CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 6 page

"I think it's interesting,” Cam said after a minute, "that they don't name names and they don't specifically state that you are with a woman. Whoever took this photograph must know."

"I noticed that myself," Blair said darkly. "It's almost as if someone is teasing me...or taunting me. What do you make of it?"

"I don't have any idea." Cam shook her head, angry for Blair at the invasion of her privacy and furious at herself for being so careless that she let someone close enough to get the shot. "But what I want to know is where the hell he was and why my people didn't see him."

"Well, I have a feeling this is only the beginning." Blair laughed bitterly. "This is going to be embarrassing for my father, but the big question is, what is this going to do to you professionally if someone recognizes you?"

"I don't think that's the most important thing right now," Cam disagreed. "There's something off about this entire situation, because if this were just some reporter looking to make a story, my name would be in this article. The fact that you are kissing a woman would be the headline—above the fold."

"Blackmail?"

"If it is, they've got more balls than brains. You don't blackmail the daughter of the President of the United States. Not like this...and, goddamn it...not on my watch."

“Well,” Blair said resignedly, suddenly aware of a weariness that went deeper than flesh, “I’m sure we’ll know soon enough.”

Tiredly, she leaned her forehead against the glass, watching the night slide by. The stretch of highway outside the speeding vehicle was barren and seemed to echo the emptiness in her heart. Of course she had been foolish to think that she would be allowed to love anyone in peace, let alone someone like the woman seated across from her. She closed her eyes, knowing that she would sleep alone that night, and wanting more than anything else for that not to be true.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Cam watched Blair as wordless moments passed. It was the quiet that worried her. Anger she would have expected—even, considering the circumstances... embraced. Accusations of her own complicity in allowing the photo to be taken, however unfounded, would have been more welcome than the curtain of silence that fell heavily between them.

She tried to imagine how it must feel to have one's most personal experiences on display, not just once, but repeatedly. She couldn't, even though it was her picture in the newspaper as well. Even had her face been clear, and her name printed in bold letters beneath the image, it wouldn't have been the same thing for her as it was for Blair. She wasn't recognized the world over, nor was her family likely to be held up to scrutiny by self-appointed guardians of right and wrong whose true motivation was nothing loftier their own their political gain. She was guilty of nothing, but even if she were, her transgression would soon be forgotten.

That was not the case for Blair Powell or her father. The President was not immune to the effect of public opinion, just the opposite. Right or wrong had nothing to do with the fact that powerful groups jockeyed constantly for position and influence in the Washington political arena. Something as inflammatory as Andrew Powell's daughter's love affair... especially her lesbian love affair... would give his opponents one more piece of ammunition to threaten him with.

"Blair," Cam began gently, "is there anything I can do?"

Finally turning away from the window and the night and her own troubled thoughts, Blair straightened infinitesimally. When she spoke, her voice was stronger, carrying a hint of its old steel. "Yes. You can tell me right now if you're up for what's coming."

"What?" Cam exclaimed, too surprised by the question to even absorb it completely. When the reality of what Blair was asking finally hit her, she replied heatedly, "You can't really think that this would matter to me?"

"It's one thing to talk in the abstract about the possibility of exposure. It's quite another thing to be the center of a media circus. Believe me, I know."

"Jesus Christ."

Cam stared at her as she bit back another irate retort. Blair’s voice had been calm, steady...her face expressionless. She looked the way she'd looked the first day Cam had met her...cool, controlled, untouchable. Cam remembered very well the angry, wounded woman Blair had been, and how in recent weeks that rage had burned less brightly and the wounds had seemed less raw. Until this.

Christ, she's scared.

That realization defused Cam's anger. Fear was not something she associated with the President’s daughter, and perhaps for the first time, she understood the price of Blair’s strength... the isolation and the impenetrable defenses and the expectation of loss.

Quickly, Cam shifted across the narrow space between them until she was sitting on the seat next to Blair. She found her hand in semi-darkness and whispered vehemently, "I intend to find out who is behind this. Once I do, I intend to kick their ass from one side of this continent to the other. I love you. Nothing and no one will ever change that."

Blair tightened her grip on Cam's hand and leaned into the reassuring solidity of her body. "You don't even know yet what kind of pressure there's going to be for us to stop seeing one another."

The words hit Cam in the center of her chest like a sledgehammer. Even being shot hadn't hurt as much. "No. Don't even think it, because it gives the possibility power. Please."

“When you were shot,” Blair said as if reading her thoughts, “I felt parts of me dying with you.” Her voice was hushed, as if she were speaking in a dream. “I had only just begun to let you in, and I was nearly lost already. Now, I don’t think I could survi—”

“Blair. I love you. I am not going anywhere. I swear.”

Blair searched her eyes and saw only truth. “It scares me how much I need you.”

“Don’t forget I need you, too.” Cam lifted Blair’s hand, brushed a kiss swiftly across the back of her knuckles. “More than you’ll ever know.”

“I’ll try to remember that.” Blair drew the first full breath she’d taken since the airport. “So... what do we do now, Commander?”

Cam laughed, but there was an edge to the laughter. “I’m a Secret Service agent. Do you think I can’t track down the little bastard that gave that photo to the wire service?”

“Just be careful, Cam,” Blair warned. “Someone doesn’t need a gun to be dangerous. In the right hands, a camera can be lethal.”

“Any coward who chooses this underhanded way of going after you is no threat to me. Don’t worry.”

“Why don’t I feel reassured?”

“I’ll be careful. But this is what I do.”

“I suppose I have to accept the logic of that,” Blair finally conceded. Again she sighed. "I'm surprised I haven't heard from the White House by now. The Chief of Staff must be having kittens all over the West Wing."

"I thought Lucinda Washburn was a personal friend of your family's," Cam said, referring to the woman who most people considered the most powerful woman in Washington. As the first female Chief of Staff, she held the President's ear and served as his most instrumental adviser. When Andrew Powell had run for the presidency, he had made it very clear that no decision would be made without her input. That had proved to be true over the first months of his tenure when economic crises at home and the reemergence of violent foreign unrest had placed his administration in the spotlight.

"Trust me," Blair said without any hint of animosity. "Lucy's number one goal from the day my father was sworn in has been to get him reelected. She's known him since they were in college, and I think she's been working to get him where he is today since then. She'd sacrifice almost anything or anyone to keep him in the White House for a second term."

"And you think that includes forcing you to...what?" Cam asked in frustration. "Give up our relationship?"

"I think Lucy considers relationships expendable if they stand in the way of a higher goal."

"What about your father? Does he feel the same way?"

"I don't know." Blair glanced out the window as they emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan, realizing that they were only moments from her building. "I don't know him well enough to guess. But I don't think it will be very long before we find out."

A few minutes later, the cars pulled up in front of Blair's apartment building, and the occupants of both vehicles began the familiar, choreographed routine of disembarking. Once through the doors and into the small but ornate lobby of the elegant building, Blair hesitated. The elevator was twenty feet away, and Stark had already walked over to it and keyed the single locked car which went to Blair's top floor apartment. Turning her back to the elevator and the agents waiting nearby, Blair faced Cam and said hurriedly in a voice too low for the others to hear, "Is there any way you can stay?"

Cam could only imagine what it cost Blair to ask that. Her eyes swept over the agents waiting to accompany Blair upstairs, several of whom would remain one floor below her apartment in the command center for the remainder of the night shift.

"I want to. You know that don't you?" Cam said, her voice a strained whisper.

Blair's eyes swiftly became unreadable. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

"Blair..."

Abruptly, Blair turned and walked directly across the lobby and into the open elevator. Stark followed her in and the doors closed soundlessly behind them.

Turning to Davis and the others, Cam said bitingly, "I'll be on my pager."

"Roger," Felicia Davis replied, her expression carefully neutral.

Cam turned without another word, pushed through the double doors, and was quickly lost to the dark.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Cam hesitated briefly on the sidewalk. It was two o'clock in the morning. She glanced up and diagonally across the block-wide oasis of trees that comprised Gramercy Park to the building where she lived when in New York City on assignment. The prospect of pacing for several sleepless hours in her utilitarian apartment held little appeal. The prospect of tossing in her solitary bed trying to forget the way Blair had looked walking away from her held even less. Quickly, she walked to the southeast corner of the square and flagged a cab. She gave the cabbie an intersection in the East Village.

Traffic was light in the small hours of the morning in Manhattan, even though there was more activity there at any hour than in any other American city. When she paid the driver and stepped out, there were still people strolling on the sidewalks, and here and there music wafted from the open doors of taverns and all-night restaurants. It was a short walk to her destination, and less than a half an hour after leaving Blair's building, she was seated on a corner barstool in a small, neighborhood bar. The bartender, a hard-bodied, hard-eyed brunette came over almost immediately. The muscles in her well-developed shoulders and upper arms strained the fabric of the tight white T-shirt she wore tucked into faded blue jeans.

"How you doin'?"

"Fine," Cam said. "Glenlivet. Double...straight up."

"Sure thing."

A minute later, Cam was sipping the aged, single malt scotch and trying to make sense of the last few hours.

Hell, the last few days.

She turned the glass aimlessly on the bar top and tried to make sense of a puzzle from which too many pieces were missing. It had started with the debriefing in Washington and Stewart Carlisle's odd capitulation to Doyle’s bullying threats of an investigation and had culminated with the night's oblique threat to Blair. And then, of course, there was Claire.

She sighed wearily. “Claire.”

From beside her, a voice softly questioned, "Girlfriend?"

Cam jumped, startled, and that in itself spoke volumes about her muddled state of mind. Or perhaps just her persistent state of fatigue. She turned her eyes to the redhead who had slipped onto the barstool beside her without her even noticing. The woman looked to be in her early twenties, but might be a decade older. Her green eyes were wide and liquid with invitation, and her high, full breasts...shown off to their full advantage in a scoop-necked tank top that exposed plenty of cleavage in addition to the sharp prominences of her nipples...were ripe with promise.

"Has to be a woman to make you look that down," the woman remarked again.

"No." Cam shook her head. "Just thinking."

"If there's something...or someone...you'd like to forget for a few hours, I can think of a couple of interesting ways to help you out."

"No, thanks," Cam said, smiling slightly. "What I need is to think, not forget."

"It never pays to think alone," the redhead said, leaning closer, her fingers pressing lightly on the top of Cam's right hand.

"I'm not alone," Cam said softly.

The woman studied her silently for a moment, then nodded. "Then I'll let you get back to whatever is keeping you up tonight."

With that she moved away and Cam returned to studying her drink. The touch of the stranger's hand had made her think of Claire.

Claire. Is she a part of this?

Until a few days ago, she had thought that chapter of her life closed.

After she hung up the phone, Cam hurriedly crossed to the bedroom, stripped off the robe, and grabbed for the first thing that was handy. She was just buttoning the fly of her jeans when the doorbell rang. Quickly, she pulled on the T-shirt and opened the door.

“Hello, Claire.”

"I'm sorry," the woman in the hallway began. "I know I shouldn't have come..."

"No. It's all right." Cam extended her hand, and Claire took it. "Come inside."

Claire was dressed as she often was...tasteful evening dress and matching heels, her blond hair in a French twist, her makeup flawless, and her jewelry expensive. She hesitated just inside the door, then dropped her purse onto the mail table in the small foyer. "You look tired. It's late, isn’t it? God, I should go."

"Come into the living room. Can I get you a drink?"

"Wine, if you have it."

Several minutes later, Cam joined Claire on the sofa in front of the windows where less than thirty minutes before she had been sitting speaking to her lover. She forced the image of Blair from her mind and handed the glass of cabernet to the woman who had made love to her countless times. The lines of stress around Claire's eyes were obvious. "What is it?"

"I've been hearing things from my...colleagues...for the last several weeks. Someone has been asking questions."

Cam frowned. "Someone has been trying to get information out of the...escorts?"

Claire smiled, her blue eyes troubled. "First you must understand...with this establishment, confidentiality is absolutely the most critical service we provide. Every one of us is thoroughly screened—there are background checks to rival the federal government’s, known associates are identified, resumes, transcripts...everything ever documented is reviewed. No one gives out information about a client. It just doesn't happen."

"But now you think someone's been talking?"

"I don't know." Claire shook her head. "All I know is that someone, or someones, have certainly been asking questions."

"And why are you telling me?"

"Because they're asking questions about the President."

Cam shrugged. "There have been rumors going around Washington since before he was elected that he uses a...service for his...social needs. That's not news."

"I know," Claire said. "But this is the first time any of us has been approached. For one thing, our names are carefully omitted from any transactions...even on paper. No one has access to our true identities, so it's almost impossible for us to be individually associated with any particular establishment or client. But more than one of us has been questioned about him."

Cam was quiet, considering the information. "Which means that someone may have identified your organization and gotten access to your files."

"Yes. And if that's the case, they might have access to much more than just the escort identities. They may have the client lists."

"Ah, I see." Cam rubbed her forehead with one hand, trying desperately to assuage the pounding headache that was making it difficult for her to think. "Are you here to warn me?"

"Partly, and..."

"What?"

"I know who you are."

"Meaning?" Cam asked quietly.

"Your picture has been on television."

"Yes," Cam acknowledged with a sigh. "I suppose you've known for a long time."

Claire rested her hand on Cam's thigh. It was the first time she had touched her in almost six months. "It's my business not to know who you are. My only responsibility is to know what you need."

The touch of Claire's hand stirred a visceral memory that was as automatic as the awakening of hunger stirred by a familiar smell. For months after Janet's death, Cam had wanted nothing more than the few hours of dreamless sleep that the satisfaction of Claire's caress had given her. Her body had grown used to the stroke of Claire’s fingers. Cam’s nerve endings remembered, too, and her breath quickened. Ignoring the sweet stab of unbidden desire, she asked, "Has anyone asked about me specifically?"

"Not that I know of, but I've only heard these rumors from a few people. There may be other things I don't know about yet."

"I'm not sure what I can do with this information, or what I can do about it," Cam said.

"I don't know that there's anything to do, especially if we're as compromised as it seems. But I don't want to see anyone hurt...especially not the President." She lifted her eyes to Cam's, resting her fingers lightly now against her cheek. Her lips were very close to Cam's when she whispered, "Or you."

Cam jerked, as if feeling the warmth of Claire's fingers again. That was a memory she could not afford to ponder. She rubbed her eyes, then quickly downed the rest of her scotch. Tomorrow, she would be with Claire. Then, perhaps, she would find some answers.

Blair turned over in bed and looked at the clock. The red numerals showed it to be shortly after 1:00 a.m. With a sigh, she threw back the light sheet and swung her legs to the floor. Naked, she walked through the moonlit loft and stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the park below. From her vantage point she could see Cam's building, and she knew which were her windows. Her lover's apartment was dark. She knew she shouldn't wake her, because by now, she recognized the subtle signs of pain that Cam would never speak of. The faint deepening of the lines around her eyes and the slight, nearly imperceptible tightening of her shoulders as she shifted her position in a chair. What Cam needed now was to sleep and to heal.

Finally, Blair returned to her bed and sat on the edge, watching flickers of unearthly light dance across the hardwood floor, caught between reason and desire. A very long time ago, she had taught herself not to need the solace of a woman's body in the dark. She never spent the night with anyone she made love to; she never sought the sound of another's voice to console her pain or assuage her fears. She slept alone and she bore her uncertainty and disappointment and loneliness in silence.

Everything had changed when Cam had come into her life.

Almost against her will, she reached for the phone. A minute later, after listening to it ring unanswered, she laid the receiver carefully into its cradle. Then she stretched out on the bed, rolled onto her side, and closed her eyes. It was a long time before her breathing eased into the steady, quiet cadence of sleep.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cam shook her head groggily as the alarm droned beside her. She wasn't certain how long it had been buzzing as she slowly emerged from a dreamless sleep to the insistent sound. Stifling another groan, she reached out with one arm and blindly swatted in the direction of the clock. Finally, she succeeded in silencing the din. After another minute, she forced herself upright and headed for the bathroom. With the shower set more to cold than warm, she stepped in and turned her face to the pinpricks of water. It was early, and she wondered if Blair was still asleep. In that one unguarded moment, loneliness crested on a swift stab of pain. Then, just as quickly, she forced it from her consciousness.

At precisely 0730, Cam walked into the conference room on the seventh floor of Blair's apartment building, the level directly below Blair’s and entirely occupied by the Secret Service team. The major portion of the floor was a large open space subdivided by shoulder-high walls into workstations and monitoring areas. In the far corner past a warren of cramped desks was the glass enclosed area which served as the meeting room for Cam and her agents. At the moment, most of the team was present, since the night shift was present to report before going off-duty and the day shift had just arrived to take over the watch. Usually there were one or more swing agents available as well to cover unexpected events or supply double coverage on short notice if needed.

This was the first time the team had convened at Command Central since the night the operation to apprehend Loverboy had nearly ended in disaster. Ellen Grant's absence was conspicuous.

Almost everyone had coffee in some form in front of them, carryout cups from nearby delis a subtle indictment of the office brew that was often hours old. Cam strode to the head of the table and nodded to the men and women facing her. Without preamble, she began.

"I presume all of you have seen the newspaper article from last night. Obviously, we can anticipate increased media attention whenever Egret leaves the building. There's a camera crew on the northeast corner of the square right now."

That statement was met with several groans and a few unflattering comments as to the nature of the Fourth estate.

"That means we can also expect close approach from the press...singly and in groups. Be alert for press credentials and have a very low threshold for containing or diverting anyone who is without the appropriate identification or who encroaches on her personal perimeter. If at all possible, move her quickly from the vehicle to any public venue. We’ll go to high security status today. We have no reason at this point to think they know about the gym or any of her private appointments. Nevertheless, don't make any assumptions."

Everyone nodded. Then Cam looked to Mac. "I'll be meeting with Egret per usual at 1100 hours. Hopefully, I'll be able to update the weekly schedule with her and pass along that information to you for a more concrete itinerary." Surveying the group again, she added, "Mac will have your schedule assignments then."

"What are we going to do about finding the slime ball who took that picture?" Paula Stark questioned. The righteous indignation in her voice was obvious.

Briefly, Cam wondered how many of her agents knew that she was the person depicted in the photograph kissing the President's daughter.

"For now, nothing," Cam responded bluntly. She almost smiled at the expressions of outrage on the faces of her agents. The fact that they were all ferociously dedicated to Blair pleased her. She raised a hand to stem the questions that were sure to be forthcoming. "I need to brief first with D.C. I can tell you this...we're not going to take this lying down."

That statement prompted an assortment of good, for sure and damn rights.

"In addition to routine matters, we need to gear up for the trans-Atlantic trip. I want status reports on my desk by this afternoon as to who will be our liaison in Paris, the itinerary, the report from the security chief at the hotel, an update on all terrorist cells known to be operating in France, with particular emphasis on Paris and its environs, and dossiers on the French security members assigned to every function at which Egret will be present."

"We’re on that, Commander," Mac assured her. "I'll collate the material we have for you this afternoon."

"Very good." Cam shrugged her shoulders to ease some of the stiffness in her neck and back. "Mac, I'd like to see you, please. The rest of you, carry on."

Once the room had cleared, Cam sat down across from her second in command and briefly rubbed her eyes. Then, she leaned forward and met his steady gaze. "I want to know where that photograph came from. Make some inquiries to the wire services, contact the managing editor of the Post, and dig around at the Intel Ops center in D.C. Be discrete if you can, but pull rank if you have to."

Mac, a scrupulous detail man, was conspicuously not taking notes. What she was asking was outside the Agency chain of command, because strictly speaking, someone in D.C should coordinate this kind of intelligence gathering with the FBI. But then, the Secret Service did not share intelligence with the FBI, nor ask them for any. "What do we know about specifics...time frame, location?"

For a moment, Cam was silent. Mac would have no reason to know the circumstances under which the image had been captured, and she could keep her part in it under wraps...at least for now. As a Secret Service agent, she was indoctrinated in the policy of silence. One did not discuss a protectee; one did not discuss Agency business with other departments; one did not discuss procedure. Solitary since childhood, circumspect with her own emotional pain...unable and unwilling to add to her mother's agony with her own seemingly inconsequential anguish after the death of her father, she had learned to keep her own counsel. The habits of a lifetime compounded by the requirements of her profession made it difficult for her to disclose anything to anyone, no matter how much she trusted—or loved...them. The silence in the room grew, a silence during which Mac sat quietly, simply waiting.

"The photograph was taken at approximately 0130 three nights ago on the waterfront in San Francisco."

One blond eyebrow raised, his only sign of surprise, whether at the information or the fact that she knew it, Cam couldn't tell.

"I never got a report that we'd lost her at anytime in San Francisco," he said.

"We didn't."

"Then how did she manage to get away from us long enough for anyone to get that shot?"

His confusion was evident, and she made a decision that in all probability would alter the course of her career forever.

"She didn't leave our sight. The person in the photograph with her is me."

His reaction was not precisely what she had expected.

"Well then, where the fuck were the rest of our people? How in the hell did they let anyone get that close to her. Jesus, talk about a security failure."

Cam shrugged, a rueful grin on her face. "She and I were not directly in their sight line, although they should have had an excellent perimeter view. One thought I had—after the fact unfortunately...is that he was on one of the nearby piers with a night scope. He could have gotten fairly close to us but probably wouldn't have raised any particular suspicion from the team. They were most likely focusing on foot traffic on the beach."

"Commander, may I speak freely?" Mac asked softly.

"Go ahead, Mac."

He held her eyes as he said firmly, "I consider it my responsibility...the responsibility of the entire team...to protect her not just physically, but from this kind of invasion as well. I know it's not completely possible to deny the press access to her, but dammit, this is something personal. The public has no right to know this. I don't want it to happen again."

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 783