On Your Mark

by M. L. Buchman

  By Pop’s standard, she’d had a victory. By any standard.

  Jim’s final question rankled at her. So why couldn’t she let it in?

  Chapter Seven

  Back in DC, things fell quickly into routine—Jim’s old routine.

  With the intensity and intimacy of New York behind them, there was a distance in the present. Reese was the “golden one” from the moment they’d reentered Secret Service headquarters in DC. Lauded by everyone, he could see it eating at her. She disappeared in more ways than one.

  She hadn’t answered her cell phone when he tried it.

  His text asking if she wanted to catch dinner—which he’d thought was fairly harmless—had received a two-word reply: Need time.

  Now, a week later, Jim couldn’t decide if he was as feeble as a glue horse for not pursuing her when she’d first tried to shut him out. What guy on the planet wanted to face the definitive “no” from a woman? “No” sucked. He had certainly received his share of “so long,” “thanks,” or that lamest of all “whatever” over the years. But not from the most incredible woman he’d ever been with.

  He should have known something was wrong when he’d woken up that next morning. She’d already been up and dressed. No friendly teasing her back into bed. No quick snuggle to mark the start of a new day. It was still the old day—they’d gone to sleep about dawn after the long debriefing and it was just after lunchtime when they woke—so he figured that was fair, if regrettable.

  “It’s two o’clock and I’d like to get on the move before rush hour,” Reese had told him as she finished fastening her shoulder harness.

  Which he supposed was reasonable enough. The Suburban had only suffered cosmetic damage, so the two of them drove it back to DC for repairs.

  No fresh news when they’d checked in, so the drive south had been mostly quiet, just watching the changes of the day as it rolled through evening and into night. He’d asked her a bit about racing, he’d told her some exotic stories of driving big rigs across the Afghan countryside, but for the most part they’d just fallen into the driver’s rhythm of letting the road roll by.

  Or so he’d thought. Until Reese Carver had evaporated.

  He tried switching to a morning workout, but Malcolm didn’t like the change-up in routine. After three days of not spotting her, he slid back into an after-shift workout.

  Training Day came up on his duty roster.

  It had been eight weeks and it was time for a refresher course for him and Malcolm out at RTC.

  “Time to expose his nose to the stuff that explodes,” as the course master Lieutenant Jurgen liked to say.

  RTC was short for the James J. Rowley Training Center, the Secret Services’ training grounds. Here they could attack helicopters and aircraft, drive militarized ATVs in the dirt, spin cars through twisted courses, and raid storefronts or skyscrapers. Almost every essential skill could be worked on here. The K-9 Training Center was a small corner of the complex. It contained an agility course and a mocked-up office building interior. For area work, there was a two-street town set up in a different section of RTC.

  Tommy Jurgen was a tough sumbitch retired Marine and fellow Okie, so they got along just fine.

  “So tell me,” Jurgen didn’t even let him get through the door of his office. No question what he wanted to know—Jim had been asked to tell the story all week.

  So, he cracked a cold orange juice, tossed Malcolm a treat, and sat down to tell the tale of the most threatening attack on a Secret Service protectee in recent history. The newspapers had had a heyday of it, arguing both sides against the middle without the USSS saying a word: US Secret Service saves the day, and First Lady nearly killed due to Secret Service negligence to detect the threat.

  The problem was that after a full week, there were still no leads on the truck’s driver. Street cam footage had been pieced together over the entire thirty-six hours between the theft of the truck and the attack—and not one usable image of his face had been caught. They weren’t even sure it was a he until the DNA analysis of the few teeth and bones that had been recovered. Beyond that, he was melting-pot American with no clear genetic history. Missing persons reports were being chased, but so far without any luck.

  “Seems pretty unlikely for him to remain a John Doe for a full week,” Jurgen scowled down at his boots. “Less’n he was tryin’.”

  “Yep,” that had been everyone’s conclusion. Jim told him the general consensus. “Deliberate attack by party or parties unknown. Assume significantly increased threat levels.”

  Jurgen scowled at the ceiling now as if searching for a different answer, but finally concluded, “Yep.”

  “Got another question for you.” Jim knew he was fishing, but couldn’t help himself.

  “Fire away.”

  “You ever meet a Special Agent Reese Carver? Driver?”

  Jurgen’s smile grew quickly, in a way that had earned him the nickname Jerk Jurgen from all of the female officers. “Oh yeah. Majorly hot chick on the Presidential Detail. What about her?” Then he narrowed his eyes at Jim for a long moment. “No way! You?”

  “I shouldn’t have asked.” Jim should have guessed at Jurgen’s reaction. And it wasn’t like Jim wanted that fact out in public, but he was absolutely desperate for any clues.

  “Not a man in the Service hasn’t looked at that piece of ass and wanted it,” Jurgen was on a roll.

  For the first time, Tommy Jurgen’s attitude toward women rankled.

  Jurgen finally caught a clue and harrumphed himself back into being human. “Word is that no one, and I mean no one, gets much more than a hello out before she shoots them down outta the sky. Looked her up once. All set to be the top chick NASCAR driver, better than Danica Patrick, until her daddy and brother ate it in the same week. Had to be tough. Made her hard.”

  No, Jim decided. Not hard exactly. There’d been nothing hard about the woman in his bed. Cautious. Which meant…what? He didn’t really know.

  But Jurgen was expecting some reaction. Jim shouldn’t have said anything in the first place, but he had. Now all he could do was try to make sure there was no reason for Jurgen to spread the story. So he offered his best nonchalant shrug and a “Huh,” of defeat.

  “So, she put another guy in the dust. Just another in a long list, buddy,” Jurgen took the bait. “Time to stop thinking about women. You and Malcolm ready? I’ve got the course set.”

  “We were born ready. Right, Malcolm?”

  The springer spaniel wagged his tail, clearly tired of all the talk.

  An entire office complex had been built above the dog kennels within an innocuous-looking barn at the edge of the RTC campus. It would be spiked with dozens of different explosive compounds to be found by the team and keep them sharp.

  As to not thinking about women, at least one woman, Jim didn’t see that happening any more than him becoming a Nebraska Cornhuskers’ fan after being bred-and-buttered on the Oklahoma Sooners. Nope, this trucker boy wasn’t ready to give up on Reese one little bit.

  “Let’s do it.” He slapped his knees as he rose and Malcolm jumped up ready to catch the bad guys, even if they were just pretend ones…today.

  “Something eating at you?” Harvey Lieber had walked up to the desk Reese was using without her even noticing. When she’d glanced back during the attack, Reese had the best angle on the truck driver, but all she remembered was the truck’s grill. She was flipping through the mug shot books on the chance that something would jog her memory, but so far no joy.

  “No, sir. Just wishing I’d looked more carefully.”

  “Looked carefully enough to save your protectees. We’re giving you the Director’s Award of Valor for that.”

  “Don’t want it, sir. I wasn’t brave. Or not brave. I just drove. The two guys in the Lead Car—that was bravery.”

  “Yeah well, all three of you are getting one, so deal with it. Distinguished Service Award to your pal Fischer for fast thinking, too. Thinking of pul
ling him off Baxter’s fence line detail and adding him to the Presidential team. What’s your assessment?”

  Reese wanted to say no, but knew that wasn’t right. She remembered him racing to clear her way to the helos. On the camera footage, she’d seen him reacting several seconds ahead of any other agent—she’d still been bouncing off the wall and he’d already seen that she’d need a clear path. In NASCAR, races sometimes came down to thousandths of a second, making Jim’s reaction time really stand out.

  “He’s a good man,” was the very least he deserved.

  Harvey Lieber narrowed his eyes at her for several long seconds, but she wasn’t going to reveal anything else. He finally nodded to himself and turned away, making some inscrutable decision that she’d only find out about later.

  “Are you two up to the Meryton Hall dance, or the Netherfield ball?”

  Reese twisted around the other way to discover that Dilya and Zackie the First Dog had come up on her other side. She had the distinct impression that they’d somehow come to be there without Harvey even noticing. Dilya was dressed in form-fitting black—t-shirt, leggings, tennis shoes as dark as her hair—except for the bright rainbow-colored shoelaces woven between the eyelets in some strange and intricate pattern. Maybe this was her stealth mode.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t know Pride and Prejudice,” Dilya shook her head with sadness. “I’m reading her other books now. I like Fanny in Mansfield Park, but that’s because she’s sort of like me, not like you.”

  “Whereas I’m like…”

  “Elizabeth Bennet.”

  Reese wondered if all conversations with Dilya were like this. “You’d have to ask Jim about the story, I don’t know it.”

  “Oh, I can tell you, if you’d like, but it might spoil the fun.”

  “The fun.” What part of any of this was being fun?

  Dilya nodded happily, then thought for a moment. “I know what you need. You need to go for a walk. Too bad there aren’t any rain-muddied meadows. C’mon.” And she turned for the Ready Room’s door without waiting to see if Reese followed.

  At the moment, anything was better than staring at thousands of pictures in hopes of spotting someone she’d never actually seen.

  Dilya had turned right out of the Secret Service Ready Room, but she didn’t go up the stairs—which was a huge relief. Up those stairs was the First Floor of the West Wing, including the Oval Office. If Reese never went up those stairs, it would be fine with her.

  Instead, Dilya lead her back through a warren of offices and through a small door that she needed her security badge to unlock.

  “Where—”

  “Shh!” Dilya held a finger to her lips, then whispered, “There’s a press conference going on, I don’t want them to hear us. But this way is shorter.”

  The low-ceilinged area was filled with racks of equipment. Stacks and stacks of computers, high-speed modems, and video processors stood in long rows. Despite the soft roar of fans, the area was warm with radiated heat. She saw labels on the racks: ABC, NBC, CNN… She looked up at the ceiling when a sudden roar of voices sounded above. They were directly under the Press Briefing Room and the gaggle was shouting out questions for the Press Secretary.

  They were in FDR’s old swimming pool—in the deep end. She looked at a small section of exposed wall and spotted the old tile that had originally walled in the pool. It was now covered with signatures of the press corps. FDR had swum here. JFK and Marilyn Monroe had probably frolicked together in this very spot. What were they…

  Dilya had moved down to the far end of the pool. Zackie’s nails clicked on the bare concrete floor that had replaced the old pool bottom.

  Reese hurried along the cramped aisle to join her.

  “This door leads into the Press Corps basement offices, but they should be empty right now.” Dilya opened the door and led the way.

  Down one side was a long line of tiny booths set up like the announcer’s broadcast studios at NASCAR races. The door plaques showed that’s exactly what they were: Voice of America, American Forces Network, Reuters, and more. On the left was a cubicle row, crowded aisles of small desks with cameras and notepads scattered about. There was a small rail with dozens and dozens of overlapping neckties dangling from it. Reese had no time for anything more than impressions as Dilya hurried along.

  At one of the cubicle desks, a reporter hunched over a camera. Perhaps because the camera was broken there was no point in being upstairs at the briefing. All she could really see as they hurried by was the reporter’s hands working on it. Close by lay a stack of several black boxes, each smaller than a pack of playing cards that must be some form of storage or battery she wasn’t familiar with.

  They passed a stairwell leading upward from which she could hear the clear voices of the press briefing breaking up. She raced ahead.

  Past a tiny kitchen with two vending machines, a microwave, and an espresso machine with a picture of Tom Hanks above it, they came to another door. Again, Dilya slotted her ID and a flat panel at the end of the hall swung aside. Zackie pushed through first.

  They rushed through after her as steps sounded on the stairs from the offices above. Dilya leaned on the panel and it snicked shut with seconds to spare. The sudden silence was echoing.

  They were in a utilitarian hallway that Reese’s sense of direction said was a basement beneath the White House Residence itself. There was the rattle of dishes and the hum of a dishwasher off to her left. To the right was a long wall with two doors, both labeled Storage.

  Directly in front of them, in the middle of a long white hallway lit fluorescent white, stood a gray-haired woman. Her hair was back in a bun. She wore an unremarkable dress and a knit red cardigan. She looked like someone’s grandmother, if not for her brilliant blue eyes that were watching the two of them closely.

  “Miss Stevenson,” the woman nodded to Dilya. “We meet at long last. And Miss Carver. This is indeed a treat. And where are the two of you headed in such a hurry?”

  Reese opened her mouth, then closed it again. She didn’t know. Now that she thought about it, she was simply glad that no one was about to shoot her for trespassing where mere Motorcade drivers were not meant to go. Yet she had the distinct impression that this woman had been standing here waiting just for them.

  “Uh…” It was nice to see the supremely confident Dilya flummoxed by something. The young know-it-all had clearly been having fun messing with her. Turnabout was such sweet revenge.

  “You may call me Miss Watson. Where were you off to, child?” The woman didn’t offer to shake hands, instead keeping them clasped on the carved white handle of her stout wooden cane. It looked as ancient as she did.

  “I was taking Ms. Carver to go and see Clive.” Dilya’s tone said that she was distinctly unhappy about the “child” comment, but wasn’t comfortable arguing with an elder—at least not one as imposing as Miss Watson.

  Their destination was news to Reese. Clive who?

  “Of course you were, dear. And I know for exactly what reason. How convenient that he has just made me a small delivery this morning. Please, come to my office.” Again without waiting for any acknowledgement, she turned toward the sound of the dishwashing.

  A few steps along the hallway, Miss Watson opened a door onto a narrow spiral stairway. Firmly grasping the handrail, the woman navigated the spiral downward with surprising agility. When Dilya followed, Reese was left with no choice but to do the same. They emerged into an even more utilitarian hallway of the subbasement. Excess chairs, perhaps from the State Dining room, were stacked along one side of the hall. Fold-up tables could be seen further along. Doors were labeled Air Conditioning, Storage, Dentist—with no dentist at present—Elevator Machinery, and finally Mechanical Room 043.

  Miss Watson unlocked the door to that last and slipped inside.

  At first impression, it looked like a dark hole. The kind that people entered, then were never s
een again. A dim desk lamp was turned on, revealing a battered steel desk and shelves of books.

  “If you’d give an old lady a hand, my dear,” Miss Watson waved at the joint of two bookcases—after the brightness of the hall it was too dim to read any of the titles.

  In for a penny. Reese took in a breath and, hoping that she would still be alive to take in another, pushed. The two bookcases swung inward and apart, sliding easily out of the way.

  A parlor, brightly lit with Tiffany lamps, was revealed. It had a white oriental rug, delicate armchairs, and walnut fixtures. Miss Watson shuffled past, and at the touch of a switch, a gas fireplace flickered to life beneath a large marble mantel that might have dated all the way back to George Washington. There were pictures of women’s faces everywhere. The room was elegant. And easily the most unexpected place she’d ever been.

  Dilya’s wide-eyed expression said this was new to her as well.

  Miss Watson crossed to a bright red ceramic Snoopy doghouse. Lifting the dog as a handle, she removed the roof and revealed a cookie jar filled with dog biscuits. She selected one and bent down far enough to hand it to Zackie, then pat her on the head.

  “Please,” she waved them to chairs while she busied herself with a white porcelain teapot covered in sweet peas.

  Reese looked once more at the photos about the walls. They came from every era of the nation’s history, some were hand-painted portraits, but most were photographs. She identified Spanish, Russian, German, and Vietnamese women as well as a wide variety of ones in American military attire.

  “Yes,” Miss Watson spoke without turning. “Many of the finest spies throughout history have been women.” As if she already knew what question Reese was thinking.

  She delivered teacups and small plates of delicate chocolates before sitting in a flowered chair across from them. Perhaps this Clive was the White House chocolatier. She knew he worked somewhere in the lower reaches of the Residence, though she hadn’t been aware that the building went this far down.

  “Tell me what you know but haven’t spoken aloud, Miss Carver.” She propped her antique cane beside her chair and picked up her teacup.