Defense Breach

by Lisa Phillips

  Behind him, the squeak of Skylar’s sneakers on the marble floor was almost a dance. An excited trot, like a horse itching to gallop. She probably wouldn’t like being compared to a horse, but he’d always thought they were majestic, beautiful creatures who were both strong and incredibly vulnerable at the same time.

  “They’re here!”

  He spun, gun raised, to see the second man—Johnson’s friend, Simmons—was back.

  Grady yelled, “Get to the door!”

  Skylar ran for the exit. The man fired, and glass shattered. She screamed and lost her footing for a second.

  Grady fired. The gunman yelped.

  Her momentum carried her away from him. Grady ran to her, grasped her around the waist, and they ran for the door. They were cut off from the exit, but this way could get them to a different door.

  When the gunman followed them, he would probably assume they’d head downstairs. Instead, Grady took her into the East Room, which was on this floor. It essentially trapped them, but Grady needed the element of surprise on his side.

  He held her back with him, out of sight, and heard footsteps approach their position.

  Grady braced for the incoming attack, but as he’d thought, the gunman raced down the stairs.

  Instead of going after the man now, he moved Skylar with him through the East Room. Away from that man. This room was huge and looked like a ballroom. The sparkling chandeliers and gorgeous curtains would be completely out of place anywhere other than here or at Buckingham Palace. If they could get through and back into the entrance hall they’d be able to get out.

  Grady prayed the coast would be clear and then moved her forward toward the Green Room—the same route she’d have taken with the tour. He halted at the first door. The one before the Green Room and which led back to the entrance hall.

  The first door was closed. He didn’t see a shadow under the door. No one was moving out in the hall—not close to this door, anyway. Grady led her to the Green Room. It was a maze of rooms in here, which meant there were plenty of places for a gunman to hide.

  Where was this guy? He kept disappearing, then reappearing.

  Grady glanced back but saw no one following them. He didn’t hear the man who had raced past them and gone downstairs either. The gunshots had stopped. Maybe this Wilson guy had called him off to get back to what they’d really come here to do.

  “…here. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but you had better fix it.” A man’s voice drifted to them from somewhere in the rooms beyond.

  Grady stopped short. That voice sounded familiar. Skylar must have heard it, too, because she didn’t say anything to give away the fact that they were there. Someone was in the Green Room. Or possibly beyond that. He couldn’t tell without looking…and exposing himself to more gunfire.

  “You figure it out. And fast.”

  A second man spoke, a slight English tightness to his words. “If the girl isn’t dead and we don’t get the clock out of here, then not only do none of us get paid but we’ll also be in jail. If she hasn’t already told everyone what she overheard you imbeciles say.”

  Skylar grabbed his vest from behind. He swung around with a look on his face she couldn’t fail to decipher, and mouthed, What?

  She mouthed back, A clock?

  He nodded, but did that matter? This was probably the guy who had shot at her. But Grady couldn’t call it in on his busted radio. They still needed to get outside.

  Was it worth the risk to backtrack and try to head out the same door as before? Or go downstairs?

  More than one man was there. It would be up to him to capture them, exercise or not. He mouthed to Skylar, You need to help me. Two against two would be better.

  She nodded, but there wasn’t much time for a plan. How was he going to do this?

  “What about Johnson?” the first man said. “Your man probably already told them everything.”

  The one with the slight English accent spoke again. “Johnson isn’t your concern. He’s my guy, and I’ll clean up this disaster.”

  “You do realize you’ve messed the whole thing up, right?”

  “We can still use her, though,” the English guy replied. “Make it look like she’s the thief.”

  Skylar sucked in an audible breath. Grady’s chest clenched. Were they talking about her? He didn’t want her here if these men were going to blame everything on her. They needed to get to a door, or a radio at the least.

  “You’ll still have to get rid of Johnson,” the first man said. “Think you can do that without messing it up as well as everything else today?”

  They were going to infiltrate Command and kill Johnson before he could talk? If Grady could call this in, then he could warn the agents in the command post.

  Instead of taking these men down, he needed to get the word out. Keep Skylar safe.

  He motioned behind her, and she got the idea. Together they crept back along the East Room to the front. They’d hit the top of the stairs before the door to the entrance hall. The door to outside.

  He peered out anyway and saw the gunman talking to a Secret Service agent. Who was that? The angle was all wrong, and he could only see the man’s shoulder and one leg from this vantage point.

  The gunman who’d shot at them was nowhere to be found. Instead, the agent spoke with a man dressed as an HVAC repairman. The repairman’s attention snagged on Grady. He said something to his friend.

  The agent ducked out of sight.

  *

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where to?” She’d stayed out of sight but could hear someone in the entrance hall headed their way. The gunman?

  “Downstairs. Now.”

  That was where the other guy had gone. Skylar might not be a full-fledged agent yet, but did it make sense that they were heading toward danger? Or were they essentially pinned from both sides? Either way, she didn’t have much hope they would be able to get out of the White House without her getting hurt.

  Grady tugged her down the stairs she’d ascended as part of the tour. Was he planning on exiting that way, or did he have another idea?

  “We should keep going, right?” she whispered.

  Grady brushed past her. He stopped at the hall at the base of the stairs and listened.

  Skylar glanced back. “He’s coming.”

  She didn’t want to be the female who needed saving, but he was the one with a gun.

  It wouldn’t help her to consider the fact that, yes, she was attracted to him. Grady, with his thick chest and the way he commanded the situation. Definitely not part of her five-year plan. Remember? He should probably intimidate her, he had such a formidable presence, but he didn’t. Still, it couldn’t be denied he was in charge, and he knew it. Which was great for the Secret Service. He was a great agent.

  Not so great for Skylar, her sense of selfpreservation and her broken heart.

  A second later he said, “The hall is clear.”

  He went first and ducked right. Kept his body close to the wall. Skylar did the same as they trotted away from the east exit.

  Had the gunman met up with someone else? Were they lying in wait down here, ready for Skylar and Grady to emerge from their hiding spot so they could pick them off? She shuddered at the thought, tempted to pray they got through this. She felt so exposed with no weapon. She had to rely on Grady. And God.

  “You okay?”

  She opened her eyes. “Just praying.” Or, at least, thinking about it.

  “Oh, good idea,” he said.

  They crept along the hall, their footsteps silent. Focusing on the present helped her not give in to the fear. They had hostiles—real hostiles—running around shooting real bullets, trying to steal from the White House.

  Grady glanced both ways, then shoved her into a room on the ground floor. “Quick.”

  Skylar glanced around and gaped. “What is this place?”

  “Secret Service office.”

  Two desks, on which sat a row of compute
r monitors, and a valance of TVs that hung from the ceiling. All of them were switched on, but the room was empty. Nothing but blank screens—no signal.

  She grasped the first phone. “No dial tone. Just like upstairs.”

  Grady tried one of the computers. “I’ve got nothing here. This isn’t good. If this office has been cleared out, that means the agents in here were captured. No one is trying to get the feeds restored, and no one’s here to take you to Command.”

  He wanted someone else to get her out?

  Why did that bother her? The man was a trained agent. Of course he wanted to get back in there, as it were, and get things fixed.

  Skylar saw a radio on one of the desks and grabbed it. Turned the dial. She put the earbud to her ear. “Listen to this.” Since the door was shut, she pulled the headphones out of the port in the radio on one of the desks and turned up the volume. Not too loud but enough they could both hear it.

  “…surrender immediately.” The voice was male. Authoritative. “The White House is now under my control.”

  Skylar said, “Is that one of the men from upstairs?”

  Grady shook his head. “This guy is American, and he doesn’t sound like the one we heard talking.”

  The voice continued. “I know some of you Secret Service agents are skulking around, still trying to play hero. You will not best me. Surrender is your only option. If you do not give yourselves up in the Yellow Oval Room in the next thirty minutes I will begin killing staff members.”

  The man paused, then a different voice came over the radio. “No, don’t.” It was a woman, though she wasn’t entirely convincing in her desperation. And instead of pleading with the man not to kill her, she said, “Four hostiles! Don’t surrend—”

  The woman cried out.

  “Nice try,” the man said over the radio. He chuckled. “This is fun. I know there are more of you out there. We will ferret you out, and you’ll be taken down. Then we move on to phase two. Out.”

  Grady waited a second, but no more came. He turned to her. “Phase two?”

  She just smiled. For a minute the excitement that the exercise had promised washed over her. “It was a good plan. Too bad it’s ruined now.”

  Grady said, “He almost sounds like a guy who washed out of Secret Service training and went to work for another agency. Now he’s drunk on power, having the time of his life getting back at us.”

  Skylar decided to leave that whole federal agency rivalry alone. She said, “So what are we going to do?”

  He looked at her like she’d surprised him. What? Didn’t he think they should work together on this? She’d thought that was what they were doing. After the shock of thinking her dead only minutes earlier, maybe he didn’t want her anywhere near this. She couldn’t blame him for that. Not really.

  “You’re the agent.” They needed to get out of the White House, right?

  Grady used the radio to call Command and update them about their current location. Then he strode to the wall at the far end and pushed. It clicked and then slid backward.

  She looked inside and gaped. “Seriously, a secret room?”

  He shrugged. “It’s more of a closet.”

  Skylar shifted closer, until she could feel the heat of him in front of her as she practically peered over his shoulder.

  He moved inside the room, barely bigger than a walk-in closet, and began gathering up magazines for a rifle. He loaded the weapon. “This is purely precaution, in case we run into any more of these guys. I don’t want you vulnerable as we make our way to the secondary command post.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “On the street outside. So we load up and roll out. Meet up with Command. The longer we stay here, the greater the risk.”

  “Okay.”

  He handed her a rifle that matched his own. “You good with this?”

  She took the weapon, checked it was loaded and tucked it against her chest. “Top of my class.”

  “Good. Bring the radio. I’ll let them know we’re on the move.”

  Skylar snapped it up and looked around, trying to consider other options. It wasn’t about being scared. She just didn’t want to meet any of those gunmen again.

  The ache in her chest made her wonder exactly how bad the bruise was going to be. Still, she wasn’t dead.

  She wondered if she could she stay here and wait instead. He was supposed to get her to Command, but at what cost? Maybe staying here and hiding was the best course of action. When it was over, he could come back for her.

  Okay, so maybe she was a little bit scared. Who wouldn’t be?

  The door from the hall opened, and a flash grenade rolled into the room. The thing sparked to life faster than either of them could react.

  The bang rattled her eardrums and eclipsed all thought. The flash of light was so bright she blinked, but it was like staring into the sun. Grady clapped his hands over his ears. Skylar did the same.

  Something hard hit the back of her head and she fell to her knees. She was unconscious before she hit the floor.

  FOUR

  Skylar’s shoulders resisted her attempt at moving. She blinked against the lights and her head swam. Yellow walls. The smell of fresh paint wrinkled her nose, and she lifted her head to look around. Her hands had been secured behind her back. Her ankles were zip-tied together as well.

  This was the Yellow Oval Room. Instead of rounding up all the agents, as had been the plan for the exercise, she was the one who’d been brought here. Did someone think she was a Secret Service agent they’d taken hostage? Did these people not know she was supposed to be one of them? They would have been in the same briefing as her—one Johnson and his friend had been part of as well. Had the English guy been there? She tried to remember, but her head was too foggy.

  Skylar shifted from her right side, her shoulder twisted beneath her. She winced and sat up, even though it hurt. A lot. The aftereffects of the grenade? She didn’t realize the disorientation would linger this long. Who had thrown the flash grenade into the Secret Service office?

  Where was…

  Finally able to look behind her, she saw him on the floor. “Grady.”

  His eyes were closed, and he didn’t respond, still unconscious from the attack on them. Was he hurt? Skylar glanced around again, made eye contact with a couple of other bound agents. Saw guys she recognized from the briefing, Homeland Security agents, dressed as HVAC repairmen. And holding guns.

  These guys thought the exercise was still happening. They had no idea about the thieves. Which meant they were likely to follow the script, because they had no idea what was really going on.

  Furniture in the room had been shoved to one side. Covered with drop cloths that looked nicer than the sheets she used on her bed. The chandelier had been taken down. Probably in pieces somewhere, being cleaned.

  She counted five other suited agents on the floor, tied up and sitting around where she and Grady had been tossed. The gunmen had to have tossed her here, or her hip wouldn’t smart like it did. Not defeated, these agents looked ready.

  Across the room the two men paced. Both held semiautomatic rifles and carried radios, neither of which she’d been issued. That was not part of the exercise.

  Skylar gritted her teeth and tried to quit swaying. It was like her equilibrium didn’t know which way was up and which way was down. She racked her brain to try to remember at least one of their names. Phil. No. Will. No, that wasn’t right. Bill? “Billy!”

  Gunman Bill jerked his head around. Okay, so she hadn’t meant to yell that loud. “Hey.” She felt her cheeks flush hot and saw a couple of the agents beside her give her the eye. Whatever for, she didn’t know. “It is Bill, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. But we said no talking.”

  “I didn’t hear that,” she said. “I was unconscious. Sorry. Anyway, I’m Skylar. Maybe you remember me, from the briefing?” She barely took a breath and then kept going, motioning at Grady. “I was with Agent Farrow, but only afte
r one of the other hostiles shot me. With a real gun.”

  One of the agents on the floor snorted.

  Skylar shot the guy a look. “The bullet is still embedded in my vest.” She looked back at their captors, determined to befriend them into releasing her. But she also had to let them know so much of this had gone wrong. “Some of the hostiles and someone called Wilson are all trying to steal a clock.” She waited for them to react but didn’t get much in response. “They’re thieves, and we have to stop them.”

  When they still said nothing, Skylar turned to the other agents on the floor with her. “I’m serious. And now that we’re all occupied—” more like restrained, but she was trying to downplay it “—they could be doing anything right now. Stealing anything.”

  One of the bound agents frowned. “No one gets in the White House without being vetted.”

  She shot him almost the same look back. “I was vetted, but you guys let in an eighty-two-year-old retiree named Agnes Fulford.”

  It wasn’t their fault she’d had expert help. Still, she had a point. They couldn’t assume everything was fine.

  Assuming security was perfect wasn’t going to stop infiltrations from happening. This agent had to know that. Skylar didn’t yet understand all the ins and outs of White House security. That was why she wasn’t assuming it was foolproof. He probably did know all the ins and outs, but what was she supposed to do?

  These Homeland agents dressed as repairmen were maintaining security in this room, so they weren’t going to leave and help them search for potential hostiles. That meant Skylar had to get free and go herself if the Secret Service guys didn’t believe her. Or if they thought this was just another part of the exercise.

  She wanted to scream out her frustration. They would believe Grady, wouldn’t they? These guys just didn’t know her.

  Why wasn’t he awake yet? Had they hit him hard? She couldn’t see any visible injuries. Skylar wanted to pray some more for help but also couldn’t help realizing she actually cared about Grady. She needed him, sure. But if he was hurt because he’d been with her…

  Skylar didn’t like that at all. Whether she was responsible for him being hurt or not.