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“For the Cause!” Fowler whispered as adrenaline surged through his veins.
Chapter One
Tuesday, 1400 hours
“Ken, you’re breaking up! I can barely hear you!” Pressing the cell phone to her ear, Kaitlyn Wilson tried not to panic. Rain beat like a war drum on the roof of her SUV as she slowly made her way west on Route 9. She’d turned the windshield wipers on high speed, but she still couldn’t see a damn thing. “Are you still there?” she asked desperately.
“Major flooding…highway closed…”
Static crackled in Kaitlyn’s ear. “Should I turn back? Dammit!” The phone went dead and she swore again as she frantically tried to call her boss back. But it was no use. She’d lost the signal.
Okay, situation not good, she summarized as she tossed the cell phone onto the seat and clutched the steering wheel with both hands.
Since she’d set out for the prison less than an hour earlier, Route 9 had been transformed into a lake. Kaitlyn could no longer even see the pavement. It was only by instinct and sheer dumb luck that she hadn’t yet driven off the road.
She could feel the swirling water sucking at the tires as she slowed the vehicle to a crawl, trying to decide what to do. Keep going…or turn back?
Did she really have a choice?
With near-zero visibility, turning the vehicle around without sliding into a ditch would be no easy feat, and besides, she had no way of judging whether the road conditions behind her were any better.
She was in the notorious dead zone on Route 9 where cell-phone signals from the nearest tower were blocked by the mountains. And now static had overpowered the radio so that she couldn’t even pick up a weather forecast. She was, in effect, cut off from the rest of the world.
And the water continued to rise.
Why, oh why, hadn’t she listened to Ken when he’d cautioned her not to start off alone in the downpour?
“Are you crazy?” he’d shouted. “In case you haven’t been paying attention, the entire county is under a flash-flood warning.”
“I’ll be traveling on high ground for most of the way, and Route 9 never floods.” And by now Kaitlyn knew her way to the prison with her eyes closed. “If I leave now, I can get to the press conference before the heavy stuff hits.”
“Oh, you think? And just what would you call that? A drizzle?” Ken had cast a wary glance out his office window, where rain continued to fall steadily from a bleak, gray sky. It had been coming down nonstop all day.
Kaitlyn had breezily waved off his concern. “You worry too much. Besides, if I don’t get to the press conference, we’ll be scooped by the Independent Record, and you know you don’t want that,” she said, naming a rival paper.
Ken scowled. “I also don’t want the Highway Patrol having to fish you out of a ditch somewhere.”
At least he was gracious enough not to point out that it wouldn’t be the first time. “I know what I’m doing, Ken.”
His patience finally worn down, he sighed. “Okay, at least take someone with you. Let me get Cudlow on the horn—” He had reached for the phone, but Kaitlyn’s outraged screech stopped him.
“Cudlow?” She spoke the name with such utter disdain that Ken gave her a disapproving look. Kaitlyn didn’t care. There was no way she’d allow Allen Cudlow—the man who had almost single-handedly derailed her career at the paper five years ago—to accompany her to the warden’s press conference. No way in hell.
Her feud with Cudlow had started long before Ken Mellon had been brought in when the previous editor in chief had finally retired nine months ago. Kaitlyn had been ecstatic at the prospect of new blood at the Ponderosa Monitor because she and Cudlow, who was once the golden boy at the Monitor, were finally on equal footing.
“If you truly want to avert a tragedy, you’ll put down that phone,” she’d warned Ken.
He’d run his fingers through his thinning hair. “Okay, okay. I get it. You and Cudlow hate each other’s guts. I don’t know why and I don’t much care as long as it doesn’t interfere with your reporting. A little professional rivalry can be a good thing. Up to a point.” He gave her a warning glare over the top of his bifocals. “But don’t carry it too far.”
She shrugged. “Just keep him out of my way and everything’s cool.”
“And anyway,” Ken continued as if she’d never spoken, “I really can’t spare Cudlow this afternoon. If you insist on attending Warden Green’s press conference, I’ll have to send him to the state capital to cover Petrov’s arrival tonight.”
Kaitlyn’s mouth dropped. “You can’t do that! I’ve been working on the Petrov piece for weeks!”
“Both stories are breaking and you can’t be in two places at once.”
Kaitlyn hated it when he got all sensible. It usually meant that she was being unreasonable.
“So what’s it to be, Kaitlyn? Petrov…or the prison break?”
Decisions, decisions.
Kaitlyn bit her lip as she quickly weighed the possibilities. “Okay, look. If you have to send Cudlow to the airport to cover Petrov’s arrival…that’s one thing. But don’t give him the story. I’m this close to getting an exclusive.”
Ken’s gaze narrowed. “How close?”
Kaitlyn hesitated. “I’ve almost got it wrapped up.”
Not quite the truth, but thanks to some behind-the-scenes maneuvering by an old friend, Kaitlyn was inching closer to the “get” of a lifetime.
She might be a no-name reporter for a small-time newspaper in Podunk, Montana, but she had what even the network superstars didn’t have…an inside track with Nikolai Petrov.
Prince Nikolai Petrov to be exact.
The very sound of his name reminded Kaitlyn just how swoon-worthy the guy was. His good looks alone had melted feminine hearts all over the world, but since his impassioned speech before the United Nations, he’d reached near-rock-star status.
In a dazzling display of charm, integrity and sheer chutzpah, the crown prince of Lukinburg had implored the world community to step in and remove his own father from power for the sake of his impoverished and war-torn country. Then he’d embarked on a whirlwind tour across the country in an effort to win the hearts and minds of the American people in the event a U.N.-sanctioned, U.S.-led military invasion became necessary to overthrow King Aleksandr.
Each time the prince gave one of his heavily publicized speeches, his father would issue a stinging rebuttal from the safety of his palace in Lukinburg. The bitter family feud was being played out on the world stage, and the stakes couldn’t have been higher.
Working his way west, Petrov was due to arrive in Montana later that night as the VIP guest of Governor Peter Gilbert, and as luck would have it, Eden McClain, one of Kaitlyn’s oldest and closest friends, just happened to be the governor’s personal assistant.
Eden had been an invaluable source since Gilbert’s reelection campaign had entered its final weeks, providing Kaitlyn access to the governor’s inner circle that even reporters from some of the more prestigious papers in the state were denied.
In return, Kaitlyn tried not to cross boundaries that would strain her and Eden’s friendship, but with a Petrov exclusive on the line, she hadn’t been able to resist pressuring her friend to use her connections.
Kaitlyn gritted her teeth as she gripped the steering wheel. While she was stuck on Route 9, Allen Cudlow was probably slithering his way to Helena to cover Petrov’s arrival at that very moment. And, knowing Cudlow, he would somehow finagle his own interview with Petrov if for no other reason than to spite Kaitlyn.
She would never hear the end of it, either. Cudlow would never let her live down the fact that she’d passed up an exclusive with Prince Petrov in order to cover a prison break from the state penitentiary located a few miles west of Ponderosa.
But this was no ordinary prison break. Not only had the convicts pulled off the impossible—escaping from the Fortress—but they were led by Boone Fowler, the notorious militia member who had masterminded the bombing of a federal building five years ago.
So Kaitlyn had had to make a hard choice…a dangerous terrorist or a real-life Prince Charming.
Some choice.
What were the chances of two such major stories colliding in Montana, of all places? Granted, the state capital routinely had its share of political squabbles and backroom deals, but Ponderosa—Kaitlyn’s home base and the town closest to the prison—was normally a snooze fest.
Not so these days with Boone Fowler on the loose.
Ruthless and demented, the man would destroy his own mother if he deemed the sacrifice necessary to advance his glorious “Cause.” He had a lot of blood on his hands, including that of Jenny Peltier, who, along with Eden McClain, had been Kaitlyn’s best friend all through school.
Not that Kaitlyn’s hands were exactly clean in Jenny’s death, either, she thought bitterly. She’d used Jenny to further her own agenda just as surely as Boone Fowler had.
Sweet, impressionable Jenny.
She’d come to Kaitlyn for help, and what had Kaitlyn done? Kind and loving friend that she’d been, she’d sent Jenny back into the lion’s den. Without regard for her safety. Without regard for anything except getting a story that would make her Pulitzer prize winning father sit up and take notice.
Yes, she had actually been that selfish and that blindly ambitious, so much so that she’d been willing to betray a friend without a second thought.
Kaitlyn wanted to believe that she was a changed person, but she was very much afraid there was a special place in hell reserved for friends like her.
Maybe she would see Boone Fowler there…if not before.
A shiver tingled down her backbone at the prospect of meeting such a monster face-to-face. It was one thing to write about Fowler’s criminal exploits from the safety of her cubicle at the paper; quite another to actually confront him. And yet that was what she had sent Jenny to do.
Kaitlyn tried to will away the guilt that still ate at her after all these years. If she’d learned anything from her mistakes, though, it was that dwelling on the what-ifs and the what-might-have-beens did little good. She needed to concentrate on what she could do to send Fowler back to prison.
Covering the warden’s press conference was a start, but unfortunately, the weather refused to cooperate and the situation was becoming extremely dire.
Kaitlyn tensed as water sloshed over the hood of her vehicle, threatening to stall out the engine. She couldn’t keep going. The road was virtually impassable.
In her tenure as a reporter, she’d covered the aftermath of flash flooding, but she’d never actually been caught in one herself. Now she knew firsthand just how terrifying it could be.
After squelching her initial panic, she quickly came to the conclusion that her only recourse was to abandon the vehicle and head for high ground.
Stuffing her cell phone and a flashlight into the zippered pocket of her waterproof parka, she opened the door and climbed out.
The floodwaters were already knee-deep and so cold she could hardly catch her breath. She clung to the door for a moment, trying to get her footing as the flowing water threatened to sweep her off balance.
Bracing as best she could, she waded toward the embankment at the shoulder of the road and, using roots, her fingernails, and sheer determination, she climbed her way to safety, then turned to survey her surroundings.
The vista was breathtaking. The highway was almost completely flooded, and the water continued to rise. Her SUV was slowly being swallowed, and as rain beat down on Kaitlyn’s face, she tried to figure out what to do. She could make her way along the top of the embankment, staying in sight of the highway, and hope that someone came along. But if the road had been closed, that possibility wasn’t too likely.
Her best option was to keep climbing, Kaitlyn decided. At some point, she was bound to get a cell phone signal, and then she could call for help. And if she kept walking, she would eventually reach Eagle Falls, a small logging community seven miles north of the highway.
Striking out alone through the wilderness with dangerous convicts on the loose normally wouldn’t have been her first choice, but the prisoners had been on the run for nearly twenty-four hours. It was doubtful they were even still in the area, and besides, Kaitlyn wasn’t so sure she’d be any safer sitting on the side of a deserted road. She had no idea how long it would take for the water to go down, and even then, her vehicle would be inoperable. No one would miss her until morning so it was likely she would be sitting there all night. If she wanted to reach Eagle Falls before dark, she’d have to leave now.
Taking one last glance at her submerged vehicle, she squared her shoulders and began to climb.
TWILIGHT FELL early across the mountain, but Kaitlyn resisted the temptation to use her flashlight as she trudged along an old hunting path. She needed to conserve the batteries because, if she didn’t reach Eagle Falls soon, her flashlight could very well be the only thing standing between her and the coyotes and mountain lions that prowled the area. Not to mention the grizzlies.
Lions, coyotes, and bears, oh, my, she thought with a nervous laugh. She’d definitely been out in the elements too long.
Ever since she’d left the highway, she hadn’t seen one single sign of human life. Even the animals had taken to high ground, and it was as if she was alone in a watery universe. Kaitlyn had never realized how profound complete silence could be, nor had she grasped the vastness of the Montana wilderness. She now had a new appreciation for the frontier men and women who had been able to navigate their way through the mountainous terrain with nothing more than their own keen sense of survival.
Even though she had yet to reach the top of the summit, the ground had leveled off a bit. The going was easier now, but Kaitlyn’s spirits had plummeted. She was wet, exhausted and freezing. All she could think about was a hot bath and a warm bed, preferably in that order.
She’d been hiking for the better part of two hours when she finally saw a glimmer of light through the trees.
Civilization! At last!
Kaitlyn’s heart leaped in anticipation.
She stumbled over a tree branch in her excitement and forced herself to slow down. A twisted ankle—or worse, a broken leg—was the last thing she needed.
As she emerged from a thicket of ponderosa pines into a small clearing, she realized the light came from what appeared to be an old hunting lodge.
She scanned the area immediately surrounding the rustic building. There were no utility poles or wires that she could see, and she couldn’t hear a generator. Someone had probably lit a lantern. Another stranded motorist perhaps who’d arrived at the lodge before her.
Kaitlyn doubted the cabin was equipped with a phone line, either, but whoever was inside might have a working cell phone or even a short-wave radio. At the very least, they might be able to offer her a warm, safe place to spend the night.
Her first instinct was to rush up the rickety steps and pound on the door as hard as she could until someone answered. But her impulses had already gotten her into trouble once that day. She was alone, unarmed, and too exhausted to put up much of a fight should she need to. Her best bet was to approach the cabin with extreme caution. Do a bit of reconnoitering before she made her presence known.
Slipping across the wet ground, she flattened herself against the log wall and eased toward the window. She could hear voices inside. Loud, angry voices that sent a chill up her spine.
Taking care not to be seen, she inched toward the window and peered in, then jumped back, her heart flailing at what she’d seen.
A half-dozen or so men milled about inside the cabin. They were dressed in fatigues and were armed with what appeared to be automatic weapons, but Kaitlyn didn’t think they were soldiers. One of the men stood so near the window that she’d glimpsed a tattoo on the bicep of his left arm beneath his dark green T-shirt.
An upside-down burning American flag…the symbol used by the Montana Militia for a Free America.
She’d seen that same tattoo on Boone Fowler’s arm when he’d proudly displayed it at his trial.
And on Jenny Peltier’s arm when she’d come to Kaitlyn for help.
Kaitlyn had stared at the symbol in horror when Jenny had shoved up her sleeve. “Those people are murderers, Jenny. Terrorists! Why would you get involved with a group like that?”
“Because of Chase,” Jenny whispered. “I owed him that much.”
Jenny’s older brother had died in a war she and her family had always considered unjust and illegal. Her stepfather had railed against the government for years, and Chase’s death had only added fuel to the fire. Jenny had been so torn up with grief that her stepfather’s rants must have colored her perception of what had really happened. But Kaitlyn would never have guessed that she would have taken her hatred so far.
Squeezing her eyes closed, Kaitlyn willed away the memory. Boone Fowler had killed her best friend, but she couldn’t afford to lose control now. She had to get out of there before they saw her. She had to find a way to contact the authorities. Fowler and his cohorts were armed and dangerous. It wasn’t just her life on the line.
Clutching her cell phone, she prayed that she would be able to get a signal and summon help. But as she started to slip away from the cabin, a scream from inside drew her back to the window.
She tried not to make a sound, but what she saw sent a gasp to her throat. The man nearest the window had moved away so that she had a clear view of the interior. The convicts had taken a hostage. They’d stripped him and bound him to a wooden chair. He was bleeding profusely from his wounds and seemed barely conscious as his head lolled forward, chin on chest.
As Kaitlyn watched in horror, one of the MMFAFA members approached him. Grabbing the man’s hair, he pulled back his head, exposing his throat as he slipped a knife blade along the delicate skin, drawing even more blood.
The man groaned and began to babble. He spoke in what sounded to Kaitlyn like German. “Gotthilife mich. Gotthilfe uns alle, wenn Sie gelingen.” He muttered it over and over. Kaitlyn tried to translate, but her high school German was too long ago and she was so terrified she couldn’t think straight. But she could tell from his demeanor that he was begging for mercy.
His pleas fell on deaf ears. Someone shouted, “For the Cause!” and they all took up the chant as the knife whipped across the hostage’s throat.
The gush of crimson sent Kaitlyn into a momentary state of shock. She stood paralyzed at the window, hand clapped to her mouth to suppress her own scream. She couldn’t move. She hardly dared to breathe. If they saw her…
She must have made an involuntary sound, or perhaps some instinct told him she was there. Boone Fowler had been standing with his back to the window, and now he turned slowly, his gaze meeting Kaitlyn’s through the window.
