Under Fire Read online

  But Kenny had been on the mountain, at the cabin.

  It clicked into place like oppositely charged atoms locking together.

  Rick.

  Rick had been in Redmont yesterday when he and Lauren were. Had eaten at the diner, visited his sick father, slept at the same tiny motel…

  Judas Priest!

  Jackson’s pulse soared, and he crossed the room in two steps. “Cara? I have to know. Rick is your son, isn’t he? Yours and Raymond’s?”

  Cara’s eyes opened, and she met Jackson’s querying gaze. She hesitated then gave a tiny nod.

  Jackson’s thoughts whirled again. “Where is he now? Where would he hide when the heat was on?”

  She closed her eyes and rolled her face away.

  “Please! We have to find him. Stop him. He’s dangerous.”

  Still she kept quiet.

  “Cara, don’t let him hurt more innocent people!” Jackson braced a hand on the bed and leaned close to the woman, trying to contain the urgency pounding through him in deference to the woman’s frail state. His muscles quivering with barely reined adrenaline, Jackson whispered, “It’s over now, Cara. Whatever you had planned. Kenny’s in FBI custody. Montego and Vince are dead. Help us find Rick before…before more people die. Before Rick gets himself killed.”

  Emily blinked up at him with a furrowed brow, filling Jackson with a regret that his daughter had heard his desperate pleas for information.

  When the dying woman angled her head to face him, her eyes were dark and sad. “Never…over…for Rick. Never…until he dies.”

  Jackson thrust away from the hospital bed, frustration rolling through him like an ocean fog. He stalked back toward the door. “Emily, wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  He stepped out into the hall, rolling his shoulders to relieve some fraction of the stress tying him in knots. At the nurses’ desk, he pointed to the phone. “I need to use this. I have to report something to Agent Tarver with the FBI.”

  The nurse gave him a dubious look then shrugged and scooted the phone toward him. “Dial nine to get out.”

  Jackson pulled Billows’ card from his pocket and found the handwritten number of Tarver’s private line.

  The man picked up on the first ring. “Tarver.”

  “Rick Carson is in Redmont,” Jackson blurted without preamble. “He stayed at the Catch-a-Wink motel last night and ate at the diner. His father is Raymond Carson, one of the patients at the nursing home there.”

  “Who is this?”

  He huffed. “It’s Jackson McKay. Last night at the diner the waitress said something about Raymond Carson’s son being in town to visit his father.” He explained his reasoning then, realizing he was talking too fast, Jackson paused for a breath. Slower he added, “If you hurry, he might still be at the motel. Or with his father.”

  Tarver’s reply was drowned out by a loud alarm that buzzed at the nurses’ station. Then another.

  The duty nurse sprang from her chair and raced around the desk and down the short hall. To Cara’s room.

  A fist of dread clamped hard on Jackson’s lungs.

  “No! Cara!” he heard Emily wail.

  More medical personnel rushed into Cara’s room.

  “Dr. McKay, are you there?” Tarver’s voice brought his attention back to the phone still clutched in his hand.

  “I have to go.” Jackson dropped the phone in the cradle and tore down the corridor. Without slowing, he grabbed the doorframe and took the turn into Cara’s room on a skid.

  Jackson surveyed the scene in seconds. A man in scrubs worked frantically on Cara, shocking her with defibrillator paddles so that her body jumped. Machines screamed fatalistic warnings. A nurse shouted orders.

  He searched the chaos, his heart in his throat, following the gut-wrenching sound of Emily’s weeping. His daughter fought the restraining hold of a nurse who did her best to shove Emily aside, keep her out of the way. Emily wouldn’t hear of it. She clawed and thrashed and reached for the bed of the dying woman.

  Hell.

  Flying across the room, Jackson dodged an equipment cart and scooped Emily into his arms.

  She struggled, kicked and sobbed. “No! Cara, no!”

  “Call it,” someone said.

  His heart broke for Emily. Not again. Not another loss.

  “Cara!” Emily wailed, stretching her arms toward the woman as Jackson carried her out of the room. His daughter cried until she choked, heaving deep, guttural sobs. Wiggling in his arms, begging to be released, calling for the dead woman.

  Inconsolable. Frantic. Heartbroken.

  All Jackson could do was hold her, rock her, mutter the empty platitudes Lauren hated.

  He wanted to cry himself. Because with Cara’s death, he knew a little piece of Emily had died too.

  “We missed him,” Tarver said.

  Jackson growled a curse under his breath and tightened his grip on the phone in Emily’s room.

  “We checked the motel room, the nursing home, searched the town and surrounding area. If Rick Carson was in Redmont yesterday, he slipped out of town unnoticed this morning.”

  Returned to her hospital bed, Emily lay on her back, staring with red eyes at the ceiling. Still. Silent. Shell-shocked.

  For the past hour, she’d been unresponsive except for an occasional shake of her head when Jackson asked her questions. Lauren had pulled a chair close to the opposite side of the bed from Jackson and now stroked Emily’s arm.

  Moving away from the bed, out of hearing range, Jackson said in a low voice. “Cara Carson died. She might have been our best chance to get information.”

  “Yeah. I heard,” Tarver replied.

  “So now what do we do?”

  “The FBI will keep monitoring the situation, keep looking for Rick Carson, keep following leads. You will take your daughter home tomorrow, resume your normal schedule as soon as feasible and will stay available to answer questions as needed.”

  Jackson scoffed. Sidelined again, damn it. He wanted to do something.

  The idea of going back to his old life, his old way of doing business and living each day seemed foreign. Yet he knew that routine and familiar things were the best medicine for Emily.

  “I’ve arranged with the Missoula PD to have someone watch your house twenty-four seven until further notice,” Tarver said.

  Straightening, Jackson drew his eyebrows into a frown. “You think that’s necessary? You think Rick will come after us?”

  “I think if he’s smart, he’s going to lay really low for a long time. Until the heat is off. But I also think he’s likely to take the recent turn of events personally. He could easily retaliate against you.”

  “Cara said it would never be over for Rick until he died.”

  “She’s probably right. But he’s one person. And every law enforcement agency in the nation will be on the lookout for him, and we’ll never quit either. Remember, it was a rookie patrol officer in Murphy, North Carolina, that brought in Eric Rudolph.”

  “Right.” But Tarver’s assurances didn’t make Jackson feel any better. Not when his daughter’s well-being and security was on the line.

  He dragged a hand down his face and glanced at Emily, worn down, battle-scarred. His only certainty was that he had to get out, had to distance himself from Stabilzon and Project Black Cloud. Somehow.

  He couldn’t change the past, but he’d be damned if he’d repeat it. He had to take control of his life, his career, his destiny.

  But how did he convince the Pentagon to let him walk away? That would be a truly monumental feat to pull off.

  He’d seen Nick Rangard only briefly, just long enough for the Department of Defense operative to set up a future meeting with Jackson. Rangard wanted a full debriefing, but in a more secure area, where Jackson wouldn’t be distracted by the FBI’s questions and by Emily’s recovery. In the next couple days, before he met Rangard again, Jackson had to figure a way to convince the DOD to let him leave the Black Cloud proje
ct.

  A soft knock brought his attention to the door. Whitefeather poked his head in and glanced at the bed before meeting Jackson’s gaze. “How is she?” he mouthed.

  Jackson twisted his mouth and shook his head. He waved Birdman in then focused on what Tarver was telling him.

  “…be heading back to Washington tonight, but my men will be here a few more days. They’ll go over the cabin, Carson’s motel room, his father’s nursing home with a fine-toothed comb. We have a lot to sort out, and we think we can still get something from Kenneth. You have my number in DC?”

  Jackson double-checked the card Billows had handed him. “Yeah, I got it.”

  Whitefeather stepped into the room, and when Emily saw him, her face registered surprise, relief. She struggled to sit up and held her hand out to the tall smokejumper. “Birdman.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” the FBI agent said.

  “Thank you, Agent Tarver,” Jackson replied as he disconnected the call. He watched Emily crawl to her knees and throw herself into Birdman’s arms.

  “Cara died, Birdman,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “I know, little one. I’m sorry.” Whitefeather gave Emily a firm hug then pushed her back to look her in the eye. “She was special to you, I know. But you still have many people who love you, who want to take care of you, who want the very best for you.”

  Emily’s gaze drifted to Jackson then back to Whitefeather. “I have Daddy.”

  Birdman nodded. “And me. And Lauren and Boomer. And so many other friends back home.”

  “Boomer is going to be okay? You promise?” the girl asked Birdman.

  The large smokejumper smiled and eased Emily back down on her pillow. “I just left his room. He’s getting stronger all the time. And he said to remind you that you promised to be his girlfriend.”

  This comment made Emily blush, and a tiny grin twitched at the corner of her mouth.

  Lauren chuckled. “Sounds like Boomer. No doubt he’ll be chasing the nurses by the end of the week.”

  Whitefeather wiped a tear off Emily’s cheek with his thumb. “You’re going to be all right, Emily McKay. Don’t lose hope. You are stronger than you know. Yours is a brave soul, a kind heart and a sharp, fair-minded head. And you are surrounded by love, both from Mother Earth and from the spirit world. You will do well in life.”

  Emily managed a brighter smile for Birdman then hesitated and scowled. “Does this mean you’re leaving?”

  Whitefeather laughed and tapped her nose with his finger. “I told you you were sharp. Yes, Lauren and I have to go.”

  Emily’s expression darkened, and she cast a side-glance to Lauren. “Lauren too?”

  Birdman nodded. “The man from our base camp is here to take us back home. He’s waiting downstairs.”

  A razor-edged regret sliced through Jackson. A familiar sense of loss climbed his throat and twisted in his chest. He met Lauren’s gaze and saw a similar emotion flicker in her green eyes.

  Jackson watched numbly as Whitefeather and Lauren each hugged Emily again and said their goodbyes. He ached for his daughter, having to separate from her new friends so soon. But his own reluctance to let Lauren walk out the door nearly choked him. So much between them was left unsaid, unfinished. Letting her go left him feeling raw and exposed. Lost.

  Lauren approached him slowly, moisture in her eyes, and he put on a brave face for Emily’s sake.

  “Thank you seems so inadequate,” he said.

  She reached for him, gliding easily into his embrace. “Then just say goodbye.”

  “I’m not sure how to do that either,” he murmured in her ear.

  Framing his face with her hands, she pulled his mouth down to hers. The kiss was gentle, a parting between friends. And thoroughly unsatisfactory.

  Angling his head and tightening his one-armed hold on her, Jackson sealed their lips with an open-mouthed kiss, a searing memento of their time together, a memory for her to call upon in the days and nights to come.

  Lauren melted against him, wrapping her arms around his neck and returning his kiss in equal measure. But she broke the kiss abruptly, backing from his arms and sucking in a trembling breath. “Goodbye, Jackson,” she whispered.

  And then she was gone. She bolted from the room like a startled doe. Without looking back. Without giving him a chance to say any of the words roiling inside him.

  Feeling rather empty-handed and bereft, Jackson raised his sights to the man who stepped forward and extended his hand in friendship.

  Jackson gripped John Whitefeather’s hand and met his gaze squarely. “I will always be grateful to you for bringing my daughter safely home to me.”

  Birdman gave a tight nod. “Go in peace, Jackson McKay.”

  “You too.”

  As he turned for the door, Whitefeather winked at Emily. She lifted a hand to wave.

  “John,” Jackson called before Whitefeather could leave.

  Birdman turned.

  “Keep Lauren safe for me. Tell her I said to be careful.”

  Whitefeather looked at his feet before raising a steady gaze to Jackson’s. “Lauren is one of the best smokejumpers I’ve ever known. She doesn’t need a keeper.” Jackson opened his mouth to amend his request, until Birdman raised a hand. “But I’ll do my best to watch her back.”

  Jackson sighed. “Good enough.”

  With a two-fingered wave, Whitefeather disappeared into the hall.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  August 30

  Jackson hadn’t been home with Emily more than six hours before Nick Rangard appeared on his front stoop with two other men. Jackson’s muscles tensed. Crunch time.

  “Rangard,” he said, opening the door wider and stepping back to let the men inside. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Emily peeked around the corner from the living room, clutching her ragged stuffed rabbit to her chest. Benny Bunny, the toy that had been her security blanket as a toddler, had been returned to active duty upon their return home that morning. A counselor at the hospital had warned Jackson that Emily might regress to some earlier childhood habits, seeking familiar comfort from days gone by. He’d been told to indulge her need for childish habits for the time being, whatever made Emily feel safe, and to schedule regular appointments with a local counselor to help his daughter come to terms with the ordeal they’d been through.

  Now Emily appraised the new arrivals with wide eyes and sidled close to her father.

  “Is there some place we can talk…alone?” The DOD man sent a meaningful look to Emily as he stepped into the marble tiled foyer. “We have pressing matters that need attention.”

  “I understand.” Jackson closed the door then crouched to talk to Emily. “Honey, can you go up to your room and read or watch TV for a while? I need time to talk to these men.”

  “I want to stay with you,” she whispered.

  “I know, sweetheart, but…this is important. And private. I’ll come up the minute they’re gone, and we’ll watch a movie together. Okay?”

  Emily hesitated, plucking at a loose string on Benny’s ear. Finally she turned and trudged up the stairs, sending the Department of Defense officials an accusing glare.

  Jackson led the men into his living room, and Rangard moved toward the stone fireplace to inspect the family pictures that lined the mantel.

  “You have a beautiful little girl, Dr. McKay.”

  “Thank you. She means the world to me.”

  “I can understand that,” Rangard said, turning to face Jackson.

  “Can you?” he returned, nailing the Pentagon official with a hard stare. “Then understand this—I’m out. I’m out of Black Cloud effective immediately. I’ve told you everything I can about the Carsons, their plans and about my kidnapping, and I’m finished with this whole debacle.”

  Rangard snorted and shook his head.

  Jackson straightened his spine. “I’m not asking. I’m out. I’ll turn over everything I have on Stabilzon. All my research, all
the files, all the samples. Surely you have scientists on staff that can pick up the ball and run with it. But not me. I’ve had enough.”

  “Dr. McKay, it’s not that simple. You can’t—”

  “Make it that simple,” Jackson said through gritted teeth. He jabbed the air with his finger for emphasis. “I nearly lost my daughter because of this damned project. Nothing, nothing is more important to me than Emily. I was promised the highest security and protection for my family. But somewhere along the line, you people screwed up. Vital research was compromised, top secret information was leaked and domestic terrorists learned about my work with Black Cloud.”

  “I understand that you are upset—” Rangard spread his palms and took a step toward Jackson.

  “Upset?” Jackson shouted. He huffed and raked a hand through his hair. “Pal, I passed upset long ago. The minute Rick Carson put a gun to my daughter’s head, I went straight to livid. Stark raving mad, out of my head with fear for my daughter’s life.” Jackson closed the space between himself and the Pentagon official and lowered his voice to a growl. “I hold you and the rest of the bastards involved with Black Cloud responsible for the terror my child went through. I will not be a party to any of it any more.”

  From the corner of his eye, Jackson saw the other two dark-suited men stiffen and move forward. Rangard sent his cohorts a side-glance, a quick head shake and raised a hand to hold them at bay. Returning his steely eyes to Jackson, Rangard said calmly, “We’ve located the leak.”

  Jackson lifted an eyebrow. “And?”

  “The dental records for the burned body found close to the Smithy cabin match those of a computer and weapons specialist assigned to Black Cloud by the name of Juan Menendez. I believe you knew him as—”

  “Montego,” Jackson interrupted.

  “Yes. We’re still following the trail, learning what other information may have been compromised, how he contacted the Carsons, what his ultimate motive was. We believe he may have been working with the Carsons for months selling confiscated weapons to rebel fighters in Colombia.”