Justified Means (Book One) (The Agency Files) (9 page)

“
It just doesn’t make sense!”

“
Violence never makes sense, but it happens.” She looked toward the door where Keith slept, in a comfortable bed, for the first time since their arrival. “Look, I know this is miserable. I know it makes no sense and you feel like everything is being stripped from you. I know you’re scared, confused, and the last thing you want is to be stuck here with a strange guy, but go easy on him. He’s the best at what he does. He gave up the chance at a lot more money to work for the Secret Service in order to stay working with us because he believes in what we do.”

“
He’s so grumpy!” Her confusion must have shown, because Erika protested, “Seriously? Have you not seen him? He practically bites my head off, scowls at everything, and I swear all he wants to do is lock me in a closet, feeding me bread and water, until this is over. Why can’t he just be nice?”

“
Don’t know. I’ve never heard anyone complain about him, but maybe that’s because he’s usually on Jerry’s watch. I get brought in with a woman. Normally, we don’t leave a man alone with a woman like this, but—”

“
You’re stretched thin.”

“
And we needed a guy with military experience. We needed the best, so we got Keith.”

“
I got the best? What did I do that rated me the best?”

“
You got in the wrong place at the wrong time and got a price put on your head.” Karen began packing her things in her duffel bag as she spoke. “It’s part of the process.”

“
Wow.”

“
Look,” Karen began in a much more business-like tone. “I don’t expect you to understand this or even to like it, but the fact is, you’re here and you’re not going anywhere until we know you’re safe, so you can be miserable about it or you can try to relax and commune with nature or something—anything. Just don’t make his job any harder than it already is.”

“If I came back, why the locked door, the gun, shackles, and stuff? Why can’t we just exist without the prisoner slash guard scenario?” She slapped down a card and drew from the discard pile.

“
Sorry, Erika. It’s just how things are done. People could easily pretend to cooperate. That puts everyone in danger. We just follow protocol and everyone is safe—” he grimaced, “if not completely comfortable.”

“
So even your comedian had to be locked up? A little old man?”

Keith took her discard and dumped one of his own.
“Yep. And this ‘little old man’ had biceps that most American men would kill for.”

“
Not you.”

He froze mid play.
“What?”

“
Not you. Your biceps have biceps.”

Unsuccessful at stifling his snicker, Keith played his last cards.
“Add up the points.” Smiling to himself, Keith added, “Thanks.”

“
It was an observation, not a compliment.”

“
In this case, it works out to the same thing.”

“
So, I take it Mr. Hilarity was a lot easier to handle than me, eh?” She knew her voice betrayed insecurity, but Erika couldn’t help but ask.

“
In some ways, yes. I mean, he was fit for an old guy, but he was still old. I had to be careful of his medications, and the elderly just don’t have the stamina of a younger person, so in those respects, you’re much easier.”

“
I have the whole blood sugar thing, but I’m reasonably fit.”

Laughing, Keith collected the cards and began shuffling.
“I’d say you’re fit. You gave me a decent workout on Saturday.”

“
What’s the worst part of me?” At the exaggerated look of horror on his face, Erika laughed. “No, really. I want to know.”

“
You’re a woman.”

“
Gee, I didn’t know that was a crime.”

His attempt to smile failed.
“Seriously, it’s an issue. At least Mr. Bruner was a man—an elderly one at that. I knew he wasn’t on the other side of the wall, terrified of the horrible things I might do to him.”

For a moment, she softened.
Despite her mistrust of Keith, she had become confident that he wouldn’t attack her. She started to say so, but knew it was too early. She needed to remain outwardly antagonistic whenever she could—just in case. “Yeah, well, I don’t have that luxury.”

The second her words were spoken, she regretted them.
Despite his attempt to hide it, Keith’s eyes registered shock and then pain. “You’ll have to take my word for it, Erika. I couldn’t—” He sighed. “I just couldn’t.”

His cell phone rang before Erika could respond.
His hello was cut off by a firm order, “Get out of there.
Now
.”

Erika could hear Karen
’s voice from across the room. Her eyes grew wide with panic as Keith shoved the phone back in his pocket and raced for her room. All curiosity as to why he kept their clothes in the duffel bags evaporated as he threw the few things left around the room and bathroom in her bag and zipped it shut, racing to the car with it. In the space of time it took her to process that Karen’s call meant danger—to them or her she wasn’t sure—Keith dumped his clothes, the first aid kit, his Bible, and a huge sweep of food into the trunk of the car.

“
Need the bathroom?”

“
No, just went.” Erika grew fearful. Keith knew every move she made. She’d joked to herself that he probably knew when she needed to relieve herself before she did.

“
Right. Ok. I’ve got to put those cuffs on you for a minute.”

The words didn
’t scare her nearly as much as the hesitation. Her normally confident captor seemed flustered and uncertain, making her wonder what kind of danger he—she— they might be in. “Are we ok?”

He snapped the cuffs on her and sat her in the chair.
She’d expected roughness, but in his haste, he was just as gentle as ever. “I’m so sorry, Erika. I’m going to have to drug you.”

“
Drug me! What kind of drug?”

The
stern Keith returned. “Heroin.”

“
What!”

“
I need to be able to have a reason that there is a woman passed out on my seat. I have to have a reason you might tell an officer that I kidnapped you.”

Her eyes grew wide with horror as he brought a syringe near her arm.
“I hate needles. Please! I won’t tell. I promise.”

“
Trust me; I don’t want to do this.” Even as he spoke, Keith held her arm immobile with one hand and injected the heroin with the other. In an unprecedented move, he smoothed her hair away from her face, wiped the expectorate she spat at him from his face, and waited for the drug to take effect.

In less than a minute, her skin grew slightly flushed
, and he saw the glassy look of euphoria cover her eyes. Feeling like a failure, he unlocked the handcuffs and led her to the car, tossing a pillow in before he urged her into the back seat. “Let’s go, Erika. I’ve got to get you out of here.”

She didn
’t respond. He could see the terror intensified in her eyes. Fear, confusion, and growing cotton-brained effects of heroin mocked him from her eyes, and it tore at his heart. Keith hated this part of his job. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, he inevitably felt like a failure. His job was to protect his people, not create more fear in them than they already felt.

Without a second glance at the cabin, he bounced through the trees as fast as he dared push the car, and breathed easy again once he saw the highway.
He only needed ten miles to feel confident. A glance at the back seat in the rearview mirror told him he’d made the right choice.

He
’d have to admit to Allison that she was right. You did need to know the intricate details of a person’s life—even every drug she’d ever taken—in order to effectively protect her . According to her file, all morphine products made Erika Polowski excessively drowsy and incoherent. A perfect choice, “If I do say so myself,” he added under his breath.

For thirty minutes, he drove back toward the gas station he
’d used the last trip and grumbled at the lack of darkness. Why couldn’t Karen have phoned after dark? The station was busy, but no one seemed to notice Erika snoozing in the back of the Prelude.

With a full tank of gas, he turned around and drove back in the direction of the cabin.
This was the genius plan of the head of the nerd trio. If you have to leave, retrace steps and then backtrack. You look like you’re going in the direction of where you should be fleeing. Who would expect it?

Twenty-two miles from the gas station and five from the old cabin, Keith pulled off the road and let the car crawl its way a few yards into the brush before he turned off the motor.
A glance at Erika told him she was still out, so he hurried back to the entrance, brushing over tire tracks and broken shrubbery until no one would guess anyone had driven in there for weeks. For three miles into the woods, he stopped the car every few yards and hid what traces of their driving that he could. A true tracker wouldn’t be fooled for a moment, but the average Joe might glance, and seeing nothing blatant, allow his eyes to move along, missing the glaring clues of their presence.

Just before he arrived at the mini clearing around the second cabin, Erika flung herself from the car and stumbled wildly through the trees.
What Keith would have considered as a diversionary challenge the previous day, was nothing less than irritating today. He didn’t have time for this kind of cat and injured, hardly crawling, mouse game.

It took l
ess than a minute to catch her—the delay being that he didn’t feel like running. He simply walked to where she stumbled back and forth between the trees muttering about kidnapping, ransom, and the NSA, turned her around, and led her to the cabin. The door wasn’t locked, but considering no one could know the place was there without extensive exploring in just the right place, Keith didn’t expect to find anything off. Filthy, oh the place would be filthy, but not amiss. He’d miss the electricity most.

While Erika slept off the rest of her drug-induced somnolence, Keith
went to work. He hid her car, brought the food into the cabin, gathered as much water as he could, and jury-rigged a new shackle for her out of the handcuffs. That solved, he went to work on fighting the filth of an abandoned cabin.

As he swept the single bedroom, he called Karen
, hoping for news. Just as she told him the old cabin had been torched, he heard the screams of sirens as they wound their way up the hill. He hated this part. Keeping close to where you escaped always seemed scarier when the danger brushed past on its way home.

“
Will you be dropping anything?” Karen assured him that a food and supply drop would arrive as soon as they could appropriate a fire helicopter, which prompted him to add, “Make sure you add an air mattress. There’s only one bed. Oh, and new sheets. I don’t have time to wash these before she wakes up.”

“
We’re sending cheese, beef jerky, a solar battery, kerosene, and personal items for her. They’ll be in pink saran wrap.”