Athena Force 7-12

by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees

  “Dupree—Dunst—got a knife and a disguise—presumably to wear once he got out of here—from somewhere. Overpowered a guard in the hallway while en route to the interview with you. Took the guard’s gun and ran down this hallway, briefly impeded by you.”

  “How’d the power go out? Doesn’t this place have emergency power of some sort?”

  Flaherty’s jaw rippled. “We don’t know yet how both the primary and backup power systems went down.”

  “How did Dunst get out the door? Surely it fails to a locked mode in a facility like this.”

  An outright clench tensed Flaherty’s jaw this time. He gritted out, “The lockdown mode on the exit Dunst used never engaged properly. He ran up, pulled the damn door open and shot his way out.”

  “How’d he egress the area? Surely you’d have caught him by now if he were on foot. How did a getaway car get through the front gate?”

  “Good question. We’ve got film but the license plate was intentionally obscured.”

  Just like the car the guy who broke into her house used. She asked sharply, “Did they use a black plastic garbage bag over the plate? Drive a late model silver sedan? Four doors? Foreign make?”

  The guy lurched to his feet. Paced a lap of the tiny space and came back to the table, planting his palms on it and leaning toward her aggressively. “And just how in the hell did you know that? Are you working with Dunst? It’s pretty damned convenient that you showed up at this ungodly hour, insisting that Dunst be dragged out of his cell and brought out here.”

  She reared back in shock. “I am not working with Richard Dunst! I’m here because I believe he’s involved in a conspiracy to kill Gabe Monihan. I want to nail this bastard!”

  Flaherty stared at her in silence. She knew the technique. Guilt makes people babble to fill the silence. She used the moment to think hard. Flaherty was right about one thing. Dunst must have had inside help to slip him the weapon. He also needed technologically advanced help from outside to hack into the building’s electrical system. How else would both systems have failed at once? This building was undoubtedly hooked into the DOD power grid, which was hardened against all manner of attacks from without. It was a favorite target of hackers, and a damned hard one to get into.

  Inside help. High-level hacking. Getaway car in place. Prison locks tampered with. And the whole thing precisely timed and executed. Not the work of a few radical yahoos. Somebody smart, powerful and knowledgeable planned and executed Dunst’s escape. She seriously needed to run all this through Oracle’s analysis program.

  Flaherty’s cell phone rang, and he listened briefly before pocketing it again. “The getaway car was just found. It was abandoned down by the river. Apparently our man got away by boat.”

  Damn. Dunst was free. She looked up at the agent. “Am I free to go, now? This escape just increased my workload for today dramatically.”

  “Not a chance, lady.”

  She winced. Time was the one thing she couldn’t spare right now. But she also couldn’t afford to get combative with this guy if she wanted to get out of here anytime soon.

  He fired a question at her aggressively. “How long have you been working for the Q-group?”

  She lurched. “Q-group? Me? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Answer the question,” he snapped.

  How was she supposed to respond to an absurd accusation like that? It was a Have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife-yet sort of question. “I do not work for the Q-group,” she stated emphatically.

  “Then why is your e-mail address plastered all over the Q-group chat room?”

  She stared in undisguised shock. Who was this guy? How in the world did he even know what her e-mail address was, let alone that she’d been visiting Q-group hangouts online? And how was it that he was here, now, at an obscure prisoner facility, questioning her? Alarm bells clanged wildly in her gut.

  Flaherty commented smoothly, “Army pay doesn’t go too far in an expensive town like this, does it? A nice car, a nice house, nice clothes—” he eyed her sleek suede pants pointedly “—they all cost big bucks. How does a girl like you do it?”

  He was accusing her of going over to the enemy for money? Betraying her country in the name of designer fashion? She answered the guy’s slimy innuendo through gritted teeth. “I have a trust fund. A big, fat one from my grandfather.”

  The agent crossed his arms. “Ah, yes. Joseph Lockworth. Former director of the CIA. Pretty handy to be related to someone like that who can hide the family skeletons.”

  A memory surged forward in her brain, unbidden.

  Crouching at the top of the stairs in her flannel nightgown, clutching Lammy, her precious stuffed lamb. She’d hauled that poor toy with her everywhere in those first days after The Incident.

  Something bad had happened to Mommy. One day she was her laughing, smiling, soft-smelling self and gave the best hugs in the world. And the next day, she got all sad and had a funny look in her eyes all the time. And stopped hugging.

  Men in suits kept coming to the door. Daddy tried at first to make them go away, but they never did. They yelled at Mommy sometimes and asked her questions that made her cry. One time, Gramps came over and yelled at Mommy, but he stopped after a while. He said he supposed every family had a skeleton in the closet. He said he’d do his best to cover up this one.

  For weeks after that, she’d been terrified of closets. She kept expecting a dead, bony body to jump out of one at her. Her big sister, Josie, was terribly brave and didn’t mind opening closet doors, which was the only way she ever got clean clothes to wear. Daddy was too sad to notice whether or not she wore the same thing to school three days in a row.

  “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 staring 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 Arm
y 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.”