Personal Protection

by Julie Miller

  A slight shake of his head kept her from going to him. Instead, he swiped the notes he’d used off the podium and strode across the stage. He took her by the arm and led her down the stairs, pushing the crumpled paper into her hand as he turned his back to the audience to keep anyone from seeing what she was looking at. “It was on the podium when I got there.”

  “But the ambassador—”

  “His notes were sitting on top of mine. Clearly, he did not see it. When I pulled my cards out, it was there.”

  Carly unfolded what she now realized was a crumpled photograph. It was the same picture of the late king’s draped coffin, with a very precise message scrawled across the image. Ticktock, Ivan. You’ve failed. Time to pay for your mistakes.

  Carly peeked around Ivan’s shoulder, scoping out the room to locate their suspects again. Dr. Lombard from the university was at the podium, sharing a few words about how excited they were to have Lukinburg’s support for their research. The ambassador who’d introduced both speakers shook his hand and thanked their guests before inviting everyone to enjoy the rest of the evening, including the special wines and dishes shipped in from Lukinburg for tonight’s event.

  Ivan stuffed the message in his pocket and faced the crowd, too. “Anyone could have put it there. Aleks helped me write my remarks. Galina put my notes on the podium. Filip and Danya checked the entire stage before the evening began.”

  The audience was applauding and the orchestra playing again as business was concluded and the festivities resumed. “He’s here. He knows you have this. He’s probably watching you right now to gauge your reaction.”

  “I had hoped our killer would lose his nerve.”

  “Not likely. He’s probably getting off on the spectacle an attack would cause tonight.”

  “And there are too many places where he could hide, even among all these people.”

  “You’ve made your speech.” Carly squeezed his hand and tugged him toward the nearest archway. “Will you let me take you home now? Or back to the hotel?”

  He planted his feet, turning her into his arms and whirling her onto the dance floor instead. Carly put her hands where she was supposed to and kept her eyes peeled for anyone more interested in them than they should be while Ivan whispered into her ear. “I cannot leave. I may be the only one who can prevent everyone from panicking if this goes wrong.”

  “Goes wrong? Of course, it’s going to go wrong.” She stumbled over his shoe, silently cursing her strappy sandals. “We should be moving you to a safe location, clearing this building and looking for a bomb.”

  He tightened his grip at her waist and spun her into the heart of the dance floor. “You are right. We will look for the bomb.”

  Once they reached the other side of the dance floor, Ivan released her waist and grabbed her hand to lead her through the glass doors onto the veranda. The night air was still sticky with the summer heat, so there were few people outside—only a pair of men smoking near the far end of the surrounding stone wall, and a guard walking through the yard between the veranda and the iron bars that marked the edge of embassy property.

  Thinking he’d brought her outside for the relative quiet and privacy, she was surprised when he kept moving across the granite paving stones toward the stairs down into the grass. “Where are we going?”

  “The last explosion was a car bomb. We should check the parking lot.”

  This time, Carly planted her feet, stopping at the top of the stairs. “No.” She pulled out her cell phone again. “I’ll text Captain Hendricks and have his men begin the search. You need to stay as far away as possible from anything that goes boom.”

  Ivan closed his hand over hers to stop her. “How many people in there do you think have cell phones?”

  The last bomb had been triggered by a cell. Carly looked through the windows to the swaying mass of humanity inside the ballroom. She inhaled a steadying breath at the enormity of what they were up against. “You think there’s anyone here who doesn’t have one?”

  “For the last time, leave me alone.” Carly and Ivan both turned toward the shrill tone in the woman’s whispered voice to see Galina tugging against the grip of Ralph Decker’s hand on her wrist as the two hurried out the far door. “I am not going anywhere with you.”

  Decker released her and put his hands up in surrender. With a noisy harrumph and a nod toward Ivan, she hurried down the steps and disappeared along the walkway around the corner of the building.

  Keeping Carly’s hand in his, Ivan took a step toward the reporter. “Are you annoying the lady, Mr. Decker?”

  The dark-haired man shook his head as if he was baffled by Galina’s behavior. “She must have a hot date with somebody. And it isn’t me.”

  “I don’t think she’s interested in seeing anyone right now,” Carly gently pointed out. “Did you know she was engaged to be married? Her fiancé was killed just three months ago.”

  Decker swore, his remorse evident as his cocky attitude disappeared. “I didn’t know. I thought my charm wasn’t working. I’ll track her down later to apologize.” He tapped the camera hanging around his neck. “Hey, since you’re here, how about a picture of the two of you together? Dancing in the moonlight. With your permission, of course.”

  “Of course.” Ivan turned Carly into his arms again and posed for the camera. She realized he was acting as if everything was normal—that there was no threat in his pocket, no bomb to be found—so that Decker wouldn’t be suspicious and start asking questions.

  He did, anyway. But not the ones Carly had expected. “Did you mean what you said in your speech, Your Highness? The materials Lukinburg is supplying the research team will revolutionize the way our country fights a war? Better technology? Fewer casualties?”

  Ivan draped his arm around her shoulders for another shot. “There are also other, nonmilitary applications, but that is my hope.”

  “Then that’s a good thing.” With a rueful smile, Decker shook the prince’s hand and nodded to Carly. “You two enjoy the rest of your evening. If you’ll excuse me. I need to find Ms. Honchar.”

  “That was a weird conversation.”

  Ivan agreed. “I have a feeling Mr. Decker is a man of many secrets.”

  They were still standing at the top of the stairs when the glass door opened and closed, momentarily filling the air with strains of orchestral music. Carly leaned into Ivan’s chest. “Is it wrong of me to think of the other nights every time I hear classical music playing?”

  He laughed. “I think of it every moment.”

  “I wish...”

  “I know. I wish we had more time.”

  “There are so many reasons why we would never work.”

  “And one very important reason why we would.” He pressed a kiss to her temple and Carly hugged him around the waist.

  Feeling the bulk of his protective vest instead of the warmth of his body reminded Carly how foolish she was to put her heart before the job at hand. She was pulling away when she saw the hooded figure moving near the hedge lining the wrought-iron fence. “Ivan.”

  Hiking up her skirt, Carly ran down the steps in pursuit. But the moment she stepped off the flagstone walk, her heel sank into the grass and mud, halting her momentum and pitching her forward. “These shoes!”

  She would have landed flat on her face, but Ivan was there to catch her. “Carly, wait. We don’t know what he’s up to.”

  Leaning on his arm, she sucked the ruined heel out of the mud and stepped back onto the walkway. But when she looked to the hedges again, the cloaked figure had disappeared. She saw the guard several yards farther along the fence, heading in the opposite direction. He’d never even heard the figure to turn around. “Where did he go?” She turned toward the driveway and parking lot beyond that. “The guards will stop him at the gate, right? I didn’t imagine him, did I?”

  “I
saw him, too.” Ivan pulled her back up the steps, hurrying toward the veranda doors and reentering the ballroom. “Where is Aleks?”

  She had a more important question. “Where’s your security team?”

  “There.” He pointed out Filip moving through the room toward the front hallway. He was talking to someone on his radio. “Hopefully, the guards outside will have detained the man in the hood and called it in.”

  She scanned the room for Danya, but he was nowhere to be found. “If the intruder was leaving, that means he’s already put his plan into play. A bomb or whatever he intends to do tonight.”

  “You get to Captain Hendricks.” Ivan nudged her toward the exit where Filip had disappeared. “I have to find Aleks.”

  Carly caught his hand and stopped him. “You aren’t going anywhere without me. I’m your last line of defense, remember?”

  “Fine. Then walk with me.”

  They circled the perimeter of the tables and guests, pausing to acknowledge someone when greeted, but otherwise moving as quickly as they could. The music that had sounded like a tender memory a moment ago now seemed inordinately loud, to the point that Carly raised her voice. “How many people do you think are here?”

  “Two hundred? Three hundred?”

  Galina appeared in the nearby archway, surveying the room until she saw them. She hurried across the dance floor, her dark eyes rimmed by tears, her tone panicked. “Your Highness. Officer Valentine. Please. I must show you something.” Turning back several times to make sure they were following, Galina led them back into the quieter private hallway from where she’d appeared. She opened the first door just through the archway into a well-appointed office lined with walnut paneling and gold brocade drapes. “I needed a moment to myself to review the guest list and...”

  “It’s okay, Galina.” Carly reached out and squeezed the other woman’s hand. “I could tell Mr. Decker upset you. He didn’t know about your late fiancé. I’m sure he didn’t mean to dredge up any bad memories. Did you find a tissue?”

  Instead of being grateful for the concern, Galina burst into angry tears and crossed to the desk in the center of the room. “I found this.” She showed them a cube-shaped package wrapped in plain brown paper. End Ivan! was written across the top of the brown paper wrapping. “This is the guest office we worked out of this week. Is it...what I think it is?”

  Carly caught her breath on a wary gasp and pulled the other woman away from the desk. There was only one thing that package could be. “We need to clear the room. I need to notify the bomb squad. Let’s go.”

  Only Ivan was moving in the other direction. Toward the package. He circled the desk, studying it from every direction before he grabbed the letter opener from the blotter beside the package.

  “Damn it, Ivan.” She watched as he pulled the paper away from the plastic-coated wires wrapped around a brick of plastic explosive. “Careful.”

  “It is rigged with another cell phone,” Ivan announced.

  Galina wept beside her. “It’s like St. Feodor again. All these people...”

  “Galina,” Ivan chided, coming around the desk to take his chief of staff by the shoulders and gently shake her. “Pull yourself together. Do your job.”

  The dark-haired woman stared at him a moment before wiping away her tears and hugging her tablet to her chest. “What do you need?”

  “I need you to find the ambassador. Tell him we have a situation. Have him make an announcement asking everyone to turn off their cell phones—make up some excuse about them interfering with the sound system. Then we need to calmly, without raising too much alarm, evacuate the building.”

  “Smoke from the kitchen,” Carly suggested, rubbing Galina’s back, trying to soothe her fear. “Tell them we need everyone outside on the veranda and the parking lot, so we can ventilate the building.” She tilted her gaze to Ivan. “I can get to Chief Taylor. He can escort the mayor and some of the other dignitaries out.”

  Galina nodded. “Cell phones. Smoke. Calm evacuation. I’ll have them use different exits so there’s not a rush for the doors.” Although it probably wasn’t protocol for her to do so, she squeezed Ivan’s hand before he pulled away. “You’re the target, Your Highness. What about you? Shall I send Filip in here?”

  “He’s outside. He can help keep things organized out there.”

  “Danya? I haven’t seen him, but—”

  Carly turned to face her. “Ivan is my responsibility. I’ll make sure he gets out safely.”

  “You don’t want me to call anyone to help?”

  “No.” She walked the other woman out the door. “I want you to start the evacuation.”

  When she stepped back inside the office, Ivan was holding his glasses close to his temple, bending down to study the bomb again. “We need to get people out of this wing and evacuate the building.” He pointed to the phone on the corner of the desk. “Call Joe on that landline. Bomb squad cannot come in with full gear or we’ll have chaos. Someone could get trampled or have a heart attack.”

  Carly called Captain Hendricks and warned him about not using cell phones. She told him to put the SWAT team on alert, that she was bringing the prince out the back way through the veranda doors. She hung up and nodded to the door, expecting Ivan to follow. “Let’s go.”

  “I am not going anywhere.”

  She tugged on his arm, pulling him away from the desk. “You’re not staying here with this bomb.”

  “I can disarm it. It is not that complicated. Plastique. Wires. The cell phone is not counting down. I can disconnect it—”

  “Just because you worked with explosives back in Moravska doesn’t mean this is your job. You have a whole country you’re responsible for. We need to close off this room and leave.”

  The music stopped abruptly, and, for a split second, Carly felt as though it was her heart that had stopped. Why was Ivan taking such a stupid risk? “Don’t be a hero, Ivan. We have no idea when that bomb will go off.”

  He glanced up at the grandfather clock standing in the corner of the office. It was barely eleven o’clock. “I am guessing within the next hour. Today was the date on the picture he gave me.”

  The ambassador’s voice coming over the sound system and the rising murmur of the guests responding to the unexpected interruption of their evening echoed the tension twisting through Carly. “Ivan, please.”

  Ticktock.

  “Wait a minute...” Ivan slid the letter opener beneath a trio of wires and lifted them away from the plastique. “The phone is not connected to the explosive. There is no way to remotely detonate it.” Blue eyes drilled into hers. “This bomb is a fake.”

  A fake? After all those threats? Naming the date of Ivan’s death? Oh, hell. The hooded man moving through the hedge outside? A bomb inside the embassy? Guests evacuating to the parking lot? “Does that mean...?”

  He was already running to the door. “There’s another bomb.”

  They dashed down the hallway and stopped when they saw the orderly mass exodus leaving the building. Just like the scene at the Plaza, when they were being herded toward the parking garage. Toward the bomb.

  “A car bomb killed Eduard,” Carly said.

  “They are taking them out to the parking lot,” Ivan muttered at the same time.

  Carly ran back to the phone. “I’ll tell the captain.”

  Ivan hovered in the doorway. “We need to find Aleks.”

  “He’s probably on his way outside with the others.”

  “We have to find him. Priority one is saving Aleks.”

  “Priority one is saving you.” Carly hung up the phone and lifted the hem of her skirt to get to her weapon. She tugged on the lapel of Ivan’s jacket and turned him so that she could enter and clear the hallway in front of him. “I have to get you to the SWAT van. That’s what we agreed on.”

  Ivan pul
led her hand away and backed into the office. “Go. Stay with Aleks. Get him someplace safe. I need to take this bomb apart.”

  “You said it wasn’t a real bomb.”

  “Connect it to a trigger and it will take out this wing of the embassy. If we leave it alone, anyone could sneak in and do that.”

  “Then I’m staying with you.”

  Ivan pushed her out the door. “Save the prince!”

  “But you...” Her back hit the opposite wall and she stood there long enough for confusion to segue into understanding. Then anger sent her charging across the hall. “Damn it, I knew something was off.” She swatted his arm. Although, she wasn’t sure if her anger was directed at him or toward herself for not guessing the truth. “You’re not Prince Ivan. When I read those files... When I see the two of you together, you’re so protective of him.”

  The man of purpose, the man of regal power and supreme confidence suddenly seemed unsure.

  “Carly...” He reached for her, but she shrugged off his touch.

  Her anger turned into a hurt she felt right down to her bones. “Aleksandr Petrovic?”

  He nodded. “I tried to tell you the other night. When we were...in bed.”

  “But I didn’t want to talk.” She raked her fingers into her hair, knocking loose some of the upswept curls. She’d been a naive idiot. “I got so carried away.”

  “We got carried away.” Ivan’s hands were on her shoulders again. His sure, familiar hands. Only, they weren’t Ivan’s hands. “I should have tried harder. When you said you felt the truth about me, I thought—”

  “That I knew you were fake? That you were lying to me?” She pulled away and paced across the room. “I meant I knew what was in your heart.”

  “You do. I have never lied about that. Not about this chemistry between us. Not about my feelings for you.” He caught her by the hand and turned her to face him. “You must have sensed something. You are too good a cop not to have at least suspected.”

  She nodded. She had suspected something. But she’d been so caught up in her feelings, compounded by the time limit on this affair, that she’d ignored what the clues had tried to tell her. “The scars. Losing your parents. Growing up poor. None of that happened to Ivan. That was your story you were sharing. You slipped up.”