running for a couple of minutes when she came to a curve in the road. Halfway around that curve, a vehicle appeared, coming from the opposite direction. It was a truck, and it was moving so fast it skidded sideways before it straightened. The driver must have spotted her because its brakes squealed, and the vehicle slid to a stop.
The door swung open, and the driver leaped out.
“Utah!” Liza ran into his arms.
He held her close. “Tayla?”
“They took her,” Liza said. “They took my baby. I have twenty-four hours.” She looked up into his eyes, her tears drying. “I have twenty-four hours to kill the congresswoman, or I’ll never see Tayla again. I need to move.” She stepped out of his embrace and raced toward his truck.
She dove into the passenger seat.
Utah leaped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door with the busted window. “We need to get to Hank’s. He’ll know what to do.”
“I need to get to Wyoming or wherever Liliana Lightfeather is.”
“Hank can get you there faster. With his help, we’ll come up with a plan and the means to execute it.”
She sat in her seat, trying not to think of how scared Tayla was or what they might do to her if Liza failed to give them what they wanted.
She glanced at Utah and noted blood on his forehead. “You’re hurt.”
He shook his head. “Just a scratch.”
“The explosion?” she asked.
He nodded. “Luckily, I got the man out of the car before it went off.”
“Good.” She reached across the console and touched his arm. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
His gaze met hers. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That I didn’t see it coming.” He stared straight ahead, his jaw hard, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. “I wasn’t there for you and Tayla.”
She shook her head. “You had to get that man out of the car. If you hadn’t gotten him out when you did, he would’ve died in that explosion. Hell, I thought we were safe inside the truck.”
“And you weren’t.” He glanced her way. “I died a thousand deaths when I looked up and the truck was empty.”
“I didn’t know if you were dead or alive. You were still working on getting into that man’s car the last time I saw you. Then I saw the car on fire after the explosion as we left the parking lot.” She shook her head. “I didn’t know.”
He reached for her hand. “We’ll get her back.”
She nodded, praying he was right.
As they passed through Eagle Rock, Utah called Hank, giving him a heads-up about what had happened and what they needed to make happen within Liza’s timeframe. He broke every speed limit getting to the White Oak Ranch.
Ten precious minutes later, they pulled up to Hank’s ranch house.
Hank was waiting on the porch. He held the door for Utah and Liza and directed them to the Brotherhood Protectors war room in the basement.
Swede was there, hands on his keyboard.
“Do you have them on the comm?” Hank asked.
Swede nodded. “Got ’em.” He touched the keys, and an image materialized on the big screen at the end of a long conference table.
Two faces appeared. A man with brown hair, blue eyes and a neatly trimmed beard. Beside him was Congresswoman Liliana Lightfeather.
Liza pressed a hand to her chest. This was the woman she’d been ordered to kill. Seeing her alive and in real-time made it even more impossible to follow through with the order to assassinate the woman.
Hank waved a hand toward the screen. “Dax Young and Congresswoman Lightfeather, this is Pierce Turner and Liza Gray.”
“Please, call me Liliana,” the woman with coal-black hair and brown-black eyes met Liza’s gaze. “I hear you’ve been tasked with the dubious job of killing me.”
Liza looked straight into the woman’s eyes. “I have twenty-three hours and forty-two minutes until they contact me. I need to have proof that I’ve completed the job, or I’ll never see my daughter again.”
Liliana drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “I can tell you now that I don’t want to die any more than you want to kill me. Dax, Hank, Swede and I discussed the options and think we’ve come up with an alternative plan.” She shifted her gaze to Hank. “You want to lay it out?”
Hank nodded. “My Yellowstone team is in place, providing twenty-four-seven surveillance and protection since the first attempt on Ms. Lightfeather’s life. They know of four men currently watching the safe house she’s been taken to. They won’t get within fifty yards of the building. Our team won’t let them. But, they’re watching. And they’ll bear witness to anyone who manages to get past our team.”
Liza’s brow furrowed. “The proof I need?”
Hank grimaced. “Not completely. But witnesses that will let the people holding Tayla know you made it in.
Liza nodded. “And how am I supposed to kill Ms. Lightfeather?”
“Liliana,” the congresswoman insisted with a crooked smile. “I’m hoping you won’t kill me.”
Liza made no promises, waiting for Hank to continue as the clock ticked away the minutes.
“You’ll make your way to the safe house near West Yellowstone. We’ll make it look like you got there on your own, hitching a ride in the back of a tractor-trailer rig. We’ll arrange a car for you to steal at a truck stop in West Yellowstone and leave an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in the trunk. You’ll drive to the safe house, stop half a mile from the location and wait.”
“I’m supposed to attend a dedication ceremony tomorrow for the new Wind River Reservation community center,” Liliana said. “We’ll let it slip that I’ll be moving under the cover of night from the safe house to my home on the rez.”
“A vehicle will leave the safe house at two o’clock in the morning. You’ll be in position on the side of the road. When the car approaches, you’ll fire on it, aiming high to give the driver time to dive out the side into the ditch.”
Dax held up a hand. “That would be me. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t shoot me.”
Liza’s brow twisted. “You trust me?”
“I’m not your target,” Dax said. “And Liliana won’t be in the vehicle. You have no reason to kill me.”
“Why should the watchers believe Liliana is in that vehicle?”
“We’ll have my team converge on the site and call for an ambulance,” Hank said.
“They’ll pull two dummies out of the vehicle and load them into the back of the ambulance. The bodies will arrive at the coroners’ office where their information will be logged into the system, care of our computer magician.” Hank waved toward Swede.
“They’ll come complete with photographs of the deceased and a death certificate.”
Liza shook her head. “It’s too complicated.”
“It’s what we have short of actually pulling the trigger on Ms. Lightfeather,” Hank said.
“She can’t stay dead forever,” Liza pointed out.
“No, but I can stay dead long enough for you to make them think I am,” Liliana said.
Dax leaned forward. “We want you to get your daughter back. If it takes being declared dead for a few days, it’s better than actually being dead.”
“What if they renege on their promise and don’t show up with my daughter?”
Hank turned to Swede. “Tell them.”
The big blond guy faced Liza. “You have less than twenty-four hours to do what they’ve asked. We need that time to get into place.”
“Into what place?” Liza demanded.
Swede met and held her gaze. “We think we’ve found where they’ve moved.”
Liza’s heart stilled, and then anger burned to the surface. “If you’ve found them, why go to the trouble of staging Liliana’s death? Why not mobilize the National Guard and go straight to that location? You could rescue my daughter and capture the bastards, putting an end to their brand of terrorism.”
“It’s complicated,” Swede said. “We don’t know that they have your daughter there. Until they arrange for you to meet them and provide proof, we don’t know where they’re keeping her.”
“We will have our people in place to raid the camp,” Hank said.
“And I’ll be tapped into your phone,” Swede continued, “ready to trace the incoming call’s location. You’ll demand proof of life before you agree to meet them. Keep them on the line as long as you can so that I can triangulate the signal and get their exact location. That’ll get us to your daughter.”
Hank touched Liza’s arm. “We won’t move on the compound until your daughter is safe.”
“You’re assuming they’ll actually let me near her. What if they ghost me?”
“When you prove to them you did what they demanded, they’ll want you to do it again,” Hank said. “They’ll lure you back into the fold, using your daughter as collateral.”
“And if I don’t prove that I killed Liliana,” Liza’s shoulders sagged. “They’ll eliminate me like they did Skeeter. He was of no more use to them.”
Hank and Swede nodded.
Utah slipped an arm around Liza’s waist. “You have to prove the kill.”
Liza looked up into his eyes. “Where will you be?”
“If not with you,” Utah said, “I’ll be pretty damned close every step of the way. I’ll have your six.”
“They can’t know you’re there,” Liza said. “They killed the last assassin because he was sloppy. He didn’t take out Liliana, and someone saw him make the attempt. He could’ve been identified and, if captured, he could’ve revealed information about the organization.” She looked at the people on the big screen. “I have to prove the kill.”
Dax and Liliana nodded.
“And you trust me to do it your way?”
“I do,” Liliana said. “You escaped with your daughter once to keep from having to kill a stranger. I’m not a stranger anymore. If you couldn’t kill a stranger, I doubt you can kill someone you know.” She smiled. “Let’s do this and get your daughter back.”
Liza squared her shoulders and glanced down at the burner phone with the digital time displayed on the screen. “I have twenty-three hours and fourteen minutes to convince them I’m their assassin. Let’s go.”
Chapter 14
As promised, Utah had Liza’s six all the way from Eagle Rock to West Yellowstone. The three-hour trip would take five, giving Liza enough time to pretend to case parking lots for the best car to steal or truck to hitch a ride with.
Sadie dressed Liza in black leather pants, a black long-sleeve top and a black leather jacket. She secured her hair in a tight coil at the nape of her neck and fit her with a black ski mask that covered everything but her eyes. To complete the outfit, Liza strapped the knife pouch she’d escaped with to her thigh.
Hank hooked her up with a radio headset and a tracking device.
Utah had the other radio, and he could use his cell phone to find Liza’s tracker if he lost her at any point along the journey. Rather than trailing Liza in his truck, Utah had been given alternate transportation. Hank brought out a black BMW motorcycle, one of the quietest motorcycles Utah had ever driven. He’d been given a chance to practice driving it with Hank’s instruction before leaving the ranch.
Though she’d wanted to leave immediately, Hank convinced Liza to wait a couple of hours before setting off. They needed time to let word leak out that Congresswoman Lightfeather would be moved from her safe house at two o’clock the following morning.
Delaying her start also gave Hank’s people time to get ahead of her trek. They staged a car, a tractor-trailer rig and another car by the time Utah dropped Liza off outside of Eagle Rock.
She “stole” the first staged car parked next to a bar on the outskirts of Eagle Rock. She drove that car all the way through Bozeman to Four Corners, where she headed south on Highway 191. Utah followed, at a distance, lights out, on the back roads. Traveling through the towns, he kept closer without being right on her tail.
Liza ditched the stolen car a couple of blocks from a truck stop on the other side of Four Corners, located the staged tractor-trailer rig and stowed away in the trailer. The rig took her all the way to West Yellowstone, where it stopped at a truck stop for the night.
As planned, she “stole” the second car and drove east out of West Yellowstone toward the safe house, arriving at the coordinates a little more than half a mile away from the house, tucked away in a wooded valley.
Utah followed, pulling off the road a mile short of Liza. From what Hank’s team had reported, the watchers were within one hundred yards of the safe house. They were armed and would take out the congresswoman if given half a chance.
Earlier that evening before dark, a pizza delivery vehicle from West Yellowstone had made a delivery to the safe house.
