CARRIE'S PROTECTOR (14 page)

Carrie saw the cards and drew in a quick breath.

“They could be fake. I want to tie these guys up and ask some questions.”

He was looking around for something to use when he heard the sound of police sirens in the distance.

Carrie’s eyes widened. “How did they find us?”

“I didn’t hear the whole conversation this guy had with Mrs. Williamson. Maybe she saw a news report about us and figured it out. Maybe she was suspicious of these guys and called the cops. Whatever’s going on, we can’t stay here.”

He grabbed the suitcases, stuffed his laptop inside and headed for the door, ushering Carrie ahead of him. As soon as they’d gotten into the car, he started off, taking a loop road around the property. As they reached the exit, he saw a police car driving toward their cottage. It stopped, and two uniformed officers got out.

He didn’t stay to find out what was going to happen next. Exiting the property, he headed toward the center of Frederick.

“How did those men find us?” Carrie asked in a thick voice.

“Like I said, if it’s the cops, Mrs. Williamson could have called them. Or if it’s the terrorists, when they realized the tracker was gone, they started beating the bushes.”

“Like how?”

“They must have drawn a radius around where I left the tracker, then began searching places where we might have driven to.”

“That would take a lot of manpower.”

“Which makes it sound like they’re desperate to find us.”

“If we can’t go to a motel or a bed-and-breakfast, what are we going to do?”

“Either find a place to sleep in the car or do some breaking and entering.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I, but we may not have much choice.”

* * *

C
ARRIE
TURNED
HER
head to look at Wyatt’s grim profile. “You’re thinking that we could have gotten caught while we were making love,” she said.

“You’re damn right.”

“You had no way of knowing that was going to happen.”

“I told you, my job is guarding you, not setting you up to get captured or killed.”

“You didn’t. I was the one who started it.”

“And I should never have gotten so close to you.”

The words stung, but she understood where they were coming from. He’d made a mistake. Or she’d put him in a position where it was almost impossible for him to turn away from her. That hadn’t been a smart move on her part. To put it mildly. But she’d wanted him, and she’d gotten what she’d wanted. At least for that moment. She hoped she hadn’t won the battle and lost the war.

She cut him another glance and saw that his grim expression hadn’t changed. It made her feel like she had that first week at the safe house, when he’d deliberately kept his distance from her. He was doing it again. This time she understood why.

She wanted to reach out and lay her hand over his, but she didn’t do it because she knew what reception she would get. Better to try to play by his rules until this was all over. Then she could go back to where they had been. Or could she?

Beside her, Wyatt cleared his throat, and she tensed.

“I was thinking we should look for a place to hide out,” he said slowly. “But now I think that won’t work.”

Chapter Fifteen

“What do you mean?” Carrie asked. “Where else could we go?”

“What if we went back to Rock Creek Park, to the place where you first saw those guys plotting?”

A shiver went through her when she remembered her last visit to that location. Catching her reaction, he pressed his hand over hers.

“Sorry. I guess it’s not the place you’d choose to visit.”

She swallowed. “Why do you want to go there?”

“Because we may find something there that we can use.”

“I’m pretty sure the D.C. cops and the Park Police scoured the woods.”

“But maybe they weren’t looking for the right thing. Maybe if you’d been along to point them in the right direction, they would have come up with something useful.”

She nodded, remembering that all she’d wanted to do when she’d heard the terrorist plot was get out of there.

“The police wouldn’t let me come back.”

“Because they were being supercautious.”

“And we’re not?”

“In this case, it’s the last thing anyone would expect.”

He had been heading toward Baltimore. When he came to the place where the road split, he took the Route 270 option—toward D.C.

* * *

“L
ETTING
YOU
GET
up to use the bathroom is a pain in the butt,” one of Douglas Mitchell’s captors muttered.

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, this prisoner thing is getting old,” the other guy added. “Next time maybe we’ll leave you to pee in your pants.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” Douglas asked. “It’s for money, right? I can pay you more than whoever hired you to do this.”

“Shut up if you don’t want to get whacked,” the first one said.

Douglas clamped his lips together as he sat down on the hard iron bed while the young man fastened his arm to the side rail again. There was a metal cuff around his wrist and a metal bolt attached to the bed. But the middle part of the bond was some kind of nylon rope. The young man standing over him set down a paper plate beside Douglas on the bed. The plate had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Beside it was a bottle of water. The men left the food and drink, then marched out of the room. It was obvious that they’d expected this hostage situation to be over a lot sooner, and now they were taking out their annoyance on their captive.

After they closed the door, Douglas listened intently. He could hear angry voices raised, men arguing with each other.

“We were supposed to be outta here by now.”

“When are we going to get our money?”

“And what about Bobby? We just leave him hanging out to dry?”

“He shouldn’t have got his ass caught.”

Douglas strained his ears, but he didn’t hear anything else for a few moments. Then another of the men spoke up.

“I say we see how much we can get out of the old guy.”

“That wasn’t the deal.”

“The deal is what we can make it.”

There was more arguing, but they’d apparently moved too far away for him to hear clearly.

How many of them were out there? Altogether, he’d seen four, but he suspected there were more men involved.

Douglas took a couple bites of the sandwich and washed it down with some water. He hadn’t eaten peanut butter and jelly since he’d been a kid. It tasted comforting, and he wondered why he hadn’t asked for it more recently.

He finished the sandwich, then reached into his pocket and pulled out something he’d found in the bathroom. A broken piece of glass that had fallen behind the toilet. If he’d been paying to have the house cleaned, he would have been angry that there was something sharp in the bathroom.

Instead, he was elated. It was a weapon, and maybe he could use it to saw through the nylon rope that held him to the bed. It would take a long time, but he had nothing but time—until these men got the word that his daughter was dead. Then they wouldn’t need him anymore. He cursed under his breath, thinking of Carrie and himself. Then he firmed his lips.

He turned the rope over so that the bottom side was up. Then he laid the raw edge of the glass against the fibers and began to pull it back and forth with a sawing motion. Of course, trying to get free was risky, which was why he was working on the bottom of the rope. If his captors figured out what he’d been trying to do, they would surely punish him. Maybe even kill him. But he had to take the chance.

He glanced up, looking around the room. Could he get out the window if he freed himself? And how would he get away? He knew there was a boat down at the dock. Maybe he could escape by water. He’d have to figure out that part when he got free.

* * *

N
EITHER
C
ARRIE
NOR
Wyatt spoke much on the trip into D.C., except when Wyatt cursed as he hit the usual morning Beltway traffic.

She knew he was tense. She was, too, but she tried to tell herself they were doing something positive—so far as they could do anything that would help them.

They took Connecticut Avenue into the District, then turned off onto Military Road, heading for the part of the park where she’d been taking pictures when she’d heard the men talking—and disrupted her whole life.

“You were photographing an eagles’ nest?” he asked, as they drew near to the picnic area.

“Yes.”

“And you remember where it was?”

“Yes. I’ve been there a lot of times. I’ve got pictures of the parents getting the nest ready for laying eggs, pictures of the just-hatched babies, pictures of them growing up. I was going to do an article on the eagle family.”

He nodded, and she wondered what he thought about her fascination with the eagles. Sometimes she wondered the same thing. She loved the domestic details of raptor life. But not the domestic details of human life?

Had she used her nature photography work as an excuse to stay out of relationships? She hadn’t thought of that until this moment, and she mulled over the concept as she directed him to the right part of the park.

It was still early, and no one was at the picnic site. Still, as she’d expected he would, Wyatt didn’t stop immediately but drove slowly past, scouting out the location.

“I parked around the other side, and came in through the woods,” she said, pointing out a side road that wound through the park. It wasn’t like Central Park in New York or any park that had been tamed into a human notion of what would make a good outdoor play area. Instead, most of the acreage was woodland that had been left pretty much as it had been before the city had grown up around it. There were deer, squirrels, raccoons and all sorts of wildlife in the area. Probably even coyotes that had made it that far east, although she hadn’t seen any. And, of course, lots of birds.

They pulled up in a shaded area, and she led Wyatt through the woods to the huge oak tree where the eagles had made their nest about eighty feet from the ground.

“I wonder how much the babies have grown since I was here last,” she whispered.

“Are they afraid of people?” he asked.

“Not really. I mean, anybody who tried to climb up and bother them would probably get their eyes pecked out. Plus the eagles are at the top of their food chain, so they’re not worried about predators. There are some threats to the eggs and the young birds. Like raccoons. But the parents guard the nest. The mother’s on there with them at night, and the father is on a nearby branch.” She kept talking, relating more eagle facts to keep her mind off her last visit here.

But she finally asked, “The terrorists wouldn’t be watching this place, would they?”

“More likely they’d avoid it,” Wyatt answered.

They moved quietly through the trees, and she pointed toward the oak, then upward where the parents had built their giant nest in a triangle formed by three large branches.

Wyatt stared at the structure. “Impressive.”

“It’s about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle and weighs a thousand pounds.”

“Hard to believe that two birds can build something like that.”

“The male picks the location and does most of the nest building. And the female helps keep it in good shape. It’s amazing what size branches they can bring in.”

“You’ve obviously spent a lot of time watching them.”

“Yes. And there are websites where you can read about eagle behavior. One of my favorites is in Decorah, Iowa.”

“Did you name these birds?”

“I thought about it, but they’re wild creatures. I called the parents Mom and Dad and the two babies RC One and RC Two.”

“For Rock Creek?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, looking up at the nest, but she saw he was dividing his time between it and the surrounding woods.

As she focused on the nest, one of the young eagles moved to the very edge of the nest and looked down at them from its high perch.

Wyatt stared at the large black bird. “You’re telling me that’s a bald eagle?”

“Yes.”

“But he’s all black.”

“They don’t get white feathers on their heads and tails until they’re four or five years old. These are only a few months old. The last time I was here, they hadn’t branched yet,” Carrie murmured.

“What does that mean?”

“It means fly to a nearby branch that’s within easy reach of the nest.”

“I guess that gives new meaning to the phrase ‘branching out.’”

“Yes. That must be where it came from. After that, they fledge. Which means fly away from the home tree before coming back.”

As they watched, the young bird flapped its wings and took off in a graceful glide to another tree about fifty yards away.

She and Wyatt watched it land about forty feet up on the trunk of another oak. Not on a branch that could hold its weight. Something else.

“What’s he standing on?” Wyatt asked.

“No idea. There are leaves in the way.”

“He wasn’t over there before?”

“Like I said, the last time I was here, the juvies were too young to fly. I’d never seen any of them out of the nest until just now.”

She followed Wyatt as he walked closer to the spot where the eagle perched, staring up at him. “He’s not standing on anything natural,” he muttered.

He moved to a different angle, and trained his binoculars on the bird.

“I can’t see exactly what it is. Too many leaves.”

He looked up and down, judging the distance from the ground to the first branch.

“I think I can get up there—if you give me a lift.”

“Why do you want to?”

“There’s just something about the location...” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged. “Can you make a stirrup out of your hands?”

“Yes.”

He put down the binoculars then emptied his pockets, setting his wallet and everything else on the ground. “Ready.”

She did as he’d asked, gritting her teeth as she took his weight.

“Sorry,” he muttered. She struggled to hold steady while he reached for the lowest branch. He got his hands around it and began to pull himself up. When he winced, she remembered that he’d gotten shot in the arm a few days ago.

“Should you be doing that?” she asked.

“Have to.”

He clenched his teeth and pulled himself up to the branch, then climbed onto the horizontal surface. After a moment, he hoisted himself up another level.

The young eagle, who had been looking down at the man invading his space, took off, flying to another tree a little farther away.

Carrie stood back where she could get a better view of what Wyatt was doing. Her stomach knotted as she watched him pull himself to a higher level.

Finally, he was even with the spot where the eagle had been standing.

When she heard him curse, she caught her breath.

“What?”

“Tell you when I get down.”

He stayed where he was for several more minutes, and she wondered what he was doing.

Finally he came down, moving rapidly. When he got to the lowest branch, he used both hands to lower himself and jumped the final few feet, flexing his legs as he hit the ground. When he straightened, she saw that he had tucked something inside his shirt.

“What?”

“Come on. We’re getting the hell out of here.”

Wyatt put everything back in his pockets, then took Carrie’s hand, leading her back toward the spot where they’d parked.

As soon as they were in the car, he drew out the thing he’d carried in his shirt.

“A video camera?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

He put the camera on the console and drove away, alternating between looking ahead and checking the rearview mirror. It wasn’t until they’d turned onto Connecticut Avenue that he breathed out a little sigh.

“I guess we got away.” He turned toward her. “Someone was working surveillance on the area.”

“But it’s not unusual to have cameras trained on eagles’ nests.”

“That camera wasn’t focused on the nest. It was pointed toward the ground.”

“But why?”

“Because whoever put it there was hoping to see something, and I don’t think there are cameras stationed to catch people making out at every picnic area in Rock Creek Park.”

She absorbed that information. “You mean someone else knew that the terrorists were meeting at that particular location?”

“That’s one explanation.”

“But if they did, why didn’t they move on them? Were they waiting for evidence?”

“And you stumbled into the middle of the plot? But if they were already tracking the terrorists, that means they knew about the plot weeks or months ago,” Wyatt answered.

“They’d have what the terrorists said recorded, so they wouldn’t need my testimony.”

“Right.”

“So what’s going on?”

“You could say that the terrorists didn’t know about the camera. They only knew that you had stumbled into their plot, and they were desperate to stop you. Remember, one of them is in custody. If you don’t testify against him, they think there’s no case.” He dragged in a breath and let it out. “There’s another way to look at it.”

“Which is?”

“That someone knew you would be there and wanted to get pictures of you.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would they do that?”

Instead of answering, he asked, “Who knew where you were going to be doing nature photography?”