Protective Measures

by Dana Marton

  Kaye ran for the main entrance and burst outside, drawing attention from passersby. She straightened her clothes and did her best to act like a normal person in a hurry instead of someone either insane or dangerous.

  She ran toward the corner where she’d last seen Danny on the monitor. How long did they have to stop the attack on the presidents?

  In a few minutes… Bobby had said.

  What were a few minutes? Ten? Fifteen? Five?

  Could she still make it?

  Chapter Ten

  “Congresswoman?” Danny talked into his headset, standing apart from the crowd.

  He was heading back to the building. The man he had pursued and caught had turned out to be a harmless bystander.

  “Congresswoman Miller is with Harrison,” one of the agents told him from the command center.

  “She left?”

  “A few minutes ago.”

  “Do you know where they went?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  He looked toward the building. As long as she was with Harrison, she would be fine. Maybe the man had some questions for her.

  He turned back toward the hotel. Movement caught his eye at the other end of the street. The presidential motorcade was finally coming. The police motorcycles first, then a cop car. The Secret Service vehicle was just turning the corner next. Some people in the crowd cheered, others booed. Opinions over the summit were pretty much divided.

  The news reporters covering the event came to life, talking to their cameras.

  He scanned the crowd, picking out the undercover agents one by one. Everyone was in place. He moved into the sea of people.

  “Danny!” Somebody was calling his name from behind.

  He looked back, but all he could see were the faces of strangers who paid little attention to him.

  “Danny!”

  Kaye? He pushed through the crowd, moving in the direction of the voice.

  Then there she was, rumpled and her hair all out of place as if she’d been in a fight. He rushed to her and closed his arms around her without thinking. She put a hand over his mouth before he could ask what had happened, if she was all right.

  She reached for the microphone under his collar with one hand and for the button cam with the other, shoved them into his pocket. “Turn them off.” She mouthed the words.

  He did so without questioning her.

  “There is going to be an attack. Right now,” she said.

  “Everything is secured. Where the hell is Harrison?”

  “Harrison is in on it.”

  He couldn’t be. He was Secret Service. No organization had ever breached the agency before. But one look at Kaye’s face told Danny she was dead serious.

  Oh, hell. That meant the Brotherhood knew just how much security there was and where they were. “What are they going to do?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s going to happen within minutes.”

  “And Harrison is hooked up to the system. We can’t just call it in.”

  He moved toward the armed guards who were holding the crowd back. The Beast, the black presidential vehicle that carried both President Derickson and Mexican President Alvarez to symbolize their unity over the Summit, was halfway down the street. They’d be stopping in front of the hotel soon.

  What had the Brotherhood planned?

  The Beast had state-of-the-art armor, its own supplemental oxygen supply and a self-healing fuel tank. It could drive even if the tires were shot out. The car was safer than some of the combat vehicles the army used around the world.

  The bikes rolled closer, slowly, followed by the black and white. Then came the Secret Service car that carried some of the PPD, Presidential Protective Division, the agents who guarded the “Kill Zone”—the immediate area around the president. The Beast was next.

  Danny pushed forward, his attention focused on the car. Then he saw something move. A small red dot hovered on the back of the rearview mirror.

  “Oh, hell.”

  “What?” Kaye was right behind him.

  “Someone painted the car.”

  “Huh?”

  “Military talk. There’s a missile guidance transmitter aimed at the mirror. See the small dot? Someone is keeping the laser on the car and transmitting exact location.”

  “To what?”

  “My guess would be a big weapon they have stashed out of sight. This way, whoever fires the weapon doesn’t have to be in direct view of the target and risk discovery, doesn’t have to worry that he’ll miss. His partner is ‘painting’ the target for him, communicating directly to the weapon.”

  She still looked somewhat confused, but he didn’t have time for further explanations. He had to find the man who held the transmitter.

  Couldn’t have been anyone in the crowd. He scanned the surrounding buildings. They’d been checked over and over again. The advance team had spent the last five days securing the site, checking for potential sniper positions or anything else that was remotely suspicious. They set up safe houses along the way, brought in the president’s own blood supply. All standard procedure. When the president was outside the White House, he traveled in a protective bubble. But this time, the bubble had been breached. The Brotherhood had someone on the inside.

  He glanced back toward the command center, straight ahead of the limo that still hadn’t progressed into the safety of the garage. Somebody moved on the roof. There was a guard posted there, but the last he’d seen the man he was in full military gear including a helmet. He didn’t see a helmet on the guy up there now.

  “Harrison,” Kaye and he said at the same time and took off running.

  They didn’t have long before the presidential car would come to a stop. According to the schedule, the windows would roll down for about sixty seconds and the presidents would wave to the crowd. Then the limo was supposed to proceed to the underground parking garage that was fully secured.

  Harrison was waiting for that sixty-second window to see the presidents and make sure they were indeed in the car and the whole thing wasn’t faked as a last-minute security precaution. It had been done before. The PPD could have done it without telling the rest of the team.

  Danny swore. If he broke radio silence to warn anyone, Harrison would signal for the hit. The only way to stop him was to catch him—now. The motorcade was moving slowly, but they didn’t have long before it reached its location. Two minutes maybe, three at the most.

  They ran through the front doors of the building. Kaye stopped for a second to reach into the garbage bin and came up with a gun.

  What the hell? “Where did you get that?”

  “Long story. Stairs or elevator?”

  “Stairs,” he said. Harrison had everything planned out pretty good. There was a chance that the elevator was rigged. If it were him up on that roof, he wouldn’t want people to get to him in a hurry.

  They took the stairs three at a time. When they got to the sixth floor, they found a guard down, shot through the head. Blood pooled under his body.

  “You should get off here, go to the secured room and wait.” He stepped over the guy.

  “No.” Kaye followed him.

  “I don’t have time to argue.”

  “Then don’t.”

  They pushed on, running up another two flights of stairs before reaching the door to the roof. Locked. Danny swore as he took the safety off his gun. They didn’t have time to worry about whether or not they were making noise.

  “You stay back here.” He handed her the microphone from his pocket. “If anything happens to me, call for help. The guys in the command center will hear you.”

  He didn’t wait for her answer. He kicked open the door and stepped out onto the roof.

  THE ADRENALINE that washed through her veins was pushing her to go after him to help. Her brain was telling her she would be a liability. But she couldn’t just stand there. She had to do something.

  Kaye ran back down the stairs. They couldn’t alert Secret Servic
e over the radio just yet, not without tipping off Harrison. But she could alert them in person. Danny had been right. She should have gone there instead of coming up here with him. In the rush of the moment she hadn’t had a chance to think it over, to reason it out. She’d simply followed her instincts that screamed “stick with Danny.”

  She flew down the stairs and over the dead man’s body to the door that led to the hallway. She put a finger to her lips as she stepped out, signaling to the guard not to acknowledge her out loud.

  She walked into the room the same way, straight to the wipe-off board, and wrote two words on it. Radio silence.

  The agents hesitated. She gave them her best Majority Whip glare and added one more word. Now!

  One by one, the men and the single female agent turned off their microphones.

  “Harrison is on the roof. There’s a laser-guided missile somewhere in the city. He’s painting the presidents’ car.”

  To their credit, no one questioned the veracity of her words, even though she was accusing one of their own. They were too well-trained to waste time on argument. Instead, the agents sprung to action.

  “Daniel DuCharme is up there, trying to take Harrison down,” she added.

  One of the agents was typing furiously on his keyboard. “Give me a sec, then you can turn on the mikes. Maintain radio silence until you hear the all clear from me.”

  She moved over to him as the others left. “Can you do anything to cut Harrison off?”

  The man nodded. “He has mike number twenty-one in our restricted radio network.” He pushed the enter key. “There. He’s out of the loop.” He pulled the mouthpiece of his headset nearer his lips. “All clear. You may open communications.”

  Next, he relayed all the pertinent information to the choppers and the agents on the street. He was interrupted by the sound of gunfire from the roof above them.

  “I’m going up.” Kaye ran for the door.

  He was in front of her long before she got there.

  “I’m sorry, Congresswoman, but there’s no way I can let you do that.”

  DANNY SQUEEZED OFF a shot then ducked behind the vent stack. A dozen agents were spreading out on the roof. Kaye had gotten word to the command room. Trouble was, he’d given her his mike, so he couldn’t make contact with them.

  He’d already shot the missile guidance transmitter out of Harrison’s hand, but the man still had his gun, and from the look of things, he had a top of the line bulletproof vest and no shortage of bullets. The heavy aluminum case of the vent he was leaning against had been riddled with them.

  The sound of choppers filled the air. The enemy was defeated, they just didn’t know it yet.

  He had to get behind Harrison. Danny ran for the next vent, keeping low, dodging bullets.

  THE AGENT was right. He was just doing his job. He was making perfect sense—an untrained civilian had no place in the middle of an armed confrontation. Still, it wasn’t easy for Kaye to accept her uselessness.

  The noise of the helicopters circling above drowned out every other sound.

  “What’s going on up there?” She looked toward the ceiling.

  The agent tapped his earpiece. “Hard to tell, lots of yelling. I wouldn’t—”

  His words were cut off as the door banged open.

  “Bobby.” Kaye froze, her brain going blank. The man was dead. The shelves had fallen on him. What was he doing here? Then she recovered enough to think of running, and glanced around, desperate. In the small room there was nowhere to run.

  The agent came out of his chair, went for his gun. Too late. Bobby had his ready and he was a good shot. The man fell with a hole in the middle of his forehead.

  “You thought you could take me out, bitch?” Bobby turned his attention to her. His right eye was bleeding, a gruesome sight, dried blood mixing with fresh on his face. His left arm appeared to be broken. There was blood on his leg, too, where something sharp had ripped his pants and his flesh.

  The gun she’d taken off him earlier was on the computer desk behind her. She went down, swiping for it, took the security off as she’d seen him do and squeezed off a shot at the same time as he did. Then she dropped and rolled, just as Danny had taught her.

  The man stopped moving and looked at her as if he was terribly surprised by this audacity. And then he fell like a log, face first, his head hitting the floor just a few inches from her.

  “Kaye?” Danny stood in the doorway, gun in hand, his face white. “Are you okay?”

  “I shot him.” Her whole body felt numb all of a sudden.

  “Well done,” he said as color slowly returned to his cheeks. “I thought—” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  She came up to a sitting position, keeping her eyes on Danny, not wanting to look at the body. “I wouldn’t have thought I could do it.”

  He came over and sat down next to her without touching her.

  She took a deep breath. She wanted to get out of the room, but she didn’t trust her legs to stand. “I didn’t want to kill him. I just wanted him to stop.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I got him, too. We both did.”

  She barely heard his words. She thought of all the impassioned speeches she had given on curbing violence. “What kind of a person does this make me?”

  “A woman nobody better mess with.” He put an arm around her and pulled her to him. “You’re probably in shock. It’s over, Kaye.”

  She heard his words, but couldn’t quite comprehend them.

  One of the agents came in, then another. Danny helped her up and moved away smoothly, making it all look professional.

  “To hell with it,” she said and moved back into the circle of his arms. She needed his strength and the comfort he gave.

  From the corner of her eye, she could see as the chin of one of the agents just about hit his chest. The other turned away, giving them privacy.

  Danny squeezed her and placed a kiss on the top of her head then raised his gaze and talked to the men. “How are the streets?”

  “Closed off,” one of them said then called in their fallen colleague, while the other took the man’s place at the controls. The president was still on location. They had a job to do.

  She clung to Danny and he made no move to let her go. “I need a chopper on the roof in five minutes. I’m taking Congresswoman Miller off site,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.” The man made the request over his radio.

  The next thing she knew, she was swung into Danny’s arms as he carried her out of the room.

  Agents were walking down the hallway.

  “Are you all right, Congresswoman?”

  “She’s fine.” Danny kept going.

  “I can walk,” she told him half-heartedly.

  “I know. But I badly want to touch you, and this is the only way I can think of doing it without causing a complete scandal,” he whispered back.

  She put her arms around his neck. “Do I look like I’m worried about it?”

  He took a long look at her as he walked to the staircase and started up.

  There were still agents coming from the roof. “Need any help?”

  “Everything is under control. Minor injuries.” Danny passed by them on his way up. “No, you don’t look worried,” he said after a minute, then he stopped.

  And then he kissed her.

  She was dimly aware of people passing them, a low wolf whistle coming from somewhere. She didn’t care. The only thing she could think of was that they were both alive, that she was in Danny’s arms.

  He pulled away, touched his forehead to hers before moving on. “Sorry. I really needed that.”

  “Me, too,” she said.

  “You’re not making this easier for me.” He grinned.

  “Am I supposed to?”

  “Hell, yes. You keep up with this and it’s going to be pretty difficult for me to become the Speaker’s secret lover.”

  Her lover. Her heart thumped at the words as her brain
turned them over.

  They reached the roof just as the last of the agents were clearing out.

  Her lover. “Is that what you want?” she asked when they were alone.

  He looked her deep in the eyes, the ever-present grin gone from his face. “I want a hell of a lot more, Kaye, but I’m aware of your position. I’ll take whatever I can get.”

  “But—”

  “I want it all. I want everything. I love you.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to—”

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

  “Everything happened so suddenly. I didn’t expect— I just—” She wanted so badly to make him understand, but for once she wasn’t sure what to say. “It’s crazy. I’m falling in love with you.” Frustration pushed the words from her, and she froze as soon as they were out, surprised by them, unsure what to say next.

  He took in a slow breath then let it out. “About time. I think I’ve been in love with you since the day you beat me up in your basement.”

  “I did not beat you up. You were training me.”

  “I’m thinking you should maybe have a little more training. There are a couple of self-defense moves best demonstrated by rolling on the mat.”

  “Self-defense is important,” she said. “But maybe I need stronger measures, considering what’s happened in the last couple of days.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Should be watched 24/7.”

  “How closely?” she asked.

  “As closely as possible.”

  “Know any volunteers?”

  “I might,” he said. “Tell me again.”

  “I love you, Daniel DuCharme.”

  Epilogue

  “I can’t believe we are in the Lincoln Bedroom.” Kaye glanced around as she kicked off her high heels, her gaze lingering over the slim posts of the gorgeous bed, the antique linens, the chandelier.

  Their reward for saving the lives of two presidents was kept low key since Danny was part of a secret military unit. The media couldn’t very well paste his face all over the news and explain who he was and what he was doing at the Summit. The official story credited Secret Service with saving the day.