“That doesn’t explain what the Secret Service wants with us,” Shana said. “We should get out of here. They’re going to be looking for us in the restrooms and then the parking lot and they already suspect we came downstairs earlier.”
“Another minute. I have Tom watching the door.” Dane knew Jones couldn’t stop the agents, but he could make sure Dane had fair warning and slow them down. Besides, he was banking on the Secret Service not wanting to make a commotion. They’d cool their heels until Dane and Shana reappeared and then give them a hard time. They’d likely face a grilling by Andrews and Goodley when they got home.
“It’s clear that they’re using us to flush the assassins out, but how?” Shana said.
Dane stood still as a mountain, facing a wall but not seeing it.
“They don’t want us to know what they’re doing—why?” He asked his own rhetorical question.
What’s the worst possible thing they could be doing?
But Shana answered because she was smart and quick minded and, in this case, too literally dead-on.
“Because they’re setting us up as targets.”
Her words fell on them, blanketing the room with dark foreboding. And the resonance of certainty.
He turned to her and didn’t check his impulse to touch her this time. He reached a hand out and pulled on a tendril of her hair, letting it thread through his fingers.
“You’re right. Now we need to come up with the how.” Dane looked to Acer.
Acer shrugged.
“Maybe you two ought to consider—”
“This is the damn President’s life at stake. We’re in this.” Dane softened his words and flashed a glance at Shana. “But not as sacrificial lambs.”
“How does a couple, who happen to mirror the assassins themselves, flush them out? What’s the thing about us that would make them react?” Dane asked them as the idea formed in his head.
Shana looked up with a lightning spark of understanding.
“A mirror. Like we’re a second pair of assassins.”
“How the hell does the Secret Service or DHS get the real assassins to think you two are a pair of assassins?”
“They don’t,” Dane said to Acer. “But the NSA might have some tricks up their sleeves—”
“Shit damn,” Acer said. “Let me check a couple of things. He rushed to his suite of computers and began tapping away.
Dane stood behind the man. “We don’t have a lot of time here. Is there a way you can short-cut this to confirm our suspicions?”
“I’m going into your backgrounds now, checking some sites on the dark web. Shouldn’t take more than another minute or two.”
Dane straightened and watched Shana pace in a circle, staring at the stained cement floor. His mind buzzed with the underhanded manipulation they’d uncovered and what to do about it, but he still noticed how the dress swirled around her hips, fell across her ass, left her golden tanned back bare. Then when she turned toward him, the luscious outline of her breasts under the slinky black material nearly made him go to her. He met her eyes instead.
It wasn’t worry, but maybe concern he saw under the hardened resolve.
“Shit,” Acer said and rolled his office chair back from the table.
Dane snapped his attention back to business, not forgetting that concern he’d seen—hell, he’d felt it too—but pushing it down deep.
Shana joined him and Acer to look at the two giant monitors at the work station.
“I found your pictures planted with fake identities and backgrounds on the dark web site that’s known for hits for hire,” Acer said. “Shit. I’m sorry.” He banged a fist on the thick board that served as his desk.
“Never mind that,” Dane said.
“I don’t know how the Secret Service fooled with your website. I designed it to be virtually hack-proof. But they’ve altered it and put it up on the dark web.”
“They’re working with the NSA, pal. They had a whole team of people to outmaneuver you.”
Dane stared at grainy distant pictures of a man and woman who were likely him and Shana. Not too precise to be identifiable, but enough to give them up if someone was looking. Shana was over his shoulder seeing the same thing.
“What do we do about this?” Shana asked. “Besides tell the Governor?”
“We need to find out how high up this plan goes—see who knows about it. The Governor can help with that.”
“And in the meantime?” Shana asked
“We have no choice. It’s the President’s life at stake. We’ll need to go along. Acer, you get us photos of the assassins—do they have a code name?”
“I’ll find out. If it exists, I’ll get you some photo ID. I’ll get everything I can on their MO.”
“Good. We’ll need to make it a fair fight, though I don’t think they’ll off us without getting as much intel from us as they can first.”
“What about Zarate—Professor Doom?”
“We’ll leave it to DHS to watch him or bring him in. Looks like his role is money man and we’re too far along to worry about him now. But keep tabs in case.”
“Great,” Shana said. “We’re going to call Andrews and Goodley on this setup, right?”
Dane smirked, not hiding his delight. Neither the Secret Service, DHS or NSA would expect him to have discovered their set up, the altered website and identity on the dark web. “That’ll be the fun part. We’ll have a chat with them tonight since we’ll be going to the airport tomorrow morning as Mr. & Mrs. Assassin.”
“You’re enjoying this too much to not be part devil.” Shana eyed him.
Acer laughed. “Part devil?”
Chapter 8
When they came up from the basement, Dane and Shana entered the dining room of the Lucky Parrot separately, as if they’d come from the restrooms, and went to their clamshell-shaped booth to finish dinner. Dane slid in beside his wife-to be with more relish than he’d ever dreamed.
“Secret Service at ten o’clock.”
“I see him. He’s partnered with a woman. Why couldn’t they have used those two for—”
Dane kissed Shana before she said another word. He had no idea how sophisticated their surveillance equipment might be, but they’d been warned by Acer to plan for a complete eavesdropping blanket of the area until he could interfere with it. He whispered in Shana’s ear, a nice side effect of the need for clandestine behavior.
“Let’s sell the idea that we were out for a quick romantic interlude.”
She gave a low quiet laugh, elegant and seductive. He pressed his lips on the white column of her neck, sucking on the impossibly tender skin. If he didn’t cut it out, everyone in the room would be sold on his need to get a room, including him.
They managed to finish dinner under the watchful gaze of any number of agents, Secret Service and otherwise. All they spoke about were their plans to make love back at the shack. Dane hoped he’d caused more than a little discomfort to whoever might be listening—or better yet, he hoped he stirred some jealous lust with his detailed plans about what he wanted to do to his lover. At least he’d made Shana blush—but that was only because she knew they were listening.
*****
They returned to the shack later than they should have, later than Dane knew Andrews wanted them to. Collecting himself, reining in his desire to do nothing more than fall into bed with the love of his life to prove over and over again how much he loved and worshiped every cell of her body, he let out a deep rough breath. The amorous intentions he had telecasted during dinner had not been an act at all.
Shana straightened, her soft warmth evaporating as she moved from his side to open the Jeep door and get out.
*****
“Where have you been?” Andrews met Dane at the door.
He pushed past him, escorting Shana through into the kitchen, careful to shield her from him in the tight space of the kitchen entry.
“Gee, Dad, I didn’t know we were past curfew.”
/> Goodley was waiting for him, apparently waiting for his chance to pounce on the first wiseass remark Dane made. He fronted Dane and grabbed him by the collar. Dane’s heart roared in his ears, but he didn’t lose his cool, in fact the adrenaline kicked him into a deadly dangerous calm as his eyes swept over Goodley’s hands on his shirt and then met Andrews’s hot red face.
Shana had recognized the signs and jumped to Dane’s side, placing a hand on his arm.
“Hands off, Goodley.” He left the threat unspoken of what would happen if he didn’t. Goodley loosened his grip but left his hands where they were as if he wanted to be ready for evasive tactics were Dane to make a move.
“I’ve had enough of your smart-ass attitude, Blaise. This is more important than you. We’re dealing with the President’s life here and you’d better damn well cooperate or you’ll find yourself in—”
“Enough, Thaddeus.” Andrews had let him vent but, sticking to his good cop role, didn’t let him go too far. Just far enough to try and scare Dane.
Thaddeus let go of his shirt and stepped back, swiping his brow as if he’d worked up a sweat. In fact, he had.
“We were out to dinner at the Lucky Parrot, to answer your question.” Dane spoke calmly. “But you already knew that since you had us followed and there were at least five agents eating dinner at our favorite restaurant.”
“I told you we were following you,” Andrews said. Dane sensed a touch of defensiveness. “That’s why we know you disappeared in the middle of dinner. Where did you go?”
“None of your goddamn business.”
“Everything you do for the duration of this assignment is my business, Blaise.” Andrews drew himself up and an edge crept into his voice. He was beginning to blur the roles of good versus bad cop.
Dane smiled. He was getting somewhere. He had them on edge, nervous and depending on him—and Shana. He slipped a glance at her. She was inscrutable, hands fisted at her sides and at the ready. The thing was, Andrews and Goodley had forgotten that they didn’t really need Dane and Shana. Now the contest to gain control had overridden the mission, the end game. They’d gotten distracted from keeping their eyes on the prize.
Dane had them exactly where he wanted them.
“What’s this about?” He spoke as if he hadn’t a care.
“I don’t want you messing this up, you goddamn—”
“Messing what up, Liam?”
“Who have you talked to? Who did you tell about this?” Andrews stepped closer, his anger simmering to the surface and about to boil over. He’d crossed over from good cop to bad now, but the problem was, Dane doubted that Thaddeus Goodley was going to cross over from bad cop to good cop to cover for him. Dane saw Shana tense and shift toward Andrews, saw that Andrews hadn’t noticed her.
Once again, a man was making a big mistake not accounting for the Shana factor, not sensing her as a threat, not taking her seriously enough. And not merely her physical presence, but her tactical presence. She was often the smartest person in the room. Next to him. Sometimes smarter than him too. Maybe most of the time.
“Tell about what? It’s not like you’ve told us much. The Governor already knew about it.”
“You’re lying. You told him. How else would he know?”
“Now you’re fishing. Don’t insult me.” Dane took a breath and pushed his fingers through his hair. He was weary of this game, tired. He decided to play that angle since it was real.
“Look, Liam. I don’t care if you don’t trust me. Because I—we don’t trust you either. So we’re even. Shana and I will go to the airport tomorrow and play your little game where we pretend to be innocent tourists and talk to whoever you want us to talk to, pretending to try and identify your assassins.” He paused then and held Andrews eyes for a beat. Then he reached out for Shana and she came to his side.
“Because we know it’s a game. We know you’re setting us up. You’re using us to flush out the assassins.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Who have you talked to?” Andrews shouted the question with a tinge of desperation in his words.
Shana scoffed like only she knew how. “As if that’s the most important thing here? To know how we found out that you’re using us? Rather than the fact that you are using us?”
“We’re not admitting to that,” Goodley said.
Andrews swore under his breath and turned away from Dane.
“We’re not admitting to that,” Goodley repeated louder, more insistently, as if that would matter.
“You want us to appear like a pair of assassins casing the security operation, doing our research, identifying the players.”
Andrews stilled, his expression flicked from caught-in-the act to blank. Goodley’s hostility went to surprise and then if Dane wasn’t mistaken, a shade of fear around the edges. And Dane was hardly ever mistaken about reading faces.
“Maybe …” Shana said, “they want us to pose as assassins, to confuse or distract the real assassins.” She gave Andrews a wide-eyed look.
“No, darling. That couldn’t be. That might be dangerous. The real assassins might come after us if they thought we were competing assassins.”
“Enough. What the hell kind of game do you think you’re playing here?” Andrews face reddened like he had a bad case of hives and his mouth flattened like a dried prune.
“We’re trying to play your game,” Shana said. “It’s been tough to come up to speed on our own, with you playing hide and seek with all the most fun details, but we’ve given it our sporting best—how’d we do?”
Andrews simmered in silence. Goodley’s mouth was open and if Dane wasn’t mistaken, a shadow of respect slipped through his mean mask of horror. Anger formed like a quick, yet predictable storm, but Goodley didn’t have a chance to speak.
“How about if we start over and discuss tomorrow morning’s assignment?” Dane spoke in a deceptively reasonable voice, but he knew they recognized the knife edge underneath.
Chapter 9
The next morning Dane and Shana dressed as island vacationers, which wasn’t much different than their usual. But the distinctions were important. They wore sunglasses as always, but these included some extra capabilities including tracking and two-way communications. There was no “off” switch. Dane had asked.
Shana had resorted to using hand signals as if she knew sign language. Maybe she did. But it didn’t matter since Dane had no clue what she was trying to say. Besides, he had to keep his hands on the wheel as he pulled into the far reaches of the parking lot at Martha’s Vineyard Airport.
“Pretty good-size crowd,” Shana said.
He smiled because he knew that would annoy Andrews and Goodley, who would want some kind of official estimate. She smiled back and exited the Jeep. When he met her around her side of the car to walk toward where the crowd waited—he estimated about eight hundred to a thousand people—she brazenly took her sunglasses off and stuffed them into her large handbag. Then she reached up and stole his off his face and made them disappear into the bag as well.
He let her and took a deep breath.
“I needed that. The silence was killing me.” He kept his voice low.
She pressed her mouth to his ear, leaning in, and spoke.
“How are we going to find out from Acer if he’s found a picture of the couple yet?”
“We’ll have to go blind today.”
“Unless we can have him meet us here. I have my throwaway cell. I could call him.”
“Taking a big chance.”
She looked around. They were walking around the corner of the terminal building, joining others on the way to the same crowd to get a look at the President and Air Force One. If he weren’t involved in protection, Dane would have been more interested in the plane.
“I think as soon as we’re lost in the crowd, before we spot any Secret Service, we can get away with a quick call. We need to not be blind about this.”
He nodded. She slipped the phone from the bag
as if she were a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat and pressed the numbers with a staccato beat. He took the phone from her just as she was about to press it to her ear. He heard it ringing and kissed her surprised lips.
“If either of us gets in trouble for this, it should be me.” He knew that wouldn’t quell her annoyance, but it was the truth. If he was being overprotective, then so be it. Acer answered on the third ring.
“Almost didn’t hear the phone with the hammering.”
“You haven’t finished the build-out yet?”
“A few finishing touches. Ronnie wants it to look foolproof. I agree. He brought some decor to make it look real. I now have a few pet spiders. I drew the line at the rat—”
“Meet us at the airport for the Air Force One landing. Bring the photos. ”
“How do you know I got the photographs?”
“Did you?”
“They’re grainy and not full face, but yeah. I returned the hacking favor—”
“Don’t tell me how. Bring paper copies. Small ones. We may have to eat them.”
Acer laughed and Dane shut the phone down.
Shana took the phone, but instead of putting it back into her bag, she dropped it on the ground and then stomped on it with the spike heel of her innocent-looking sandals.
“I hope we don’t need to call anyone.”
“Don’t worry. We’re back online.” She reached into her bag and gave him his sunglasses back and slipped hers on.
There was an immediate blip as he put the sunglasses over his eyes. He tapped the right side and, sure enough, Andrews was coming in loud and clear. As he listened to the irate words, he took Shana’s hand and pulled her into the gut of the crowd to make their way toward the front where the ropes and a line of uniforms stopped them.
“Andrews, we’re in place and I’m going to work now, so pipe down or the people around me are going to hear you.” He spoke with a hand over his mouth.
“Damn you. Do not take those sunglasses off again.”
“If you keep it up, I’m going to accidently drop them where they’ll get stampeded by the crowd.”
That quieted the agent.
Beachcomber Danger: Beachcomber Investigations Book 8 - a Romantic Detective Series Page 7
