Cost of Honor Read online

  Blair propped herself up on an elbow and stroked Cam’s bare thigh. “I thought you said that agenda item was scheduled for this morning.”

  “I was planning on a repeat performance.”

  “Oh. Well, then.” Blair glanced at her watch on the charger next to the bed. “It’s five thirty. In the a.m. We don’t have to be at the airport until eleven. Which means if you’re back here in an hour, you’ll have plenty of time to attend to everything on my list.”

  “How about if I return with coffee, croissant, and purpose.”

  Blair laughed. “I’ll take a double dose of purpose, please.”

  Cam kissed her again. “As you wish.”

  Blair cupped the back of Cam’s head and drew her down. She kissed her slowly, taking her time, reminding them both of everything that mattered. “Go on, then.”

  “I won’t be long. I love you.”

  “I love you too.” Blair settled down into the pillows, turned her back to the glorious late-April morning, and smiled. Seven days with nothing but blue waters, warm white sand, and Cam. She wouldn’t think about what waited for them when they got back. Six weeks until the convention. Six weeks, pushing 24/7 on the reelection campaign, speeches and dinners and reporters in a campaign that was going to get nasty.

  Seven days before she had to think of that.

  Old Executive Office Building (OEOB)

  Washington, DC

  5:25 a.m.

  Oakes Weaver lunged for the ball, flicked her racket as her shoulder hit the floor, and watched the shot carom off the near side wall and rocket past Evyn Daniels to the front wall before she ducked, rolled, and came back up onto her feet. Evyn just managed to get her racket on it and sent it skidding onto the floor.

  “Nice shot,” Evyn gasped as she dragged an arm across her forehead. “Game to you.”

  “That makes us even,” Oakes said, lifting the hem of her shirt to wipe the sweat from her face.

  Evyn Daniels trotted over to her. “On the day, maybe, but I think you’re still a game ahead of me on balance.”

  Oakes grinned. “Two.”

  Evyn snorted. “The first game didn’t count. I was going easy on you because you were a newbie.”

  “And I was going easy on you because, well…you’re not.”

  “Yeah, right. Forgot for a second you’re practically a preschooler.” Evyn grinned.

  Oakes was used to being the youngest in just about every group and wasn’t bothered by the kidding. Less than a dozen years separated her and Evyn, and Oakes wasn’t the newbie on PPD any longer. Jonas Clark, the new guy, was twenty-four, a year younger than her. Funny how ten months on the president’s protection detail could make such a difference. Of course, a hell of a lot had happened during those ten months, including a terrorist attack on the president’s life.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Oakes gathered up her gear. “Barney’s for breakfast?”

  “Too right.”

  As they left the racquetball court and headed for the locker room, Evyn asked, “So, leading the advance team is pretty big-time. Nervous?”

  “What? Nah,” Oakes said. “It’s not like I haven’t done an advance before.”

  One of the first things Oakes had learned at FLETC was never to admit fear. Or that she wasn’t totally ready for whatever was coming. She trusted her training and believed in herself. Okay, maybe she was a little nervous about heading up the advance team for the president’s trip to his party’s national convention. But she knew what needed to be done. She’d been running the list in her head ever since Tom had told her she’d be heading up the preparations for POTUS’s arrival in Philadelphia. Secure and clear the airspace, map evac routes, identify safe houses, assess medical preparedness, review intelligence from the local FBI and police antiterrorist divisions, coordinate crowd control with local law enforcement, arrange surveillance of Class 3 threat individuals, establish the dog check zones, schedule highway closures for the motorcade…

  “Running the list?” Evyn murmured, pushing open the door to the locker room.

  Oakes laughed. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  Evyn smiled. “The first time I led the advance team, I’d wake up a couple times a night running everything through my head. Don’t worry—it’s not like you’re out there on your own.”

  “Yeah,” Oakes said. “I know that. The first get-to-know-everybody trip last month went fine.”

  “No griping over the feds moving in and bossing everyone around when a presidential visit’s involved,” Evyn said.

  Oakes’s chest tightened. “After what happened on the train trip—”

  “Which somehow the White House managed to keep off the air,” Evyn reminded her.

  “True. But, man—I think about it. She’s still out there somewhere.”

  “Her and probably a few thousand other loonies,” Evyn said. “So we all think about it every day. That’s the job, right?”

  “Right.” The ball of nerves in Oakes’s middle unraveled. She wasn’t alone anymore. She had the team. She didn’t need much more than that. A couple of good friends, her parents, even though she hardly ever saw them anymore, and the team. Life was good. She didn’t have time for anything else. At least that’s what she told herself.

  Across the Delaware River from Philadelphia

  Camden, New Jersey

  6:05 a.m.

  “New members are arriving soon,” the familiar voice said without preamble when Matthew Ford answered the phone. “We’ll need you to be ready.”

  His contact—controller was a more honest term for the man who had determined his every move for the last fifteen months—didn’t bother to apologize for waking him up. Not that he had. Matthew had been awake most of the night. The bedroom, barely large enough for the double bed, had one narrow window through which a limp breeze barely managed to stir the stale air. The girl in his bed smelled of some too-sweet perfume and sex, and for some reason, her nearness made him want to pace. When he should have been thinking about fucking her, he was trying to shake off the antsy sensation of something being not quite right.

  Maybe this call would finally change all that.

  “We’ve been ready for more than two years. Ever since the rigged election threatened to bury our identity under an ocean of color,” Matthew answered, standing at the open window of the third-floor squat on Canal Street. Trash—plastic soda bottles, soggy bits of cardboard food containers, Styrofoam cups, and mountains of other unidentifiable garbage—floated up against the banks of the Delaware River below him. Philadelphia on the other side of the water rose out of a shroud of rain clouds. Rain again. He hated fucking spring and the constant drizzle. He was fucking sick of waiting too. Training and preparing so he could wait some more. He peered at the cloudy city skyline and tried to make out the Convention Center.

  “Are you ready to stand up for our heritage?” his contact asked.

  “We would have already if you’d given us the green light.”

  “Your dedication to the cause is admirable, but we needed the right stage from which to be heard. Now we have it, and the plan is in motion.”

  “And we are ready,” Matthew swore.

  “You understand there will be obstacles. Sacrifice may be required.”

  “We know.”

  “Remember, trust only those who have proven themselves.”

  “We’ll need intelligence, and with Gary—”

  “No names.”

  Matthew gritted his teeth. They knew his name, but he didn’t know his controller. Oh, he knew the supreme leader’s name—the whole world knew that. He even knew the names of some of central command. After all, their organization represented the real Americans, and the leaders, at least, spoke up for all the oppressed members of the white race. When he was recruited and sent to join the northeastern cell, however, they’d made it clear that his cell leader, as well as members of other cells, would remain anonymous. Security reasons. Made sense, but it also made him feel invisible. He didn’t w
ant to be invisible any longer. He’d been invisible his entire life, growing up without, watching others make it because they were special. Special. Right. Some of them weren’t even Americans. When he’d discovered Identity America, with its platform of anti-immigration, anti-integration, and anti-welfare for the parasites who drained the country of resources and power, he knew he’d found his place. Now he’d have a chance to be seen.

  “Timetables,” he snarled, “motorcade routes, personnel lists. How are we going to get them?”

  “Let us worry about that,” responded the smooth baritone with just a hint of an unidentifiable accent. Matthew imagined the man to be from somewhere in the Midwest, where so many of the true believers originated.

  “And what about the weapons?”

  “Will be delivered in due time.” A pause. “Destroy your phone as usual.”

  “Wait—”

  The line went dead, and Matthew threw the phone across the room. It crashed against the wall and splintered.

  “I could have used that,” the girl in the bed said. She sat up against the pillows, her small bare breasts jutting out above the rumpled sheet draped across her waist.

  “You know you can’t use it.”

  “I could have sold it.”

  “No, you couldn’t. Someone might trace it back to us. What do you need money for?”

  She smiled. “A little blow would be nice.”

  “No drugs, I told you that.”

  She sighed and pushed the sheets aside, parting her legs. “Then maybe you can take my mind off my needs.”

  With a sigh, he stripped off his boxers and climbed onto the bed. At least he could pass the time while he waited for the world to learn his name.

  Chapter Two

  Newport, Rhode Island

  6:00 a.m.

  Ari Rostof climbed down the boardwalk stairs from the rear of the house to the stretch of private beach on Newport Harbor. Across the way on the peninsula, the public marina bustled with boat launches as seasonal people returned. Her Jeanneau floated gently under the covered dock adjacent to the boathouse. The weather report called for highs near sixty. The water would be rough, and the sail probably cold, but she needed some time alone to recharge. Time on the water away from the phone calls, the maneuvering, the careful placement of players on the giant chessboard that was her life. Most of the time she enjoyed the game of politics, an ever-shifting battle of allegiances, of promises made and promises broken—or, more often, bent—and somewhere beneath it all, the fragility of purpose.

  Staying true to purpose was always a challenge in any game where the primary goal was to win. Standing on the far end of the dock, watching the whitecaps slap against the pilings, she considered the cost of winning. Relationships were fleeting, principles more gray than black and white, and trust as transitory as the latest contract. An empty bed and contacts instead of friends were the result. So far, she’d been willing to pay the price.

  “Are you thinking of going out today?” Paul called from behind her. She looked over her shoulder, smiled at their boat master. She’d known the short, square man with the weathered face and all-seeing eyes since she was a child. Sturdy, solid, unchanging, and unchangeable. Him she trusted. “Thought I would.”

  He shook his head. “Going to be a rough ride. Another week or two, it really will be spring.”

  “Another week or two, I’ll be in DC.”

  “They got nice water down there, I hear.”

  “They do.” And I’ll have no time to enjoy it once the race is on.

  “Imagine you won’t have a lot of time,” Paul said, reading her thoughts. “Senator Martinez this time, isn’t it? Who you’re working for?”

  “That’s the one,” Ari said.

  “So you going to get her reelected?”

  Ari smiled. “You bet I am.”

  He nodded. “Well, I’ll get the boat ready for you, then.”

  Ari glanced up at the house, saw her father watching her from the upper deck. She waved, and he nodded before turning back to the house. He’d expect her for breakfast.

  “I’ll be down in an hour or so.”

  “Good enough.”

  Her solitude postponed, Ari climbed back up to the house. Her father was in the dining room, seated at his usual place at the far end of the table, wearing his at home clothes—a casual polo and dark pants. His back was to the french doors that led out onto the wraparound deck. Ignoring the view. She sat on his left and angled her chair so she could catch a glimpse of the water.

  “Bill Bailey wants to interview Martinez,” he said as he added cream to his coffee. His game was golf, and his deep tan and faint crow’s feet spoke of his frequent trips to the Florida courses over the winter. Trips, Ari knew, that served a dual purpose. Florida was a favorite location for foreign travelers to mix business with pleasure.

  “About the immigration bill?” Ari lifted the silver dome off the platter in the center of the table, speared a slice of french toast and several pieces of bacon.

  “I imagine that will be part of it.”

  “It’s a touchy issue right now. I’ll need to talk to him first, get a sense of where he’s going with it before I take it to the senator.”

  “Give him a call, then. But if Martinez comes out strong—”

  “Dad, I’ll need to talk to the senator first. You know I don’t discuss her policy platform with anyone outside the team.”

  His mouth tightened. “And you think I can’t be trusted?”

  She poured coffee into the china cup next to her plate. “I think you are a very astute businessman and that you have a great many interests, not all of which might be in line with those of my client.”

  “I’m family.”

  Ari met his gaze. Cool ice blue, like the ones she saw in the mirror every day. “I know that. Family is everything.”

  USSS Command Central, OEOB

  Washington, DC

  6:10 a.m.

  After a shower, a change of clothes, and a quick breakfast at Barney’s two blocks from the Old Executive Office Building, Oakes made it to the command center forty minutes before push. Half a dozen agents from the PPD plus surveillance and communications sat at workstations around the large room crowded with monitors, computers, and desks.

  “Hey, did you bring me breakfast?” Fran Sanchez, part of the night working shift covering the president, called from across the room. Fran, straight dark hair swept back and trimmed at collar level, deep brown eyes perennially laughing, and a fast almost-always-amused smile, had been on the presidential detail a year longer than Oakes. If she minded Oakes being appointed lead on the advance to the convention, she didn’t show it.

  “Course.” Oakes always checked who on the team had the overnight shift and brought in their breakfast orders. A little thing, but a surefire way to keep the unit tight. Food and drink were major currency in the USSS. She passed Fran the bag with a take-out egg-and-cheese burrito wrapped in aluminum foil. “The other one is for Kennedy.”

  “Kennedy’s not here though, is he,” Fran said, taking them both out of the bag.

  A deep voice announced from behind them, “Kennedy is right here. Kennedy knows all.”

  Theodore Kennedy, tall, slim, with smooth light brown skin and starting to go gray early, close-cropped hair, glided between the forest of chairs with the graceful gait of the dancer he’d been before taking a right-hand turn into law enforcement.

  Fran sniffed. “More like Kennedy has a nose like a bloodhound where food is concerned.”

  Kennedy snagged the unopened burrito and carried it to a nearby desk. “Kennedy knows Oakes is a champion.”

  Oakes grinned and slid into a chair at another station. Kennedy and Fran had been secretly dating for six months, a secret that everyone knew but didn’t mention. It wasn’t prohibited to date a colleague, but there was always the worry that personal relationships would become a distraction or a point of contention. No one doubted that either one would do their duty if ca
lled upon, but a team of a dozen or so people working together, sometimes 24/7 for weeks at a time, was pretty much the same as living in an extended family. Rivalries, bickering, and petty jealousies could make everyone’s day a chore. Oakes had to admit, though, as she fired up her computer, Fran and Kennedy seemed to make it work. She didn’t know a lot of people who could manage that. Her parents had been together forever, since right out of high school, and they seemed to have developed a kind of fond indifference, each living their own life in spheres that overlapped to some extent while going their own ways in many others. She wasn’t sure she actually saw the point. If friendship was the goal, she had plenty of that right here.

  “Anything doing?” Oakes asked. She’d get the formal report at the push, but she liked to check in early in case something unexpected, like an OTR presidential trip for a burger or a jog around the National Mall, had been slipped into the schedule.

  “Eagle is already in the castle,” Fran said.

  Oakes scanned the rest of the morning schedule. POTUS wasn’t due to leave the White House until late morning for a meeting at the Justice Department. Tom Turner, the Special Agent in Charge of the Presidential Protection Division, had already detailed the agents for that trip. Oakes had an advance team meeting with transport midmorning. The rest of the day she’d be busy coordinating with the supervisors of the fifteen or so departments involved in the trip.

  She pulled up the intelligence report summaries that funneled through in reams every day from various agencies, flagged items prioritized at the top. The vast majority of those would be updates on worldwide or domestic events that indicated any element of terrorist activity, from movements of suspected rebel camps half a world away to social media posts from homegrown right-wing neo-Nazis. One item halfway down the list caught her attention. Location: Philadelphia.

  She clicked it open and scanned just as Evyn Daniels walked in looking like a recruiting poster in a sharply tailored blue suit, white shirt, and low-heeled ankle-high boots. She fit the image of her role as Assistant Special Agent in Charge without even trying. Oakes had to remember to pick up her own dry cleaning on a regular basis, although she’d finally caved and ordered bespoke suits. All the same, button-downs, a blazer, and dark pants were her usual working uniform.