Dangerous to Know

by Merline Lovelace

  “Good grief! Drug dollars?”

  “It’s possible, and very likely. We’ll have to dig deeper for absolute proof. The mere fact that he failed to disclose the accounts will cost him his office, however.”

  Maggie shook her head. “But what does all this have to do with me? I don’t have any involvement with First Bank. Why did he go to such desperate—?”

  She broke off, her eyes widening. “Luis Esteban! Those phone calls I made for him, hinting at high-level government interest in First Bank! My God, Elliot must gotten wind of the calls and thought I was on to something.”

  “He thought a nameless, faceless special agent with the code name Chameleon was on to something. He had to flush her out. One way or another.”

  Chapter 16

  “We’re here to see the president. I believe he’s expecting us.”

  The White House usher looked a little startled at Adam’s cool announcement. A dubious expression flitted across his face as he took in the gaggle of people ranged behind the special envoy.

  Maggie couldn’t blame the poor man. They constituted a pretty intimidating crew.

  After flying through the night, Air Force Two had landed at Andrews Air Force Base just as a weak January sun washed D.C. in a gray dawn. The entire entourage had piled out of the plane and driven straight into the city. Adam couldn’t have shaken any one of them if he tried.

  Maggie, of course, wanted to be in on the kill.

  Cowboy had come along for backup.

  Denise Kowalski refused to abandon her post.

  Hank McGowan wanted to make sure Taylor was all right.

  Lillian insisted that the vice president, who was flying in from Camp David, would need her help to get ready for the news conference scheduled in less than a half hour to announce the historic treaty.

  And no one could separate Radizwell from Adam without losing a hand or an arm in the process.

  When faced with his newly appointed shadow, Adam had shrugged and stated calmly that the animal had taken down two of Maggie’s attackers. He was as much a part of the team as any of them.

  The usher swallowed as he looked the group over once more. “You’re here to see the president, sir? All of you?”

  “All of us.”

  Radizwell didn’t seem to care for this unnecessary delay. He curled one black gum and issued a warning that made the man’s face pale visibly.

  “If you’ll accompany me, sir.”

  With a measured pace, the usher led the small band through the corridor that connected the White House proper with the semidetached west wing. He stopped before a set of tall wooden doors, one gloved hand on the latch, and gave the uncombed, aromatic sheepdog another doubtful glance.

  “All of us,” Adam repeated firmly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The receptionist rose at their entrance. Giving Radizwell a wide berth, she took their coats and supplied them with coffee. Maggie had just taken a sip of delicious mocha laced with dark chocolate when the double doors opened once more. The vice president strode in, followed by the stony-faced senior agent with the half-chewed ear—Buck Evans.

  “Adam! You’re back!”

  Taylor Grant strode across the patterned carpet, hands outstretched. Her broad smile encompassed the entire group, but her first greeting was for the special envoy.

  “Buck briefed me on the attacks. Are you all right?”

  Adam bent to brush a kiss across her cheek. “We’re fine. Congratulations on the treaty, Madam Vice President. No one but you could have pulled it off. You’re going to make history this morning.”

  She could handle this, Maggie told herself, swallowing a gulp of coffee that suddenly tasted like sludge. She could handle the sight of Adam’s dark head bent over Taylor’s sleek, beautiful one. She could handle it, but she didn’t have to like it.

  Beside her, Hank McGowan stiffened imperceptibly. Maggie caught the slight movement and darted him a quick look. His battered features showed no emotion, but below the rolled-up sleeve of McGowan’s blue work shirt Maggie saw the snarling bear tattooed on his forearm twitch.

  She wasn’t the only one who caught the tiny ripple of movement. Across the room, Denise Kowalski’s brown eyes narrowed as she glanced from McGowan to the vice president.

  Her lips twisting, Taylor released Adam’s hands. “I understand you’re going to make history yourself this morning. You…and Chameleon.”

  She turned to Maggie, and a small shock of surprise widened her eyes when she looked at her alter ego fully for the first time.

  Maggie’s involuntary diet and rather strenuous activities during the past week had altered her face as subtly as her body. Her cheeks had small hollows under their prominent bones…like Taylor’s. Her generous mouth had thinned a fraction…like Taylor’s. She was far closer to a perfect double now than when she’d embarked on this masquerade.

  The vice president quickly mastered her surprise and gave Maggie a sympathetic smile. “I understand I wasn’t the target, after all. It was you all the time.”

  “We think so.”

  “Perhaps we should have reversed our roles. Instead of pouring out my most intimate secrets to a stranger, I could’ve spent a couple of weeks in the mountains with Adam, acting as your double.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Taylor blinked at the drawled response, and Maggie saw that her message had been received. No one, not even the vice president of the United States, was going to be spending any weeks with Adam Ridgeway. In the mountains or anywhere else.

  Except Maggie.

  Smiling, she took a sip of her mocha coffee while Taylor greeted the rest of the entourage. She gave Lillian a quick hug, then gasped aloud.

  “Radizwell!”

  Maggie swung around to see the sheepdog calmly lowering his leg. Having marked his territory to his satisfaction on the delicate hand-painted eighteenth-century wallpaper, he moved on to explore the rest of the office.

  Taylor’s violet eyes squeezed shut. “I’m going to skin that animal,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m going to skin him and tan him and use him as a throw rug.”

  Shaking her head in disgust, she summoned the dog. “Come here! Here, boy.”

  The komondor ignored her.

  Adam snapped his fingers once.

  Radizwell obediently plodded to Adam’s side and settled back on his haunches with a satisfied air. He’d seen his duty, and he’d done it.

  Taylor’s auburn brows shot up, but before she could comment, the door to the inner office opened.

  The chief of staff stepped out, his eyes widening as he looked from Taylor to Maggie, then back again.

  “Madam Vice President…er, Madams Vice President, the president will see you now. And you, of course, Mr. Special Envoy. He’s asked the secretary of the treasury to join you in a few moments, as you requested.”

  Adam stood aside to allow the women to precede him. Taylor took one step, then stopped and stood aside for Maggie. “This is your show. You have the honors.”

  Nodding graciously, Maggie sailed into the Oval Office.

  After the gut-wrenching tension and chilling events of the past few days, Maggie would have expected the moment the perpetrator was finally unmasked to be one of high drama.

  Instead, James Elliot’s face turned ashen the moment he stepped into the Oval Office and saw her standing beside Taylor. When a shaken president confronted his longtime friend with evidence of his failure to disclose ties to a bank with links to a Central American drug cartel, Elliot seemed to collapse in on himself, like a hot-air balloon when the air inside the silk bag cools.

  Under Adam’s relentless questioning, Elliot admitted everything, including his desperate attempt to silence the woman known only as Chameleon.

  Maggie’s nails bit into her palms when the man who had wanted to kill her wouldn’t even look at her.

  “She had to die,” he whispered, in a remorseless confession to the president. “That was the best soluti
on. The only solution. I didn’t know how much she knew. Just the tiny scrap of information linking First Bank to the frozen assets of the Cartozan drug lord was enough to bring my whole world tumbling down if she followed up on it. She had to die.”

  “Get him out of here,” the president said in disgust.

  A grim-faced Denise Kowalski was given the distinction of arresting her own boss. She walked into the Oval Office, flashed Elliot her badge and advised him of his rights. With Buck Evans on one side and Denise on the other, the former secretary of the treasury departed.

  For long moments, no one moved. Then the president shoved a hand in the pocket of his charcoal gray slacks and walked over to the tall windows facing south. He stared at the stark obelisk of the Washington Monument rising out of the mists drifting off the tidal basin.

  “Christ! Jimmy Elliot!”

  His shoulders slumped, and the indefatigable energy that characterized both him and his administration seemed to evaporate.

  Adam’s eyes met those of the vice president. She gave a slight nod, then addressed the man at the window with remarkable calm.

  “You have a press conference in ten minutes, Mr. President. Do you want to go over the treaty provisions a final time, or do you feel comfortable with them?”

  The president squared his shoulders. Turning, he gave his deputy a tight smile.

  “No, the brief you sent me from Camp David was excellent.” He paused, and then his smile eased into one of genuine warmth. “I still can’t believe you pulled this treaty off. Good work, Taylor. Whatever the hell bad choices I might have made, when I picked you, I picked a winner.”

  “I’ll remind you of that when you get ready to announce your support for your successor,” she replied, laughing.

  “You do that!”

  Walking across the room, he held out his hand to Maggie. “I’m sorry you had to go through this torturous charade.”

  “I’m not. The assignment had its finer moments. Besides,” she continued smoothly, ignoring Adam’s raised brows, “it was all in the line of duty.

  “A duty I understand you do extremely well. The director has told me that you’re good. Damn good. One of the best.”

  “The best,” Adam said coolly.

  Maggie flashed him a startled look. His eerie echo of her exact words to Cowboy surprised her, until she remembered the transmitter in her ring. Adam must have heard the entire conversation, including the part about her decision to leave OMEGA!

  From the steely expression in his eyes, she knew that this mission’s postbrief was going to make all her others seem tame by comparison.

  “We’ll have to talk about that later,” the president said, with a smile for Maggie. “Right now, I have a press conference to conduct. Adam, if you’ll stay just a moment, please?”

  Some moments later, Maggie stood in the wings beside Adam and Taylor Grant as a composed and forceful chief executive strode to the podium in the White House briefing room. His back straight, he glanced around the packed auditorium. Ignoring the clear Plexiglas TelePrompTer in front of the podium, he addressed the assembled group directly.

  “I called this press conference to announce a historic treaty, one that constitutes the first positive step toward eliminating a scourge that hangs over our world.”

  He paused, his jaw squaring. “But before I give you the details on this treaty, I have another, less pleasant duty to perform. I regret to say that a few moments ago I was forced to request the immediate resignation of James Elliot, my treasury secretary, for reasons I’m not yet at liberty to discuss.”

  A wave of startled exclamations filled the room. The president waited for them to die down before continuing.

  “I can tell you, however, that I’ve already selected his replacement. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce my nominee for secretary of the treasury, Adam Ridgeway.”

  Stunned, Maggie lifted her eyes to the man beside her. She heard the spatter of applause that quickly rolled into thunder. And the hum of excited comments from the audience. And Taylor’s warm congratulations. But none of them registered. All that penetrated her whirling mind was the glint in Adam’s eyes as he tipped her chin.

  “We’ll talk about this, among other things, when we get back to headquarters,” he promised.

  “Our list of items to discuss is getting pretty long,” she replied breathlessly.

  He kissed her, hard and fast and thoroughly, then strode out to join the president at the podium.

  Dazed, Maggie listened to his brief acceptance and the easy way he fielded the storm of questions from the media.

  A welter of emotions coursed through her. She couldn’t imagine OMEGA without Adam Ridgeway as director. He’d guided the organization and its tight cadre of agents and technicians for so long, with such unerring skill. In her mind, Adam was OMEGA.

  At the same time, Maggie swelled with pride. She couldn’t think of anyone more qualified for a cabinet post than this man.

  And she wouldn’t have been human if a thrill of excitement hadn’t darted through her veins. Adam’s promotion meant she didn’t have to leave OMEGA. He wouldn’t be her boss any longer. What he would be was something they would discuss as soon as they got back to the headquarters. Anticipation and joy leaped through her.

  Knowing Adam would be mobbed by the media even after the treaty announcement to follow, Maggie decided to slip away. She wanted to be out of Taylor’s skin and in her own when she and Adam met again. For once, Chameleon wanted no guises, no cover, nothing to hide her from the man she loved.

  Her pulse thrumming, she turned to leave.

  Taylor stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I didn’t thank you. For being me when I was the target. Even though it was you… Well, you know what I mean.”

  Maggie’s quicksilver grin blossomed. “It gets confusing, doesn’t it? Half the time I wasn’t even sure just who the heck I was.”

  The other woman’s eyes gleamed. “It doesn’t appear Adam had that problem.”

  “No, I guess he didn’t.”

  “He’ll make an excellent secretary of the treasury. And I think you’d make an excellent special envoy.”

  For the second time in less than ten minutes, Maggie was dumbfounded. “Me?”

  “You. We don’t have enough women with your rather unique qualifications in leadership positions. I’ll talk to the president about it.”

  “While you’re at it,” Maggie replied, still astounded but regrouping fast, “you might mention establishing a commission to—”

  She stopped, too anxious to get back to headquarters to take the time to explain the public potty proclamation she’d issued at the Kennedy Center.

  “Never mind, I’ll talk to you about it later. Right now I have to change back into me. I want to be wearing my own skin when I claim my forever.”

  A smile feathered Taylor’s lips. “Your forever? That’s nice.”

  “It’s from your ring.”

  At her blank look, Maggie held up her hand. “The inscription in your wedding ring. Now, and forever.”

  “What are you talking about? There’s no inscription in my ring.”

  Chapter 17

  On the outside, the elegant Federal-style town house on a quiet side street just off Massachusetts Avenue appeared no different than its neighbors. Neatly banked snow edged the brick steps leading to its black-painted door. A brass knocker in the shape of an eagle gleamed in the cold afternoon sunlight. The bronze plaque that identified the structure as home to the offices of the president’s special envoy was small and discreet, drawing the attention of few passersby.

  Inside, however, the town house hummed with an activity level that would have astounded even the most jaded observer of the Washington political scene.

  Raking fingers through hair newly restored to its original glossy chestnut color, Maggie stepped out of the third-floor crew room into a control center crackling with noise. Joe Samuels’s banks of electronic boxes buzzed and
beeped and blipped continually as the harried senior communications technician fielded a steady stream of transmissions from all corners of the globe. Word of the president’s startling announcement had been beamed to OMEGA agents in the field, and they wanted to know the details. All the details.

  “Roger, Cyrene,” Joe said into the transmitter. “It’s true. The confirmation hearings are scheduled for next week. There are going to be some changes around here.”

  His dark eyes caught Maggie’s. “A lot of changes,” he added, grinning.

  Maggie shook her head at his knowing grin. She’d only been back from the White House a little over two hours. Most of that time had been spent with Jaguar in a closed-door mission debrief, the rest in a fever of anticipation in the crew room, working frantically to restore herself to her natural state.

  She hadn’t had time to discuss with anyone, let alone the still-absent Adam, any of the several urgent items on her list. Yet OMEGA’s global network had already spread the word. There were going to be some changes around here. A lot of them.

  Joe answered another beep, then nodded to Maggie over his bank of equipment. “Chief’s on the way back from the White House, Chameleon. Be here in fifteen minutes. Think he’ll have any news for us?”

  Maggie sidestepped Joe’s less-than-subtle probe to discover what she knew, if anything, about Adam’s replacement. The idea that she might actually be named to head OMEGA was too fantastic to consider. Besides, she had more important matters to take care of right now.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, heading for the elevator. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything for sure.”

  She took the specially shielded high-speed elevator to the underground lab and bearded the chief of Special Devices in his den.

  “I need that special lubricant, Harry. Right away.”