by Radclyffe
Wordlessly, Blair nodded. The course of their days, it appeared, had already been charted. As had so often been the case throughout her life, she had no choice but to commit to the journey. And this time, with her lover by her side, she hoped that she would not lose herself along the way. "When are you leaving?"
"As soon as I shower."
A half hour later, Blair walked Cam to the private entryway that the first family used to come and go without the scrutiny of the ever-present press.
"You'll call me?"
"Of course." Cam looked past Blair back into the White House. A guard stood ten feet away, staring in their direction but appearing to register nothing about their actions or conversation. She glanced over her shoulder to the expansive gardens, noting the distant sound of traffic. Her shoulders tightened.
"What's wrong?" Blair asked.
Cam shrugged and grinned ruefully. "We haven't been apart for a long time. It makes me uneasy."
Blair smiled. "Sometimes, Commander, you say the most wonderful things."
"I love you." Cam leaned forward in full view of the uniformed officer and kissed Blair softly. "See you soon."
Blair put both arms around Cam's neck and pressed against her. "Be careful."
Cam kissed her again. "You too."
*
The ground shook as a bomb detonated, and then she heard the thunder of incoming fire. The roar filled her head, so thick she couldn't breathe. She ran for cover, the smell and sound of destruction engulfing her. The air was a thick black blanket, nearly impenetrable. She ran blind, one arm stretched out in front of her, praying she wouldn't stumble down a dead-end alley or under the wheels of a vehicle. The whine of high-velocity projectiles assaulted her eardrums, and she knew with absolute certainty that she was going to die.
Renee Savard lurched to her feet, her weapon in her hand, and pivoted in an unsteady circle, searching for the enemy. She banged her shin on the edge of the coffee table, and the deep, sharp pain brought her fully awake. Still, the rattle of gunfire persisted until she snatched up her cell phone, its digital readout marking its place on the floor by the sofa.
"Savard," she croaked. The room was dark. The night outside the windows was black. She fumbled on the side table and finally found the lamp switch. The light hurt her eyes.
"Are you busy?"
"What?" Her blazer lay in a crumpled ball just inside the entrance to the apartment she shared with Stark. What the hell?
"Renee?"
"What? Who? Paula?"
"Hey, did I wake you?"
"No. I just...I just walked in." When had she left the search zone and come back to the apartment? When had she fallen asleep? "Sorry."
"Is everything all right?" Stark's voice was quietly cautious.
"Yes. Sure." Savard stared at her left hand. Her fingers were clenched around her service weapon. Jesus. Quickly, she holstered her weapon and sank down onto the sofa. "What time is it there?"
"It's seven thirty. The same time as it is where you are. Renee? What's going on?"
Savard scrubbed an unsteady hand over her face and took a long breath. She forced a lightness she did not feel into her voice. "Nothing. Just lost my watch. I'm always a little disoriented when I don't have it."
"You're done for the night now, right?"
Done for the night. When had been the last time she'd been off duty? She'd left DC before sunup, reported in at the local field office in Manhattan, and gone straight back to Ground Zero. Search teams were still scouring the massive area of destruction, still hoping for survivors even while gathering evidence of the unimaginable damage. She and her fellow agents were still at the stage of gathering physical evidence, and everyone was working frantically while trying to deny the devastating knowledge that they had failed. She hadn't slept in three days.
"Right. I'm off shift."
"Look, you sound really beat. Why don't you call me back after you've had a chance to unwind."
"No, hey. I want to talk to you." Savard struggled to call up the image of the woman who had touched her just hours before and made her feel alive, of the tender lover who had held her in the night and helped her forget the fear. Love and gratitude for that woman hammered against the wall of despair that had somehow appeared around her in the last seventy-two hours. She knew the emotions were there even though she couldn't feel them all the way inside. But she clung to the memories nevertheless. "How are you?"
"You're sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Come on, sweetheart, tell me about your day." Just talk to me. Just let me hear your voice.
"Well, I've got some news."
"What?"
"The commander and the entire team are under investigation for what happened at the Aerie. They've all been suspended."
Savard straightened, her weary mind suddenly clear. "You've got to be kidding. That's ridiculous. Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry."
"Not me, honey. I'm the only one they didn't suspend."
"Why not? I mean, I'm glad, but why not you too?"
Even through the phone line, Stark's voice conveyed her lingering astonishment. "I'm Egret's new security chief."
"Oh my God. God, Paula. Congratulations."
"I guess."
"That's incredible. I'm so proud of you." Savard felt it then, the swell of love and pride and tenderness, and close behind it, a rush of relief. Somewhere inside, she was still alive. "I love you."
"Oh man, I love you too. So much. I miss you."
"Same here, sweetie. I—wait a second, I've got another call." Savard looked at the number on the screen. "I'm going to have take this. It's a scramble."
"Okay. Look, call me when you can, okay?"
"I will. I love you." Savard switched to the second line. "Savard."
"This is Cameron Roberts."
"Commander. How are you?"
"Fine. I'd like to see you."
"Of course. When?"
"How about now?"
Savard pushed her fatigue and the pain of the last few days into the recesses of her consciousness where she kept all the other horrors she'd witnessed over the years. "Certainly."
Chapter Eight
C am slowly circled the rental car around Gramercy Park. Blair's building was dark, as she had expected.
"What's, the security situation?" she inquired of Savard, who had been silent for the short trip across town from Stark's apartment.
"What? Oh." Savard straightened and cleared her throat. "There isn't any."
"No one is detailed to watch the building?" Cam pulled to the curb around the corner from the entrance. "Didn't anyone consider that whoever ordered the assault might be just as interested as we are in what was left behind? Or that a second team might be waiting for Blair to return?"
"I don't know, Commander. I was pulled off the investigation the first day."
"Right." Cam fought back her anger at still further corroboration that this investigation would inevitably take a backseat to the greater threat of another terrorist attack. Added to that was the complete disruption of business as usual at the highest levels and the inevitable preoccupation of those in charge with what was sure to be a long siege of finger-pointing as to exactly which agency was responsible for the nation being taken by surprise. Still, seeing the clear lapse in protocol was a cold reminder that she couldn't count on anyone else to ensure Blair's safety. "Let's not assume that just because we aren't watching the building, no one else is. Is the rear door functional?"
"The door's there, but I'm not sure about the stairs. They blew the fire door from the lobby to the stairwell."
Cam remembered the thud of plastic explosives and the grating scream of twisting metal as she'd shepherded Blair out of the building toward the waiting vehicles. The men behind them had been so close, and Blair had been so vulnerable. A trickle of sweat snaked between her shoulder blades despite the cool night air. "Let's have a look. We'll walk south a couple of blocks, track back on Second Avenue, and approach the rear
from the east."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Wait for me to come around." Cam stepped out of the car and walked to the passenger side, then leaned down and opened Savard's door. She'd worn jeans and a leather jacket to travel in and hoped that to anyone watching they would look like a couple headed out for an evening date. She extended her hand. "Just pretend we're together."
With Savard's hand in hers, Cam turned her back to Blair's building and walked south on Irving Place. Savard's fingers were like ice in hers, and she saw Savard shiver. Although the September night was chilly, she did not think it was the cold that bothered her companion. "The Bureau must be pushing hard on the evidence-gathering at the site."
"Every available agent is there."
"Working around the clock, I guess," Cam said mildly as she turned east several blocks later.
"Pretty much."
Savard spoke in a monotone, her usually animated expression flat. Cam resisted the sudden urge to put her arm around Savard's shoulders. Something told her the action might be welcome, but possibly more contact than Savard was ready to handle. She knew from experience that there were times when the only way to get beyond pain was to walk through it, unshielded and alone. "I'm going to need you to take me through the scene tonight. You were one of the first responders, and you saw it fresh. I'm going to need to see what you saw, smell what you smelled, feel what you felt—every detail. Can you do it?"
"Yes." Savard met Cam's questioning gaze. Even with her face illuminated only by the streetlights, the feverish intensity in her eyes was clear. "Yes. Yes, I can do it."
Cam nodded once as they turned north again. A few minutes later, they walked down the narrow access alley that ran the length of the block behind Blair's building. The turnaround where Mac and Felicia had parked the Suburbans was littered with the detritus of a hasty medical evacuation that marked the spot where Mac had lain shot and bleeding. Where Cam had left him to fend for himself while she took Blair to safety. She pulled a small, powerful Mag-Lite from the inside pocket of her leather jacket and shone it on the ground. While Savard watched, she walked the perimeter of the scene and then crisscrossed the area in a methodical grid, examining every square foot of concrete as she moved.
"The team from Quantico has been over this, Commander," Savard observed quietly.
"Uh-huh."
At one point, she squatted down and brushed her hand over the surface of the concrete. The stain from Mac's blood yielded no answers. She stood, clicked off her light, and pocketed it. "Let's go inside."
The steel security door was dented and the brick surrounding it for fifteen feet was pockmarked from the storm of bullets Cam, Stark, Felicia, and Mac had fired at the assailants. Cam's gaze swept over the bullet marks, her face registering nothing, as she fit her key card into the lock. The door opened and they stepped inside. Cam switched on her light and played it over the stairwell. Bits of plaster, shards of metal, and other debris from the explosion one floor up covered the stairs, but they were passable.
"You go ahead." Cam instructed, playing the light ahead of them as they climbed. Their footsteps in the cavernous space were a distant echo of the automatic weapons fire that had followed her down the same stairs only days before. Once in the lobby, she walked directly to the spot where Cynthia Parker had fallen. Traces of her blood remained on the scuffed tiles. Turning toward the entrance, Cam assessed the distance and knew that the assailants' plan had included eliminating the Secret Service agent on duty Tuesday morning. The security desk where Parker had been stationed was too far from the front entrance for any other scenario to have been possible. Parker had been lucky to get off a shot at all, and it was a testament to her skill that she had actually taken down one member of the assault team. They had come into the building planning to kill her, and they had known exactly where she would be positioned. Fury settled in Cam's stomach like a stone. Someone had set her people up to die, and it had taken more than a rogue Secret Service agent to do it.
"Okay—tell me what you saw when you arrived. The position of the bodies, what type of weapons, the amount of ammo the attackers carried, communication devices—-all of it."
As Savard recounted her observations in a steady unwavering tone, Cam played her light over the area as if highlighting action on a stage. Once or twice she asked Savard to repeat a detail.
"Who has the tapes from the security camera up there?" Cam asked as she illuminated the corner opposite the front entrance.
"All the tapes are at the regional office."
Cam nodded. "I want them."
"Commander—"
Cam angled the light between them so that their faces flickered in shadow as their eyes met. "I'm going to run this investigation, and in order to do that, I plan on getting all the information there is, no matter who has it. I want you on the team."
Savard's lips parted in surprise. "But the World Trade Center—"
"Is critically important, I know that. And I know that you want to be part of it. But the attack on Blair Powell was a threat to national security too, and"—Cam shone her light on the dark brown stain where Cynthia Parker had lain dying—"this is personal. Parker deserves justice too." She studied Savard's face and saw her pale even in the gloom. She didn't have to say that this could easily have been Paula Stark's blood flaking like so much rust-colored paint on the floor. "They came after us where we live, Savard. We can't let that happen again."
"No, ma'am," Savard said softly. "We can't."
They moved through the lower floors quickly. The apartments were all corporate rentals and infrequently occupied by business executives in the city for short stays.
"We'll need a list of anyone who stayed here in the last year, and another search on all property owners. The FBI databases should be good for that," Cam noted.
"Got it," Savard replied.
In the command center, Cam halted in surprise when she saw all the computers still present and humming quietly on standby. "Who the hell was in charge of this field operation? Didn't they realize that our computers might have been hacked for some of the information the perpetrators needed to carry out their operation? They might have left a trail."
Savard shook her head. "It's been crazy, Commander. We haven't been able to put together a cohesive team since Tuesday. Agents keep getting pulled to different shifts, the SACs are being shuffled around and no one knows why, and everyone is paranoid that they were the ones that missed some key bit of information that would have tipped us to Tuesday. Especially those of us who were in the counterterrorism squad."
"The CTS was established to analyze and coordinate data, not gather intelligence. There's a huge difference, and we all know that," Cam said. "You guys weren't to blame."
"But that's not going to make any difference now," Savard said solemnly.
"No, probably not." Cam dialed a number on her cell phone from memory. "Are you still in the city? I've got a job for you.. .tonight. I need you to strip out the hard drives from the computers in command central and anything else that might help us find out what happened here." Cam listened, then laughed softly. "Low-profile...yeah, you might say that. It could get dicey. You sure?.. .1 don't know. For now, why don't you take it all home with you."
Cam pocketed her phone and grinned at Savard, a grin completely devoid of humor. "We have another team member."
"Should I ask?"
"Soon enough." Cam took one last look around, knowing that they might never be returning to the command center again. The entire security system had been compromised. In all likelihood, Blair would need to find a new home. "I want to go up to the Aerie. I need to see what kind of shape it's in before she does."
"Her paintings.. .I made sure no one touched them."
For the first time since they'd walked together like lovers, Cam touched Savard's shoulder. "Thank you. If you don't mind waiting down here..." She handed over her Mag-Lite. "Here, take this."
"No, there's plenty of light from the window. You'll need it ups
tairs. I'll be fine, Commander."
"You will be," Cam said gently. "I'll be right back."
Five minutes later she stood in the doorway of Blair's apartment, Foster's blood a Rorschach print of anger and regret beneath her feet. She looked into the loft and remembered the first time she'd stepped across the threshold and confronted the first daughter. Blair had been angry, aggressive, and alluringly seductive. Cam had tried for months to pretend that she hadn't felt the sharp spike of attraction the instant she'd seen her. But the more she'd tried to deny it, the stronger the attraction had become, and the more time she'd spent with Blair, the faster her attraction turned to something far deeper. Now, she thought of the woman she loved and the conspiracy that had been hatched by nameless individuals to destroy her, and she felt the mantle of resolve settle on her shoulders. Beneath it seethed the desire for retribution, and at the heart of her, a clearer, cleaner paean for justice. But what drove her, and what would drive her until the danger had been annihilated, was the pure and simple fury that someone would try to take from her what mattered most.
She switched off her light and whispered into the darkness. "You made a mistake when you chose her. Get ready, because I'm coming for you."
*
Diane Bleeker opened the door to her apartment clothed in the deep burgundy silk dressing gown that Cam remembered with graphic clarity. The subtly curvaceous blond with a mouth made for kissing smiled a slow, sultry smile as she leaned with one hip cocked and an elegant arm stretched out to the door. Her breasts slid under the silk like shadows beneath the surface of a still pond on a hot summer's day, and after one involuntary glance, Cam kept her eyes firmly fixed on Diane's laughing blue ones.
"Why, Commander, to what do I owe the pleasure of this late-night visit?"
"I'm sorry I didn't call ahead," Cam began, then stopped suddenly as another figure moved into her range of vision. Another blond, this one cool where Diane was hot, remote where Diane was tantalizingly available, and one, Cam knew, capable of rendering a woman helpless with lust and need. "Hello, Valerie."
"Hello, Cameron."