Athena Force 11: Target

by Cindy Dees

  One corner of her mouth lifted reluctantly into a smile. “Oh, that you could. And please, call me Diana.”

  His gaze waxed serious for a moment. “I wish it were that easy to solve world hunger. But even the office of President can’t put a dent in that particular problem.” He wiped his mouth and laid the linen napkin down on the table beside his plate. “But maybe I can fix your problem.”

  “Actually, I’m the one trying to fix your problem,” she replied.

  One sable eyebrow lifted. “Indeed?” He got up from the table and came around to hold her chair for her, cutting off the butler who’d stepped forward to do the same service.

  She took the hand he offered her and stood up. When was the last time somebody helped her up from breakfast in such gallant fashion? She thought about it for a second. That would be never. And there weren’t even any paparazzi or reporters around to justify the display. Was he actually one of those guys who did such things out of a natural impulse to do so?

  He led her away from the table and over toward a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass windows that lent a panoramic view of Connecticut Avenue below. “Great view, isn’t it?” he said rather more loudly than necessary.

  Not especially. It was just a gray street on a cold day with dirty cars hurrying by, along with a few pedestrians bundled up to their ears. “Uh, yeah. Great.”

  Under his breath, he asked, “So who harbors this dark plot to assassinate me that you’re so worried about?”

  She had no idea why they were practically whispering, but she mimicked his tone. “I’m convinced the Q-group rebels who tried to bomb Chicago O’Hare were not there just to make a statement about U.S. involvement in Berzhaan. I’m convinced that was a smoke screen to hide the real target of their attack—you.”

  A pulse abruptly throbbed in Gabe’s temple and his eyes blazed. He put his hand on her elbow and reached for the sliding-glass door in front of them. With her peripheral vision, she caught the alarmed jump of the three Secret Service agents across the room. But then Gabe’s fingers closed on her arm in a painful vise that left her no choice but to step outside with him or have her arm wrenched out of its socket.

  She stumbled to a stop as a biting wind swirled around them. Gabe pulled the door shut behind them and pointedly turned his back on the room behind them. Worried about lip-readers, maybe? He demanded, “How in the hell do you know the Q-group was out to kill me that day?”

  She pivoted until her left shoulder touched his right shoulder, her back squarely to the room behind them. “I can explain that to you in more detail later. What’s important right now is that they’re going to try again. Today.”

  Eavesdroppers and lip-readers forgotten, he turned to stare down at her in shock. He bit out a single terse command. “Start talking, lady.”

  8:00 A.M.

  She took a deep breath. “The database I use to gather and compare intel made a definitive match between the tactics used in Chicago by the Q-group cell there and an old assassination training scenario. Of a single target. One that’s surrounded by bodyguards and heavy security. And it was developed by the CIA.”

  The full brunt of Gabe Monihan’s intelligence bored into her as his gaze went nearly black. “Do you have any proof that the CIA was behind the attempt on my life?” he bit out.

  “None,” she replied quickly. “Nor am I making that allegation. However, as you probably know, Richard Dunst, an ex-CIA agent who’s been known to mess around in Berzhaani politics, was involved in the Q-group attacks last October. I think he may have trained the terrorists who attacked you. He’s a trained killer himself.”

  Gabe’s gaze narrowed. “And?”

  Perceptive guy. He assumed, accurately, that she had to have more news than that to have asked for five minutes of his time today of all days.

  “And Dunst escaped from the detention facility at Bolling Air Force Base a little over an hour ago.”

  “Jesus.” Gabe ran a distracted hand through his hair. “Does Owen Haas know this?”

  “Who’s Owen Haas?”

  “The agent-in-charge of my security detail.”

  “Ah. Actually, I was expecting to speak to him this morning when I asked for a meeting. And no, he doesn’t know, yet. But I’ll be glad to tell him everything I know.”

  Gabe stepped forward and grabbed the wrought-iron railing in front of him, gazing down at the street below.

  “Sir, if you don’t mind my asking…” She hesitated to interrupt his intense concentration.

  “Ask,” he ordered tersely.

  “Do you have any idea why the Q-group might have tried to kill you last fall?”

  He frowned. Shook his head. “None.”

  She asked, “What’s your policy on Berzhaan? Have you said something specific that would inflame the Q-group?” She’d read everything she could get her hands on about Gabe’s stance on Berzhaan, and nothing she’d run across had struck her as inflammatory enough to cause the Q-group to come after him. If anything his policies promised to be significantly more to the Q-group’s liking than Whitlow’s had been.

  “I’ve argued against sending American troops there. I’m in favor of economic and educational aid sent to them via a neutral government of the Berzhaani people’s choosing. Nothing that should’ve sent the Q-group tearing over here to off me.”

  “What about the Secret Service? Do they take this threat seriously?”

  He exhaled sharply. “Oh, they took the Q-group seriously, all right. Except every last one of the terrorists who staged the Chicago attack is safely behind bars. The Secret Service considers the threat neutralized, and so did I until about a minute ago.”

  “I’ve been tracking more Q-group sympathizers online for a couple of months now. The FBI caught their cell in Chicago, but that’s far from the last of the Q-group’s operatives. I’m convinced they’ve got another cell here in Washington that’s going to attack you today.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re exactly right,” he said quietly.

  She frowned. “I don’t mean to be impertinent, but if that’s the case, then why are we standing out here alone having this conversation with our backs to the door so no one can read our lips?”

  He looked at her in surprise for an instant, and then spit out a single word. “Wolfe.”

  Okay. There must be a leap of logic in there somewhere, but she’d missed it. “What about Wolfe?” she asked cautiously.

  “He’s convinced I’m not fit to be president. That I’m suffering post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the attack and won’t be able to make rational decisions regarding national security or foreign policy.”

  Yikes! She recalled abruptly the cold exchange of looks over her head between the two men while she sat in the potted palm.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” Gabe asked abruptly.

  “Of course. You’re the Commander-in-Chief….”

  He cut her off with a sharp, short hand gesture. “Not yet, I’m not. I’m asking this of you, personally. Not because you’re about to work for me.”

  “Anything,” she replied promptly. “You name it.”

  “Don’t tell anyone about your suspicions.”

  “But—”

  “No buts,” he interrupted firmly. “If Wolfe gets wind of the fact that I think the Q-group’s going to try to kill me, he’ll eat me for lunch. He’ll go to Congress so fast it’ll make your head spin and insist that I’m crazy. Not Presidential material. I barely dodged that bullet right after the election. Did you know the bastard actually went to the Supreme Court and asked them under what circumstances he could have me removed from office or block me from taking office?”

  Whoa. No wonder there’d been such a glacial chill between the two men.

  “And he’s your second in command why?”

  “I needed the votes to get elected. The party was split between him and me, and our respective constituents would be damned before they’d vote for the other guy. It was the only way to c
obble together the numbers we needed to win the White House.”

  She looked up at Gabe candidly. “For what it’s worth, he tried to waylay me when I first got to the suite this morning. Insisted that I tell him my business instead of you. Said you were too busy getting ready for the inauguration. I refused to talk to him and he was in the middle of throwing me out when you fished me out of the palm tree.”

  Gabe nodded in stony silence as if that information didn’t surprise him. Their gazes locked in silent communication and understanding flowed between them. Oh yes. She knew exactly what it was like to be wrongly accused of being crazy. She knew exactly how the injustice of it twisted and roiled like a serpent in Gabe’s gut, galling him to no end as long as he was helpless to combat the charge.

  Finally, she broke the charged silence. “Will you at least tell Agent Haas to be on his toes, today?”

  “I will,” he promised solemnly. “But you’ve got to do something for me, as well.”

  “Besides go against my better judgment and keep the plot against you to myself?”

  He reached out and took both of her hands in his. “Be careful. These Q-group guys are the real deal. They’re serious terrorists.”

  His golden gaze was mesmerizing, his touch pure seduction tracing down her spine. Whether his attraction to her was genuine or just a slick politician’s blatant manipulation, she couldn’t tell. And at the moment, her pounding pulse didn’t care. “Of course.”

  His hands tightened on hers. “Thank you. I’m sorry you got sucked into this mess.”

  She smiled back and said lightly, “Last time I checked, it’s my job to investigate conspiracies. And I’m the one who came to you.”

  He released her hands, but his fingers trailed across her palms as though he was reluctant to lose the physical contact with her. His withdrawal left her feeling cold and vulnerable, all of a sudden.

  He fished in an inner pocket of his suit coat and emerged with a business card. “Here’s my personal cell phone number. I’ll be carrying my phone with me today.”

  She took the card and commented, “Remember to turn off the ringer while you take the oath of office?”

  He smiled. “Thanks for the tip.” His smile faded slowly, leaving a residual glow between them. More seriously, he added, “Keep me updated on any new developments.”

  She pulled out one of her own cards and scribbled her cell phone number on the back of it. And was just reaching out to hand it to him when something caught her attention over his shoulder. Something that didn’t belong there. Something that set off an alarm in her head.

  A window in a building across the street had just slid open a few inches, and something was coming out of it. Something circular. Made of blue-black steel. A metallic gleam caught the dull morning light.

  Holy shit.

  She dived for Gabe, tackling him around the waist with the full weight of her body, driving him down to the ground in a single heavy fall. In the millisecond it took her to register that she was lying full length on top of him, something incredibly heavy landed on top of her, squashing her flat and forcing all the air from her lungs.

  Gabe grunted beneath her, as well. Three Secret Service agents plastered themselves on top of her and Gabe, acting as human shields for their charge. One of the men ordered tersely, “Don’t move, either of you. We’ll neutralize the threat before we try to get you inside. It’s too damn exposed out here to move you.”

  As the seconds ticked by and no gunshots were forthcoming from across the street, she became more and more aware of the intimacy of her situation with Gabe. She was learning some fascinating things about the next President of the United States. He was in hard, athlete’s condition underneath his conservative suit. His body actually filled out the suit’s broad shoulders, not bulky pads. She also learned she fit against him perfectly, their legs intertwining as if they’d been lovers for years. And when she shifted her weight a little, his stomach contracted into a rock-hard washboard beneath her belly. Up close, his eyes could blaze brighter than the noonday sun, incinerating her from the inside out.

  “Sorry about that,” she murmured.

  His mouth curved up into a wry grin. “No need to apologize for reacting to what I assume was a threat to my life?”

  She answered brightly, “Actually, I always throw myself at hot guys like this.”

  His chest shook beneath hers, creating the most amazing sensation in her breasts, which were smashed against him in a blatantly sexual fashion.

  One of the Secret Service agents growled, “Stay still, you two.”

  Gabe replied dryly, his gaze still locked on hers, “Diana, allow me to introduce you to Owen Haas. He’s the agent-in-charge I told you about earlier.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Agent Haas,” she responded politely.

  “Is that your belt buckle or your pistol digging into my side?”

  The guy scowled and didn’t reply. Which was just as well. He needed to concentrate on his job at the moment. The guy was jammed up against her left side closely enough that she could hear the chatter coming over his earpiece. A team of Secret Service agents was clearing the offices across the street room by room. So far, no assassin.

  Gabe smiled up at her and commented conversationally, “You know, I haven’t been this crushed since my last football game.”

  “And were there cheerleaders in that pile, too?”

  Ah, the delicious feel of a chuckle tantalizing her chest again. “No such luck.”

  She retorted, “You wanna talk about luck? Lucky will be no paparazzi getting a picture of this. Can you imagine the headlines the tabloids would cook up for the five of us?”

  Gabe opened his mouth to reply when Agent Haas interrupted. “Ma’am, Agent Willis, he’s the guy on top of you, is going to roll to your left and take over covering my position. I need you to stay on top of the President-elect for a little while longer. We’re going to bring out bulletproof shields before we let him get up. Got it?”

  Oh, hurt her. Make her lie some more on top of the sexiest guy she’d met in nearly as long as she could remember. “Sure, Agent Haas. Consider me plastered to the boss.”

  A phalanx of burly men rushed out onto the balcony, door-size riot shields in hand. They quickly formed a wall of polycarbonate resin and flesh between Gabe and that window across the street.

  Owen Haas’s voice growled from above her, “You can get up now, ma’am.”

  A strong hand on her upper arm lifted her to her feet. She looked up wryly at Agent Haas. “Aren’t you at least going to offer me a cigarette after that, Owen? I mean, it’s practically time to take you home to meet my parents.”

  Coughs and snorts sounded all down the line of agents. The giant man scowled down at her, not amused. As Gabe climbed to his feet, Haas hustled his charge inside the hotel room. The agent’s shoulders sagged in relief when Gabe was safely behind closed curtains and bulletproof windows. She felt a flash of sympathy for the Secret Service man.

  “Is the threat neutralized?” she asked Haas seriously.

  “Yeah. It was a secretary emptying an ashtray out the window. Her boss came in to work unexpectedly and she didn’t want to get caught smoking in the office.”

  Diana couldn’t help grinning at how shocked the poor woman must have been when an armed team of Secret Service agents burst into her office to arrest her for sneaking a lousy cigarette. She remarked dryly, “I bet she never smokes again in a Federal office building with that kind of response to it.”

  The Secret Service agent’s smile disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

  She looked up at Haas. “Hey, I’m really sorry if I gave you a fright.”

  The guy’s gaze softened slightly, from granite to, oh, cement. “Don’t sweat it. I’d rather have you tackle the President-elect and be wrong than do nothing and me be out there right now scraping his brains off the windows.”

  “You take care of him,” she said quietly. “Stay sharp today.”

  The guy ga
ve her a long, hard look. Finally, he answered, “I will, ma’am. Count on it.”

  One of the other agents escorted her out of the suite. As she passed through the main room, she felt several pairs of eyes following her progress toward the exit with open antagonism. She glanced around casually. Yup. Wolfe was over in the corner, in a huddle with several men. As his gaze drilled into her, she looked away hastily from what appeared to be a strategy-planning powwow of some kind. Lord, she didn’t envy Gabe the backstabbing and political maneuvering that was going on inside his own administration. What a lousy way to have to enter office.

  She sure hoped he had someone he could trust to watch his back.

  9:00 A.M.

  She sat in her car and stared at nothing. Now what? She was supposed to save the President-elect’s life, but she didn’t have the foggiest idea what to do next. Dunst was missing. A Q-group cell was out there somewhere, getting ready to kill the amazing, wonderful man upstairs. How was she supposed to find either target in this city of millions? Her only connection to Q-group was the Internet, and it was a tenuous link at best. Anonymous e-mail addresses and a series of seemingly innocuous messages.

  Unfortunately, it was all she had.

  She started her car and headed back up to the street. She guided the vehicle west toward the funky chic of M Street in Georgetown and an Internet café located there where she had a standing expense account. Several of her best informants liked to hang out there and wreak havoc upon “The System.” Of course, at this time of day they’d be home in bed after surfing the Web all night, or they’d be at grindingly mundane day jobs that masked and financed their alternate lives.

  She parked the car and glanced in her rearview mirror yet again. Still no sign of any tails. But then something else caught her attention in the mirror. Her own face. She couldn’t walk into the Chaosium Café looking like this! She’d wreck her reputation as an antiestablishment chick in two seconds flat. Fortunately, her clothes looked the part. Although, she could not believe she’d just seen the next President of the United States in sloppy jeans and a shabby sweater. It pushed even her sense of flaunting propriety.