Kitabı oku: «Amish Covert Operation»

ONE

The steady rhythm of the bicycle did little to calm her nerves. Ominous dark blue clouds propelled Katie Schwartz forward. Faster. Her twin girls, Ruth and Rebekah, were safely ensconced with friends, and the adrenaline pulsing through her cemented her resolve to see this through.

A slight breeze ruffled the leaves, sending a few skittering across the road. But then it died, leaving an unnatural stillness in the hush of the oncoming storm. The only things still fluttering were her skirt around her knees and the ties of her prayer kapp flying behind her. They tickled her legs and her neck, like ants at a summer picnic, but she didn’t dare let loose of the handlebars. Beads of perspiration dotted her forehead.

As she rounded a curve, the blue-black clouds chasing her, her bruder’s house and woodworking shop appeared. The white-sided house sat silent, not even the rocking chair on the front porch daring to move. She steered her bicycle around the house and to the barn door.

Should she call out? Announce herself?

What had her bruder been up to? What was keeping him from his family, from her and her daughters? It had been two months since she had seen him, and in their tight-knit Amish community, two months seemed like an eternity. Not even the bishop had been able to compel a meeting with him.

She wanted to call out a greeting, but her voice stuck in her throat before she could form the words.

She leaned the bike against the porch railing and stepped silently to the barn door. Her hair prickled on her neck, and she spun around to scan the nearby fields. By midsummer, the corn was tall enough to hide a man. Was someone there? She surveyed the adjoining field and woods, but the stillness revealed no one. Instead it settled on her shoulders like a heavy cloak. Not a bird or a cicada ventured to sing. She couldn’t hear any animals scampering around or even automobiles on the nearby road.

She knocked on the door, the sound ricocheting around the silence of the yard, and then it swung open under her knock. Katie stepped inside, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior.

“Timothy?”

The volume of her own voice startled her in the eerie quiet. Yellow light from outside filtered through the rafters, and she closed the door behind her. She rubbed her forearms, but the goose bumps persisted.

A horse snickered from the stall. Wherever Timothy had gone, it wasn’t far enough to take his horse and buggy. The sound of hay scraping on the floor sifted through the quiet, followed by a scurrying sound. She grasped her skirt. Her bruder needed a cat who was a better mouser.

Before she could reach the door to the workshop, the sound of a steady pounding reached her. Or was it footsteps?

“Timothy?” But anxiety’s stranglehold on her throat made it come out as a weak squeak.

She clutched her apron in her damp palms as she inched closer to the door. Lightning suddenly flashed through the window, illuminating the stall, the animal and a pair of black shoes peeking out from under the bottom board. A fistful of hay flew in her direction. She pulled her arms up to protect herself, desperate to stifle a sneeze that tickled her nose. Thunder crashed a split second later, at the same time as the clatter of the back door.

The next moment, all was still again.

Katie rushed to the woodworking room and thrust the door closed. She leaned against it, gulping deep breaths to steady herself, clutching the neck of her dress, her eyes closed in a vain attempt to calm herself. Gradually her heartbeat returned to a rhythm that felt almost normal, and she loosened her grip on the smooth fabric.

She slowly opened her eyes. A small, rectangular piece of paper was staring back at her from the floor near the workbench. As she bent to pick it up, another flash of lightning struck, making the words on the front of the card clearly visible. SOCIAL SECURITY arched in capital letters across the top. The name on the paper was one she didn’t know, and underneath were nine numbers that were meaningless to her.

She had heard of several Englisch laws from which the Amish were exempt. Social security was one of them. Their Amish faith forbade insurance, which was what their bishops said the government program was. So if they weren’t going to benefit from it, they didn’t have to pay into it. She had never had a card that looked like that, and she was fairly certain that her bruder had never had a card like that either. So why was this little piece of paper here, in his woodworking shop?

Another crash of thunder shook the barn, but this time it was paired with a crash from within the barn, as well. Katie jumped back against the door, her fingers releasing the little bit of card. It fluttered to the floor, and she grabbed the knob, jerked the door open, and rushed to the exterior door. She grabbed her bicycle from the side porch of the house, unwilling to stick around and find out who was there.

The memory of the hunting cabin in the woods rose up in her mind as she pedaled hard down the asphalt road. She felt desperate to talk to her bruder, her abdomen clenching from the exertion and a fair dose of fear. The bishop was kind and caring, and Sarah was a gut friend. But there was nothing like family, and with both their parents gone, he was all she had. Perhaps he would be at the cabin they had played in as children. Sometimes Amish woodworkers harvested their own lumber for special projects. In the past, Timothy had also spent a fair share of time there sketching new furniture designs.

A few days ago, some of the Amish teens from her church district had told her that they had seen something suspicious in the woods, but whoever or whatever it had been had disappeared before they could catch up. They thought perhaps it had been hunters, but deer season didn’t start until November.

A fresh ache coursed through her with longing for her husband. If only he were here with her, he could talk to Timothy. Find out what was wrong. Help restore her brother’s relationship with Gott and with his sister and nieces. Of course he would have protected her, too. But she had been tougher than he had realized. Or had that toughness emerged out of necessity and desperation in these last two years since his death?

She pedaled hard into the afternoon’s yellow stillness, replaying the events of the past few months. Timothy had begun acting strangely not long after her husband was killed. A tear coursed down her cheek, and she removed a hand from the handlebars just long enough to swipe it away. Wasn’t life difficult enough already without her husband? That aloneness had been a new sensation and one to which she still hadn’t grown accustomed. But to also lose her bruder, her only remaining family apart from her girls, with his odd behavior? It seemed more than she could bear.

A dirt road veered off the pavement to the right, and with just a few more minutes of concentrated pedaling and praying, she came within view of the cabin. It seemed safer, somehow, to leave the bicycle propped against a tree, where it would be out of sight. From a position where she was concealed behind a bush, she surveyed the area. The eerie stillness had followed her from her bruder’s property, a yellowish haze of the impending storm permeating the clearing. But no one was in sight, and even the squirrels had ceased their chattering.

With a deep inhalation of the scent of pine trees and summer soil, she stepped into the clearing, keeping to the edge until the last moment. Eight paces brought her to the corner of the structure, where she grabbed a wooden crate and placed it in front of a window.

Gingerly she stepped up, clutching her full skirt in one hand and the window trim in the other. Through her shoes, her toes gripped the edge of the rickety crate. Desperation to stay upright and not teeter off sent a surge of adrenaline coursing through her as she swiped a hand across the grimy window of the hunter’s shack. The crate dipped, and Katie grasped the frame of the window again. A splinter of wood pierced her skin, the sting of penetration barely registering as she focused on the task at hand.

“Timothy?” she whispered to herself. “Where are you?”

The boys who lived on the other side of the woods had to be right. They had told her they had seen Timothy going into an old shack in the woods, their description matching this one exactly. It had been months since she had seen her brother, and many more months since that day that had made her a widow and changed the course of their family, but it hadn’t even been a week since she had cried herself to sleep. Even now the familiar tears threatened to blur her vision.

With the crate stabilized, she swiped over the glass again and squinted inside. But all that stared back at her was more grime. Ach, if only she weren’t so short! But at a mere five feet four inches, she knew she needed a step stool for nearly every endeavor, especially for an old cabin elevated on cement blocks and with tiny windows. A bee buzzed around her face, and she waved a hand to shoo it away. The crate tipped again, and she grabbed at the window trim before she could tumble off.

Movement inside snagged her attention, although she couldn’t make out figures. It was like looking through the bottom of a glass bottle, with only large blobs moving around. Voices filtered through the window, one louder than the other. What was going on in there? And was Timothy involved?

“Gott, help!” The whispered prayer flew from her lips heavenward. “Restore Timothy to the only family he has left!” He needed love and rest and plenty of good, nutritious food. He needed the strength within the Amish community, the salvation in Jesus Christ that the bishop preached and the productive life of a man of faith who worked with his hands. He needed family, a cornerstone of any Amish person’s life.

Her nose touched the glass in her efforts to see inside. A face suddenly appeared in the window. It was distorted by the cracks in the glass, but it appeared to be her bruder. A moment later, the face disappeared.

She jumped from the crate and headed toward the corner of the cabin. Now that he had seen her, he had to come out and explain himself and return with her, stopping whatever this clandestine meeting was all about. Yet despite the warm summer air, a chill crept up her arms as she rounded the corner. The sour scent of the humidity in the woods tingled her nose and seeped into her brain, beginning the light pulse of a coming headache. Was she relieved that she had found him? Or was she apprehensive of who he was with and what he was doing? The emotions warred within her.

A man dressed in plain clothing, homespun pants and a light blue shirt stepped out through the door.

“Timothy!” But the wild look in his eyes stopped her from speaking further.

And then she saw it. A gun was pressed into his back. But the man with the weapon didn’t step out.

“Katie! Run! Go!”

She jerked backward, an instinctual reaction to the presence of the deadly weapon. Panic gripped her throat, her mouth suddenly chalky. What should she do? Could she help him? But there was no way she was going to advance any closer to the door and that gun.

“Dabber schpring! Run quickly!”

She stepped backward, her gaze trained on the weapon. With another step, she saw her bruder pulled back inside the cabin. The gun reemerged, and she turned to run.

She was five steps away when the weapon fired, an explosive sound that hurt her ears. She pushed herself farther and faster, but her legs were burning. It seemed to take too many steps to reach the tree line. Voices sounded behind her, louder and harsher, as if they were exiting the cabin. She hiked up her skirt, desperately grabbing at the fabric with her sweaty palms, and crouched low as she continued to run.

Another explosion fired nearby, and a sapling splintered to her right. How close was the shooter? Was he following her? She glanced back over her shoulder to check his position, and her foot caught on something. Air rushed past her as she fell face-first into the leaves and dirt.

The ground slammed into her midsection, forcing the air out of her lungs. As she fought to get a breath, a hand clamped onto her shoulder. She struggled to turn over, but all she could see out of her peripheral vision was what she assumed was the man’s other hand. He held a gun.

That was it, then. This would be the end.

* * *

“Are you all right?” Adam Troyer kept his voice to a low whisper. He glanced back to check the position of the men who had been in the cabin. The one with the weapon continued to advance. Whoever this Amish woman was, he needed to get her out of there. “Can you breathe? Can you run?”

Her answer was a scream.

Oh, that wasn’t good. “Shh, shh. I’m not with them. I’m law enforcement.” Another shot struck a nearby tree. “Come with me if you want to live.”

The screaming stopped as he grasped her upper arm and pulled her to her feet. She grimaced, but if they didn’t hurry, they might both be killed. He broke into a jog, the woman running alongside him, trying to brush dirt and leaves off her skirt with one hand and holding on to her kapp with the other.

“Danki.” The thank-you puffed out with a breath as they hurried further into the woods.

He nodded his acknowledgment. She certainly sounded like a real Amish woman, but was she? It could be that she practiced the accent. Was she an innocent bystander? Or was she in league with whoever was in the cabin, just dressed to look Amish so as not to attract attention?

The sounds of their pursuer crashing through the underbrush grew louder. They would never be able to get away, especially with this woman encumbered by her full skirt and kapp. It was time for concealment.

Adam pulled her toward a thick stand of poplar trees. “I called nine-one-one. It’s the fastest way to get reinforcements here. Right now we need to hide.”

She nodded and stepped in front of him as quickly as she could, a look of panic mingled with determination etching fine lines around her eyes. Scanning the forest growth around them, she whispered without looking back, “We go up.”

It was brilliant. From a tree, not only would they be hidden but he could survey the area and, hopefully, find the man who had chased them from the cabin. A few more steps took them to the base of a thick tree with low-hanging branches.

“Here?”

Katie nodded. “Not for long, I pray.”

But by the time he had holstered his weapon and cupped his hands together to provide a step up for her, she had gathered her skirt tightly around her legs with one hand. With the other, she grasped an upper branch. In a few seconds, she was several feet up the tree. Apparently climbing trees was not a new activity for her.

Adam followed behind until they came to a spot where two thick branches ran parallel and provided a sort of bench for them. He settled her in the seat and then lowered himself beside her. Branches full with leaves fanned around them, so thick that he had to pull a branch aside to be able to peek out. This would do well.

He couldn’t see anyone below, but that didn’t mean it was safe to emerge from their hiding spot. He turned to the Amish woman, her face startlingly close to his in their tight surroundings. “I’m Adam Troyer, by the way.” He kept his voice to a whisper. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent.”

She turned to him. “Katie Schwartz.” Her dark blue eyes flashed in the dimness of their cover as she pierced him with her gaze. “What are you doing here?”

Wait a minute. He was the one who should ask the questions. “Surveillance.” He would answer that one, though, hopefully to build rapport, and then fire his questions at her. From his position earlier, he had seen her approach the cabin, acting suspicious and watching over her shoulder. Yes, she looked Amish. Even sounded Amish. But he had no way of knowing, at this point in time, that she actually was Amish. What if she was part of the criminal ring he was seeking, perhaps sent out for an errand, innocent-looking in her Amish garb, and now she was returning? He would stick close to her until he knew for sure who she was. In the meantime, though, there was no harm in her knowing he was ICE. He would not tell her any more.

“I heard a man in the cabin tell you to run away. Why are you here?” He peeked through the leaves again. Still no one had approached the tree. This was not the time or place to question her, but he could gather a little bit of information. If she was one of them, then she would be arrested. If she wasn’t, then perhaps she had some insider information that would be helpful to the investigation. So much about her seemed suspicious and made the hair on the back of his hands raise up.

“I am looking for mein bruder.” She scrunched her eyes and rubbed at them, a tear squeezing out and running down her cheek. She sniffed, a sound too loud for their concealed location.

A crashing sounded somewhere below, and Adam parted the branches to see the man with the weapon several yards off. He was looking straight ahead, and Adam couldn’t see his face, only the top of his head, which was covered with a baseball cap.

Katie sniffed again, and Adam raised his finger to his lips to shush her.

“Allergies,” she whispered. She wrinkled her nose and held a finger underneath.

Oh, no. This wouldn’t help at all.

In a split second, she tilted her head back as if a sneeze was imminent. Adam grabbed her with both arms and, with his hand on the back of her head, pulled her into his shoulder. Her sneeze was muffled in his shirt, but she instantly pushed away from him. He cast what he hoped was an apologetic look in her direction and shrugged his shoulders, but he didn’t dare speak. A peek between the branches revealed that their hiding space remained secure.

Without knowing how many men were in the cabin or how much firepower they had, he couldn’t take them on all by himself. It was very likely he was outmanned and outgunned, and the best thing to do was wait for local law enforcement to show up. Still, despite the softness of the Amish woman next to him, or perhaps because of it, the hiding place was growing more uncomfortable by the second.

The woman sniffled again, and he pulled her into his shoulder as the second sneeze erupted. He wanted to shush her, but sneezes were uncontrollable. It wasn’t her fault. Plus he didn’t want the man somewhere below to hear him. They were like sitting ducks up here in their perch.

As the shuddering of the sneeze subsided, Katie pushed away. She seemed as uncomfortable as he was. But her push must have been too hard, for she wobbled on the branch, her hands grasping for anything to keep her steady. She finally found traction with one hand on the branch and one hand on his arm. Once settled, she let go and straightened her kapp and her skirt.

“Danki. You have saved me two times.”

Before he could whisper his response, the tree trunk exploded next to him.

“Ach!” Katie cried, her hand flying to her leg, obviously in pain but still trying to keep quiet.

Instincts kicked in, and he grabbed her close and pulled her down, trying to shield her from any other gunshots. Did the shooter know where they were, or was he the type to shoot randomly? Adam peered through the branches, but he couldn’t see a thing.

“Are you hit?” he whispered, but he knew the answer already.

Katie drew her hand away from her leg. There was blood on it. “Is that what has happened? My leg burns terribly.” Tears sprang to her eyes as she clutched the spot on her leg.

“Let me see.” After one more look through the branches, he gently removed her hand from the spot and separated the folds of her skirt. The fabric was torn and bloody around the edges, but the injury was not bleeding profusely. She whimpered in pain as he touched the spot and then gathered the folds of her skirt to apply direct pressure to the wound. “Hold this here. We have to get out of here.”

But was it safe to descend? He gingerly pulled the branches apart, but he couldn’t see anyone. A squirrel chattered nearby. Could that have been what drew the attention of the shooter? At least there hadn’t been another shot. Could Katie wait until law enforcement arrived? If they left the tree now, they could put themselves directly in the path of the shooter.

As Katie applied the pressure, her face grew pale, a sheen of perspiration breaking out over her forehead. “I have never been in danger before.”

Suddenly she didn’t look steady enough to sit on the branches. “An ambulance should be coming with the police any minute now. Can you make it?”

She moaned and clutched her stomach. “I do not know. Can we get down now?”

It wasn’t the best idea, considering he still hadn’t figured out the whereabouts of the shooter. But the alternative, Katie fainting and both of them falling out of the tree, wasn’t any better. Down it would be.

“Sure. Let’s go.” He stepped down a couple of branches and then turned to hold her around the waist and help her down. They stairstepped down to the bottom branch before a loud rustling sounded from brush nearby.

His heart thrust itself against his chest, and he turned back to signal Katie to be quiet. But with a look of dismay, she stared at her fingers, bloody from her leg wound, her face even whiter than before. He grabbed her around the waist. “Katie?”

Another shot rang out, tearing through the branches around them.

Surely they had been found. That shot had been aimed more directly at Katie.

She stared at him with glassy eyes. Time seemed to stand still in the nanosecond before she closed them. Then she pitched forward, off the branch, and plummeted to the ground, her lifeless body pulling him with her.