Lady Liberty

by Vicki Hinze

  “Frankly, sir, I could beat him to death and he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “What do you recommend we do, then?”

  “The only thing left to do, sir.” Jonathan met Sybil’s gaze. “Hope the engineers are wrong, that Austin somehow tricked the launch system, and try the key that’s configured to open the inner hub. It’s all we’ve got.”

  “Keep the line open.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  In the viewing room, Sybil and Jonathan sat down in the soundproof booth. Max’s voice fed in through the intercom. “Ready?”

  Jonathan pressed the button on the desktop. “Go, Max.”

  The clip played. Mendoza sat at the launch control desk. Cap stood in the hub, requested the reports, walked to the mail chute, inspected it, returned to the desk, and then walked out. The lockdown alarms sounded, the door slammed shut, and Mendoza breached protocol, left his seat and searched frantically for the launch key—and didn’t find it. “Air vent. Something… oh, God!” He beat against the door, slamming his fist against the panel again and again, trying to force it open. Then, in seemingly slow motion, he slumped against the wall, slid down to the floor, and died.

  Sybil did her damnedest to snuff out emotion and observe with analytical objectivity, but failed. God rest his soul.

  Jonathan was on the phone with Conlee. “Run a chemical check on the inner hub.”

  “It’s not a nerve agent,” Sybil said. She’d seen the impact of nerve agents on Iraq footage. Mendoza had died an easier death.

  “It’s been done. Carbon monoxide was off the scale. We’ve flushed it,” Jonathan relayed to Sybil, then hung up the phone.

  “We have proof now that Mendoza was murdered.”

  “But we don’t have the key” Jonathan stood up. “So do we go with what we’ve got?”

  She nodded. “We have no choice.”

  They walked down the hallway and into the outer rim. A small cluster of people had gathered at the door to the inner hub. The secure-device machines taunted her, and Sybil looked over at Conlee. “Get Austin plugged in for me, Commander. I have to try just one more time.” Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes.

  A moment later Austin’s voice came through the transmitter. “I’m not going to tell you, Sybil.”

  “The willingness to die and dying are two different things,” she reminded him, memories of Mendoza fresh in her mind. “Who in hell are you trying to impress?”

  “Don’t be absurd. I’m not trying to impress anyone.”

  “Where is the key, Austin?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Liar.”

  “Sybil, I’m sincere. I don’t know.”

  “Maybe I can assist your memory.” She clenched her fist, glared at the door to the inner hub. “We are going to survive this. You will be tried and convicted. That leaves you staring into the eyes of a lethal injection. If we have to change the law to make that happen, I’ll do it. And, so help me God, Austin, I’m going to be the person holding the damn needle. Do you hear me? The last thing you’ll see in this world is me holding the needle.”

  He hung up on her.

  “Oh, God, no. No.” Shaking, she looked up at Jonathan. “He really doesn’t know.”

  “Then who does?”

  An airman ran over with a little Ziploc bag and handed it to Jonathan. “Senator Marlowe said to put this into your hands, Agent Westford.”

  “What is it?” Sybil asked.

  Jonathan took a look. “The Band-Aid that came off your finger in Geneva.”

  “But we ran it through our lab,” Conlee said.

  They had. Sybil looked at Conlee. “I take it this means ET is one of ours.”

  Conlee didn’t confirm the suspicion, but he didn’t deny it, either.

  ET had let her live. That night in the swamp, hidden beneath the bushes near the helicopter. The pennies. Of course. And he’d let them know that Ballast had managed to intercept matter being transferred from one field operative to another. They needed to alter their current methods.

  Evidently Gregor Faust wasn’t the only one infiltrating high ranks. ET was Faust’s second-in-command. He was also an SDU or CIA agent. And with the pennies, he had finally gotten them a positive ID on Gregor Faust. Sybil hoped Ken and Linda Dean somehow knew that.

  Richard Barber arrived, looking pale and sweaty and scared stiff. Hell, they were all scared stiff. No one, with the exception of Austin, wanted to die. “Over here, Barber,” Sybil called out to him.

  “I don’t understand this. Why do you need me here?”

  “Austin used your DNA. His personal way of thanking you for all your insights on me. Did you share anything classified?”

  “I’d never do that!”

  “I’m glad you have some principles, even if loyalty to the current administration isn’t one of them.”

  “I don’t like you.”

  “I’m irrelevant, Richard. You promised to protect the office, and you didn’t do it.”

  That remark hit him like a cold slap of water, and his indignant expression crumbled. “No. No, I guess I didn’t.”

  “Well, you’re lucky. You get a chance to atone and ease the burden on your conscience.”

  He clearly hated the sound of that. And feared it. “How?”

  “You get to open the inner hub,” Sybil said to him, and then spoke to the president. “David, we have three minutes. We’re out of options, so we’re going with the key we have. Austin could have used it for both the inner hub and the launch key”

  “What if he didn’t?”

  “We don’t have anything else to try.”

  “Barber, get over here,” Conlee called him to the secure device at the wall.

  Sybil paused and faced Jonathan. She couldn’t let him die not knowing he was loved. “Jonathan, I—”

  “I know,” he interrupted, touched her cheek. “So do you.”

  Looking into his eyes, how could she not know? She nodded.

  “Madam Vice President?” The Commander said.

  “Right here.” She moved to Barber’s side.

  “Here’s the key,” Conlee said, then shouted back over his shoulder. “Lieutenant Gibson, run a countdown for us, please.”

  “One minute, fifty-five seconds.”

  “Go ahead and bleed, Barber,” Sybil said.

  He pricked his thumb with the lancelet, pressed its bleeding tip against the absorbent pad.

  Sybil held her breath and inserted the key. Sweat trickled down between her breasts. Please, God.

  “One minute, twenty seconds.”

  The red light went out.

  The green light came on, and she turned the key.

  The thick bolts slid free, back into the wall, the sheet of metal lifted, and the door opened.

  “Let’s go.” Sybil rushed inside and stumbled over Captain Mendoza’s body. Packets of sugar littered the floor around him.

  “One minute.”

  Sybil swallowed hard, prayed harder, and raised the key to the control centered on the launch station desk.

  “A thorn!” Jonathan screamed, lunged at Sybil, and knocked her arm away from the launch system. The key clanged on the tile floor.

  She jerked around, back toward him. “What?”

  “Faust insisted you view the film right away. Mendoza’s murder wasn’t urgent. What else did we see on that clip? What else did we see?”

  Sybil mentally reviewed the clip, then thrust a finger toward the wall. “Cap inspected the mail chute.”

  Jonathan scrambled to the mail chute, withdrew the tube, and then opened it. A second key tumbled out into his hand. He passed it to Sybil. “Compare them. Do it fast, Sybil.”

  “Fifty seconds.”

  “They’re different.” Mortified, she held one in each hand. “Damn it, David, they’re different.” Think, Sybil. You’ve got to think.

  “Forty seconds.”

  “David.” Sweat rolled in sheets down her body. “I’m going to choose. I realize this sh
ould be your decision, but it’s not. I’m here, and I’m making the call.” She gave him absolution, freedom from the horror of living with having made the wrong choice. “I need the code.”

  He reeled off the daily code.

  “Thirty seconds.”

  Sybil punched in the code, looked over at Jonathan, then at the two silver keys in her palm. One had a scratch. Sybil’s heart soared. Austin always had done that with his keys. The one that was newest—the right one—he scratched. The mark was fresh. A rose petal? Or a deliberate trap?

  “Twenty-nine seconds, ma’am.”

  She swung her gaze to Jonathan and warned him. “It’s a Hail Mary pass.”

  He nodded. “Do it.”

  Sybil moved back into position, inserted the key, turned it, and sucked in a sharp breath.

  The flashing red countdown stopped. Twenty-seven seconds.

  She stared at it, unable to trust her eyes, to believe it was over, but the glaring digits didn’t flicker. Slowly she exhaled.

  “Sybil? Sybil, are you there?”

  David’s voice filled the room, breaking the silence and the dam of collective fear.

  Relief flooded through her. Her eyes blurred, and she smiled at Jonathan. “Yes, David. We’re here.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “We’re all here.”

  “Air Force One is coming home!”

  Pandemonium erupted. On all sides of her, people laughed, whooped, hugged, shared shoulder slaps, attaboys, and high fives. Tears streaming down her face, she dipped her chin and headed straight for Jonathan. He opened his arms wide, and she stepped into them. “We made it, Jonathan.” She circled his waist and buried her face in his chest. “We really made it.”

  His cheek against her hair, he hugged her hard. “We really did.”

  “Nice work!” Conlee’s clap to Jonathan’s shoulder vibrated through Sybil’s chest.

  “Damn nice work. You two make a helluva team.” Conlee looked down, noticed Jonathan’s bloody knuckles. His joy in the moment vanished abruptly, and he narrowed his eyes. “What happened to your hand, Westford?”

  He pulled back from Sybil. “I hit a wall.”

  Austin was being led out of the facility by two armed guards. Sybil saw the bruise on his jaw, knew she hadn’t inflicted it, and frowned at Jonathan. “You hit a wall with Austin’s face?”

  “More or less.” Jonathan shrugged.

  Conlee smiled. “Thanks for not killing him.”

  Sybil frowned. “Commander, since when do we thank someone for not killing someone else—even if we think they deserve it?”

  “Since that someone else homesteaded in the proverbial ditch and tried to drag someone who didn’t belong there into the ditch with him.” Conlee grunted and shoved his cigar stub between his teeth. “Besides, a damn lot of paperwork comes with a corpse.”

  “Sybil?” David’s voice sounded through the transmitter.

  “Yes, sir?” She strained to hear him over the roar of the celebration, cupping her hand over her ear as she had so often seen Jonathan do.

  “Press conference in forty-five minutes. I can’t get back that fast. You’ll have to handle it. Word is out that we’ve had a terrorist attack.”

  Damn it. “Some of the media was already here?”

  “One of Richard Barber’s contacts. Tell him he’s fired. On second thought, don’t. I’ll handle that as soon as I get back.” David’s tone proved Barber wouldn’t find the experience pleasant. “Commander, are you still with us?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Could you have Barber escorted to my office and have him wait for me? Tell Mildred to watch him like a hawk, and see if the attorney general would be interested in joining us. Tell him he’ll be issuing a couple of warrants in the near future.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh, and, Sybil?”

  Nearly giddy with relief, she smiled at Jonathan and resigned herself to reality. They’d managed to pull off a hell of a victory, but celebrating it would have to wait. David was celebrating the way he always celebrated big victories and close calls: by diving into work. It was his personal rendition of affirming life. Personally, she let her gaze drift down Jonathan; she’d opt for the lovemaking rendition, but David was the boss. “Yes, sir?”

  “I know that after all you’ve been through this is going to be hard to stomach, but you need to be ready to answer questions on that treason nonsense. Winston will brief you at the office in a half hour.”

  “All right.” Resentment warred in her. No matter how much she gave, they wanted more.

  “Don’t take any guff.”

  She wouldn’t have to take anything from the media. She’d walk through the door. They’d go for her jugular. She’d hit the floor. And that would be that. “I won’t.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can. After all you’ve done, for you to have to do this—” He muttered a curse. “It’s insulting, Sybil.”

  “It’s all right, David.” She wasn’t crazy about the idea herself. It was insulting, and it stung. She dragged her hair back from her face. Hell, call a spade a spade. It hurt.

  And as weary as she had been from the events of the last seventy-two hours, this treason business snatched her joy at their success and wore her down in a way the crisis couldn’t because it attacked the one thing she had left: her character.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The White House Press Room was buzzing.

  News had broken that the United States had averted a terrorist attack less than an hour ago and members of the media had poured in, quickly overflowing the room. It was the middle of the night, and yet the turnout wasn’t really surprising. Friday’s canceled briefing had the media edgy. Everyone had known something significant was about to break; they just hadn’t pinpointed what. Sybil Stone’s plane exploding had everyone hanging close.

  Sam took his usual seat in the third row and was surprised to find Sniffer sitting on his left, holding a brown envelope that looked too familiar. Scanning the other media members, Sam felt his stomach pump acid and sour. Many of them held the brown envelopes. He hadn’t authorized Ground Serve to distribute them—after what he’d witnessed at A-267, he never would—so why had it?

  Austin. Sam looked at Sniffer. “What are you doing here?”

  “The veep is going to brief us on the terrorist attack.”

  He held up the envelope. “But I want to ask her some questions about this.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “The source isn’t disclosed, but the material seems authentic enough.”

  Definitely Austin. Sam’s blood boiled. The jerk was attempting to use the media to humiliate Vice President Stone again. “It’s more dirt on Sybil Stone, right?”

  Sniffer nodded, looking perplexed. “Yeah. Did you get one, too?”

  “Don’t use it.” A man spoke from the right side of Sam, his voice distinct and familiar.

  Silence overtook the room, and Sam turned toward the voice: Marcus Gilbert. “What are you doing here?” And why was he holding Linda Dean’s journal?

  Sniffer tuned out, kept his head buried in the envelope’s contents, eager to be intimately familiar with the facts before he slammed Sybil Stone with them.

  “Moral support,” Marcus said.

  “For whom?” Sam tried lowering his voice, but a pin drop would have sounded like an explosion in the suddenly still room. Sniffer withstanding, all gazes had locked onto them.

  Marcus stuffed a hand into the pocket of his rumpled black coat. “I understand the veep had a challenging weekend. She’s survived a plane explosion, several near-death experiences—including being shot at and nearly blown up while stopping a terrorist attack on American soil. She also risked her life to save Cap Marlowe’s.” He paused and listened to the shocked reactions of the other media members. “I’m here to say thanks—and to tell her she can count on me for whatever, whenever.”

  That declaration caused more than a few surprised gasps, including one from Sam. It was
a well-known fact that Marcus had a strict bias against female politicians. He had made ignoring them an art form long before Sybil Stone had appeared on the Hill. Most women knew Marcus only by reputation, and in the form of heartfelt advice from others who warned them to stay away from him. “Are you two friends?”

  “No.”

  Images of her naked and on her knees, begging Austin for all their lives, shot through Sam’s mind. In her position, would he have as much courage? His voice faded to a whisper. “I was wrong about her, Marcus.”

  “A lot of people were.” He passed Ken Dean’s journal to Sam. “Don’t look at it. Just give it to her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because while some people thought Captain Ken Dean was a traitor, she didn’t. This proves she was right.”

  “His wife’s journal?” Sam had seen it, stacked among her cookbooks.

  “It’s not hers, it’s his. Ken Dean was frustrated by failed attempts to stop Gregor Faust and Ballast, so he went rogue to try to stop them himself.”

  “Which is why Linda and the kids were abducted.”

  Marcus nodded. “Vice President Stone defended Dean blind. No proof, no evidence. She judged him by his character, and she trusted him. She didn’t have a lot of company, but that didn’t matter. She did what was right. Give her the book so she can prove it.”

  “I will.” Sam took it. “I can’t believe I was so damn wrong about her. I thought I had good instincts.”

  “You do. It’s like I said, a lot of people were wrong about her.”

  “But not you?”

  “No, I was wrong, too. I just discovered it before the rest of you.” Marcus dropped his voice to keep this part of their conversation private. “That’s why I warned you again a few months ago to keep an eye on Cap Marlowe.”

  “Warned?” Sam felt sick inside. “I thought you were telling me he was a good man.”

  “He is a good man, but he’s a politician first.” Marcus cocked his head. “That’s what he most envies about Vice President Stone.”

  In Sam’s mind, more and more pieces of the puzzle slid into place. “I understand now, Marcus.” A knot formed in his throat. “She’s the real thing.”

  “Real?” Their conversation caught Sniffer’s ear. “She’s as corrupt as they come. I have the proof right here.”