Athena Force 7-12

by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees

  She had no doubt he would’ve, too. No wonder her mother had been wild and stubborn with this man for a father-in-law.

  “Exactly how were you planning to walk me out of here past all those guys out there?” she asked.

  “That’s the thing. We’re not going past them.” He nodded at the hidden door.

  “Surely those guys out there know about that connecting door. They’ll have agents posted outside the adjoining office.”

  “Well,” her grandfather drawled, “I had a little chat with the Director when I got here, and he arranged for there not to be agents on the door that opens to a separate hallway that runs behind the adjoining office.”

  “We’re going to escape?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Yup. Just like the good old days.” He was grinning like a mischievous six-year-old.

  “What about the security cameras? The hallways are lined with them!”

  “Not being monitored for the next—” he glanced at his watch “—four minutes. It really is time to go.”

  “If those guys in the outer office figure out what we’re doing, they’ll shoot to kill! If—and that’s a big if—we manage to make it out of the building, they’ll put out an APB on us so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  “Nah. Think how foolish they’ll look when they finally get into this office and there’s nobody inside. You’ll have vanished into thin air. They can’t very well put out an APB on an invisible woman.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “They won’t put out the APB because you’re going to take down Collin Scott, and they won’t want to draw any more attention to him and the reason for what happens to him than they have to.”

  “Ah, my girl, you’d be a natural in the agency. Can I possibly tempt you to transfer over here from Defense Intelligence?”

  “Not on your life. You can keep all these political games and maneuvering. They make my head hurt.”

  He guffawed. “And that’s why you’re a conspiracy theorist, right? You like to think about simple, straightforward things.”

  She grinned back at him. “Exactly.”

  He knelt down and began picking up the scattered S.A.F.E. documents. “We’d better take this stuff with us, don’t you think?”

  She knelt down and began helping him. “Definitely. We wouldn’t want there to be an unfortunate accident with a paper shredder.”

  In a few seconds, they’d gathered up all the papers and stuffed them back into their red file.

  “Better stick that under your coat,” her grandfather advised. “If someone sees you leave the building with a red file, you could get into big trouble.”

  She replied dryly, “That will be the least of my problems if we’re stopped on the way out of the building.”

  “True. Here. Put this on. Just in case we run into anybody in a hallway.” Her grandfather held out a light brown wig to her. It was a chin-length pageboy-shaped thing, not terribly different from her own hair, but its smooth shape and chestnut color were enough off that nobody would give her a second glance.

  She tucked the last of her wavy, golden locks under it. “How do I look?”

  “Not nearly as pretty as my granddaughter,” he replied.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  She followed him to the hidden panel and stepped through it into a darkened office. Light and noise came from the other side of the door as some of the security team from next door spilled over into the outer office of this suite. She and Gramps moved quietly across the carpeted floor, toward another door on the opposite side of the office. Yup, just as she’d thought. Her grandfather moved with the grace and stealth of a cat. The old guy must have been something else in his prime.

  She waited in the shadows behind him as he opened the second exit silently. He glanced both directions down the hall, then gestured for her to follow him. They slipped outside. She walked beside him, moving purposefully, but without undue haste that might draw attention to them.

  They wound down hallway after hallway, moving ever farther from the front door and the fiasco behind them. They went down an elevator and stepped out into a small vestibule.

  “If each of us doesn’t swipe an ID card as we leave, it’s going to set off an alarm. We’ll have to run for my car once we get out of here,” he instructed in a low murmur.

  “I can do you one better than that,” she murmured back. She fished Samantha’s ID card out of her coat pocket and dangled it from her fingers.

  Gramps shook his head admiringly. “Lockworth, through and through.”

  They duly swiped their ID cards and stepped out into a dim parking garage. Perhaps twenty feet away, a limousine lurked in a dark shadow, its long, sleek shape menacing. Pantherlike.

  They moved over to it swiftly, and the rear passenger door opened from inside as they approached it. Someone was inside waiting for them? Startled, Diana ducked into the vehicle and slid across the leather seat to make room for Gramps, who was close behind her.

  “Let’s go, Jens,” he said into an intercom before the door was even fully closed.

  The vehicle pulled out smoothly while Diana’s eyes adjusted to the dark interior, lit only by a few small running lights along the floor. Not only was there one someone inside the limo, there were five someones.

  She jolted as a voice said out of the darkness, “Hi, honey. Are you all right?”

  “Mom? What in the world are you doing here?”

  “You know us Lockworths. We stick together. I was with your grandfather when you called his hotel room. As soon as the call came in that you’d just gone into the CIA building, and we realized you were probably in trouble or about to be in trouble, wild horses couldn’t have stopped me from coming along.”

  So that explained how Gramps had gotten to the CIA building minutes after she broke into Scott’s office. She leaned forward and squeezed her mother’s hand. “Thanks. That means a lot to me.”

  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 g
aped 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 glo
ves 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.