“No, you couldn’t.”

“Every attack on you could have been carried out with information from the service. The first one in your hotel room I credited to Kaimi’s informants. He saw you at the hotel, he knew your name. A little sniffing around would have led them straight to your window. The second one had to come from someone who knew where the safe house was. I thought they followed Evan James. That was logical. However, no one could have carried out this attack today unless they got information from inside the agency. Another Marshal, an analyst. Someone who had information on what house you would be in, where the safe room was, and how to open it. The Marshals Service has a mole.”

As he spoke it aloud, his conclusion sank in. It hurt, he realized. He’d been betrayed. His men had all been betrayed. It steeled his resolve. He didn’t want to do what he had planned, but there was no other choice.

“What are we going to do?”

“Get you somewhere safe.”

Her brow furrowed, but Laurie didn’t question him further.

Dante drove up toward the Kona airport. He pulled onto a road leading toward the ocean. He pulled up to a small beach he had come to sometimes to sit, think, and watch the planes take off and land. The noise of their engines soothed him somehow. Dante parked the truck as close to the beach as he could get. He pulled out a random piece of paper from his console. He hastily scribbled a note on it:

I ’ll bring her back when the mole is in custody and it’s safe—Dante

Then Dante took out another piece of paper and wrote down several numbers he would need from his cell phone. He got out of his truck. He pulled off the GPS tag. He wrapped his work phone and the GPS tag in the note. Then he dropped it by the garbage can, where no one else would pick it up. They would find it.

He got back into his truck. He drove for half an hour, toward Hilo, using backroads. He stopped at a gas station when he was halfway there. He sat for a minute, working up some courage. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He knew he didn’t have much time to work with, so he broke open the burner phone. He turned it on and took out the piece of paper with numbers from his cell phone. He dialed one number he hadn’t touched in years. It rang several times, then went to a machine, just as Dante knew it would.

“Dad.” His voice faltered.

“Dad, I need your help. There’s a mole in the Marshals Service and I have to get a witness off the island. I hate to ask this of you, but I need to come stay with you and Mom for a little while. Call me back at…” Dante looked at the phone’s instructions, reading off the phone number. “It’s a burner, paid for in cash. Hurry.”

He hung up the phone.

“We’re going to stay with your parents?”

Dante shrugged.

Laurie looked at him like he’d gone mental.

Perhaps he was. Dante pulled over to a gas pump to fill up the tank.

Laurie sat in the truck, watching him.

When Dante got back in and began to pull away from the gas station, his new phone rang. His heart stopped. He almost dropped the phone as he fumbled to pick it up. He opened it slowly.

“Dad?”

“What airport will you be near?” asked the gruff voice on the other end.

Dante breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m headed toward Hilo on the big island. I’m near Kona now.”

“Neither. Go to Bradshaw. Is your witness male or female?”

“Female. Laurie Shelton.”

“Give me until tomorrow morning. Can you find some place safe for tonight?”

“Yeah. I was en-route to a little campground I know of, but I’ve never been there. They won’t know me.”

“Good. I’ll have you out of there by tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you, Dad.”

His father hung up without a word. Dante expected as much.

“What did he say?” Laurie asked when he closed the phone. He looked over at her.

“We’re going to a campground for tonight. In the morning, we’ll fly out of Bradshaw Army Airfield.” He pulled out of the gas station.

“To where? Dante, will you please tell me what’s going on? You’re not answering my questions. I can’t take much more of this.”

“Laurie, my father knows a lot of very powerful people. He has many friends. He also has a lot of enemies. He is the only person who can get us off the island without being detected by anyone in the police department or the Marshals Service.”

“Where do your parents live? Where are we going?”

Dante glanced at her, then looked away. His face tightened. A tense muscle in his jaw twitched.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know where your parents live?” He heard the incredulity in her voice.

“My father has a lot of enemies. Very dangerous enemies. Far more dangerous than Kaimi. When my father retired from his job he assumed a new identity. He and my mother decided to live off the grid. I don’t know where they live now.”

Laurie studied him for a moment.

Dante glanced over to her, and her eyes narrowed.

She stared at him intently, seemingly searching for any weakness, any hint of guilt over telling a lie. He had none. He went back to staring at the road ahead.

“Off the grid?”

“Untraceable. No paperwork. No loans. No credit cards. He pays for everything in cash. He has no contact with known associates or family members. He lives off the grid. He and my mother just vanished.”

“How long has it been since you talked to them?”

“I talk to my mother sporadically. I doubt my father knows about it though. I’ll get a phone call from her. Pay per minute phones, like this one. A new one each time. My father. God. I don’t know.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I haven’t talked to him in years.”

“That’s terrible.”

Dante smiled. It worked out well for him.

“My father and I have never gotten along, Laurie. It’s not so bad. In fact, it’s for the best.”

Laurie stared at him.

“What did your father do to collect so many enemies?”

Dante sighed. He might as well tell her everything.

“He was in the CIA. He was a very, very high ranking agent.”

He glanced over at her.

Realization bloomed over her lips and her eyes. She turned toward him in her seat.

“Thank you for telling me. I’m sure that’s not something you can tell very many people.”

“No one. I’ve never told anyone else. I’m not even supposed to know.”

Dante watched the miles disappear beneath the SUV as he traveled east.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to carry the weight of that burden alone.”

His face broke apart, the veneer shattered. He looked over at her, eyes misted over. No one ever understood the weight of that secret, but Laurie got it immediately. As his gaze traveled back to the road ahead, Dante reached over with his right hand to grasp her hand. She covered it with hers. They drove the rest of the way to the campground in silence.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Air Force Base was a bleak strip of land in the shadow of Mauna Kea. The lone white watchtower looked grey in the dim morning light. Dante flashed his Marshals ID. The sleepy guard at the parking lot entrance yawned and waved him through. Dante had seen him before on the rare instances when he had to take Federal planes for assignments.

He parked at the far end of the lot. He told Laurie to wait in the truck for him, and he got out. He took off the license plate and flung it out into the field. He hoped it would at least slow them down from tracking his movements.

When Dante flung open Laurie’s door, she was pale. She ran her hands up and down her forearms, shivering in the heat of the afternoon. He didn’t have to ask. He understood. He could see it in the way she stared at the planes, her eyes as big as blue balloons. He held out his hand to her.