by Cindy Dees
Her mother’s startled gaze met hers and tears abruptly filled her mother’s eyes. The lady never had been slow on the uptake. Zoe saw her overture for what it was. And dang it if her own eyes didn’t start to fill with tears, too. Twenty-five years without a mother. And now she finally had one who’d worry over her and fight her battles beside her. The lonely little girl inside her was feeling better by the minute. As though she was growing up.
“I’d do anything for you, you know,” her mother whispered. “I love you so much, sweetheart.”
“I love you, too, Mom.” That was the first time she could ever remember saying that. And it felt good. Really good. As if her heart was opening up and blooming like a big, bright, overblown sunflower.
She sniffed surreptitiously and said as briskly as she could manage under the circumstances, “We have a lot of catching up to do once this whole mess is taken care of. Gramps tells me you were quite a hellion in your day. I want to hear all about it.”
Zoe gave her a watery smile. “No way am I telling you everything. I wouldn’t want to give you any crazy ideas.”
One of the other people spoke up. “As if breaking into CIA headquarters wasn’t crazy enough.”
Diana’s head whipped up. She knew that voice. Allison Gracelyn, daughter of one of the Athena Academy’s founders, Senator Marion Gracelyn. When that eminent lady passed away several years ago, Marion’s son, Adam, took her place on the Athena Academy’s board of directors, and Allison had become a consultant to that same board. What in the world was she doing here?
Diana glanced at the other occupants of the car, now that she could make out their faces. Allison’s father, Judge Adam Gracelyn, another Athena Academy board member. Beyond him was a gray-haired man she’d never met, but who could only be Charles Forsythe, the billionaire who helped fund the formation of the Athena Academy. His portrait in the front lobby of the school was of a younger man with thick, dark hair, but the patrician features and burning intelligence in those dark eyes left no doubt as to his identity.
The last man wore a military uniform. She gaped as he leaned forward slightly and came into clear view farther down the long bench seat from Forsythe. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff himself, General Bart Snyder. What the heck was he doing with this bunch? Everyone else had a strong connection to the Athena Academy that her grandfather had also helped found. But why was Snyder along for this little joyride?
The limousine pulled out of the CIA building’s parking lot, sailing past the armed guard patrolling the gates on high alert. Looking for her, no doubt. She managed not to slink lower in her seat—the windows were blacked out, after all—but it was a struggle not to dive for the floor and hide her face.
Her grandfather broke the silence that descended over the vehicle as it accelerated into the night. “Diana, I think you are familiar with, if not acquainted with, everyone in the car, are you not?”
Yikes. That was his business voice. “Yes, sir,” she replied crisply, putting on her military professional voice, as well.
Gramps turned to the vehicle’s other occupants. “Our girl, Diana, was kind enough to retrieve a very interesting dossier for us this evening. It’s the classified S.A.F.E. folder out of Collin Scott’s office.”
Without exception, everyone in the car lurched at that news, and there were general exclamations of surprise and, if she wasn’t mistaken, pleasure. And why was it, exactly, that he would mention something so sensitive in this car full of government outsiders with no security clearances, with the exception of General Snyder, of course?
Allison Gracelyn spoke up. “Diana, have you had a chance to look through the file, yet?”
“I’ve glanced at it,” she replied cautiously.
“Are there names?” Allison sounded tense. Urgent.
Diana nodded. “All except the leader of the whole conspiracy. That person is only referred to as Freedom One in the various documents. It may have been above Scott’s pay grade to know who that person is.”
“And is there evidence to tie S.A.F.E. to the assassination attempts on Monihan?” Allison asked tersely, leaning forward intently in her seat.
Diana’s gaze whipped over to her grandfather in no little surprise. How in the world did a consultant for a girl’s prep school know about that possible connection? He nodded his permission to answer the question, a tacit endorsement of Allison’s right to ask it.
Nonetheless, Diana replied to the woman carefully, “I’m afraid that’s a matter of national security. I’m not aware of your need to know that particular information, so please forgive me if I decline to answer the question.”
General Snyder chuckled. “I’m authorizing you to answer the question, Captain.”
She nodded crisply at her boss. General Snyder might be way up the chain of command from her, but he was certainly able to give her that authorization to answer the question.
She looked down the length of the limo’s interior at Allison. “Yes, there is direct evidence linking S.A.F.E. to the assassination attempts on Gabe Monihan. There’s a planning document in the file outlining the details of the attempt to kill him last October. There are also records of funds transfers to Tito Albadian. And it’s clear that Freedom One planned the bombing earlier this afternoon. There are payments to and correspondence with Richard Dunst. There can be no doubt that he worked directly for S.A.F.E. and was poised to be the backup assassin if the Q-group attack at the inaugural parade failed.”
Allison sat back in her seat with a grim, but satisfied, look on her face.
Forsythe spoke up from the other side of the car. “They’ll crack. If we bring in all the people we do know about and interrogate them hard enough, someone will give up the identity of this Freedom One character.”
Diana retorted, “Yes, but will it be in time to save Gabe’s life?”
Her grandfather replied cryptically, “That’s what we’re on our way to find out, now.”
Judge Gracelyn, Allison’s father and husband to the woman whose brainchild the Athena Academy was, commented, “It’s only fitting that you be with us after you saved Gabe’s life twice today.”
Now what did that mean? She was damned confused, here. And this wasn’t exactly the kind of crowd with whom she could just blurt out a demand to know what in the hell was going on. “Where are we going?” she asked carefully.
“You’ll see soon enough,” her grandfather answered.
Great. Now they were all grinning at each other as if they had some hilarious joke between them that she wasn’t part of. Or maybe was the brunt of. She crossed her arms with a huff and leaned back in her seat. The grins got even wider, dammit!
Pointedly, she turned her gaze to the window and stared outside as the limousine wound through the northwest streets of downtown Washington, D.C. After the day she’d had, she severely didn’t feel like dealing with anybody laughing at her right now.
Her grandfather asked the group in general, “Anyone have any guesses as to who this Freedom One person is?”
Allison Gracelyn said wryly, “That is the question of the hour, is it not?”
When no one else spoke up, Diana said into the silence, “Whoever it is has to be extremely highly placed in the government and work close to the office of the President.”
“Why do you say that?” Allison asked.
“Freedom One knew about the second inauguration attempt for Gabe today at the Capitol Building. Admittedly, a fairly wide circle of people were aware of that ceremony, but it still was far from public knowledge. Yet, Freedom One had the details in enough time to send Richard Dunst over to the Capitol Building to kill Gabe.”
Allison nodded her agreement with the analysis.
The atmosphere in the car grew noticeably more tense as everyone jumped to the next logical conclusion. And whoever that person was, he or she was still on the loose. And potentially still capable of ordering another assassination attempt on Gabe Monihan.
The same sense of impending doom that
had filled her all day surged anew. Her worry for Gabe was a tangible thing, swirling within the limousine’s interior to join the controlled panic now filling the enclosed space.
The limousine decelerated smoothly. Diana looked outside, curious to see where they were going. She gaped as the vehicle made a left turn into a driveway famous the world over. They were at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The White House.
2:00 A.M.
For it being two o’clock in the morning, the place was lit up like a torch. Of course, under normal circumstances, an inaugural ball would be in full swing. But today had been anything but normal.
The limousine stopped, and a uniformed guard leaned down to peer in the window. The driver turned on an overhead dome light, and Diana blinked at the sudden light.
“Who’s in the vehicle?” the guard asked.
Her grandfather leaned forward. “The Athena party.”
The guard looked down at a clipboard in his hand. “Ah yes. Delphi and associates.” He stepped back and waved the driver through.
Delphi? One of the people in this car was Delphi? She managed not to gawk in open shock, but it was a close thing. Which one? Her curiosity raged, but their limousine pulled up under the East Portico and came to a stop before she could demand to know which one of them was her secretive boss.
A uniformed military officer opened the door at her elbow and held out a gloved hand to assist her from the vehicle. She stepped out into a rush of blessedly warm air blowing down from a vent in the porch ceiling. The entire party was handed smoothly out of the car.
A social aide in a white ceremonial uniform with Air Force insignia on it handed her a comb and held up a palm-size mirror. “Would you like to fix your hair, ma’am, before you go inside?”
She peered into the tiny mirror. Good thing she couldn’t see more of her face. She looked like hell. She repaired her hair and handed the comb back.
A suited Secret Service man she’d never seen before said, “If you’ll come with me, ladies and gentlemen. They’re expecting you inside.” He slipped white cotton gloves over his hands and opened the double French doors that led directly into the East Room.
Who was expecting them? Were they all going to attend Gabe’s inauguration? Her heart leaped in consternation at the thought. She wasn’t at all sure she was ready to face him yet. Her thoughts and feelings were a jumbled muddle where he was concerned, and she needed some time, some distance, to sort them out before she could face him again with equanimity.
But as she stepped into the room full of people, her thoughts were swept aside as foreboding slammed into her with all the force of an Abram’s tank. Gabe wasn’t President, yet. And S.A.F.E. wasn’t finished, either.
She stumbled along in the middle of the group of Athena dignitaries and General Snyder into the spacious and gracious East Room. Its butter-yellow walls were warm and inviting after the deep cold of the night outside. Several hundred formally dressed people milled around the sumptuous room.
Dear God, she could smell it. The malice seething below the surface of someone in here. She caught a fleeting frown that crossed her grandfather’s features. She leaned close to him and murmured, “You can feel it, too, can’t you?”
He nodded infinitesimally.
“How about you and I take a little stroll around the room,” she suggested sotto voce. “You take the right, and I’ll take the left.”
“Done,” he replied through clenched teeth.
“I’ll be back in a minute, Mom. I want to take a quick look around.”
Her mother smiled knowingly at her. “Protective of him, are you? I’m sure the Secret Service has it well in hand this time.”
She didn’t have to ask which “him” her mother was referring to. She rolled her eyes, embarrassed, and turned away from Zoe. Using her intelligence training, she melted into the crowd of people, which was a bit of a trick given how violently underdressed she was. This crowd must be the guests who’d been invited to the mother of all inaugural balls, the White House Ball. They would be top officials from the incoming administration and the very largest donors to Gabe’s campaign coffers. She recognized many of the faces in the room. A few people gave her strange looks at her casual attire, but she ducked her chin and slid past those people as unobtrusively as she could. No time to explain herself just now.
She started as a heavy hand landed on her shoulder from behind. She whirled, her hands coming up defensively.
“Agent Tilman,” she exclaimed under her breath. “How’s everything going?”
“I was about to ask you the very same thing. I figure it can’t be a good thing that you’re here.”
She smiled humorlessly. “I was just talking with Gabe earlier about how trouble does seem to have a way of finding me.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you just have a good nose for finding it. Smelling anything interesting this evening?” he asked lightly.
“Actually, I am,” she replied with quiet significance.
His gaze snapped to hers, questioning. Concerned. “Come with me.”
She nodded and fell in beside him as he politely elbowed his way out of the room. It was a whole lot easier to move through this dense crowd with a grim-looking linebacker at her side. They stepped out into a broad, elegant hallway, stretching away from the East Room all the way across the ground floor of the stately building.
As soon as they were clear of the East Room, Tilman’s stride stretched out to a near run. It was all she could do to keep up with him without breaking into a trot. He turned a corner and stabbed a button for an elevator. One of the doors in front of them slid open immediately. He dragged her inside the small cubicle.
As soon as the door closed, he asked tersely, “What have you got this time?”
She answered grimly, “Less than before. I think someone very highly placed in the government may try to have Gabe killed again. Maybe not tonight. Except…”
“Except what?” he prodded.
“Except I’ve had this gut feeling all evening that it would happen before he became President.”
“We’re big believers in gut feelings in the Service. And a whole lot of us have been getting gut feelings, too. Do you have any idea at all what’s planned?”
She shook her head regretfully. “None.”
“He’s about to be sworn in.”
She asked, “How many people is he exposed to?”
“No more than two dozen. He’s in the Situation Room, now. No assassin could possibly penetrate it.”
Her intuition jelled into screaming certainty all at once. No assassin could penetrate that group unless Freedom One was in it, and Freedom One had decided to personally knock off Gabe. And that’s exactly what was about to happen.
“Who’s there with him?” she demanded urgently.
The elevator came to a stop and they stepped out into a narrow corridor. Tilman turned to face her. “His new cabinet. The Joint Chiefs. A couple members of the Supreme Court.”
She said around the tightness in her jaw. “That may do it. Within that bunch may very well be the final assassin.”
Tilman’s jaw sagged for an instant before it snapped shut and fire lit in his eyes. “Let’s go,” he bit out.
They took off running down the hall, shoving aside everyone and everything in their path. They skidded to a stop in front of a closed door guarded by a pair of burly men. “Let us in,” Tilman snapped.
“Nobody’s supposed to go in or out,” one of the agents protested. “Haas’s orders.”
“Monihan’s in danger. There’s a killer in there and this lady may know who he is.”
The men’s faces registered shock as the roster of people in the room passed through their minds. But, to their credit, they didn’t waste time arguing about the absurdity of Tilman’s claim. One of them punched a number code in the keypad beside him and Tilman shoved the door open. Diana leaped past him and burst into the room.
Startled faces turned toward her. There was Ga
be at the far end of the room, in an open space beyond a long conference table. His left hand rested on a Bible and his right hand was raised in the air. An elderly, black-robed figure stood in front of him, holding the Bible. Justice Browning. Thomas Wolfe stood just behind Gabe. And as Tilman had said, members of Gabe’s inner circle ranged around him in a loose arc.
In the millisecond it took her to register all that, several faces in the room registered her identity, as well. Gabe’s eyes lit in pleased surprise followed by alarm. He knew full well what her bursting into the room like this meant.
Owen Haas leaped to the same conclusion as Gabe did when he saw her and Tilman come bursting through the door. She watched, as in slow motion, his elbow came up and he shoved aside the new Secretary of State to take a step forward toward Gabe. His face creased into lines of grim determination. He didn’t know where the threat was going to come from, but he was as certain in that endless instant as she was that it was going to come. Please, God, let Owen be in time to get his body in front of Gabe.
And then she registered the only two other faces in the room whose expressions shifted away from surprise to something else. They both darkened in displeased recognition of her. Thomas Wolfe. And General Eric Pace, the Army Chief of Staff.
And both of them reached into their coats.
Which one of them was it? Which one was Freedom One? She couldn’t take out both men. There wasn’t time and they stood too far apart, Wolfe on Gabe’s right and Pace to Gabe’s left. Like Owen Haas, she took a slow-motion step forward, preparatory to leaping for one of the men.
Eric Pace’s name had only shown up once, on a list of frequent attendees to defense conferences along with some of the known S.A.F.E. members. Wolfe’s writings, on the other hand, were the foundation of S.A.F.E.’s work. He’d opposed Gabe in a bitter primary campaign, much of it centered around their wildly differing views on dealing with terrorism. He’d tried to unseat Gabe after the election on the grounds of mental unfitness for the job—to steal the Presidency. He’d waylaid her this morning and attempted not to let her see Gabe, as if he already knew who she was and what she’d been there to warn Gabe about.