Athena Force 11: Target

by Cindy Dees

  “You got it.”

  “And could you drive conservatively so you don’t call any attention to us?”

  The guy’s eyebrows went up in surprise, but he nodded. After all the rush to get here, he probably figured she was in some giant hurry. She was, but it was more important at the moment that her tails not spot her.

  The foot traffic was heavy, and various streets were closed such that the cab could only drop her off a block north of the towering spire of the Washington Monument, but that was close enough. She paid the guy double the fare plus an extra twenty-dollar bill for his dispatcher and watched him pull away. She walked quickly until she hit the back of the crowd that was lining up ten people or more deep along Madison Avenue to watch the parade, which was due to start any minute.

  A sea of faces spread out before her, stretching a mile or more to her right and wrapping all the way up Capitol Hill and around the Capitol building itself. The east end of the Mall was filling up fast with people, there to watch the inauguration ceremony and listen to Gabe’s inaugural address on the huge platform that had been erected on the Capitol steps.

  Where would she go if she were planning to assassinate the President-elect, and when would she do it? Gabe would be standing still in the open when he took the oath of office and gave his inaugural speech. It would be easy to use a high-powered rifle and take a shot at him then. Except he’d be surrounded by bulletproof podiums and antisniper measures galore. The less likely option was to hit him in his limousine, which was heavily armored and protected by Secret Service to the hilt. He’d be invincible in the vehicle. C’mon, Diana. Think like a killer. How would she do it?

  Everybody would believe he was safe inside the limousine. If the Q-group could pull off killing him there, the psychological blow to the country would be even greater. It would deliver a message that nobody was safe anywhere. After listening to these guys talk on the Internet for the last couple of months, that sounded exactly like the sort of logic they’d use. Okay. The limo it was. Now, where along the parade route would she try it?

  She started to walk. Madison Avenue was a one-way street with traffic traveling west under normal circumstances. But today it was closed and the parade would move east along it. The cold air burned in her lungs and she breathed out a cloud of condensation as she walked quickly along the perimeter of the crowd, looking for something. She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for, but it had to be here, somewhere. Some spot that was better than the next to make the hit. Some feature that made it the perfect place to kill a president.

  The crowd continued to swell around her. Lord, there were a ton of people out here. She was so insignificant among them. One among tens of thousands. How was she supposed to make a difference? She couldn’t do it. She was going to fail. Desperation settled around her, constricting her lungs until panic began to set in. Relax. Breathe. The brain shuts down when panic hits. Keep thinking. But the demons had her in their grip. She fought to no avail against the drowning sensation that worsened with every step she took. The Smithsonian’s massive American History Museum loomed on her left, taking up a full city block. She walked even faster, nearly running past the Natural History Museum, which was no less enormous. The red brick of the original Smithsonian building loomed across the mall, ugly and factorylike.

  Nothing jumped out at her. She had no earthly idea where Q-group was going to make its run at Gabe. Being out here wasn’t doing any good. A man jostled her. She looked up. Focused on his face. Round. Ruddy. Caucasian. Not her man.

  Maybe instead of trying to find a place, she should look for the Q-group members themselves. She had their pictures in her purse. She looked around frantically, focusing on each face until they all blurred into a sea of disembodied features.

  Gabe was going to die.

  She had to get help. Tell someone! Not a policeman in sight. In the far distance, she heard a band begin to play. Oh, Lord. The parade was starting. By sheer force of will, she beat down the impulse to run screaming. She had to do this. For Gabe. She fixed his face in her mind. His intelligent, compassionate, laughing eyes. And gradually, her pulse calmed. Her breathing slowed down until the steel bands around her chest loosened. Better. Now think!

  She looked up at the buildings clustering around the Capitol ahead. If the Q-group had snipers and high-powered rifles there, she couldn’t do a damn thing about it. There were so many potential perches for a gunman atop the many buildings in the area or behind an office window, she’d never find the killer in time. She’d have to leave that one up to the Secret Service and the FBI, who were much better suited to foil that sort of plan than she could ever be.

  Besides, the Q-group attack in Chicago relied on direct application of force. Blowing up Gabe’s car would be much more their style.

  She looked around, trying to orient herself. In her panic, she’d lost track of where she was. Over there. The West Building of the National Gallery of Art loomed well ahead on her left. A huge banner down the side of the building announced an exhibit of paintings celebrating freedom and its many faces. The banner looked like a stylized American flag, and the thing was a good three stories tall. It would make a great backdrop for a video shot or a photograph.

  Bingo. That was where they’d do it! They’d splatter Gabe’s brains all over a giant American flag. What could be more ironic or make more of a political statement than that?

  She took off running toward the building, scanning faces as she went.

  Somewhere nearby, among these throngs of people, was a small team of men intent on killing Gabe Monihan. And she had only a little while left to find them.

  12:00 P.M.

  She reached the National Gallery of Art and its enormous banner. The sidewalk in front of the great structure was crammed with people packed in shoulder to shoulder. Nobody could move over there, let alone maneuver into position to kill anyone. No, the Q-group would have to operate on this side of the street with the relatively open Mall behind them.

  The first band passed, a high-school drill team complete with a line of half-frozen girls in hot pants trying to smile and remember their routine. A sheriff’s posse from somewhere in Pennsylvania passed by on fractious horses. They didn’t like the cold any more than their riders did.

  She scanned the sheaf of papers clutched in her hand and went back to watching the crowd. She moved slowly now, methodically observing everyone on this side of the street. She’d swept the area once and was making a second pass through. The faces in the pictures were burned into her brain, and this time she was trying to imagine them with disguises, either in the form of facial hair or clothes obscuring part of their features as she checked out the crowd. She had to spot one of them soon or Gabe was history.

  The gnawing sense of doubt was growing in her gut again. She hadn’t done enough. She hadn’t cracked the code soon enough, hadn’t warned the right people in time. Gabe was going to die a horrible, bloody death because she’d let him down. For the third time, she scanned the crowd in front of the art gallery. Nada. Her panic, held at bay for the moment, notched up a little higher.

  She was a screwup. Always had been. Her teachers always moaned about how she was wasting her potential. What they didn’t know was that her “potential” was a lie. She was not smart, competent Josie, who could fling a supersonic jet through the sky with perfect precision, who handled every crisis in her life exactly correctly, who never screwed up when the chips were down. She was the afterthought little sister. The tagalong who basked in the reflected glow from her illustrious sister but never shone on her own. And man, was she about to blow it big-time.

  She jumped when her cell phone rang in her purse, emitting an electronic version of the George Thurgood classic, “Bad to the Bone.” She dug it out and looked at the caller ID. “Private Call,” it announced. She clicked it on and put it to her ear. “Hello?” she said cautiously.

  “Hi, Diana. It’s me.” She about dropped the phone as the dulcet tones of Gabe Monihan’s voice c
aressed her ear.

  “How’s it going?”

  She forgot to breathe. “Uh, i-it’s going,” she stammered. “I’ve stirred up a real hornet’s nest if that counts for anything.”

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m in front of the National Gallery of Art along your parade route. I think this is where the Q-group will try to hit you.”

  “Lovely,” he commented lightly. His truncated comments struck her as odd. As if maybe he couldn’t talk in the company he was in.

  “Can’t talk much right now?” she asked.

  “Exactly,” he said pleasantly.

  “Got it. Fine, you just listen and I’ll do all the talking. I think I’ve uncovered the identities of the men who comprise a Q-group cell. They look to have been based out of New Jersey for the last year or so. I think they’re the ones planning to kill you today.” She paused in her recitation. “Lord, I hate even hearing those words said aloud.”

  “Ditto,” he agreed.

  “At any rate,” she rushed on, “I got detained by Army Intelligence for stalking you…isn’t that a laugh…but my grandfather sprang me. His driver tried to kidnap me, but I got away.”

  “Your grandfather?” Gabe asked incredulously.

  “Long story. I’ll tell you about it later. The thing is, I tried to get a copy of the pictures of the guys I’ve identified as the Q-group cell to Owen Haas. I doubt he received them, however. I expect it’s too late to get them to him now, since I’d guess you’re getting ready to move.”

  “I’m in the car now,” Gabe replied.

  “Are you sure I can’t talk you into telling anyone that these turkeys are going to try to hit you again?”

  “I’ll be happy to do it after I take the oath. But not until then.”

  She huffed in frustration. “I was afraid you’d say that. If you get a moment alone, tell Owen to keep an eye out for six to eight men of Berzhaani descent. They all look to be around thirty years old or so. Middle height, medium builds. It’s not much for him to go on, I know. But they’re out here, somewhere. I can feel it in my gut.”

  “Me, too.”

  Now that she thought about it, he did sound tighter than a high-tension wire. But she only knew that because she’d heard him this morning when he was relaxed and open by comparison. The guy hid his stress well. Heck, he had good cause to be stressed out, even if there weren’t a bunch of guys hanging around trying to kill him. He was about to take on one of the toughest jobs on the planet.

  “How are you holding up?” she asked.

  “Okay. I’m not crazy about giving big speeches, truth be told.”

  “And you’re a politician?” Surprise made her voice higher than usual.

  “I never was much for campaigning. I enjoy the work, but I’m not fond of what goes into getting the job in the first place.”

  “Not much for kissing babies?” she asked sympathetically.

  “Actually, I like that part,” he replied. “The worst part of it is having to shake hundreds upon hundreds of hands when every last person in the crowd wants to impress you with their firm grip. My hand gets so sore I can go days at a time unable to pick up a pen.”

  “Wow. And you had to feed and shave yourself, too.” She added, “You can’t imagine the visual image I’m getting right now of Owen Haas feeding you cereal while shaving you.”

  Gabe’s rich laugh filled her ear. “Thanks. I needed that.”

  She asked, “So aren’t you supposed to be doing something important and Presidential right about now?”

  “Nah, Justice Browning will tell me what to say. I just repeat after him, and voilà, I’m President.”

  “How about your speech? Are you going to get through it okay?”

  “I’ve got the whole thing memorized. Besides, all I have to do is read it off a teleprompter.”

  “Here’s a tip for you from my high school speech teacher. Wave your arms around a bit and pound your fist on the podium a couple of times. It’ll make you look passionate and will stir up a bunch of patriotic zeal in everyone’s chests. Then they won’t care so much what you actually say.”

  He sounded genuinely amused. “Wave my arms and pound the podium, huh? I think I can handle that. Any advice for me on running the country?”

  “Don’t get me started,” she warned laughingly.

  “Are you busy tonight?” he asked, shifting topic abruptly.

  “Not particularly. Why?”

  “Are you going to be at any of the inaugural balls?”

  She blinked in surprise. “I’ve got a ticket to the military ball, but I hadn’t decided if I was going to go or not.”

  “I’ll save a dance for you if you’ll come,” he said winningly. As if he thought she might actually say no. Yeah, right. Not.

  She stammered, “Uh…okay. In that case, I guess I’ll be there.”

  “It’s a date,” he said lightly. The man actually sounded relieved. As if she’d turn down a gorgeous, smart, funny guy like him? Let alone the fact that he was going to be President of the United States. What was he smoking?

  “Well, I suppose I’d better keep you alive if I want my dance, then, shouldn’t I?”

  He laughed aloud. “I’ll let you go. Wouldn’t want to stop you from doing that. Give me a call if there are any new developments.”

  “Okay,” she answered.

  “Promise?” he asked.

  “I promise,” she replied firmly.

  “Thanks, Diana.”

  “You’re welcome, Gabe.”

  She disconnected the phone. And then stared at it. Whoops. She’d just committed a huge breach of protocol. She’d called the President-elect of the United States by his first name.

  The reality of the crowded street pressed in around her. Face upon face. But no sign of her quarry. Looking for the Q-group cell out here was hopeless. She simply couldn’t do it alone. Who could she call in to help who wouldn’t arrest her or just take her for a complete kook? There had to be someone.

  And then it hit her. Kim Valenti. Her old classmate from Athena Academy, an NSA agent stationed here in the Washington area, had been the woman who’d exposed the Q-group plot in Chicago and caught the suicide bomber at the airport, defusing the bomb with help from an FBI bomb squad member. She’d lay odds Kim was working the inauguration in some capacity today. She might even be in the immediate vicinity.

  Diana opened her cell phone again and thumbed through its stored list of phone numbers to Kim’s cell phone number. She dialed it and waited impatiently for it to connect.

  “Kim Valenti,” a voice answered professionally at the other end of the line.

  “Kim. Diana Lockworth, here.”

  “Diana! Long time no hear. How are you doing?”

  “I’ve been better. Look, this is kind of an official call. Do you happen to be in D.C. right now?”

  “Yeah. I’m on the Mall. Plastered up against a family from Idaho and some truck driver who, if he doesn’t get his elbow out of my ribs pretty quick, is going to lose it.”

  Diana sighed in relief. “I’m on the Mall, too. I need to talk to you. Now. It’s urgent. National security urgent. Is there somewhere we can meet?”

  Kim sounded surprised but answered evenly, “I’m at the Capitol. How far down are you?”

  “Across from the West Building of the National Art Gallery. On the Mall side of the parade route.”

  “Got it. Stay put right there. I’ve got access to a guy in a golf cart and he can run me down there. I’ll shift a guy to cover my position and I’ll see you in five minutes.”

  “Roger,” Diana answered, all business. “I’ll back away from the crowd and be on the grass behind the bystanders. I’m wearing a long, black leather coat and my hair’s dyed black. I’ll put on a bright blue head scarf.”

  “You’re in disguise?” Kim asked, surprised.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll be there in three minutes.”

  The line went dead in Diana’s ea
r. Thank God. Now maybe Gabe stood a chance of walking away from this day alive.

  True to Kim’s word, a golf cart came tooling down the Mall toward her in three minutes flat. Her old friend jumped out of the cart.

  Diana rushed up to her. “Thanks for coming down here.”

  “What’s up?” Kim asked. “And by the way, your hair looks like hell. Josie would knock you on your butt if she saw what you’ve done to it.”

  Diana grinned. “It’ll wash out. Look. This is going to sound crazy, but I have reason to believe that somebody’s going to try to kill Gabe Monihan within the next few minutes.”

  “Why?” Kim replied tersely.

  Diana replied equally tersely, “No time to explain it all. It’s a long story, and I’ll be happy to tell you the whole thing later. Let’s just say I have access to—” How to describe Oracle and Delphi delicately? “—to unorthodox sources. But they’re impeccable. Please just trust me on this. The bottom line is that the Q-group has another cell here in Washington and is going to try to kill Gabe Monihan again. Today.”

  “Again?” Kim asked sharply. “Monihan was not the target of the attack in Chicago. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I’ve approached Q-group from another angle since you tangled with them in Chicago and Baltimore. My source—”

  “Ah.” Kim cut her off. “I have a feeling we may have a similar source.”

  Diana stared at her. Did this mean Kim was part of Oracle, too? Kim cocked an eyebrow at her, and although they were sworn not to discuss it, Diana felt certain she knew the answer.

  Diana continued hastily, “I’ve got pictures of the Q-group members who I believe will make the hit. They’re out here somewhere. I think they’re going to try to kill him in front of that gigantic flag banner over there.” She pulled the sheaf of pictures out of her purse and thrust them at her old friend.

  But instead of reaching for the pictures, Kim reached for the walkie-talkie hanging off her belt. “I’ve got to divert the motorcade.”

  Diana lurched. “No!”

  Kim paused in the act of putting the radio to her mouth. “Excuse me?”