by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees
“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 ear. 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?”
“The inauguration’s got to go ahead as planned.”
“Why?” Kim asked, frowning.
“Gabe was adamant about it. He’ll kill me if he isn’t sworn in on time.”
Kim retorted incredulously, “Gabe? As in Gabriel Monihan?”
Uh-oh. “Yeah,” Diana mumbled. “Like I said. Long story.”
Kim put the radio back in its clip slowly. “Okay, then. So what does he want you—us—to do?”
“Find these guys and stop them.”
Kim looked at her watch. “He’s due through here in about ten minutes. We don’t have time to distribute the pictures to the security team and fine-tooth comb our way through the crowd.”
“Take a look through those pictures and then let’s get moving. I figure they’ve got to be on this side of the street because the other side is too crowded to maneuver in.”
Kim looked to the north. “I think you’re right. Let’s space out about fifty feet and start walking the line.”
Diana nodded. “I’ll call you on my cell phone if I spot them and you can call me if you see them first.”
Kim nodded shortly and moved off. Diana did the same. There was something bracing about having somebody else out here helping who didn’t think she was completely nuts. But it didn’t put more time on the clock, and it didn’t mean that the two of them would find these turkeys in the next nine minutes and thirty seconds.
As she walked the line of people, Diana did a rare thing. She said a prayer and willed whatever greater beings might be listening to lead her to the terrorists.
Her phone rang, and she slammed it to her ear. “Hello?”
Kim spoke abruptly, “It’s me. We’re running out of time. I’m going to run ahead and work the crowd starting at 7th Street and heading toward the Washington Monument from there. You’re in charge of this area up to that point. We’ll cover more of the parade route that way. When you hit 7th Street sprint ahead to 13th Street and pick up the search a block or so ahead of me.”
“Got it.” Good idea. By leapfrogging past each other, they’d cover a lot more ground in the next few minutes. They wouldn’t hit the whole route by a long shot, but they’d look at
a significant chunk of the crowd. It was better than nothing.
Yeah, but was it good enough?
The sounds around her blurred and dulled, fading into the background of her mind, so intense was her concentration on finding one of the faces burned into her mind. She had to succeed. She had to spot one of these guys. Five minutes to go. No sign of anyone from Q-group. She’d reached 7th Street. She spotted Kim in the crowd, about half a block ahead of her, walking quickly along the Mall, scanning faces with intense concentration of her own.
Diana took off running, moving ahead of Kim. She kept going until she was about a block ahead of her colleague. She slowed to a walk and took up the search again. She took a moment to pull out her phone and hit the auto dial, but resumed the search with the phone plastered to her ear.
“Go ahead,” Kim bit out over the phone.
“I’m working the crowd in front of the Natural History Museum. Search up to that spot and then leapfrog me.”
“Roger,” Kim replied.
Diana disconnected the line and stuffed the phone in her pocket. She spared seconds long enough to glance at her watch. Two minutes until Gabe’s motorcade was due to pass through here! Her urgency bubbled over into panic that she barely managed to hold in check. Every second counted now. She walked faster. Pushed herself to scan the sea of faces around her faster.
Faintly in the distance behind her, she heard cheering. Oh, God. Gabe was coming.
Her phone rang.
“Yes?” she panted, running now through the crowd.
“I’ve got you in sight. I’m going on ahead to the American History Museum. Turn around when you reach it and head back for that flag banner.”
“Okay,” Diana panted.
Strains of band music wafted to her. Definitely a military brass band. Probably the Marine Band. And it was drawing near. Her heart sank. It would be right in front of the Presidential motorcade. She was almost out of time.
Just a few more seconds. She raced forward now, trying frantically to stay ahead of that inexorable line of black limousines.
But it was useless. The first limousine pulled even with her. She spared a glance at it over her shoulder. She didn’t recognize any of the Secret Service agents jogging along beside it. Where was Owen Haas?
Then she glimpsed a long line of limousines behind the first one. Of course. Gabe wouldn’t be in the lead car. It would undoubtedly be full of Secret Service agents. Then there’d be carloads of hangers-on—incoming cabinet members, high roller contributors to Gabe’s campaign and Gabe’s mother, of course.
She had maybe another thirty seconds or so before Gabe’s car went by.
She pressed forward through the screaming crowd, dodging miniature flags being waved wildly. The crowd cheered deafeningly around her. She tried to scan individual male faces, but they blurred together in her panic. It was no use.
She looked ahead, trying to spot Kim in the crowd. She couldn’t see her friend through the throngs of people pushing toward the street to see the incoming President. Diana swerved away from the parade route, farther out onto the Mall itself, to get clear enough of the heavy crowd to move.
A movement caught her attention just ahead. A moped. But that wasn’t what had captured her notice. It was the second moped coming in from her left as if it planned to join the first moped. She scanned the grassy field in front of her. There! A third moped.
She broke into a full run, heading straight for the oddly moving conveyances. She had to get a look at the guys on those bikes!
The crowd ahead of her moved, swelling back toward the Mall. The first moped was forced to put its brakes on and wove through the mass of bodies, seeking a route forward. It was just the break she needed. She put on an extra burst of speed and drew near enough the moped to catch a glimpse of the driver’s face.
Bingo!
She’d seen that face in her sheaf of pictures.
She veered toward him, running flat out, as fast as her body could possibly go. Her legs went numb and her lungs burned like fire as she sucked in the cold air. But she ignored the pain and ran as if her life depended on it. Or rather, as if Gabe Monihan’s life depended on it.
1:00 P.M.
She was close enough now to see that she recognized both of the drivers of the other mopeds as well. She’d done it. She’d found the Q-group cell and correctly guessed their point of attack. Now she just had to stop the bastards. And she only had a few seconds to do it. No time to pull out her cell phone and call Kim for backup.
Which guy to jump? Probably only one of them would launch the actual attack on Gabe. If she picked the wrong guy to take out, Gabe could be killed anyway.
A wave of noise reached her ears, a traveling cheer growing louder in volume by the second. Oh, God. That would be the crowd yelling as Gabe’s limousine drove past. She estimated the sound was only a few hundred feet behind her. Two of the men in front of her abandoned their mopeds, leaving them where they landed on the ground, and shoved forcefully into the crowd. Another hundred feet and she’d be upon the third moped.
The third guy, wearing a brown coat, looked to his right. A name popped into her head to match his picture. Tito Albadian. Glory Seeker. The probable leader of the Q-group cell.
She glanced to the right, as well, and saw one of the now-on-foot terrorists nod at him. Albadian stopped his scooter and got off, dumping it on the ground. Eighty feet to go until she was on him. As he turned to push into the crowd and she got a look at him in profile, she saw the brown backpack slung over his shoulders.
Weapon! her intuition screamed.
Albadian was the one. He had to be stopped!
Zeroed in on her target now, she dodged pedestrians as she barged forward. A clear space opened up in front of her and she burst into a run. Fifty feet to reach him. He made it into the front row of parade watchers and started to slide the backpack off his shoulders.
She wasn’t going to make it. Time slowed to a stop around her as her brain shifted into a weird, out-of-time existence and her life flashed before her. A childhood dominated by fear and embarrassment. The backlash of that embarrassment taking the form of rebellion and anger. A flash of clarity as she abruptly saw her increasingly troubled military career for what it was. A strike back at the establishment that destroyed her family.
Thoughts drifted through her brain randomly as her body continued to move forward of its own volition toward Albadian. Why did she measure her life by its failures and not its successes? Why did she still blame her mother for being sabotaged by criminals out to stop her research? And why in the world was she sticking her neck out like this today, blatantly risking her life for a man who was the very symbol of everything she’d despised for most of her life?
Pow! A body slammed into her from the left, tackling her and driving her to the ground like a professional linebacker. Ooompf. The air rushed out of her flattened lungs as pain plowed into her like a bulldozer. She stared at the grass from a range of approximately one inch. So much for out-of-body experiences.
What the hell had just blasted into her like that? Or rather, who? Was there a fourth terrorist out here that she hadn’t spotted? Someone with the Q-group cell must have spotted her closing in on their man. A surge of fight-or-flight adrenaline roared through her and she heaved upward, throwing the attacker off her back. He was tenacious, though, and hung on as she struggled in his grasp.
She managed to half roll over in his grip and froze, stunned, as she caught sight of dark blue and a flash of brass. A uniform. This guy was a police officer!
She stopped struggling and shouted over the din of the crowd as it started to yell around them, heralding the imminent arrival of Gabe’s limousine, “You’ve got to let me go! Monihan’s almost here!”
“No crazy’s getting near him on my watch, lady,” the cop snarled back.
“You don’t understand,” she cried frantically. “I’m trying to save him!”
“I was told to be on the lookout for a bunch of nutcases
trying to pull something today. You just cool your jets and hold still.”
He leaned on her arms, expecting to subdue her by virtue of superior weight. Not a chance. This was exactly the sort of situation her Krav Maga training was designed to handle. She countered the guy’s attempt to pin her and reversed the move, landing the cop on his back hard, with her knee planted solidly on his solar plexus. Normally she’d finish him off with a chop to the side of the head, but she didn’t have time and the poor guy was a police officer. She left him gasping on the ground, jumped up and turned around facing the parade.
Where had Albadian gone? She searched over heads frantically, trying to spot his brown coat and dark hair.
There. Near the front of the crowd. She shoved toward him, ignoring the squawks of protest as she elbowed people aside. The yells around her grew into a roar. Crud. The first in another line of black stretch limousines came into view in front of her. Five more people to get past.
She all but picked up the woman in front of her and moved her aside in her panic to get to that backpack. She banged a tall, lean teenager aside. Three more people between her and her target. She could almost dive for that backpack.
A second limousine cruised past.
“Hey lady. Quit pushing back there,” someone growled at her.
She’d apologize after Gabe was safe. She popped the complainer in the back of the knee, knocking the joint out from under him and jumping past him as he partially collapsed.
A third limousine pulled into sight. This one had Secret Service agents at each corner of it, walking beside it briskly. She recognized Owen Haas at the back left corner of the car. Gabe.
She gathered herself to jump at Albadian and watched in horror as he cocked his arm back. And threw the backpack. It sailed up in a brown nylon arc, flying straight for the side of Gabe’s limousine.
“Bomb!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
In slow motion, she saw Owen’s head turn toward the sound of her scream. He registered the pack flying at him. He dived and made a catch any NFL receiver would be proud of, and in one move, rolled, popped to his feet and flung the pack under the front end of the limousine behind him.
