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Authors: Vicki Hinze

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BOOK: Lady Liberty
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“That’s
if
Liberty survives this fiasco without injury. If
she doesn’t… well, I’d say your long-range planning doesn’t look good.”

Even a rookie understood the rage in Westford’s eyes. “If Liberty dies, he’ll see to it that I join her.”

“That pretty much sums it up.” Harrison stuffed his hands in his pockets, tucked his chin against the misting rain. “I don’t mean to sound cold, but facts are facts. You’ve got to understand how things are between Westford and Liberty”

“Are they involved?”

“Yes.” Harrison looked torn. “No.”

“Thanks for clearing that up.”

“It’s complicated.” Harrison shoved out a sigh. “Do you remember when she won over the NRA?”

The law she pushed through that forced prosecution on existing gun laws. “HR 855, right?”

“Yeah. She was just a junior congresswoman back then, but she caught Westford’s eye. He’s walked a lot of miles with her since.”

Then they had walked a lot of miles together. Through child welfare issues, laws to keep pedophiles locked up, and ones to keep deadbeat dads paying support. A lot of miles.

“She wins, and he’s downright giddy”

Shocked, Cramer did a double take at Harrison. “West-ford, giddy?” Cramer couldn’t imagine it. The man was as serious as a heart attack—and just as opinionated.

“Amazing, huh?” Harrison smiled. “But true. When she walked through the bill reorganizing protective services for neglected and abused kids, you should have seen him. He was so proud, I thought he’d bust a gut.”

Cramer had heard about that success in the unit. The operatives all sang her praises, though not for the legislation itself. Because she’d covered her ass so well that Senator Cap Marlowe and his cronies—who had reputations for spinning in fault on issues where Liberty had none—
had tried and failed to trip her up. The guys at SDU were pro-anything that was anti-Marlowe, who tried to control them to the point of stifling them in doing their jobs. Even Sybil Stone.

A light went on in Cramer’s mind. “Westford brought her to President Lance’s attention.”

Harrison nodded. “He denies it, but I was there and saw it.”

“So it’s like a proud-parent relationship between them?” Cramer asked.

“Hell no, kid. It’s a lot more earthy than that.”

Westford and Liberty weren’t twisting the sheets. Cramer might be the new kid on the block, but he wasn’t unconscious, and he hadn’t picked up on any romantic vibes between them. In his book, that was a good thing. Liberty made a fine vice president, but she had a history as a lousy wife. A year ago, she’d just walked out on a fifteen-year marriage to Dr. Austin Stone, shocking everyone on the Hill. Stone wasn’t some loser. He was an engineering genius—CEO of the kick-ass Secure Environet that had been tearing up Wall Street for the past two years—and he hadn’t wanted the divorce. She’d pushed for it. Westford might be a hard-ass, but he deserved a better wife than that.

“Marlowe wanted her job,” Harrison said, recapturing Cramer’s attention. “He swears if he’d been a woman, Lance would have offered it to him.”

“Would he?”

“Liberty could have been the purple people eater, and Lance wouldn’t have given a damn. He chose her as a running mate so he wouldn’t have to compete against her. She’s that good.”

“So she’s special to Lance and to Westford.”

“Special enough that when she took office two years ago, Westford left covert ops to head up her guard detail.”

“That’s a whale of a demotion.” Cramer couldn’t figure
it. Westford was the hottest operative in SDU, the logical choice for plum covert operation assignments.

“No demotion. The president handpicked him for the job. Officially, he had ‘special concerns’ for her safety, but if he had his way, he’d have Westford and Liberty joined at the hip.”

“So why did Westford bail out?” Word around the unit was Westford had demanded reassignment.

“Some say he fell in love with her—complicated because at the time she was his boss and she was married. Others say he couldn’t stomach working for a woman.”

“What does he say?”

Looking pleased that Cramer had asked, Harrison shrugged. “He doesn’t, and no one’s had the guts to ask him directly”

Cramer thought through it all. President Lance could tag his “special concerns” any way he wanted, but underneath the politically correct facade, he was afraid she would be at greater risk than previous veeps because she was the first woman to hold the office. She did get at least a dozen death threats a week from hotheads, disgruntled citizens stuck in sixties’ mentalities, and hostile foreign entities— especially those actively engaged in oppressing women. “Harrison, do you think it’s true that some of the death threats are coming from her colleagues?”

“No hard evidence, but it’s possible. There’s a lot of resentment against her on the Hill.”

That frustrated Cramer. “Then I don’t get it.”

“What?”

“When her colleagues need credibility or clout to push their pet projects through the process, they come to her first. If she can, she supports them. Why does she do it?” Cramer couldn’t figure it. “She’s got to know that once the project’s a done deal, they’re going to slide right back into resenting her. Most of them act as if the White House is the last ‘For Men Only’ club in the country, and their main
mission in life is to act as armor and shield to keep their sacred space safe from her.”

“Damned pathetic, isn’t it?” Harrison grunted. “But it’s telling, too, kid.”

Cramer wasn’t tracking, so he kept quiet and waited for Harrison to explain.

“They feel confident she
can
take the White House. No one around here wastes energy defending something not at risk.”

“Politics.” Cramer grunted. In the next block, a black van pulled up to the curb and killed its lights.

“Politics.” Harrison clapped Cramer on the shoulder. “Verify the van, kid. I’ll see you back at the hotel. I need to walk off some steam. Westford’s going to be wired for sound and breathing down our necks for the rest of this mission.”

Shivering with dread, Cramer hunched his shoulders and started watching the sidewalk, but he saw no sign of a U.S. penny. Panic set in. He couldn’t pass the evidence bag to the lab without it.
Couldn’t he get one break on this damn mission?

Finally he spotted the coin, glinting heads-up on the sidewalk. He stooped down, pretending to tie a shoe, scooped it up, and then rushed his steps. Odds looked slim, but he had to perform at optimum level from here on out to save his backside and, if possible, his job.

A gust of cool wind tugged at the tail of his coat, and a fresh burst of rain blew in with it, soaking his suit. Cramer kept moving, pinning the coat with his arm to protect the evidence bags, though they were waterproof. He was in enough trouble already for screwing up after being warned Ballast and PUSH stood primed for attack with Lady Liberty fixed in their crosshairs. He couldn’t afford to botch this up, too.

A bull of a man dressed all in black stepped out from behind the van. He was in his forties, and his most remarkable
feature was having a face people would forget in ten seconds or less. Cramer envied him that. Average looks were a hell of an asset to an agent working in the field. The tip of his cigarette glowed red and, supposing smoking would be banned inside the van, Cramer nodded.

“Only lab personnel allowed inside.” The man exhaled a stream of smoke that fogged the night air and opened his fist, palm up. A second penny gleamed in a streak of light.

Verified. Their van, their man.
Cramer showed the agent the penny he had lifted off the walk. “No problem.” He passed the evidence bags, and, as Westford had suggested, he prayed the Band-Aid tested clean.

In her salon, Sybil dialed Gabby’s number and then glanced down at her freshly bandaged finger, hoping she hadn’t made a mistake that would cost her her life.

Gabby answered with a gruff, “What is it, Lisa?”

“It’s not Lisa, but if I had the misfortune to be your assistant, and you talked to me in that tone, I’d quit.”

“She does. At least once a week. Usually on the days I haven’t fired her.”

Sybil smiled. Those two would be going at it when they died of old age. “You sound riled.” That concerned Sybil. Gabby didn’t do riled. She always had been passionate about her work, but she usually kept exasperation private.

“You on a secure line?”

“Yes.” Not an uncommon question. Gabby had been a covert operative for years.

“It’s this mission, Sybil. It’s making me crazy”

“Do you need to pull out?”

“I can’t. We have too much invested. It'd take a year to get back to where we are now.”

Gabby’s “where” was deeply entrenched in a corporate
espionage ring that had hooked into the judicial system and was suspected of selling reduced or suspended sentences to North Korean spies.

“So what are you going to do?” Sybil asked.

“The same thing you do when your work makes you nuts. Suck it up, and press on.” She heaved a sigh Sybil felt down to her bones. “But I swear it’ll be a cold day in hell before I go deep cover again.”

“Of course.” Gabby had sworn that same thing on her last five missions.

“I mean it. I’m burned out.”

Sybil sat down on a lush sage-silk sofa and stared at a painting of magnolias hanging on the wall. “I know.” She did, and she resented that.

“Is Jonathan behaving?”

Here she goes again. The self-appointed matchmaker from hell.
“Agent Westford always behaves.”

“Too bad.” Gabby’s deep breath crackled static through the receiver. “You could fix that with a little encouragement. It wouldn’t take much.”

“I’ll pass.” Sybil crossed an arm over her chest. “When it comes to men, my judgment leaves a lot to be desired.”

“Austin doesn’t count.”

At least Gabby hadn’t called him by her usual pet name. Sybil supposed she should be grateful for that small mercy. “I was married to the man for fifteen years. He counted.” She swiped an irritated hand over her forehead. “Is there anything else, or did you just call to bitch about work and butt into my love life?”

“You don’t have a love life.”

“And I’m happier than I’ve been in years.” She’d loved Austin, had given him everything she’d had to give, including the money to fund Secure Environet, and he had become her Achilles’ heel. The
last
thing she needed was another love in her life. “Leave it alone, Gabby. Please.”

“All right, but you’re letting a winner slip through—”

“I said
please,”
Sybil insisted. “If there’s nothing else, I’d better get back.” With no one running interference, the premiers were apt to kill each other.

“There is one thing,” Gabby said, sounding hesitant. “It’s the reason I called.”

“Yes?”

“Be careful, okay? I woke up this morning with a really bad feeling about your whole peace-seeking mission.”

“Have you had word from the commander?” Normally, Commander Conlee routed intelligence updates to West-ford. But he had used Gabby when he’d deemed regular channels less secure.

“No, no. Nothing. It’s just a gut feeling.” Gabby paused a beat, and her voice took on a jagged edge. “Take no risks, Sybil. None.”

Too late.
Sybil looked down at the Band-Aid circling her finger, and an icy chill crept up her spine. She stiffened, determined not to give into fear, gave Gabby her promise, and then wondered. How was she going to keep Westford from telling Gabby about the Band-Aid incident?

For the first time in her career, Sybil Stone considered offering a man a bribe.

One should never underestimate the impact of a bribe.

Alexander Renault had learned that lesson the night he had been dubbed “Patch.” It had been his ninth birthday, and to celebrate, his father had stabbed his mother to death. A patch of Alexander’s hair had turned albino-white—from the trauma, the doctor had said. But what had traumatized Patch most was his father bribing his way out of ever being arrested, tried, or convicted. The official consensus? His mother had
fallen
onto the knife.

That night Patch had learned to hate: his father, for what he had done; his mother, for dying and leaving him;
his government, for being corrupt. That night he had also sworn to do something about it. And he had done plenty.

BOOK: Lady Liberty
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ads

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