Athena Force 11: Target

by Cindy Dees

  “How much is Q-group paying you?” Flaherty barked.

  She enunciated each word clearly. “I…do…not…work…for…Q-group. I work for Army Intelligence and I’m trying to apprehend those bastards. Now, are you going to charge me with something or may I get out of here and go try to track down the killer you just let escape before he kills someone?”

  “You do not have jurisdiction to pursue an escaped fugitive, Captain. You get near the Dunst investigation and screw it up, and I’ll hang you from the highest tree I can find. You got that?”

  She glared at him. “Yeah, I got it. And here’s one for you. You get in the way of my investigation of Q-group and a possible plot to assassinate the President-elect, and I’ll see you hanged. You got that?”

  Flaherty met her glare for several long seconds. He curled his lip in an ugly sneer. “Get out of here. And don’t even think about leaving town.”

  7:00 A.M.

  She wasted no time getting the hell out of Dodge before Flaherty changed his mind and decided to hold her indefinitely under the Homeland Security Act or some such loophole-ridden law.

  She pulled away from the building in her car and fumbled in her purse for her cell phone. With shaking hands, she started to dial the emergency phone number to Delphi. And as she did so, the gray-white bulk of DIA headquarters, with its bristling array of antennae and satellite dishes on the roof, loomed in her windshield. She didn’t dare make the call from here and risk having it intercepted. Delphi was adamant that his or her existence must never be revealed to anyone.

  She guided her car off base and relaxed a bit when Bolling’s guard shack disappeared from her rearview mirror. She headed south on the Anacostia Parkway for a few minutes, then turned onto a random side street and stopped in the first parking lot she came to. The apartment complex around her was disreputable looking at best and a multibuilding crack den at worst. She locked her car door and dialed Delphi’s phone number.

  The electronically altered voice she now recognized picked up immediately. “What did Dunst say?” Delphi asked without preamble.

  How in the world did Delphi know that was where she’d been? Was Delphi involved with Dunst somehow? Diana asked carefully, “How did you know I went to talk to him?”

  An electronic chuckle. “You are not the only person in the world who can tease information out of a computer. Your military ID number was logged into the Bolling AFB holding center’s computer record of visitors. It was an easy matter once Oracle got that hit to search the holding center’s list of prisoners and figure out who you were there to see. Good thinking to track down the connection between the CIA and Q-group.”

  She warmed at the compliment from her employer. She hadn’t been getting too many of those recently from her Army superiors. “That’s why I’m calling you. Richard Dunst escaped about thirty minutes ago.”

  The silence on the line was deafening. Finally, Delphi asked grimly, “What do you propose to do next?”

  “It’s time to warn Monihan.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Except,” Diana added, “we don’t have time to go through all the red tape of convincing the Secret Service I’m not a kook and should be taken seriously. I need to cut to the chase and get word directly to Monihan’s security detail. I was hoping you could help me with that.”

  A short pause. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll be in touch.”

  Diana disconnected the call and pulled back out into traffic. She made her way across Washington toward home. She needed a shower and new clothes. Her sweater and slacks were covered in blood.

  She made reasonably good time across town since she was traveling against the inbound flow of people. Man, it felt good to pull into her driveway. Some morning it had already been.

  She stepped out of a quick shower and pulled on a pair of faded jeans and a skinny little black sweater with just enough angora in it to make it delicious against her skin. She was bent over, head upside down, toweling her hair dry when the phone rang. Groping around on her nightstand, she found the phone and stuck the receiver under the towel.

  “Hello?”

  The digital voice of Delphi said briefly, “You have an appointment with Gabe Monihan in twenty minutes. He can give you five minutes. He’s at the Mayflower Hotel. Go to the concierge desk and identify yourself, and they’ll ring upstairs for an escort.”

  The line disconnected. Gabe Monihan himself? She’d only been hoping to talk to one of the guys on his security detail. Dang, Delphi was good.

  Then the rest of the phone message hit her. Twenty minutes? At the Mayflower? That was downtown—a good thirty-minute trip on a normal day. Crud. She jammed her feet into a pair of soft leather boots, grabbed her purse and flew out of the house. For once in her life, she succumbed to putting on makeup in the car. No way was she walking into a meeting with the President-elect of the United States without at least a little mascara on. She turned the heater on high and blew it at her face to at least dry the hair around her face. Its natural waves formed a golden halo by the time she hit Connecticut Avenue.

  She broke every speed record she’d ever set and thankfully didn’t run into any speed traps en route. She managed to careen into the parking garage beneath the ritzy Mayflower Hotel with two minutes to spare. She jumped out of the car, raced up the stairs rather than waiting for an elevator and all but skidded to a stop in front of the concierge desk exactly on time. Had it been anyone but Delphi who put her through the last twenty minutes’ worth of panic, she’d have had some choice words for him right about now.

  “May I help you, ma’am?” a suave man in a suit asked her pleasantly.

  “My name’s Diana Lockworth. I’m here to see Gabriel Monihan. I have an appointment,” she huffed between gulps of air.

  The concierge picked up a phone. “Miss Lockworth is here for an appointment.” A pause and the guy hung up. “Someone will be down to get you.”

  She had just enough time to register the gilded marble opulence of the lobby before a burly man in a boring suit stepped off an elevator. Even if she’d seen this guy just walking down a street somewhere, she’d have pegged him as Secret Service. He had the alert stare that never stayed in one place, the calm assurance, the bulge under the armpit and a tall, fit physique that couldn’t add up to anything else. He walked up to her, eyeing her up and down, no doubt checking for places to hide a weapon and not scoping out her female attributes.

  “Miss Lockworth, come with me.”

  She followed the guy to an elevator, watching as he pulled a key out of his pocket and inserted it in the keyhole on the button pad inside the door. He pushed an unmarked floor button and the doors swished shut quietly. As he put it away, she noticed the key was attached to what looked like a thin, steel lanyard that disappeared somewhere inside his pant pocket. Yup. Secret Service all the way. They took being careful to levels of paranoia she couldn’t even imagine.

  And so she wasn’t surprised when the elevator door opened and she was whisked a short distance down a hallway into a room that had been converted into a full-blown security checkpoint. She and her purse were x-rayed, her drivers’ license and military ID run through a computer, and her right thumb fingerprinted on an electronic pad. Eventually, after she checked out clean, another Secret Service agent showed her through an adjoining door into a large suite.

  Large being the operative word. The place sprawled like her grandfather’s mansion in Chevy Chase. Desks, computers and phones that jarred against the sleek, tasteful decor of the place were swallowed up like minnows in the belly of a whale. Clusters of people stood in various parts of the main room. Several more Secret Service agents sipped coffee by the wet bar. A pair of men peered at a sheaf of papers one of them held, apparently discussing what was written on it. At least six closed doors ringed the room.

  The place was quiet, but energy fairly crackled through the space. The about-to-be most powerful man in the world was behind one of those doors. She could feel his presence. Maybe st
aring at his pictures all over her bedroom wall for so many weeks had created some sort of psychic link between them. Whatever it was, it zinged all the way to her fingertips.

  The Secret Service agent handed her off to a secretary who spoke quietly into a wireless headset. A door behind the secretary opened, and a face she recognized from heavy media coverage of it stepped out. Except it wasn’t Gabe Monihan. It was Thomas Wolfe, the charismatic senator from California who’d been Gabe’s rival through the primaries and had become his vice presidential running mate at the Democratic convention.

  Wolfe was daunting in person, tall and rail thin, in an intense, ascetic way. His hair was black shot through with silver and combed back from a high, sloping forehead. His eyes glowed with even more intensity than the Secret Service agent’s had, giving away the zealotry of the man’s personality. No surprise he’d been one of the most feared federal prosecutors in America before entering politics.

  Diana blinked as Wolfe stepped forward and held a hand out to her. He crushed her hand in a bony, powerful grip. “Miss Lockworth. What can I do for you this morning?”

  “Uhh, I’m here to meet with President-elect Monihan,” she replied, startled at this insanely high-powered meet-and-greet. It had been impressive enough that Delphi got five minutes of Monihan’s time on less than an hour’s notice, but Wolfe, too?

  Wolfe cast a quick look around the huge suite and took her by the arm, leading her away from the secretary’s desk. He steered her over by a window and all but hid her behind a potted palm tree. “The President-elect is extremely busy with last-minute preparations for his inauguration. What is it that brings you here today? I’m sure I can help you with it.”

  There was something about this conversation that didn’t feel right. Maybe it was the way he’d intercepted her, or the furtive way he’d looked around the suite before tucking her over here in this corner. But her suspicions were definitely aroused. She answered Wolfe smoothly, “It’s a personal matter, and I’m afraid I really must speak directly with Mr. Monihan about it.”

  Wolfe’s cold gaze bored into her. “What sort of personal matter? How did you get in here? You’re not here to try some tawdry extortion scheme, are you?”

  Extortion? She blinked in shock. What ever gave the guy that idea? “Absolutely not, sir! I’m an Army Intelligence officer and I’m here on official business.” Although in jeans and a sweater, with half-dry hair, she had to admit she hardly looked the part. Nonetheless, she was distinctly disinclined to tell this guy another word about her business with Gabe. Whoops. President-elect Monihan. She had to quit thinking about the guy by his first name like that. He was about to be her commander-in-chief, for goodness’ sake.

  Wolfe exhaled sharply. “We do not have time around here for people like you to play games. If you won’t speak to me about your business, then Gabe Monihan certainly doesn’t need to hear about it. I think it’s time for you to leave, Miss Lockworth.”

  He reached out to take her arm, but she stepped back quickly. And crashed into the potted palm. She landed on her behind with a thud. Fronds waved wildly overhead, but fortunately the whole thing didn’t tip over. A big pile of dirt whooshed out onto the floor, however, and several assorted aides and flunkies rushed over to clean up the mess and drag her up off her rear, which was wedged firmly between the palm’s trunk and its pot.

  She reached out and took the first hand that appeared in front of her eyes. Heat and electricity shot up her arm and down her spine. The hand tugged, and she popped free and onto her feet. She looked up into a gorgeous pair of amber eyes. Amusement danced in their golden depths.

  Oh my God. Gabriel Monihan. In the flesh.

  “How’s the coconut hunting?” he asked dryly, his whiskey-smooth voice sending a whole new round of tingles shooting down her spine.

  “Not good,” she replied deadpan. “Turns out it was only a homicidal date palm. Not a coconut in sight.”

  The amused glint in the President-elect’s gaze faded as he looked over her shoulder at Wolfe. “I’ve heard those date palms can be downright pushy. They horn in all over the place where they’re not needed or wanted.”

  She blinked. What was up with that edge in his voice? The heavy double entendre? Clearly, it was aimed at Wolfe. For the barest instant, Gabe’s gaze went a hard, crystalline gold. And then he was all pleasant smiles again. “And who might you be, ma’am? I’d venture to guess you know who I am.”

  She smiled back at him. “I’m Captain Diana Lockworth, Mr. President-elect. I have an appointment with you. Or at least I did. My five minutes on your schedule just expired.” And as she tried to turn her wrist to look at her watch, she realized Gabe was still holding her hand. And just what was the etiquette of holding the President-elect’s hand, anyway?

  He tucked her hand under his arm and turned to walk toward a door on the far side of the room all in one smooth movement. Well, there you have it. You tuck your hand under the President-elect’s elbow and let him lead you wherever he wants to.

  She became aware of waves of hostility fairly slamming into her shoulder blades. Must be Wolfe back there, glaring a hole in her head. Gabe led her into a combination living-dining room. It was much smaller than the first room. Much more intimate. Only a few Secret Service agents lounged around the margins of this space.

  “Have you had breakfast yet, Captain Lockworth?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t, sir.” And as soon as the words left her mouth, her stomach shouted its protest at being ignored.

  “Dine with me.”

  It wasn’t exactly a command, but the words were uttered by a man who clearly was used to getting what he wanted most of the time. Okay. All of the time.

  She replied, “Are you sure? I know how busy you must be today, getting ready for the inauguration and all….”

  He shrugged. “That’s what I have speech writers for. It’s their job to panic. Besides, we finalized the inaugural address last night. I don’t have a blessed thing to do today except go talk to a judge at two o’clock.”

  “Well, you do have to look pretty and smile nicely for the cameras. Maybe have a little lunch. Go to a parade. Oh, and become President of the United States,” she retorted. Dang it! When was she going to learn to stop and think before she just blurted out the first thing that popped into her head?

  He laughed aloud. “You make it sound like I’m taking some sort of monastic vow for the rest of my life. It’s not a prison sentence, you know.”

  Every head in the room swiveled at the sound of his laughter. From the surprised expressions on people’s faces, she gathered it wasn’t a sound they’d heard much lately.

  She grinned back at him, enjoying the sparring. “Monastic vows? I should hope not. A good-looking guy like you ought to—” She broke off sharply. Holy cow, she’d done it again. She felt heat creep up her cheeks in a telltale blush. The curse of her fair skin.

  “Ought to what?” he asked wryly.

  “Nothing, Mr. President-elect,” she mumbled. “Never mind.” She ventured a peek up from her crisply starched napkin. Yup. Grinning like the Cheshire Cat, he was.

  “Call me Gabe.”

  Uh, right. On a first name basis with the man who was about to be President.

  The butler saved her. He served her a bowl of fresh strawberries just then, ladling clotted cream over the dewy red globes. She ordered an omelet stuffed with the works in a muted voice, while Gabe ordered French toast with extra syrup.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “You must think I’m a complete bumpkin.”

  “Not at all,” he replied smoothly. “I think you’re charming.”

  She smiled reluctantly. “I don’t deserve that, but thank you.”

  His gaze met hers for a moment, but then slid away as the butler stepped between them to pour coffee. Whoa. That had been a definite spark of interest in his eyes. Of course, it wasn’t as if he was an old man or anything. For Heaven’s sake, he was only thirty-eight. Younger than Jack
Kennedy by seven years when he took office. Business, Diana. Business.

  “Uh, sir, I came here today because I believe your life may be in danger.”

  Gabe’s fork paused for the barest instant before it continued its path to his mouth. He responded utterly casually, “Of course my life’s in danger. Do you have any idea how many enemies I inherit with this job? At any rate, let’s finish breakfast before we talk about anything serious.”

  She frowned. For all the world, she’d swear he’d just blown her off. Except he looked her square in the eye and nodded reassuringly the moment the words left his mouth. Now what was that all about? But it wasn’t as if she was about to tell the next Commander-in-Chief he couldn’t eat his breakfast in peace. He didn’t want to talk with wagging ears around, maybe?

  She studied him surreptitiously as she ate her fluffy omelet. Her bedroom wall didn’t do justice to him in the least. The pictures didn’t capture his energy, the sense of purpose that radiated from him. This was a man on a mission. Not that it was any surprise. Everyone knew about his past. His alcoholic father died in a fiery car crash when Gabe was eleven. Rumor persisted that the wreck had been a suicide to escape crushing gambling debts that were coming due. Gabe had stepped up to the plate and become the man of the house, working a paper route before school and mowing lawns after school to help support his devastated mother. In his spare time he’d still managed to get straight As and quarterback his high school football team to the State Championship. The All-American boy.

  Their backgrounds weren’t so different. She’d lost her mother to a drug-induced haze, he’d lost his father to booze. Although where his old man had died, her mother had just languished in a clinical depression so deep and so irreversible she might as well have been dead. So how was it he came out of the experience as bright and shiny as a gold coin, while she came out of it running in the opposite direction from the very system that embraced him?

  “That’s a pretty grave look on your face, Captain Lockworth. Am I going to have to solve world hunger for you after breakfast?”