Lady Liberty (2 page)

Liberty stood waiting in front of his desk. “Is something wrong?”

He glanced down at her hand. “What happened to your finger?”

“I hope, nothing.” She frowned. “The waiter slipped and the edge of his tray cut me. It bled a ridiculous amount.”

“He gave you the Band-Aid, then?”

She nodded. “Waiters always carry Band-Aids.”

The hell they did. Jonathan grabbed a pair of scissors and then cut off the bandage, careful to use the scissor tips to grasp the bandage and not contaminate it or himself. “Don’t touch that wound.”

Rounding the corner of the desk, he removed an evidence bag from the bottom left drawer, dropped the blood-soiled Band-Aid inside, and then seamed the bag shut. The scissors went into a second sealed bag.

Liberty looked at him with pure dread. “Why did you bag that?”

He held up a finger and again spoke into his transmitter. “Harrison, get a Band-Aid from Grace, alcohol and peroxide, and get the mobile lab on site.” Grace, Liberty’s personal assistant, was the consummate professional and always prepared. “Possible Code Red.”

“On my way.”

“Agent Westford.” Liberty reclaimed his attention. “It’s a scratch from an ornate silver tray, not a mortal wound.”

He raised her hand and examined her finger. “Was the waiter holding any cutlery?”

“No, just the tray. Why?”

“This isn’t a scratch, ma’am.” He lifted his gaze to meet her eyes. “It’s a knife wound.”

“A knife wound?” Her shock was evident. “I didn’t see a knife.”

Must have been hidden beneath the lip of the tray. “Clean. Deep. No jagged edges.” He glanced up from her hand to her eyes. “Definitely a knife wound, ma’am.”

Her expression soured. “Even so, calling a Code Red, summoning the mobile lab—isn’t that a little overkill?”

The incident had occurred in the presence of Peris and Abdan’s leaders and security staff. Either could claim it an attack by the other side and end negotiations. Obviously she was worried that they would. “Not if the knife blade was contaminated.”

“Listen, I appreciate your diligent attention to details, but the waiter wasn’t a terrorist. The poor man was eighty years old. He just slipped while carrying a large tray” She was deliberately minimizing the gravity of the situation; he read it in her face.

“And he apologized profusely for it, and you accepted the Band-Aid from him to avoid hurting his feelings.”

Resignation that he knew what she was doing settled in, and a steely look glinted in her eyes. “An overt reaction on my part would have given Peris and Abdan’s premieres an excuse to halt the talks and leave the table. That would have meant war.”

Vintage Liberty.
“So taking the Band-Aid was a calculated risk and not a synapse misfire?”

“Of course.”

He cocked his head and raked his lower lip with his teeth. “High risks.”

She hiked her chin. “High stakes.”

Too high.
Jonathan put a hard edge in his voice. She’d heard it before and would know what it meant. “Please refrain from accepting aid, assistance, or anything you ingest from anyone except me, members of my team, or approved hotel staff. Anyone—even an eighty-year-old waiter—can be a terrorist. And even a seemingly innocent incident can be a third-party terrorist attack.”

“But I explained why—”

“No buts, ma’am,” he interrupted. “We’re in Gregor Faust’s backyard and a stone’s throw from PUSH. We know they’re hostile and they want you to fail here. We’d be foolish to forget it, and we are not foolish people.”

“Of course not.” She had the grace to blush but neglected to promise it wouldn’t happen again. Odds were, it would. First time Liberty deemed it necessary, she’d put herself right back in the line of fire.

Unfortunately, she was right about Peris and Abdan. Both premiers felt that being together made them more vulnerable to attack and their meeting increased the possibility of danger to their own lives. They
could
have blamed the incident with the waiter on each other and walked away. Still, Jonathan felt duty-bound to remind her of the terrorist threats. “With Gregor Faust at the helm, Ballast has become one of the most feared international terrorist groups in the world—and if the CIA’s suspicions are accurate, he’s also the arms dealer supplying Peris and Abdan with weapons.” Less intelligence had been gathered on PUSH, or People United, as it was sometimes called. “And it’s true that PUSH operates mostly in Western Europe and North Africa, but that doesn’t mean it can’t pull an attack here.”

“I’ve read the reports, Agent Westford,” Liberty said.
“And I’ve heard the rumors that PUSH has developed ties to China.”

“Whether or not the rumors are true, PUSH has been pumping out strong signals to the terrorist community that it’s eager to expand its arms sales and take down Ballast’s stronghold in Eastern Europe. That’s significant, ma’am.” It was. The simple mention of Faust’s name sent shockwaves through more countries than were members of NATO— and ripples of terror through the heart of every man or woman responsible for the safety of the people in those countries.

“I’ve been thinking about that.” She lifted a finger. “To take on Ballast, PUSH has to be formidable. Far stronger than we believed.”

“Formidable, or suicidal.” He waited for the analogy between PUSH’s behavior and her own to occur to her.

When it did, she frowned. “You’re right, okay? You’re right.” Liberty stepped back and rested a hip against the desk. “I—I’m sorry” She looked down at her fingertip. “I will try not to do it again.”

“I appreciate your consideration.” He took the compliment that she trusted him to do his job as such, but it fell short of a promise. Still, it was the best he was going to get, so he had to object. “It isn’t in your best interest to take risks right now. Particularly not here.”

Worry darkened the irises of her eyes to a smoky blue. “Do you think one of the terrorist groups contaminated the knife blade?”

“Maybe. But don’t discount Peris or Abdan.” In the past, the warmongers had committed worse acts. “We’ll check with the lab to be sure.”

A rap sounded at the door and Jonathan called out, “Come in, Harrison.”

Flustered and tense, he entered with the requested first-aid supplies. “I take full responsibility—”

Jonathan silenced him with a look, cleaned Liberty’s
wound, and then applied a new Band-Aid. “There you go, ma’am.” He backed up and forced a smile to ease her mind. “Sorry for the interruption. Harrison will escort you back to the conference room. I’ll take over momentarily.”

“Thank you, Agent Westford.” She turned for the door and paused, dipped her chin. Sleek and smooth, her hair swept forward and brushed against her jaw. “You’ll let me know—”

“It’ll be a while, but when I know, you’ll know.” When she nodded, he added, “Gabby called. She needs to talk with you ASAP.” Gabby was Sybil’s oldest friend, the closest thing to family she had left, and from his days on her detail, Jonathan knew Gabby often called Sybil to chat, though she rarely interrupted Sybil’s missions unless she had information that was of vital interest or bad news.

“I’ll call her now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jonathan watched Liberty go. Harrison followed her, his concern burning through his masked expression.

Jonathan motioned Cramer inside and closed the door. The man was good at general domestic details, which made him a strong candidate for Special Detail Unit and international details. He was thin and wiry but fast, sharp-minded, a master marksman and—judging by the look in his brown eyes and the rigid tension in his stance—appropriately worried right now. Since he was new to international and to working Jonathan’s SDU details, he supposed he would have to cut the rookie a little slack even though his natural inclination was to cut the idiot’s throat for allowing this to happen. “Why were you standing watch?”

“Harrison got the runs, sir.”

“Why wasn’t I notified?”

“I would have had to be obvious. You ordered us to be discreet when the other guards were present, and one was posted on either side of me. I thought Harrison would brief
you, but I guess he was preoccupied with making it to the rest room.”

“Fine.” Jonathan would take this up with Harrison. He was an old hand and damn well knew the only excuse for not reporting was to be dead. “What about Liberty’s injury?”

“The waiter slipped. I was posted on point, sir. Before I could get to her, she had accepted the Band-Aid from the waiter. I couldn’t say anything without making a production out of it and embarrassing her.”

“Next time, embarrass her.” She might take calculated risks with her life, but he wouldn’t. “If you have to physically get between them, then do it, but you intercede, Cramer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you observe my intercept in the hallway?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Learn from it.” Jonathan frowned. “I realize you’re new to international and to me, but Vice President Stone can’t afford to be your training ground on this mission, and I won’t tolerate it. She’s trying to prevent a war that could destabilize an entire region, one vital to our interests—and she’s committed to succeeding. It’s our responsibility to see to it she survives to have the opportunity”

“I know, sir.”

He
knew?
Cramer had no idea she had been taking a calculated risk. “Right. And you also know she’s under heavy threat from Ballast and PUSH and there are no excuses for screwing up, so don’t insult either of us by making any.”

Cramer blinked fast, swallowed hard. “No, sir.”

Sweat beaded on the man’s forehead, and Jonathan was glad to see it. Obviously he needed the hell scared out of him to gain his edge. That edge was often the only thing that kept Special Detail Unit agents alive. Considering SDU didn’t overtly exist, the agents’ assignments typically
didn’t officially exist, and Commander Conlee, who ruled Home Base’s highly specialized division of the Secret Service with an iron fist, didn’t exist, the sooner Cramer locked onto his edge, the better for all of them.

“Listen, Liberty is carrying a lot on her shoulders, and she’s got even more on her mind. The welfare of millions around the globe rides on her decisions. That doesn’t leave her much time to think about mundane security matters like keeping herself out of the line of fire—and she damn well shouldn’t have to think about them. That’s my job as her mission chief and your job as a detail member assigned to protect her. You screwed up, which means
we
screwed up.” He narrowed his eyes, deepened his voice and, he hoped, Cramer’s fear. “We don’t screw up, Cramer. It’s not professional, and being unprofessional is not conducive to staying alive. I’m not ready to die. Are you?”

“No, sir.” Unable to hold Jonathan’s gaze, Cramer focused on his tie.

Well, that was something. “Did it occur to you that the waiter could be a plant?” He’d been briefed on the threats, for God’s sake. He’d been told they were credible. “Or that the wound isn’t consistent with a tray scrape?”

“I didn’t see her wound, sir.”

“No, you didn’t. If you had, you would have seen that it was a knife cut. And you would have suspected the knife that made the cut could have been laced with a biological or chemical contaminant.” Jonathan’s voice elevated an octave. “Has a warning signal started flashing in your head yet?” He tapped his temple twice, more to distract himself from the clenching in his gut than to cause clenching in Cramer’s. His next statement was one he didn’t even want to think about. “Liberty could already be dying.”

The color drained from Cramer’s face.

Jonathan shoved the evidence bags at him, again cursing Home Base for putting a rookie on a Level-Five SDU mission. “The mobile lab should be in place in five minutes.

Get this to it. I want a full-screen toxicology done—the works. Take the north exit from the building and walk four blocks south. Lab is in a black van. It’ll be curbside, waiting for you.”

He took the bag and started toward the door.

“Cramer.” Jonathan frowned at the man. “Verify that you’ve got the right van
before
you hand over the evidence bags. And if you haven’t already, start praying the sample tests are clean.”

Moonlight slanted through slices of shadows and blended with the amber glow the street lamps cast on the wet concrete. The smell of rain hung in the air and thin streams of water clung to the street at the curb. Cramer rushed down the sidewalk toward the mobile lab.

Liberty could already be dying.

Westford’s words haunted Cramer, and he blew out a breath heavy with fear.

Harrison met him at the corner. “I warned you not to screw up. Not on Westford’s detail.”

“I know. I blew it.” Under normal conditions, Westford wanted excellence. But when Lady Liberty was involved, mere excellence wasn’t good enough. You had to be God, or suffer Westford’s wrath. And everyone with the agency knew that God showed mercy; Westford did not. “He’ll definitely put me on report,” Cramer said. “Probably have me yanked off SDU details and dumped back into domestic grunt work, too.”

“I hate to break it to you, kid, but odds are better than fifty-fifty he’ll get you canned.”

Fired?
He’d lose his job, his gun, and his credentials: the things he had wanted and worked for his entire life. Cramer’s insides hollowed.