by Vicki Hinze
Grinding his shoe against the concrete, Patch stomped out his cigarette and then took the evidence bag from Cramer. “You’d better double-time it back to the hotel. Harrison is waiting for you in the bar.”
Looking resigned, Cramer made a U-turn and headed back. Patch kept him in sight until distance obscured him, and then he pulled an identical Band-Aid filled evidence bag from his raincoat’s inner pocket. He tucked Cramer’s bag in its place against his chest, then tapped at the side door of the van.
It slid open about six inches. Patch flashed the penny, passed the substituted bag through the crack, and then walked away. He had seen no one inside the van and no one inside had seen him: a strictly professional transfer.
The van pulled away from the curb and headed down the street, its tires spraying through puddles of water.
Patch walked toward the hotel until the van hung a left onto a side street and vanished into the night.
Making a one-eighty, he hustled to his car. Cramer had made two new critical errors. He’d seen Patch’s face during a professional transfer, and he hadn’t so much as flinched at the discrepancy between Harrison saying he was going for a walk and Patch telling him Harrison was waiting in the bar. The rookie would have reason to regret both errors—though not because of Westford.
Relief at having avoided that personal encounter swam through Patch’s stomach. Inside Ballast, Westford was known as the Widow-maker, and his reputation was nearly as daunting as Gregor Faust’s. Overtly Westford had been with the Secret Service on general assignments for thirteen years. Covertly he had been assigned to the nonexistent SDU for the better part of a decade. Only the best agents made it to SDU, and Westford headed the list. He was sharp, judiciously ruthless, and didn’t perform missions, he attacked them, using whatever means necessary to reach his objective. In a one-on-one conflict, he and Faust would be a close match, but Westford had a conscience and loyalties and that made him more predictable.
Faust wasn’t troubled with either. That gave him the upper hand.
Patch opened his car door and its hinges squeaked. When he settled inside, he lifted his digital phone. His calls were as secure as money and technology could make them, every transmission scrambled. He double-checked his rearview mirror—nothing moving—and waited for the high-pitch beep to signal that the scrambler was operational. Finally hearing it, he spoke into the receiver. “ET calling home.”
“Go ahead, ET.”
“Interception complete.”
Chapter Two
Wednesday, August 7 Local Time: 22:17:12
“It’s delivered. I’m in the bar with Cramer.”
Positioned outside the conference room, Jonathan heard Harrison’s transmission and considered it probable that Harrison was sharing a club soda with Cramer, reminding him why the rookie was lucky to still be breathing. Jonathan rubbed at his temple, stepped away from his Peris and Abdan counterparts, and deliberately lowered his voice. “Screw Cramer. Watch that waiter.”
“He’s in the bar, sir.”
Jonathan was glad to hear it. Until the lab results came in, he wanted an agent Super-Glued to the man. He moved back into position outside the conference room door.
Peris’s agent slid him a knowing glance Jonathan ignored. The rapport between them had been amicable enough, though they hadn’t conversed beyond acknowledging nods. If the situation deteriorated and the need arose, killing the man would come easier if he hadn’t shown Jonathan pictures of his kids.
Taking the at-ease stance, he laced his hands behind his back and scanned the long hallway from sculptured ceiling to marbled floor. At the north end, two women wearing hotel-staff badges stood near a potted ficus talking. Their laughter echoed down the empty corridor, grating at his ears. They had no idea how lucky they were to be unaware of what was going on in the conference room.
Peris and Abdan were at this summit solely because they trusted Liberty. She was here solely because President Lance trusted her. None of them trusted easily, but Liberty had earned it, as well as the respect of the international community. “Say what you mean, and mean what you say” was more than her political slogan, it was her way of life. Everyone, including key reporters—with the exception of that bastard Sam Sayelle from the Washington Herald— recognized her as the real thing and made sure everyone knew it. At least they had before her divorce.
Feeling a stab of guilt because he might have played a part in that divorce, Jonathan shifted his feet and his thoughts and dared to hope that she could make this summit work.
Judging by the occasional elevated voices inside and the moods of the leaders when they surfaced, the talks had been passionate and progressive, but he’d been through this too many times to not know negotiations could turn on a dime and end either way.
Something rustled. Cellophane. Glancing left, Jonathan watched the Abdan agent pop a peppermint into his mouth. Fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty.
At midnight, Liberty’s personal assistant, Grace Hall, appeared at the mouth of the corridor and walked toward Jonathan. She wasn’t smiling.
Grace was a twenty-year veteran, and regardless of what was going on, she always smiled in the presence of outsiders. Seeing her grim-faced now set Jonathans teeth on edge and his nerves on alert.
She tapped at the bridge of her nose. Light from the chandelier overhead reflected on her glasses; a fingerprint smudged her left lens. “The president needs to speak with Vice President Stone, Jonathan.”
Now? The president had been fully briefed during the dinner break, less than three hours ago. Had the lab reported her test results directly to him?
“He’s holding.” Grace’s tension crackled between them. She thrust out a single finger and again tapped the nose bridge on her glasses.
A Code One. Urgent. His heart rate kicked up another notch. In all his years with the agency, he had gotten four Code Ones. All of them had been notifications of disasters. If this disaster informed them Liberty had been infected, he would kill Cramer with his bare hands. “Just a moment.”
Jonathan turned, knocked on the ornately carved wooden door, and then opened it. “Excuse me, Madam Vice President.” He waited for her to look at him. When she did, he added, “The call you expected at dinner has come through.” He swept a single finger across the tip of his nose and sniffed, signaling the Code One.
“Ah, finally. Thank you.” Liberty scooted back her chair and smiled at the men seated at the table. “Sorry for the interruption. This will only take a minute.”
Smoothing the edge of her navy suit jacket, she swept by Jonathan, stirring the subtle scent of her perfume, then entered a private office abutting the conference room where she’d take the secure-line call. He waited outside the door, cautiously relieved. She wasn’t exhibiting any negative symptoms.
Grace joined him, and their gazes met. Two decades of experience couldn’t hide the anxiety in her eyes.
Minutes later Liberty emerged, her skirt swishing against her calves, her pumps clicking on the marble floor. Far more rigid and formal than before she had taken the call, she dropped her voice so only they could hear her orders. “We’re going home immediately. Notify the plane”— she shifted her gaze from Jonathan to Grace—“and have my things packed. I’ll meet you at the concierge’s desk in ten minutes.”
“Are you all right?” He looked deliberately down at her bandaged finger.
She nodded. “Different matter, Agent Westford,” she said, then walked back into the conference room.
Jonathan shut the door. The woman never lost her composure, but she was rattled now. Why would the president interrupt talks on a mission he had ranked as top priority?
Fortunately, it wasn’t a contamination confirmation. Unfortunately, only the president and Liberty knew what it was and, rattled or not, they weren’t talking. Jonathan flattened his lips. Definitely a major disaster.
Ten minutes later he stood beside Liberty as she addressed the young woman working as concierge. “I understand yo
u have a case for me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She reached down then lifted a new black briefcase to the desktop. A silver bracelet cuff dangled from its handle.
Liberty reached for it at the same moment Jonathan saw the device. “No!”
She blocked him. “It’s okay. I know it’s wired.”
“No, ma’am.” He shifted his body, positioning himself between her and the case. “It’s not okay”
Liberty looked him right in the eye and spoke softly. “Mission necessity. Presidential orders.”
He couldn’t let her do this. Her safety was his responsibility. “Put it on me instead.” He swore responsibility was the reason he had insisted, but he knew it was more. She was more. If anything happened to her…
The look in her eyes softened. “We both know I can’t do that.”
“You wouldn’t even if you could.” They both knew that, too. Her devotion was but one of the things he admired and resented about her.
She didn’t respond to his challenge, just held his gaze and waited.
Jonathan grimaced and stepped aside. She shackled the cuff to her left wrist. When the lock clicked into place, his stomach knotted and a bitter taste filled his mouth. Couriered matter was seldom cuffed to anyone anymore. Liberty was well known and easily recognized, but the cuff and device made her an even more exposed target.
The desk clerk stammered, clearly unnerved. “W— will there be anything else, Vice President Stone?”
“Just one thing. I want you to deliver a glass of warm milk and two—no, three—chocolate-chip cookies to each of the leaders with a note from me every night for the rest of their stay here.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The woman looked as skeptical about the request as Jonathan felt. “What should the note say?”
“The children are counting on you.”
Tension tightened in Jonathan’s chest, and he rubbed at his neck. Her approach might be simple, but the emotional response it evoked was damned complex. And it would carry the weight of other nations, including the people of Peris and Abdan. The premiers wouldn’t dare leave before reaching an agreement.
“Is the limo ready?” Liberty headed for the lobby, moving at a brisk clip.
“Yes, ma’am.” He fell into step beside her. “But we’re not clear to leave yet. It’ll be a few more hours.”
“Impossible,” Liberty said in a firm tone. “We don’t have a few hours.”
“We’re not leaving until the lab report’s back.”
“I’m overriding that order, Agent Westford.”
“No, ma’am, you’re not,” he said, seeing her jaw tighten. “Before you get hostile, let me explain. Running the panels on your blood takes time.”
“I just told you, we don’t have any spare time.”
“We can’t afford to get out over the Atlantic and then find out you need immediate medical attention. I have ultimate authority on matters of your welfare, ma’am, and I say we’re staying put until we get an all clear from the lab.”
Liberty looked torn. “I wasn’t exaggerating, Agent Westford. We’re under an extremely important, time-sensitive deadline.”
“Obviously, ma’am.” Code Ones always had been both. “But dead women can’t meet deadlines. Not even important, time-sensitive ones.”
“All right, we’ll wait,” she said as if she had a choice in the matter. “But only until dawn. Then, either way, our plane takes off.”
“Agreed.” Jonathan felt safe in complying. The test results would be in before then.
“We’ll wait for the results on the plane.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He notified Home Base, the staff, and then Captain Ken Dean, who was already on the plane, thanks to a call from Grace.
Soon they were in the limo and Liberty sat staring at the briefcase. More than a little regret burned in the depths of her eyes. Jonathan could tell that whatever had created the Code One crisis disappointed and frightened her—as much if not more than the potential for contamination from her knife wound. Instinct warned him that her fear wasn’t rooted in her carrying a wired case. It ran deeper. How deep, he didn’t know, since she did not utter another word on the twenty-minute ride to the airport.
When she crossed the threshold and entered the plane, her confidence returned. Near the galley, she snagged an orange off the food cart and pulled Jonathan aside.
“No notice, diversionary route three.” She looked up at him. “Get Grace, Rich, and Charles off this flight—and anyone else we do not have to have with us to get home.” She scanned the group of twenty already boarded. “No press or nonessential staff. Skeleton crew only” She looked back at Jonathan. “Get them off fast and get the staff and press separated.” Worry clouded her eyes, again turning her irises midnight blue. “Try to delay their return to the States until Monday.”
Monday? But it was only Wednesday. “Staff and press?”
She nodded. “If at all possible. We have less than seventy-two hours, and we’re going to need every minute, ‘Hail Mary’and scrap of luck we can scrounge up to make it.”
“I’ll have to bring in the CIA,” he reminded her, an accompanying chill slithering up his back. Liberty wasn’t prone to exaggeration, and only once, during a crisis in the Middle East that had threatened to rip open barely healed wounds, had he heard her resort to a verbal Hail Mary pass. “The press will scream bloody murder.”
“I look forward to hearing it.”
That baffled him. “Ma’am?”
“They’ll be alive to scream.”
Definitely a disaster crisis. One with long arms and a lot of potential, considering she wanted everyone kept out of the country. He glanced through the cabin. That so many had boarded the plane on such short notice didn’t surprise him. The press and staff knew Liberty’s sudden departure signaled a major development, and no one wanted to miss being at ground zero. “Yes, ma’am.” He passed the order to clear the plane to Harrison and Cramer, set up the departure delays through Commander Conlee at Home Base, and then turned his thoughts to the flight.
Liberty ordering no notice wasn’t uncommon. She routinely required three sets of flight plans and often chose one at the last minute that she didn’t want filed through regular channels. But her choosing route three probably worried Intel, who monitored SDU details twenty-four seven, as much as it baffled Jonathan. Since the president’s call, Liberty’s every move had been swift and efficient; the woman clearly wanted to hurry. So why divert to Miami, then go north to D.C.? The captain had vetoed route one due to a line of severe thunderstorms, but route two was still open and definitely faster. If in a hurry, why add unnecessary hours of flight time? “Request for verification, ma’am,” Jonathan said. “Diversionary route three?”
“Route three verified.”
Static crackled in his earpiece radio—weather challenging communications. As chief, he could override the order, as he had the one on their departure. From Liberty’s tense expression, she feared he would. Should he override or relay?
Jonathan silently debated. During Liberty’s two years in office, he had learned what made her tick and what ticked her off. He’d seen the tiny blonde go toe-to-toe with other powerhouses and hang tough until her opponents crumbled. She won and lost graciously. He had also witnessed secret moments of uncertainty in her. Moments when she agonized over complex decisions that affected people’s lives. Moments like this one. But not once had Jonathan seen anything that had caused him to regret giving her his loyalty or admiration or—though only he, Commander Conlee, and President Lance knew it—his heart. “Diversionary route three, Captain.” He transmitted the relay. “Proceed to the taxiway secure the perimeter, and await further instructions.”
“Roger. Orders are confirmed and verified.”
Hearing the radioed response, Jonathan looked at Liberty. “Captain Dean has been notified, ma’am.”
“Thank you.” Looking relieved, she took two steps toward her seat, paused, and then glanced back over her shoulder at
him. Her gaze drifted down his black suit to his shoes and a thin frown settled between her brows. “Agent Westford?”
Her hesitancy put him back on alert. “Yes, ma’am?”
She looked him straight in the eye. “When we take off, you might want to put on your sneakers.”
He raised an eyebrow, then nodded. Few outside the agency knew that when he expected trouble he wore black sneakers. The other agents ragged him about it, and his supervisors wrote him up, giving him hell for it. But since the sneakers had been the only negative remark in his performance rating for years, he had gotten away with ignoring their reprimands.
On more than one intense occasion, Liberty had glanced down at his shoes to gauge the situation. His shoes had been their code. But he had left her protection detail eight months ago, right after his emotions had overridden his good sense and he had threatened to kill her sorry-ass ex-husband. Since most of her assignments carried high risks and global consequences, it was far too dangerous for her to have a distracted, lovesick security chief. Elevated to SDU or not, he wouldn’t have agreed to take on this mission if the request had come from anyone other than President Lance.
“Specific or general?” Jonathan asked the nature of the threat.
Worry gleamed in her eyes. “I don’t know.”
Even she hadn’t been told.
Jonathan nodded, and she walked on to her seat.
Hours crawled by, tense and expectant, but nothing remarkable happened and no word came from the lab. Jonathan leaned back against the wall and checked on Liberty. She sat midcabin, fidgeting and staring over an open file out the window, toward the terminal. She looked weary and worried. Lady Liberty wasn’t just afraid.
She was terrified.
