by J. D. Tyler
He was still armed, still capable, as was Tre, one of the family chauffeurs, but for a relatively quiet, mostly pro forma inaugural ball, in a barely finished hotel, he’d told them both to take a load off.
Edward was only here because Retta was showing her work.
“Finally,” Burke said as they got to the bar. He gestured for Edward to go ahead, then placed his order for two beers. The bartender drew two mugs of draft.
“Need help?” Edward gestured to the sling.
“Nah, but thanks.” Burke neatly tucked one mug into his sling hand, lifted the other in salute. “Good to meet you Edward.”
“You too, Burke,” Edward said, laughing at the man’s good humor. “Enjoy the show.”
There was a commotion at the far end of the room, and Edward saw a woman stalking off toward the doors. Burke’s grin broadened, more like a real friend’s would, rather than a casual, just-met acquaintance.
“Oh yeah, it’s a show all right.” He laughed, and then lowered his voice. “Looks like the good senator has offended yet another in the many legions of women voters of the world. Anywhere Senator “Asshole Alan” Trammelstone goes, there’s always a show.”
Edward mock-winced. “Well crap. I’ll avoid that side of the ballroom then,” he muttered. Still laughing, the two men parted ways. When he got back to Retta and her potential buyers, they had moved to desultory small talk. They thanked Edward, and Melissa bussed cheeks with Retta before the other couple moved off.
“Congratulations.” It was obvious to Edward that Retta had closed the sale. That competitive, warrior glint was in her eye.
It so turned him on when she looked like that.
“Thanks,” she said, with a fierce grin. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
“Honey, something’s got you pretty distracted,” her hot, sexy voice purred at his ear. “Everything okay?”
He smiled down at his diminutive date. “Of course. This is your triumph, and I’m thrilled for your sale. But,” he said more softly, “you’ve got that look. Very, very distracting.”
She knew what he meant and her eyes twinkled, even as she licked her lips. He felt his body respond, as it always did when he was near her. “I’m thinking the bed upstairs in our suite would be really comfortable about now.”
Her smile was inviting and he absently handed his empty glass to a surly looking server with an empty tray, before pulling her to his side. “Do you want to make an early exit?”
She smiled a wicked smile, but shook her head.
“Let’s give it ‘til the ten o’clock speeches, I’ve got another buyer who may bite. If they don’t, then we’ll get the hell out.” She scanned the crowd, then looked up at him again. “You still seem...distracted, and not sexy-distracted.”
“I’m just wondering where Paul and Janice are.” His brother and sister-in-law had promised to drop by the Stand Together Gala, and mingle. Paul was his father’s heir-apparent, and successor in the business, so he was expected at some of the major donor events where the new president would be in attendance. But they had promised to stop by this event in between, for Retta’s sake.
“Right,” she laughed. “Pull the other leg. What’s bothering you?”
Everything inside him warmed up. She got him. She really did. He’d never been with anyone, ever, who cared what he thought or knew what he was thinking the way she did, but Retta was all that and more. Maybe one day he’d convince her to give up her unreasonable prejudice against marriage.
“I’d say nothing, but you wouldn’t believe me,” he countered. “So I’ll just say that I’m feeling off. Like someone’s watching me.”
She laughed her throaty laugh and people turned to smile. Retta did that. She lit up a room with that laugh.
“Honey, people are watching you. You’re richer than God, and that makes people stare. Not to mention that half the women in the room are wondering what the hell you’re doing with me, and if they can persuade you to kick me to the curb.”
“Not a chance in hell,” Edward murmured, raising her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to the soft skin of her knuckles, no longer even noticing the fine crisscross of scars.
Retta was one of the foremost glass artists of the century. The pieces displayed here tonight, and in galleries and museums around the world, were sometimes stark, sometimes sensuous, but always arresting. And the scars were a testament that she bled and burned for her art, far too often.
The magnificent pillars in each corner of the room, one of which now bore a discreet, but still visible SOLD tag, were hers. The glorious, smaller glass works on the center, winter-themed display in the buffet area to one side, were hers as well. To his eye, the simple, red, white, and blue, commercially mass-produced glass snowflakes and ornaments hanging from the ceiling, and covering the smaller trees, although pretty, paled in comparison to Retta’s creations.
Although, part of him wondered what the hell they’d been thinking, hanging glass from the ceiling. Seriously dangerous.
“Little do they know you’re just my love slave,” she joked.
“The truth! Verily I say!” he joked right back. “And seriously, I’m not that big a catch. I had...” he had to count in his head, “...ten calls in before I found a date for the prom.”
“That was then, this is now,” she said, smiling.
“Yeah, right. To most, I’m still the black sheep, who ran away to join the circus, so to speak, and everyone knows it.” He made a face. “I can still hear the DC Society Matrons whispering about ‘that Millner boy, the bad one,’” he mock-whispered in a querulous voice.
“Oh, but women just loooove a bad boy,” Retta purred back at him, laughing. “And you’re the prodigal son, and war hero now, home unscathed and successful.”
“Yeah, right,” he repeated, drawing the word out in a sarcastic tone.
“Oh, look,” Retta murmured, neatly changing the subject as she often did when he seemed to be getting melancholy. “It’s Abigail Strickland, the model. Gorgeous, isn’t she?” She squeezed the upper inside of his arm where she held it to give him the direction of her interest.
He checked out the model, who glided across the room to meet a dark-haired, slick-looking guy who was already paired up with a majorly hot, and equally model-slim woman.
Neither were his type.
“Mmm,” he said, refocusing on Retta, who was totally his type. “She’s not as beautiful as you are, and her guy isn’t too happy about her heading over to talk with Mr. Expensive Slick.” Edward turned his back on the model and her little drama. “Dance with me?”
Her smile would have melted steel. “Of course.”
She laughed up at him as they moved to the crowded dance floor. “There you go giving people weird names again. Mr. Expensive Slick?”
“Yeah. Bespoke suit, big, flashy, expensive watch, slicked-back hair. Showy,” he said, then added, “I met The Chameleon at the bar. Much more subtle. But changeable as the wind.”
“You’re just weird,” she teased, mocking his habit of assigning monikers to people. He’d been in the Navy, and call-signs were a way of life. He’d been good at coming up with them.
As they got to the wood-floored dance area, there was a scuffle around the woman Retta had pointed out. Evidently a waiter had misjudged his timing and spilled red wine on her bodyguard.
“That’s going to be hard to get out of a tuxedo shirt cuff,” Retta said with a giggle as they nestled together to slow dance to the DJ’s warm selection of Earth, Wind, and Fire’s The Way of the World. The glass ornaments shivered as the brass section on the song complimented the elegant harmonies ofthe vocals.It was one of the last songs before the DJ took a break, so Edward wanted to make the most of it.
Retta was so tiny she fit perfectly in the circle of his arms. How a woman so petite could work the hours she did, and handle the rigors of glassblowing, he’d never know.
As they moved, that twitchy feeling returned. Someone was watching him. And it
wasn’t with good intent.
Raising his head, he scanned the room just as the band finished with a flourish to generous applause. He noted that the model Retta was so interested in was dancing with Mr. Expensive Slick, instead of the hovering bodyguard who’d gotten spilled on.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” the DJ’s smooth delivery made the words a song. “I’m Hammond ‘The Mic’ Smith, turning tunes to celebrate every good thing tonight. My partner and I will be taking a twenty-minute break, but we’ll be back to give you more grooves to dance to on this historic night!”
As everyone clapped or milled around, Edward was able to locate the man watching him so closely. He let his gaze go right past the guy, but his sense of wrong zeroed in on that particular man. He was tall, swarthy and lightly bearded. A waiter, or at least he was dressed as one.
A waiter.
A vision of the other waiter bumping the model popped into his head. Hot on the heels of that image was the sheer amount of security and MP types in the room. He’d not been a model Naval officer by any means, and he’d had plenty of acquaintance with the starched by-the-book brass who liked to police things. He suddenly felt as if he were in the officer’s club after a particularly bad weekend, rather than at a gala. Warning bells went off, and his Spidey-senses started tingling.
“Retta, I think there’s something going on here,” he said, bending down to whisper in her ear. “And it isn’t good.”
Retta, always quick on the uptake, smiled up at him, and looped her arms around his neck. “Then maybe we should get all kissy-kissy and move to a dark corner where we can figure it out.”
He grinned, for real. “You have the most fascinating, quick mind, my love. Why don’t we do just that?”
He kissed her –-always a pleasure-- then strolled with her to a high-top table where they’d left her drink and her filmy wrap. The table was along the ballroom wall, sheltered between two more of the beautifully decorated winter-themed trees. At an adjacent high top, two men in tuxedos watched the crowd, and pretended to drink red wine.
“Really, you’d think they’d learn to blend,” he said to Retta.
“Who?”
“Security. Actually, they’re probably FBI, Treasury or CIA.” He let one finger on the front of her arm press more firmly, to give her the direction. They’d worked out the system at the innumerable gallery showings they’d gone to for her work. They’d had to have some way to warn each other or point out something about which they could laugh later.
“Seriously, could they be more obvious?” he continued. The two men were alternating their stares around the room with fiddling with their earpieces. If you knew that security usually wore communication devices, they were as obvious as sunshine.
She laughed and picked up her drink. “This is so clandestine. I like it.” Her eyes laughed at him over the rim of her glass. “Maybe we can play spies later, in the suite,” she said, her voice a growly purr that made his body go on high alert.
“Maybe we should just...”
He didn’t get to finish the thought.
There was a burst of gunfire from somewhere out beyond the triple doors to the ballroom. But more telling, every security agent in the room winced and grabbed at the side of their head.
With that one action, they’d identified themselves as security, Agency, or Bureau, to whoever was watching. It was brilliant in its simplicity and effectiveness. They all had earpieces, or some wireless communication device, and someone had just disrupted every single one of them.
From the mixing board for the band, off in a corner, a man rose, and an automatic weapon rose with him.
Rat-tat-tat-tat! Bullets embedded themselves in the ceiling, glass shattered, and men and women both screamed in response.
All over the room, waiters whipped out handguns or automatic weapons. They’d stationed themselves near the people who’d winced, for obvious reasons. One of them stood in front of the adjoining table.
“Guns on the table, pigs,” the man growled, pointing a long-barreled, automatic weapon –-a bastardized AK variant-- at the two men.
Beyond them, there were more waiters rushing the main doors, holding back panicked patrons with more guns, securing all but one set of the doors with chains and padlocks.
Retta had moved to his side, and he eased in front of her.
“LISTEN UP!” a voice shouted. When the shrieking and shouting continued, there was another burst of gunfire, more raining glass, and more screams. A man jumped on stage to grab the mic.
“I SAID,” he shouted into the live mic, his voice booming across the room. “Listen UP!”
The crowd subsided to mutters and whimpers. Some still sat at the ten-seater tables, their faces white and shocked. Others stood in clumps. There were clusters of security around some of the women. One cluster sheltered Madeline Arrsworthy, Secretary of the Treasury. She was a friend of his mother’s and was a big supporter of the Stand Together cause. The others wore either dress military uniforms –-obvious high-level targets, given the medals they wore-– or were so formally erect in their posture, despite their evening gowns, they might has well have been in uniform.
Of course, Senator Trammelstone, highly drunk and belligerent, was pushing at his security, who were all staring down the barrels of weapons in false waiters’ hands.
“What the hell is the meaning of this?” Trammelstone shouted. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Now,” the man said, ignoring the Senator. “If you cooperate, no one gets hurt.”
Edward saw the smirk of the man standing to his right, his gun never wavered. A lie, then. They intended to hurt people. A lot.
“I need Arrsworthy, Mitchum, Parkerston, Neunswanger, Hatcher, Kirk, Tolliver, and Roberts to join me here on the stage.”
“What the hell?” Trammelstone yelled, waving his glass of scotch so that it sloshed onto the shoulders of the men protecting him. “Why are they so important?” he slurred.
The man shot the Senator a fierce, evil grin. “They’re bitches who need a lesson, and you’re a stupid yapping dog, so shut up, you little fuck.” He turned back to the room. “I need the bitches up here, now!”
A faux-waiter grabbed the arm of General Margaret Mitchum, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, trying to pull her away from her husband and security.
One of the men in her detail dropped, and fired, in one motion. The man on stage also dropped, a hot, round hole perfectly placed in the center of his forehead. Simultaneously, her detail took out the waiters trying to take the General.
With that, all hell broke loose.
The security guys next to him rushed their targets, so Edward grabbed Retta and dove for a big table, flipping it up to serve as a bulwark. Wouldn’t do much good against automatic rounds. He knew that. But it stood a chance of stopping small arms fire. Around the room, he saw others do the same.
“Get down,” he ordered Retta, but she was frozen, staring. The gunfire had shattered her towering sculpture in the far corner and pieces had flown far and wide. On the nearby buffet table, one of the false waiters was impaled, his gun still pointing ceilingward. A long, sword-like shard of cobalt-blue glass pinned him to the table, right in the middle of the cheese tray.
“Oh, my God,” she said, covering her mouth as if to hold back either sickness or a scream. “Oh, my God!”
“Retta, get down!” He shoved her forward, behind the upturned table.
One of the security men who’d been at the next table joined him.
“Peter Rouse,” he said. “FBI.”
“Edward Millner, CEO,” he replied wryly, shoving chairs against the table to brace it. “Retta,” he snapped to get her attention. She was still staring at the impaled man. She turned on him with hot anger, which turned to anguish as she met his gaze. “Agent Rouse,” he said, his heart clenching at her sorrow. “Retta Geminous, glass artist.”
“Agent,” she acknowledged, and anger filled her again. “What the fuck?”
“No idea,” Rouse said, as he shifted to peer around the edge of the table. “What the fuck, is right. Too much confusion, these guys aren’t pros.”
“They don’t have to be,” Edward said. There was more automatic fire and this time it sprayed the crowd. Agonized screams joined the gunfire, and a voice boomed over the mic again.
“Put your weapons down or we kill all of you. That wasn’t our intent, but we can make it happen.”
Slowly the gunfire subsided, but there were two pockets of cover. More groups had turned over tables and positioned them against the far wall, pulling the big, artificial trees in front of them.
Two of the armed men cut out from behind the stage and dropped to the floor to grab the seriously wounded General. They dragged her forward, around the back of the stage to the stairs, then frog-marched her up next to the gunman with the mic. To see her standing there, posture erect as only a general could hold, covered in blood as she stood in front of the DJ’s banks of equipment and the huge banner with the Stand Together logo...
It was a horrible dichotomy of right and wrong.
Tears poured down her face, and Edward followed her gaze. He saw what she saw. Her husband and security detail were all down. Either dead or gravely injured.
Two more men manhandled Madeline Arrsworthy onto the stage. She’d lost one shoe and limped badly. When she bent to take off the remaining shoe, her captor shoved her off balance and she crashed to the floor, taking mic stands and chairs with her.
The new leader laughed.
Edward would have taken the man out then and there, if he’d been armed. Just because he wasn’t in the Navy anymore, didn’t mean he’d lost his aim. Or his marksman’s rating.
Three more men and two women crawled into the shelter of their table. All of them were bleeding. Retta helped another two make it behind the scant shelter as Burke Chapman rolled another table up, bolstering their position.
“Well, this sucks,” he drawled, as he and Edward braced the second table. He’d lost the sling, and while he was still favoring the arm, he was using it.