Montana Secrets Page 17

  “No—”

  He stopped her protests by pulling her into his arms and kissing her, savoring the taste of her and her honeysuckle scent, the warmth and weight of her in his arms. With regret, he drew back and cradled her face in his hands. “For Megan’s sake, Cat, stay here and wait.”

  She nodded, her eyes dark and wide in the gloom. “What if someone besides you comes?”

  “Kill them.”

  He took the house key from the ring, replaced the car key in the ignition, then slid from the car and quietly shut the door. The thunk of the electronic locks engaging reassured him that Cat was safely inside.

  Using the edge of the gravel drive as his guide, Ryan crept toward the house, stopping every now and then to listen. He could hear no sounds except the moisture dripping from the plants and fence posts that lined the roadbed.

  After fifteen excruciating minutes, he could finally discern the dark bulk of the house lifting out of the fog. No vehicle was parked out front, but he hadn’t expected one. If the members of Righteous Sword were waiting, he was certain they were well hidden.

  Instead of going straight to the front door, he circled the house and picked his way through the inky blankness of the yard to the barn. Once inside, he found a flashlight on the tool bench near the door and searched the interior. Since the barn was windowless, the sweeping beams of light couldn’t be seen from the house. Assured the barn held no threat, he flicked off the flashlight, tucked it in his jacket pocket and returned to the house.

  After circling the house and listening at each window for sounds of any occupants, Ryan crept up the back steps, unlocked the door and felt his way through the kitchen, the dining room and into the front hall. From its rack by the front door, he took Gabe’s Winchester, glad to be armed but aware the single-shot rifle would be meager defense against the lethal automatic weapons favored by the terrorists.

  His thorough search of the downstairs found it unoccupied and eerily silent. Upstairs, the rooms were also deserted. He stopped in Gabe’s room long enough to retrieve the handgun from its hiding place on the top shelf of the closet and tuck it into his belt. A check of his watch revealed that fifty minutes had passed since he’d left Cat at the car. He sprinted down the stairs and out the front door.

  He ran as fast as he could down the gravel road, unconcerned by the noise of his feet on the gravel. The dark bulk of the vehicle loomed out of the darkness, and he rapped on the window.

  “It’s me, Ryan,” he called.

  He heard the sound of the locks disengaging and opened the passenger door. Cat stared at him from the floor, her face stained with tears, her eyes hollows of despair.

  “The house?” she asked.

  “It’s empty. You can get up now.”

  “My muscles have cramped,” she said. “I can’t move.”

  He helped her from the floor and out of the car. “Walk around and shake your legs to get the circulation flowing.”

  With a hobbling gait, she circled the car once. “I’m okay now. Let’s go.”

  Wincing with discomfort, she climbed into the car. Ryan started the engine, turned on the headlights and drove the remaining distance to the front of the house.

  As they climbed from the car, he heard the telephone ringing.

  “I’ll get it,” Cat cried and raced toward the porch.

  Ryan followed close on her heels.

  By the time they’d opened the front door, the ringing had stopped.

  “Oh, no.” Cat sank to a chair in the hallway beside the phone. “We’ve missed them.”

  Ryan felt his heart sink. If the terrorists thought he and Cat had abandoned Megan, what would they do to her?

  “They’ll call back,” he insisted with more assurance than he felt.

  Cat’s expression brightened. She pointed to the answering machine where a red light blinked. “They’ve left a message.”

  “It might not be the terrorists.”

  “Who else could it be?”

  “Gabe or the MacIntoshes.”

  They both stared at the machine, and Ryan could sense his reluctance to hear the message reflected in Cat. Shaking off his hesitation, he hit Play.

  A harsh, unfamiliar voice sounded in the stillness. “We have the girl. If you want her back, wait for our next call. Do not contact the authorities or we will kill her.”

  Cat gazed at him, her eyes filled with terror. “He didn’t give a clue to where they are. How can we find her?”

  “We can’t.” He forced himself to appear calm for Cat’s sake, when rage at the terrorists and fear for Megan made him want to break something. “We have to wait for their call.”

  She looked as if she was going to collapse. He strode to the front door, locked the dead bolt, then turned to her. “Wait in the living room. I’m going to make coffee, then I’ll join you there.”

  With a dazed nod, she pushed to her feet and walked into the other room. Ryan hurried into the kitchen, filled the coffeepot and put a kettle on to boil. He found the chamomile tea he knew Cat sometimes used to help her sleep and placed a tea bag in a cup. He needed the coffee to stay awake and stand guard, but he hoped to coax Cat into sleeping. They would both need all their energy and resources to outwit the terrorists, and he was worried about Cat. Concern for Megan seemed to have drained the life from her. He prayed a few hours sleep would revive her.

  When the tea and coffee were ready, he assembled a tray and carried it into the living room. Cat sat curled on one end of a sofa, staring into space as if she were catatonic. She roused enough to give him a weak smile of thanks when he handed her a mug of tea.

  Ryan shifted the sofa where she was sitting so that it faced the door of the living room, placed the rifle within easy reach, then switched off all the lights and opened the curtains before he settled next to Cat in the darkness.

  “Why are they waiting so long to call back?” she asked.

  “The fog could be slowing them down. They may want to reach their hiding place before contacting us again.”

  “Or they could be coming here for us while we wait for them to call.” There was no panic, only stoic acceptance in her voice.

  “That’s a possibility,” he said. “But they might not chance the possibility that the law could be waiting here with us.”

  They drank their beverages in silence, ears attuned to the telephone in the hallway. Ryan placed their empty mugs on the coffee table, then pulled Cat into the circle of his arm.

  “Try to sleep,” he said. “I’ll keep watch.”

  He didn’t know whether the tea had relaxed her or her fears had finally exhausted her, but within minutes, she had quieted her nervous fidgeting. A glance at her face, however, showed her eyes wide open, alert.

  “Can’t sleep?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  Ryan shifted slightly to a more comfortable position. The only sounds besides Cat’s breathing were the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall and the water dripping from the eaves of the house. Soon, however, a stiff breeze rustled the shrubbery surrounding the house. While Ryan watched through the uncovered windows, the prevailing west wind scattered the heavy fog.

  He filled his coffee cup from the carafe on the tray. And waited.

  And waited.

  The grandfather clock chimed three.

  The beam of headlights slashing through the uncovered window and across the room alerted him to the arrival of a vehicle.

  Ryan shoved to his feet, grabbed the rifle and went to the window. An unfamiliar pickup truck pulled up behind Cat’s SUV and parked. Immediately, two men climbed out and started toward the house.

  Heart pounding, Ryan hurried to Cat. “Get your gun,” he whispered. “We have company.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Tamping down her rising fear, Cat tried to gauge Ryan’s expression in the dark room. “Is it them?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Through the open drapery, Cat could see two strangers climbing the porch ste
ps. Fearing the terrorists had come for them—and with no sign of Megan—she attempted to wrap her mind around the probability that she was going to die. And without seeing her daughter again. Denial kicked in, and a blessed numbness coursed through her.

  But when one of them pounded on the front door, she jumped in alarm.

  “Lieutenant Christopher! Open up!”

  Beside her, Ryan stiffened, gun at the ready, his muscles tensed for action.

  “Who’s there?” he called.

  “Colonel Wentworth.”

  With a sigh of relief, Cat sank back to the sofa, but Ryan didn’t move or relax.

  “I need proof, sir,” he yelled.

  A stream of Arabic split the air. Cat’s nerves tightened at the sound, and she raised her gun toward the door, but Ryan laughed and lowered his weapon.

  “It’s all right,” he assured her. “It’s the password phrase I was given at the Pentagon.”

  After flipping on the lights in the hallway, Ryan unbolted the front door. A stocky man with a grizzled buzz cut and a pugnacious face and a taller fellow with flaming red hair and ear-to-ear freckles entered the foyer.

  “How did you get here so fast?” Ryan asked.

  “We hopped a military jet to Great Falls as soon as we discovered someone had tagged your prints,” the man who’d identified himself as Wentworth said. “We learned en route about the kidnapping. A chopper brought us from the base to the airfield at the Athens ranger station.”

  His fierce expression softened when he turned to her. “I’m sorry about your daughter, Ms. Erickson. We’ll do everything in our power to get her back safely.”

  The red-haired man nodded. “I’m Special Agent Jeff Bathurst, head of the FBI antiterrorist unit. I’ve brought a crack assault team—”

  “No!” Cat felt the blood leave her head. “They’ll kill Megan if they know you’re here.”

  Ryan slid a consoling arm around her shoulders and guided her into the living room. The new arrivals followed. Ryan settled her on the sofa and turned on the lights, and Wentworth and Bathurst closed the curtains.

  Bathurst sat across from Cat and leaned toward her. “My team has gathered at the campgrounds south of here. They’ll use that as a staging area for this operation. However, even to the most trained observer, they’ll appear simply as hikers and campers. We don’t want to tip off the terrorists any more than you do.”

  “Have you had a ransom request?” Wentworth asked.

  Ryan shook his head. “Just the name Righteous Sword on a note pinned to Megan’s teddy bear and a telephone message affirming they’ve got her. They said they’d call back.”

  Wentworth scowled at him. “Why didn’t you report to the safe house on the base as ordered?”

  “We were on our way,” Cat said, unable to keep the catch from her voice, “but when we stopped to pick up Megan at the neighbors, she was gone.”

  “Where’s your father?” Wentworth asked.

  “My neighbors are taking him to the safe house,” Cat explained. “They picked him up at the hospital. The terrorists broke his arm when they searched the house.”

  Wentworth fixed an intimidating gaze on Ryan. “Don’t suppose you’ve remembered anything yet?”

  “Not a damn thing,” Ryan said in exasperation.

  “Too bad,” Wentworth said. “That means we’ll have to take you all to the safe house after we get the girl back. You’ll remain there until all the terrorists are rounded up. Maybe once we catch this group, one of them will cop a plea and tell us where to find the others.”

  Cat listened in amazement to the burly colonel. Her hopes soared because he’d expressed no reservations about retrieving Megan, but dismay filled her at the prospect of living in hiding indefinitely.

  “What would happen to the ranch?” she asked.

  “We’ll assign an FBI team here to take care of things,” Bathurst assured her, “and to make certain we’ve flushed all the members of Righteous Sword from this part of the country.”

  “If you could remember the name of the embassy traitor,” Wentworth said, pressing Ryan hard, “that would go a long way toward rounding up these bastards.”

  Frustration etched Ryan’s face, and Cat longed to put her arms around him.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “We wait,” Bathurst said. “My men have put a trace on your phone line. When the kidnapper calls, we’ll be able to locate the caller and tail him.”

  “It’ll be daylight soon,” Wentworth said. “The call could come any minute.”

  Cat curled in the corner of the sofa and prayed for her daughter’s safety, hoping her little girl’s captors were treating her kindly, feeding her, keeping her warm and unafraid…

  Ryan took the coffee carafe to the kitchen to brew a fresh pot, and Wentworth made two trips to his truck, returning each time with a large cardboard carton.

  Bathurst pulled a topographical map of the area from his jacket, spread it over the coffee table and studied it.

  “Have you done this often?” Cat asked him.

  “This?”

  “Rescued children from terrorist kidnappers.”

  Bathurst sat back and considered her with intelligent blue eyes and a sympathetic expression. “We’ve conducted raids against terrorists before, but never where children were involved.”

  “Then how can you be so certain you’ll rescue Megan?”

  “Because my team is the best in the world. They’re trained for every scenario.” Bathurst expressed his belief with confidence but without cockiness. “If my daughter was kidnapped, the group that’s gathered at the campground now are the people I’d want going after her.”

  Ryan returned with fresh coffee and extra mugs. He filled Cat’s cup first and handed it to her. “How are you holding up?”

  The concern in his voice and the love shining in his eyes almost undid her, and she swallowed tears. Afraid to trust herself to speak, she simply nodded and sipped her coffee.

  Wentworth accepted a cup. “Do you have a speakerphone?”

  Cat shook her head.

  The colonel set down his coffee and rummaged in one of the cardboard cartons. He withdrew a telephone and a tape recorder and placed them on the table beside Bathurst’s map. Then he fished out a coil of telephone wire, plugged it into the speakerphone and ran it to the jack in the hallway.

  “When the phone rings,” Wentworth told Ryan, “just press that button.”

  The phone rang as he finished speaking, and Cat bolted upright, pulse racing. Ryan pressed the speaker button, and Wentworth depressed record on the tape recorder.

  “Hello?” Ryan said.

  “It’s me, Mrs. Mac.” The woman’s pleasant voice filled the room. “Called to let you know we’ve delivered that package you wanted and will wait here for you to claim it.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Mac,” Ryan said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  He broke the connection, and the colonel stopped and rewound the recorder.

  “At least we know that Daddy’s okay,” Cat said.

  “I intend to keep your entire family safe,” Wentworth said without bluster. “You’ve lost too much to Righteous Sword already.”

  Ryan topped off everyone’s coffee, and they settled down to wait for the call from Righteous Sword. Early morning light filtered through the closed curtains, and with agonizing slowness, the chiming of the grandfather clock marked the passing of each quarter hour. Finally, just as the clock finished striking six, the phone rang again.

  Cat’s heart thundered in her throat, and she clasped a throw pillow against her chest to keep her hands from shaking.

  Wentworth started the recorder, and Ryan answered the phone.

  “Listen hard, Christopher,” the rough voice commanded, “because we’re only saying this once. If you want your daughter back, you, the Erickson woman and her father go directly to Lookout Point. Now. Come alone and unarmed. If we see anyone else who even looks suspicious, we’ll kill the girl.”
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  “Let me speak to Megan.”

  “The girl’s not with me.”

  “How do I know she’s okay?”

  “Come to Lookout Point and find out.”

  “Where’s Lookout Point?”

  Cat knew Ryan was stalling for the FBI to have time to trace the call. He’d been to Lookout Point. He and Mark hiked there every time they came home on leave.

  “Find a map,” the voice answered with a snarl. “But if you’re not there within three hours, the girl is dead.”

  “We’ll be there,” Ryan said, but the caller had already hung up.

  Cat fought against rising hysteria. “How can we take Daddy to them? He’s in Great Falls.”

  “Don’t worry, Ms. Erickson,” Wentworth said with a smile. “I wouldn’t let him go even if he were here.”

  Understanding glimmered in Ryan’s eyes. “You’re going to stand in for Gabe.”

  “That’s right,” the colonel said. “We’re about the same age. I’ll pull my hat low over my face and wear my arm in a sling.”

  “The perfect place,” Bathurst added with a boyish grin, “to conceal a weapon.”

  “We have some logistics problems,” Ryan said, with what Cat thought was classic understatement. Logistics nightmare was more accurate.

  “We always do.” Bathurst didn’t seem concerned.

  Ryan knelt beside the map on the coffee table. “Lookout Point is the highest spot on the forest. It’s a rocky promontory right on the Montana-Idaho border.”

  Cat leaned over and stabbed the map with her finger. “Right here.”

  “They picked their spot well,” Ryan explained. “An old lookout cabin sits on the end of the promontory with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the entire forest. It’s surrounded on three sides by sheer rock cliffs over one hundred feet straight down. The only approach is along a windswept ridge with no tree cover.”

  “You can reach only within two miles of it by logging road,” Cat added. “You have to go the rest of the way on foot.”

  Her heart ached at the thought. Had someone carried Megan up the steep slopes or had the little girl had to scramble on her own?