Honor Guards Part 6

Blair's heart skipped a beat "She's,..she's fine. Traveling is difficult, and she's preoccupied."

"She should be. But she's okay.,.with this other?"

Blair's throat tightened. She wasn't certain, but she thought her father might be asking her if everything was all right with her relationship. "She's great I'm...happy."

"That's the best news I could get. I'm sorry, honey. I'm going to have to go. Call me again soon."

"Okay. Yes. I will."

"Be careful. Bye, honey."

"Bye, Dad." Blair set the phone down gently. They'd never had a conversation anywhere near like this one. It was terrifyingly strange and strangely wonderful.

Intentionally or not, she had kept a barrier between herself and her father all her life, just as she had shielded her private self from the prying eyes of the public and hidden the true longings of her heart from the women she had touched. Until Cam. Loving Cam had changed everything, and as frightening as that sometimes was-to be vulnerable and exposed, not just to heartbreak, but to the unmerciful scrutiny of strangers-she had never felt so free.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

F elicia was the first of the lead team agents to arrive for the briefing. When she entered the comm center, Mac was the only other person present. A murmur of conversation emanated from the adjoining room where Cynthia and Barry spent most of their time, hunched over their consoles searching for intel hidden in cybers.p.a.ce. She walked to the sideboard, poured a cup of coffee, and crossed the room to the conference table.

At the sound of the quiet movement behind him, Mac swiveled away from the monitors and silently observed Felicia. She was dressed in the same two-piece suit, tailored shirt, and functional shoes that all the agents, male or female, wore. On her long, svelte frame, however, the outfit managed to appear elegant. Her slender neck, high-arched cheeks, and fine-boned jaw gave her the look of an ancient priestess or warrior. She was painfully beautiful, as well as being intrmidatingly intelligent and inestimably competent. They'd had two dates before she'd told him in firm gentle tones that it had been a mistake.

Mac cleared his throat. "Good afternoon."

Felicia looked up from the most recent field reports related to the afternoon's engagement and turned her head with a smile. "h.e.l.lo."

Nothing in her eyes to suggest familiarity. The same pleasant yet cool inflection she used with everyone. He swallowed his disappointment and tried to tell himself that it didn't matter. "Did you get a chance to see anything of the city during your downtime?"

"A little," Felicia replied carefully. It was not her habit to discuss her personal life with colleagues. Mac was different, and that difference concerned her. Ever since they had spent sixty or so stress-filled hours in each other's company, monitoring an operation that ultimately might have cost the president's daughter her life, she had felt more for him than for any man she had ever worked with. Any man, she acknowledged, with whom she had been involved hi any way for a long time. Eventually, she'd succ.u.mbed to the uniqueness of that unusual connection and had broken one of her own rules. She had dinner with him. Twice. He was precisely as she had expected him to be. Charming, intelligent, gentle. After the second evening, when he'd walked her to the door of her East Village apartment building, he'd kissed her briefly on the mouth. The kiss had been slightly more than friendly, but not intrusive or demanding. It had been a very nice kiss. It had been a kiss she wouldn't have minded repeating. And that's when she'd told him that there would be no more dinners.

"The Secret Service isn't exactly the way to see the world," Mac commented wryly.

Felicia grinned. "No more than the navy. Or any other branch of service."

"Still, a posting in Paris does beat spending a week in a lot of other places I could think of."

"Agreed."

"Felicia-"

Stark walked in and abruptly stumbled to a halt. She took one look around the room with the sense that she had just walked in on something personal. Coloring, she desperately sought a way out.

"Paula," Felicia said smoothly, indicating the seat across from her with a graceful hand. "Get some coffee and have a seat. We can go over the deployment positions before the commander arrives." She glanced at her watch. "Which I estimate will be in two minutes."

"Uh...okay. Sure. Fine."

Disappointed, but not entirely certain he knew what he'd been about to say anyhow, Mac turned back to his ever-present companions-the flickering images on the dozen monitors where shadow figures moved in and out of focus with jerky, robotic movements. As he gathered his papers, he thought that there were times when he was no more tangible to others than those disembodied people captured on his screens. He recognized the sensation as loneliness and quickly pushed it aside.

On the rooftop, the thin man glanced down when he felt a faint vibration emanating from his belt. He removed the two-way pager and glanced at the text.

1358 16Aug01 Query RedDog: in position?

He thumbed the small keyboard with practiced efficiency, doing it by feel just as he a.s.sembled and disa.s.sembled his weapons in total blackness.

Roger.

Green light. 1600. Team leader out.

With another flick of his thumb, he deleted the message. Though the sun blazed down on his back and unprotected head and he wore far too many layers of clothing for the August weather, he had no conscious sense of discomfort. Snipers-men and women who could lie for hours in uncomfortable positions, in snow or mud or tropical heat, without moving a single muscle--were known to have markedly quiescent autonomic nervous systems. When studied, their heart rates were found to be exceptionally slow, their blood pressure reflected little response to adrenergic stimulation, and their galvanic skin reactivity was abnormally low. a.s.sa.s.sins, theory had it, were not created, but born. The challenge was in the selection process.

He returned his cheek to the stock of the a.s.sault rifle and sighted through the laser scope to the sidewalk in front of the hospital at the precise point where the lead car would pull up and Blair Powell and her entourage would disembark. He antic.i.p.ated a clear shot. However, it wasn't absolutely required. His ammunition was capable of traversing the human body with almost no deceleration and minimal alteration in trajectory. A body shot, a.s.suming that the individual between him and his target wore body armor, could be problematic because, although his ammunition would penetrate the armor, the exit velocity and direction would be skewed to an unpredictable degree by the impact. He might miss the primary target. But if anyone did stand between him and his target, a shot to the head would take out both. He had established the necessary kill-shot angle via computer simulations using the height of every agent a.s.signed to Blair Powell's team.

He hoped that the Secret Service followed their usual quadrant-based protection pattern, because that would put someone directly behind the target. And that challenge would make the mission more enjoyable.

"Updates, please." Cam crossed the room and took her usual seat at the head of the table. Those agents not yet seated hurried to find places.

Mac began immediately. "No reports of problems from the advance team. The first walk-through at 1300 was all clear."

"Any sign of interest from the press yet?" Cam had taken half an hour to shower and change and now wore a summer-weight charcoal silk suit with a shirt in a slightly lighter shade of gray.

"Not at the site as of this time," Mac advised.

"What do we have coming over the wires?" Even though almost all of their intelligence was received by computer or electronic transmission, the idiom remained.

"Television stations are carrying the story now, and there was a brief mention of the article and its 'shocking' revelations on one of the British news channels."

Cam's eyes darkened to black. "Every news station and paper in Europe will follow suit. That means a much higher rate of individual contact attempts. I don't want our perimeter breached. Keep her in a tight ring whenever she's on the ground."

Murmurs of a.s.sent rang in the air.

Cam turned her attention to Barry Wright. "Anything suggesting an organized response from the underground groups?"

Shaking his head, he frowned slightly. "Still the same dense chatter, but nothing any of us can pin down. No names, no locations, no specifics. If there's something planned, I can't find the details."

"Keep looking," Cam said succinctly. She trusted him to find the hidden messages more than she trusted the NSA.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Everyone knows the drill. This visit will be well publicized because the Inst.i.tut Gustave-Roussy is the largest cancer center in Europe, and the administrators are hoping this will prompt contributions. They've had a major media campaign running all week, so expect TV cameras and reporters. What with the personal angle thrown in, probably a bigger-than-average crowd. No one comes within six feet of her outside that building. Once inside, make sure everyone has a press pa.s.s or a visible hospital ID." She turned to Mac. "You have photos of the PR people from the hospital as well as the doctors and nurses on the floor she'll be touring?"

Mac pa.s.sed out several stapled sheets of paper to each agent. "All here. Obviously, there will be others we didn't antic.i.p.ate, but these are the individuals likely to have personal contact with her."

"Take a good look, people. If you don't recognize someone or they don't have clear identification, pull them aside and verify. I don't care about ruffling feathers or bruising egos. If it looks wrong, a.s.sume it is." She rolled her shoulders to ease the tension she always felt when Blair was making a public appearance. It was nearly impossible to keep her completely safeguarded at any time, but prepublicized public events were the most dangerous. a.s.sa.s.sins, kidnappers, or anyone else with an agenda would have plenty of advance notice to fine-tune their plans.

Plus, it didn't help that Egret chafed under the restrictions of the close coverage and tended to disregard it. Cam understood her lover's aversion to tight security, but she couldn't relax the protocols. Her job, as well as her instinctive need, was to keep Blair safe. Sometimes that meant making her angry as well. She stood. "Bring the vehicles to the entrance at 1500. Davis and Stark- you're in the lead car with me. Mac, Fielding, and Reynolds- you're backup in the follow car. Stark will brief you on positions once we're streetside."

A chorus of Yes, Commanders followed.

"I'll be with Egret until departure."

The thin man observed the path of an ambulance as it approached along the Rue Camille Desmoulins. To the casual observer, it looked like any other of the dozens of ambulances that came and went from the country's largest public cancer hospital twenty-four hours a day. Even a trained professional would have had difficulty telling this vehicle from any other while it was moving. It was unlikely that its low carriage or slightly overwide transverse dimension would be obvious. This particular vehicle was easily hundreds of pounds heavier than its functional counterparts. In the interior, where emergency equipment and drugs were ordinarily stored in shelves and bins bolted to the walls, there were ammunition racks. The patient stretchers had been removed and replaced with narrow benches along either sidewall, each large enough to accommodate five men in full body armor sitting shoulder to shoulder. Post production, the vehicle had been armored to the National Inst.i.tute of Justice specifications for Level V protection. Armormax Pac 500 overlapping shields reinforced the roof, lateral walls, floor, and the gas tank. The transparent areas were polycarbonate/gla.s.s laminate, capable of withstanding 17.2 footpounds per inch of impact. Nothing short of an ant.i.tank short-range missile would disable it, and even that would require a shot directly into the driver's compartment.

Moving slowly but drawing no attention, the ambulance coasted into the emergency loading area a hundred yards from the main entrance. Far enough away not to be of concern but close enough that the a.s.sault team could reach the target in the first minute of chaos following his shot. Cut ojfthe head and the snake dies.

He showed no reaction, not even a blink, when the radio pager on his belt vibrated again. With his eye still fixed to his scope, he reached down, slipped the small square of plastic from his belt, and held it up at eye level.

1430 16Aug01 Avenger on site Cheek still resting on the abbreviated stock of his weapon, he returned the pager to his belt. Unless he received a directive from the team leader countermanding his orders, his actions and his fate were sealed. G.o.d Bless America.

Blair had changed into a cream-colored jacket, matching knee-length skirt, and a deep rose silk blouse. Her medium heels were a slightly deeper hue than her suit. She answered the knock at her door, kissed Cam briefly on the lips as she entered, and locked the door.

"How are you doing?" Cam asked, sensitive to the pensive expression on her lover's face.

"Okay." Blair's voice was quiet and her expression solemn. She forced a smile and ran her fingers along Cam's jaw before leaning close to kiss her again. This time she lingered, playing her tongue over Cam's and biting teasingly at her lower lip.

Cam sighed, a mixture of regret and contentment. She rested both palms loosely on Blair's hips beneath her jacket, holding her close but leaving her room to move away if she needed to. "Lucinda call?"

It was Blair's turn to sigh. She nodded. "Just a few minutes ago."

As Cam expected she would, Blair broke their contact and walked to the windows on the far side of the enormous room. She leaned a shoulder against, the centuries-old woodwork and gazed out.

"Trouble?" Cam kept her voice even but she was furious. Furious that her lover should have to answer to anyone regarding something so very private; because Blair was such a private woman, the intrusion was an even greater violation. That Blair should also need to answer to the White House chief of staff-the woman who had guided Blair's father's campaign and who was critical to his reelection-was more pressure than anyone should have to bear. Cam crossed the room, stopped just behind Blair, and placed her hands very gently on her shoulders. "Baby?"

"Trouble? No. Not really." Blair crossed her arms beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and settled back against Cam's solid presence. "For Lucinda, she was exceptionally calm."

Slowly, Cam ma.s.saged Blair's tight shoulders, working her thumbs into the firm muscles on either side of her spine. As Blair always did when making a public appearance, she had caught back her thick wavy blond hair with the gold clasp that Cam had placed in her pocket just hours before. Brushing the beautiful hair aside with a fingertip, Cam dipped her head and kissed the back of Blair's neck.

"Mmm," Blair moaned softly. "That could almost make me forget everything."

With her lips still skimming Blair's skin, Cam murmured, "It's supposed to." Feeling Blair relax. Cam slipped her hands around Blair's waist, embracing her fully but still allowing her the freedom to escape. Blair was still vibrating with tension, and when she hurt, she was very much a wounded animal. "What did she say?"

"Lucinda made all the politically correct remarks. You know... it doesn't matter who you love, as long as you love. It's no one's business but mine. She even reiterated that the White House and the party supported freedom of choice and gay and lesbian issues."

"But?"

"She suggested that we curtail public displays of affection."

Cam forced herself not to react, either physically or verbally. She could do that, because she was trained to do it. She could stand in a room and listen to the president of the United States make plans for war without blinking or just as easily ignore an illicit tryst being consummated within earshot, or even right in front of her eyes. She was not only paid to mm a blind eye, she was indoctrinated with the ability to observe without reaction. But this was her lover, and pretending she didn't want to curse was a struggle. "I suppose I'll have to stop f.u.c.king you in the Suburban, then."

Laughing, Blair felt some of the tension melt from her bones. She let her head fall back against Cam's shoulder. "And you can't feel me up at state dinners anymore."

"d.a.m.n." Cam kissed Blair's ear, "Does that mean you won't be slipping your hand down my pants at the president's dinner dance tomorrow night?"

Blair turned and wrapped her arms around Cam's neck. Her eyes sparkled and this time her mouth lifted in a genuine smile. "Guess not, Commander. Want to rethink this whole affair?"

Cam kissed her lightly. "That depends."

"Really?" Blair tilted her head and narrowed her eyes dangerously. "On what?"

"On how good you are when I get you alone."

Bfair leaned in and nipped Cam's chin. "Better than you can possibly imagine."

Cam groaned, the sudden heat in her belly making her legs weak. "Okay. That's it-no more teasing. I need all of my blood going to my brain for the next few hours."

Pleased, Blair brushed her fingers through Cam's hair and stepped away. "I know. But thanks."

"For what?"

"Making me laugh when I wanted to-ah, G.o.d."

"What?" Cam asked gently.

"I don't know. Throw something? Cry maybe. It doesn't seem to make much difference." Blair shrugged off the melancholy. "I have to keep reminding myself that Lucinda has only one goal in mind, and that's keeping my father in the White House. That's not a bad agenda. I like her. I always have. It's not her fault that she's so single-minded."

"No! Nor is it yours how you choose to live your life, or whom you choose to love."

Blair leaned once again against the magnificent window casing. "I didn't choose to love you, Cameron. I just couldn't help myself."

"Same here." Cam tucked her hands into her front pockets and edged a shoulder against the opposite side of the leaded-gla.s.s windows. She regarded her lover contemplatively. "Are you ready for this afternoon?"

"Which part?" Blair laughed humorlessly as she thought about the media attention to come.

"The hospital."

Blair gave a small start. "G.o.d, it scares me to realize how well you know me already."

Cam lifted a shoulder. "Not nearly as well as I want to. Not nearly as well as I intend to."

"Hospitals." Without being aware of it, Blair shivered. "It doesn't matter what they look like or how hard everyone tries to make them feel welcoming. There's something about the air...or maybe it's the light. Or maybe it's just the way everyone walks around with that horrible mixture of hope and despair warring hi their eyes." Blair lifted a hand and let it fall helplessly. "All of a sudden I'm twelve again. It all happened so fast, and then she was gone."

Cam nodded, understanding all too well how life could change in the blink of an eye. Her father had been killed in a car bombing, and in the s.p.a.ce of time it had taken for her to run back to the house for her book bag and return to the sidewalk to find his car engulfed in flames, her world had been altered forever. Blair had never talked to her about this before, and Cam chose her words carefully. "How fast?"

"Less than a year. The tumor was aggressive, and despite everything she did...and she did everything right...it didn't make any difference." Blair turned her head to look out the window, seeing nothing as she waited for the br.i.m.m.i.n.g tears to subside. "Everyone did everything they could have or should have. It just didn't help. They even did a bone marrow transplant, which was experimental back then for breast cancer. Some women do go into remission after that, but not as many as with leukemia or the other blood malignancies. She didn't."

Cam made a small noise of comfort. Blair was lost in memory, and Cam just let her talk.

"The last few months she was more often in the hospital than out. My father was a newly seated governor and tremendously busy. Still, he was there as much as he could be." She glanced back at Cam. "But a lot of the time I was there by myself."

Wanting nothing more in the world than to take Blair into her arms and make every hurt she had ever suffered disappear, Cam railed inwardly at her impotence. She yearned to reach into the past and rewrite history, so that the child Blair had been would never have felt frightened or lonely or in pain. The inability to do that was one of the most frustrating things Cam had ever experienced. Never before bad she realized just how terribly helpless love could make one feel. Throat tight, she asked gently, "Was it hard?"

Blair smiled wistfully. "Sometimes, But it was wonderful, too. We talked so much. Probably more than we ever would have if things had turned out differently." She laughed quietly, more freely this time. "Girls do tend to spend decades at odds with their mothers."

"I'm sure Marcea would agree," Cam remarked, referring to her own mother.