Athena's Secrets

by Donna Del Oro

  From the absence of string instruments, the musicians appeared to be members of a concert band of about thirty-five musicians. Two by two, they were moving up the stairs toward the big dressing room, where the musicians would remove instruments from their cases. Based on her past experience at such events, large jugs of water would be made available for them, and there were staff restrooms nearby. Athena knew the music was due to begin after most of the guests had cleared the gate. The arrivals would climb the grand staircase at the front of the mansion to the sound of lilting strains of music.

  Five musicians and eight band crew members brought up the last of the group. Amid the forty-odd catering helpers bustling about, entering and exiting the rear service entrance with carts and food containers, these stragglers could have easily been lost in the crush. Athena’s gaze fixed on one dark-haired man, clean-shaven and smiling. His furtive eyes weren’t the only things that alerted her. He was carrying a very large case, at least five feet long and a second case almost as long as the first. He placed the two cases on the graveled ground by the front of the van and followed the others.

  “He’s the euphonium player,” she said quietly to John, “Or supposed to be. I think there’s a weapon inside that case.” She watched the man disappear inside the rear service entrance with the other musicians.

  “The what player?” John asked, his head averted, ready to convey the message to Max upstairs.

  “Euphonium. It’s like a big tuba, sounds like one, but looks like a huge trombone. What kind of weapon would fit in a case that size?”

  “A shoulder-held rocket launcher. Maybe an RPG—a rocket powered grenade launcher.” He turned away, his back to the musicians’ van and spoke. His voice, thin and strident, conveyed his controlled anxiety. He ended with an urgent, “Get down here.”

  “He’s going to slip away. There’s a second man, John,” she said, looking up at the tall, second-floor-to-ceiling windows of the Grand Ballroom. John ran to the rear service entrance and vanished, leaving Athena alone in the parking lot by the Range Rover.

  She watched in horror as another dark-haired man came out of the same door. He was one of the band’s crew members, whose job it was to help the musicians carry the instruments and set up. That same man had carried in the keyboard stand, she recalled. She’d overheard him say he’d come back down for the rest of the instruments. The second man was going to set up the weapon, dealing with anyone who got in his way. He carried a pistol with a sound suppressor, she knew, for she’d seen the plan flash through Blake’s mind like a fast-forwarded film.

  A rocket launcher the size of a euphonium could shoot ten exploding grenades per minute. Which would be enough to shatter the glass windows in the mansion’s ballroom, and kill or maim hundreds of people. In minutes, her parents and the other diplomats who lived off the compound were scheduled to arrive, followed by the first of the guests, who’d be greeted by a long reception line at the base of the Grand Staircase. That included Sir Peter, and her father and mother would be assembling soon.

  The cell phone inside her front jeans pocket shrilled, as it had continuously for the past hour, but she ignored it. She knew her parents were worried about her sudden absence. If she’d stayed behind, she’d be dressed in a cocktail gown by now, sitting by her mother in a limo.

  Not now, Mum, Father. Busy trying to save the day.

  The earbud receiver nestled in her left ear suddenly crackled alive. It was Max, assessing the situation based on her reading of Blake. They’d detained the first guy and had searched him, finding nothing, but had handcuffed him, anyway.

  The man standing by the euphonium case was now bending over it. Her pulse pounding, she turned aside and spoke into the crossed-flags pin.

  “Bloody hell, bloody hell! Goddammit, bloody hell!”

  The return message: “On our way. ETA, one to two minutes.”

  Two minutes?

  She had to do something.

  Pasting a smile to her face, she approached the second dark-haired man, who had moved beside the two cases behind the van. He had begun to open one of them. There were music stands resting against the panel doors. She supposed he’d come down on the pretext of getting them.

  “I saw you with those big cases. Can I help you? Maybe carry one of those cases? Or the music stands?”

  For one nerve-racking moment, he just stared at her. His right hand let go of the case and went to his tuxedo jacket pocket.

  “Really, I’m stronger than I look,” she added rapidly, widening her fake smile, “I’ve been assigned to help. I can carry the music stands.”

  Oh God, is he going to shoot me? Her heart felt like a jackhammer going full speed. She tried to smile.

  Something passed over his face, and he relaxed. “Sure, take those stands. I’ll get these cases.” He stood up and handed her the two music stands.

  “You play trombone?” she called out, grasping a stand with each hand. He’d already turned back to the cases.

  “Euphonium,” he said, looking back at her. He waited for her to carry the stands inside. If she didn’t, she knew, he was prepared to shoot her and hide her body. She had no weapon, couldn’t shoot a gun if she had one, anyway, and her shoulder bag with the pepper spray was on the back seat of the Range Rover. Lot of good it did there, she reminded herself.

  Trembling inside, Athena nodded and then proceeded toward the Mansion.

  “Wait!”

  Athena froze.

  Oh God, had he seen through her charade?

  Was he going to shoot her? Then kill her parents?

  Chapter Thirty

  Slowly, she turned around. Already crouched over the large, oblong cases, the man called to her half-distractedly. His dark eyes burned with intensity when he looked at her. His deep voice almost barked out the command.

  “Tell the guys up there I’m having a smoke. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  The man spoke English with an American accent, she noted. They’d recruited an American assassin to kill the English PM? Bewildered and horror-stricken, Athena fought to keep a clear head as she climbed the service stairs. Halfway up, she met Max, John, and four of their security men on their way down. They all wore black bulletproof vests, helmets with mics attached, and all six carried assault rifles and wicked-looking pistols in holsters on their hips.

  They looked like a British S.W.A.T. team.

  “Athena, luv, what are you doing?” Max asked. With a twirling forefinger, he directed his men past him as he stopped briefly beside her.

  “John told you? The man—he’s got a pistol and some weapons in those cases.”

  “Yes, we figured that. Stay here.” Abruptly, he left her side and clomped down the stairs.

  She didn’t have a chance to tell him what she’d seen when the man had passed the stands to her. What else was planned. The music stands in her hands were not as important as the message she needed to convey to Max and his men. The music stands made an awful clatter when she dropped them on the landing. No matter. She spun around and dashed back down.

  Halfway down, she heard popping sounds coming from the parking lot. When she emerged in the sunlight, she immediately searched out the musicians’ van. Max, John and the rest of their team surrounded the man, who was lying prone on the ground. She ran toward them.

  Oh God, what if she were wrong! What if they’d shot and killed an innocent man? It would be her fault!

  She reached the security perimeter that Max’s men had made around the man. An automatic weapon lay on the asphalt next to the man’s body. Max was speaking into his mic and interrupted his call when he saw her. He said something, a monosyllabic command that had the nearest team member turn around and grab her. She watched in dread as Max opened up one of the oblong cases. Inside, a metal-gray rocket launcher lay in two tubular sections, each section about two and a half feet long. Max leaned over and retrieved one section, which had a pistol-grip assembly and an aluminum tube with a sight and h
eavy metal guard. The men’s excitement morphed into a flurry of exclamations in their own military-style code.

  “Crikey, that’s an M-18. Ten rpm.”

  “Look at that wire shoulder support. Made it lighter.”

  “Yeah, I figure six kilos max.”

  “I’ll wager seventy-five millimeter.”

  “So who’s this bugger?”

  “Ask bloody Blake.”

  At the mention of Winston Blake, Athena tore her gaze away from the blood-drenched body of the American assassin. She felt hot bile rise in her esophagus, but she swallowed it down. Max looked occupied as he opened the second case and two of the men gathered around it. She had to get Max’s attention, and fast!

  She looked at the guard holding her at bay. “Tell Max there’s another attack coming. The main group. This guy was just th-the distraction.”

  John appeared before her, anxiety etched on his face.

  “What’s going on, Athena? You were supposed to stay inside.”

  She took a deep breath, exhaled and forced out the words. “From the park!” She pointed to a vast expanse of woods. Dumbarton Oaks Park on the other side of the New Zealand Embassy. “The rocket attack! It’s coming from over there. Dumbarton Oaks!”

  Max overheard and came over, frowning. “You sure?” She nodded and pointed in the direction of the woods—southwest of the Embassy grounds.

  Max barked out an order to one of the men, then spoke into his mic. “Better go check out Dumbarton Oaks Park.”

  A loud whistling sound flew overhead. Then, in the grassy area beyond the border of tall trees, an explosion! Everyone ducked, and Athena fell to her knees and huddled into a ball. No more than fifty feet away, dirt and grass clods mixed with metal flak flew in all directions and tree branches snapped and became projectiles. They hit the trucks and vans in the parking lot. Athena screamed as John covered her with his body.

  When all grew quiet again, John was up and grabbing her before she could get to her feet again. She stared at him for a moment. His vest had caught a metal object and it stuck out right over his heart. He was busy, getting Max’s attention and pointing back at her. In the eerie silence that followed, Max shouted to her.

  “Athena?”

  She yelled back, “I’m okay. They’re not on the grounds. They’re in the park over there!” Deafened and disoriented by the explosion, she wasn’t sure anybody had heard her before the mortar attack began.

  “Athena, take cover!”

  Max and John spurred into action. They and three others climbed into John’s Range Rover and peeled out of the lot. Athena watched them cut through the grassy field toward the side gate, skirting the mansion’s main driveway and forecourt. One well-armed security guard remained by the assassin and the RPGs, calling on his radio for backup.

  Another explosion sounded on the far side of the mansion, north of their position, closer to the building than the first explosion.

  “Get over by the trees, Miss Butler. Stay down!” The guard collected the assassin’s automatic pistol, tossed it into one of the cases and closed them both up, ignoring the dead assassin at his feet. He placed both cases in John’s Range Rover and then began running, pushing her toward the wall of trees. They had to hop over debris, and one branch tripped her. As she began to fall, he scooped her up and kept her going. Two more explosions hit the north corner of the Mansion.

  Athena could hear the screams of people caught in the middle of the attack as some were arriving in their limos and others were climbing the front entrance’s main staircase. She cowered beside an oak tree while the guard stood nearby, his assault rifle at the ready. His head kept turning from side to side, as though he expected attackers to appear out of nowhere. It was dusk, and shadows merged into each other. The darkness around them made her breathless with dread. It was as if each tree would become an attacker and begin to move.

  As skeptical as her mother was religious, Athena nevertheless closed her eyes and prayed. As hard as she’d ever prayed in her life. Please, God, spare Mum. Spare Father. Spare them all! Don’t let Max get hurt! Or John, or any of them!

  In the distance, she heard gunfire. The lights in the mansion went off. More shouting and screams ensued. More gunfire. One more explosion rocked the mansion. She heard the shattering of glass and the thuds of stone hitting the ground. Then silence. The explosions had stopped.

  The security agent beside her held up his radio as it crackled to life. He listened for a long moment before pulling her to her feet.

  “They got ’em,” the man said with a loud expulsion of breath. “All of ’em. Bloody well done.”

  ****

  Two hours later, Athena found herself riding home in her parents’ rented limousine. She sat between her mother and father, holding their hands, tears running down her cheeks. Chris, looking stiff in his rented tux, sat facing them, his eyes glued to the news helicopters that filled the sky. Their limo exited the Embassy’s main front gate, flanked on both sides by news vans and televisions crews. Photographers snapped flash photos on the site of the now cancelled dinner-dance. Max and his team would debrief the Embassy staff in the morning.

  Athena felt safe for the first time all day. Her little family, cocooned inside the dark limo, was safe. She’d thanked God a hundred times in the past hour since she’d reunited with her parents and Chris.

  “What’s going to happen, Father?”

  Both parents sat, still dazed and exhausted from the evening’s stress and excitement. Fortunately, according to her father, the president, his wife, and the PM and his wife hadn’t even broached the front gate when the first explosions erupted. Decoy limos with the appropriate flags and insignias had drawn the assassins’ fire prematurely, exposing the attackers and their launching site, reaffirming Athena’s warning to Max and John. Meanwhile, the limos and security vehicles of the president and PM had whisked them away and back to the White House grounds. It had all been part of Max’s plan to lure out any assailants on the scene. He hadn’t counted on the first guy, though—the euphonium player. Athena had exposed him, giving the rest of Max’s team a bit of advance time for their counter-attack. All in all, Max said, not a bad op.

  Her parents, standing in the long receiving line, had prepared to seek shelter in the basement along with everyone else standing by the Grand Staircase. In less than a minute, half the law enforcement force on the Embassy grounds had converged at the site in the park where the mortars had been launched. Three attackers were killed outright, another one arrested. Her father expected that the investigation into what had gone wrong would continue for months. But, he wagered, in typical English understatement, that Winston Blake would be compelled to give sufficient insight into the assassination plot.

  The plot that had almost succeeded.

  Her father squeezed her right arm. “Thanks to you, luv, no one was hurt and the damage was minimal.”

  “Who was behind this?” she asked.

  “I can only speculate, Athena. Maybe the Iranians. They hired the terrorist group, Hezbollah, to bomb the American embassy in Beirut in 1984. From what MI-6 has heard, they were behind the Benghazi disaster, when American ambassador Stevens and three other Americans were killed. The Iranians tend to hire other nationals to do their dirty work. Or maybe a Sunni jihadist group, like Al Qaeda or ISIS. They showed me the bodies of the would-be assassins. They all died with the jihadist hand salute, the four-finger Rabiya gesture. Of course, that is no proof, but we’ll find out for certain, rest assured.”

  “Yes, you will, my love,” her mother said softly.

  In the limo’s gloom, she felt her father’s growing fury. He demonstrated the four-finger gesture to her, and it struck a chord. She’d seen that gesture in the first attacker’s mind, as his thoughts skittered to his fellow assassins at the park site. At the time, she didn’t know what it meant.

  “One thing we’ve learned,” her father added, “is that the vetting process held up, but the admittance through the gate did not
. The gate guards should’ve had ID photos in addition to the names. Those two assassins with the band had forged papers but photos vetted by Interpol would’ve prevented them from entering the grounds. The photos from the musicians’ approved substitution list were omitted from the protocol lists, and I have an idea Blake was involved with that oversight. It troubled me, and I alerted Max about it. Still, I should have done more to prevent your involvement.”

  Athena patted her father’s leg. He was blaming himself that Athena had been recruited to help thwart an attack and making a vow that such an attack would never happen again on British sovereign soil. An impossible task, of course, for one man could never live up to such a vow. Her father was also worried that this security failure would alter the upward course of his diplomatic career.

  “I could’ve done more, Father,” Athena murmured lamely. “Maybe to help you vet some of those people. I could’ve helped you with those background checks.”

  “Your mother helped me, luv. She had no way of knowing two musicians would be substituted at the last minute. Without my knowledge, or Max’s knowledge. That was Blake’s doing. We should have taken Blake into custody sooner, but we had no concrete evidence of his betrayal. Just a supposition that an able barrister in a court of law would’ve shot down.”

  Her mother said very quietly, “Let’s just be thankful that no one other than the assassins was killed. There were no serious injuries, either.” Her mother squeezed her hand and leaned back in the limo’s plush seat. Athena knew what she was doing—gleaning telepathically the role her daughter had played leading up to the attack. And so she opened her mind and didn’t block her mother. It was time to reveal everything.

  Athena took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let her mother access some of her memories of Kas but not their intimate five days in the Washington Hotel. She even allowed her mother to feel the wrenching heartbreak caused by Kas’s sham marriage with Alex’s pregnant fiancée.

  Athena nodded solemnly. A moment later, her mother let go and smiled ruefully.