Dave pushed back his chair from the table where Connor's estate blueprints were spread out. "We need to arrest Connor and serve warrants on his home, business, and vehicle at the same time."

"Agreed." Marcus looked at the marshal from the local office. "Gage, any ideas?"

"What about a street stop? Catch him between home and work. He drives himselfl we should be able to establish surprise. And we can act with a small enough team we could limit any chance of a leak getting back to him once the warrant has been issued."

Marcus thought about it and nodded. "Have teams ready to move into his office and home as soon as he's been stopped?"

Gage nodded. "We should be able to prevent him from getting word out to anyone."

"Get it set up. Rick, is your team ready to serve on Frank's home?" In five days they still had not been able to locate Frank. The decision had been made to arrest Connor, serve the search warrants, and hope to pressure Frank out of hiding.

"We're ready," Rick confirmed. "Those watching his house have seen three men present. We'll go in with four teams. There's an officer ready to shut down the security system when we move."

Marcus looked at his watch. "Let's get all the teams in place. We'll act when Connor leaves work."

The group separated to implement the details.

The waiting was over, and Marcus felt the change in focus inside. Five hours, and it would be over one way or another.

He considered calling Shari but didn't want to add to the stress she was carrying. Better to tell her after it was over.

At 4 P.M., Marcus walked with Dave and Quinn to the waiting vehicles, having gone through the plans in detail with Gage.

A street stop was a three vehicle maneuver. They were using an SUV, a blue sedan, and a white delivery van; nothing about them suggesting they were law enforcement vehicles. The nine officers assembled to assist them wore street clothes over the bulletproof vests. They would act somewhere on the drive between Connor's office and home, choosing the location that was most advantageous based on traffic.

They assembled across from Connor's office building where they could see his vehicle. When Connor left the office driving his Lexus, they slipped into traffic behind him.

The SUV, serving as the lead vehicle, eventually passed Connor's car and moved up in front of him. The delivery van and the sedan trailed Connor through town, eventually moving to be the vehicles immediately behind him. Connor's car turned east on Thirty-second street.

Marcus saw the streetlight changing to yellow up ahead. He keyed his radio. "We'll act here. Get ready."

The light turned red. Greg in the lead SUV came to a stop. Connor's Lexus stopped behind him.

"Do it," Marcus ordered.

The SUV suddenly backed up right to Connor's bumper. Connor saw it happening and went to this car horn. Gage whipped the sedan around the van and crowded Connor's driver's door at the same time Bill pulled the delivery van forward to touch the back bumper of the Lexus.

Officers were out with guns drawn at all sides of his car before Connor realized it was more than just someone backing into him. "Keep your hands on the wheel."

Surprise had him obeying.

Marcus let Gage take him from the car, formally making the arrest. 'Tm surprised at the timing of your arrest." Connor smiled as his hands were handcuffed. "You would have been welcome to walk into my office and serve your warrants." He looked around at the slowing traffic, then back at Marcus. "All this street stop buys you is some bad press that you have to explain when I'm eventually released. You don't have enough to hold me. You've got what? That I was in the hotel? It took you long enough to figure that out."

Connor shouldn't be talking, but there was truth to the saying a lawyer who has himself as a client was a fool.

"We've got Frank and an eyewitness," Marcus replied, making a deliberate move to shake the man up.

Connor blinked. His smile disappeared. And then he smiled again. A cold smile, thin, but a smile. "You don't have Frank, and your eyewitness will never testiS"

It was a soft, distinct threat.

Marcus slammed Connor back against the car. "Who did you hire?" Quinn and Dave leaped forward to pull him back. Marcus ignored them. He was looking into the eyes of the man who had killed Carl and Shari's father. Any doubt of that had disappeared.

"/didn't hire anyone."

Marcus heard the emphasis. Titus had made the hire.

"And if he doesn't get paid until a year and a day after your witness is dead, you are going to have a hard time linking the two."

Even Quinn paled.

"Dave, get him out of here." Marcus shoved Connor toward the waiting car.

"Marcus."

"I know, Quinn."

Only one man had that unique signature of payment. Lucas Saracelli. He didn't miss at two hundred yards. He didn't miss at four hundred yards. Dark. Wet. City Country. It didn't matter. He had been on the international law enforcement agencies most wanted lists for the last twelve years.

"We've got to get her out of there. Fast. It's a cover that will never hold. And he's got a big head start."

Marcus could feel the fear; three teams on the ground would never hold. "Agreed. But where?"

"My ranch," Quinn recommended. "We want to avoid a fight with this guy, but if it happens, we had better have every advantage."

Lucas was sharing a beer with a flight attendant from Jamaica when the phone call came. The Washington, D.C., bar was noisy and packed, but he chose to take the call where he was. "Theyjust picked up Connor in New York. The team was lead by U.S. Marshal Marcus O'Malley. They flew in on a private jet."

Lucas smiled at the flight attendant. "Fine. Thank you for the call." He hung up and reached for another pretzel. Shari was somewhere in Kentucky. and her escort was now in New York. Interesting.

"Business?"

"Maybe. When's your return flight?"

"Seven."

"Then business can definitely wait until 7:15 P.M. I promised you an escort back to the airport."

She giggled. He liked the giggle. He set down the beer. "Come on. Let's dance."

Sixteen.

M.

arcus took the call on the plane. They were on a private flight back to the house by the lake, having pulled together as many men as they could within an hour. "Yes, Dave."

"The search warrants have been served on Connor's office and home. We got some interference from the staff on duty at his home but it's been dealt with. We managed to get the surprise we hoped for, but I'm afraid that is all we've got going in our favor. The crime lab technicians are taking the place apart but so far there is nothing that can be directly linked to the crime. The two house safes are empty; the three weapons registered to him are accounted for and don't match."

"We need something, anythin@."

"We're working it. Just focus on Shari. I promise you, now that we've got Connor, we are going to turn his life inside out. If there is evidence here we will find it."

"Frank?"

"No sign of him. I've got a bad feeling about him, Marcus."

The reality that he might have already skipped town was very real. "Put the warrant out on the wires so if he is traveling in the U.S. we'll have a chance of learning about it."

"It will be out within the hour," Dave assured. "Stay in touch and let me know when you get in."

"I'll call as soon as we land," Marcus confirmed, and said goodbye. He closed the phone and looked back at Quinn. The lack of evidence was a serious problem he would wrestle with later, they had an even more serious one to deal with. "How do we stop someone who has no stop button? Once a hit is accepted, it can't be withdrawn with this man."

"Do you think Connor could have hired him?"

"No, he doesn't have that kind of money. It had to be his father, Titus."

"Can we crimp Titus to the point he won't be able to pay so the guy will make the decision on his own to back off?."

"We'd have to seize the entire operation. To do that we need inside information. If convicted of the murder of Judge Whitmore, the only way Connor could avoid the death penalty, avoid dying like his brother, would be to cut a deal and talk about his father's business. But he won't talk unless he thinks he will be found guilty, and he's confident Shari will never tes ti"

"A vicious circle."

"We've got no choice. We'll have to stop Lucas."

Marcus rarely felt fear such as he did now. Lucas could have been in the States looking for Shari for as long as a month. The lake house wasn't safe; nowhere truly would be until Connor, Frank, and Titus were convicted and sentenced. The escalation this represented was horrific.

In all his years as a marshal protecting witnesses he had never faced a challenge like this. That it was affecting the woman he loved.., he forced aside the emotion lest it paralyze him. "He could have entered the country anytime since July 8."

"Titus had to get in touch with Lucas somehow in order to establish the terms of the contract. Maybe we can get a lead on him through that."

"If Titus went through his contacts in Europe to make the arrangements we may never find it. We might have a better chance locating Lucas from the sniper rifle he's going to need to acquire once he is here in the States. The one thing we can be certain of is that it will be custom made."

Marcus pulled out a pad of paper. "Walk me through the security arrangements we can make immediately and over the next few weeks at the ranch."

"Assume he learns Shari is at the Montana ranch: He then has to get to the ranch-by air, by car, across country by horse, or walk in by foot. So that's our first line of defense. We'll start with arranging for the county sheriff to close the bridge over the Ledds liver. They've been discussing the need for repairs for the last four months, so local residents will not be surprised. That will make any traffic approaching the ranch from the south THE GUARDIAN 2"3 stand out and give us a chance to track it."

"How do we deploy the security detail?"

By the time the plane touched down at the airport near the lake house, they had worked out a security plan for the next several days. It wasn't sufficient, nothing really would be, but it was a workable plan.

On the drive to the house, Marcus tried to work out what he would say, and how Shari might react to the news. How was he supposed to break the news there was a paid contract out on her?

They arrived back at the lake house at 9:20 P.M. Marcus left the others fanning out behind him to cover the grounds and strode toward the house.

"Marcus!" Shari scrambled from the couch in the den to come and meet him. "He was arrested? You got him?"

"We arrested Connor." The relief that crossed her face was obvious, intense, and complete-and he was going to destroy it. He grasped her hands, cushioned them tight between his own. "Shari, get your things. We need to leave."

Her relief changed to confusion as his expression registered. "What's wrong?"

He stopped her words with fingers across her lips. "I'll explain later. Go. Pack what you can fit in one bag." He had decided the best way to handle it for now was to simply duck the question. Josh came from the kitchen and Marcus took advantage of it. "Josh, we need to talk." He nodded toward the den.

Beth was in the doorway of the den, a book in her hand, listening. Marcus crossed to her side, leaned down, and kissed her cheek. "It's good to see you. Help Shari pack? I'll explain in a few minutes." She nodded, worried. "Of course, Marcus." "It will be all right," he reassured her.

He strode through to the privacy of the den, Quinn joining him. Josh closed the door behind them. "What's going on?" "There's been a contract put out on your sister."

Josh absorbed that hit, his eyes widened and then hardened. "Can you keep her safe?"

"I won't let someone get to her." Marcus paced the room, anxious to get moving. "We need to get her out of here though. She's been stationary too long and we need someplace more isolated than this."

"You've got to tell her."

"Tell me what?"

Marcus turned, frustrated. Shari had ignored his request. He wanted her packing. And definitely not hearing the details now.

"Marcus, tell me."

He looked at Quinn and realized he had no choice. "Shari, sit down."

She complied only to the extent she perched on the arm of the couch. "What is it?"

He hoped she didn't panic. "Connor's family wants you dead. They've put a contract out on you."

She looked confused. "He'S already tried to kill me twice. This is a surprise?"

"This time someone was hired to do it. We need to get you out of here."

"You're afraid."

"I'm...concerned. The man they hired is good."

"You're better," she replied bluntly, catching him by surprise. She surged to her feet. "We split up. I don't want mom near me."

Josh looked over at him. Marcus had to agree with Shari on this one. They were going to need to move fast, and he was very concerned about Beth's health if things got serious. He couldn't guarantee medical help would be nearby, It was clear Josh didn't want to leave Shari's side, but he reluctantly nodded. "Aunt Margaret's in London. Can I take mom there?" Josh offered.