Gabe stepped forward and grabbed the wrought-iron railing in front of him, gazing down at the street below.
“Sir, if you don’t mind my asking…” She hesitated to interrupt his intense concentration.
“Ask,” he ordered tersely.
“Do you have any idea why the Q-group might have tried to kill you last fall?”
He frowned. Shook his head. “None.”
She asked, “What’s your policy on Berzhaan? Have you said something specific that would inflame the Q- group?” She’d read everything she could get her hands on about Gabe’s stance on Berzhaan, and nothing she’d run across had struck her as inflammatory enough to cause the Q-group to come after him. If anything his policies promised to be significantly more to the Q-group’s liking than Whitlow’s had been.
“I’ve argued against sending American troops there. I’m in favor of economic and educational aid sent to them via a neutral government of the Berzhaani people’s choosing. Nothing that should’ve sent the Q-group tearing over here to off me.”
“What about the Secret Service? Do they take this threat seriously?”
He exhaled sharply. “Oh, they took the Q-group seriously, all right. Except every last one of the terrorists who staged the Chicago attack is safely behind bars. The Secret Service considers the threat neutralized, and so did I until about a minute ago.”
“I’ve been tracking more Q-group sympathizers online for a couple of months now. The FBI caught their cell in Chicago, but that’s far from the last of the Q-group’s operatives. I’m convinced they’ve got another cell here in Washington that’s going to attack you today.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re exactly right,” he said quietly.
She frowned. “I don’t mean to be impertinent, but if that’s the case, then why are we standing out here alone having this conversation with our backs to the door so no one can read our lips?”
He looked at her in surprise for an instant, and then spit out a single word. “Wolfe.”
Okay. There must be a leap of logic in there somewhere, but she’d missed it. “What about Wolfe?” she asked cautiously.
“He’s convinced I’m not fit to be president. That I’m suffering post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the attack and won’t be able to make rational decisions regarding national security or foreign policy.”
Yikes! She recalled abruptly the cold exchange of looks over her head between the two men while she sat in the potted palm.
“I need you to do me a favor,” Gabe asked abruptly.
“Of course. You’re the Commander-in-Chief…”
He cut her off with a sharp, short hand gesture. “Not yet, I’m not. I’m asking this of you, personally. Not because you’re about to work for me.”
“Anything,” she replied promptly. “You name it.”
“Don’t tell anyone about your suspicions.”
“But-”
“No buts,” he interrupted firmly. “If Wolfe gets wind of the fact that I think the Q-group’s going to try to kill me, he’ll eat me for lunch. He’ll go to Congress so fast it’ll make your head spin and insist that I’m crazy. Not Presidential material. I barely dodged that bullet right after the election. Did you know the bastard actually went to the Supreme Court and asked them under what circumstances he could have me removed from office or block me from taking office?”
Whoa. No wonder there’d been such a glacial chill between the two men.
“And he’s your second in command why?”
“I needed the votes to get elected. The party was split between him and me, and our respective constituents would be damned before they’d vote for the other guy. It was the only way to cobble together the numbers we needed to win the White House.”
She looked up at Gabe candidly. “For what it’s worth, he tried to waylay me when I first got to the suite this morning. Insisted that I tell him my business instead of you. Said you were too busy getting ready for the inauguration. I refused to talk to him and he was in the middle of throwing me out when you fished me out of the palm tree.”
Gabe nodded in stony silence as if that information didn’t surprise him. Their gazes locked in silent communication and understanding flowed between them. Oh yes. She knew exactly what it was like to be wrongly accused of being crazy. She knew exactly how the injustice of it twisted and roiled like a serpent in Gabe’s gut, galling him to no end as long as he was helpless to combat the charge.
Finally, she broke the charged silence. “Will you at least tell Agent Haas to be on his toes, today?”
“I will,” he promised solemnly. “But you’ve got to do something for me, as well.”
“Besides go against my better judgment and keep the plot against you to myself?”
He reached out and took both of her hands in his. “Be careful. These Q-group guys are the real deal. They’re serious terrorists.”
His golden gaze was mesmerizing, his touch pure seduction tracing down her spine. Whether his attraction to her was genuine or just a slick politician’s blatant manipulation, she couldn’t tell. And at the moment, her pounding pulse didn’t care. “Of course.”
His hands tightened on hers. “Thank you. I’m sorry you got sucked into this mess.”
She smiled back and said lightly, “Last time I checked, it’s my job to investigate conspiracies. And I’m the one who came to you.”
He released her hands, but his fingers trailed across her palms as though he was reluctant to lose the physical contact with her. His withdrawal left her feeling cold and vulnerable, all of a sudden.
He fished in an inner pocket of his suit coat and emerged with a business card. “Here’s my personal cell phone number. I’ll be carrying my phone with me today.”
She took the card and commented, “Remember to turn off the ringer while you take the oath of office?”
He smiled. “Thanks for the tip.” His smile faded slowly, leaving a residual glow between them. More seriously, he added, “Keep me updated on any new developments.”
She pulled out one of her own cards and scribbled her cell phone number on the back of it. And was just reaching out to hand it to him when something caught her attention over his shoulder. Something that didn’t belong there. Something that set off an alarm in her head.
A window in a building across the street had just slid open a few inches, and something was coming out of it. Something circular. Made of blue-black steel. A metallic gleam caught the dull morning light.
Holy shit.
She dived for Gabe, tackling him around the waist with the full weight of her body, driving him down to the ground in a single heavy fall. In the millisecond it took her to register that she was lying full length on top of him, something incredibly heavy landed on top of her, squashing her flat and forcing all the air from her lungs.
Gabe grunted beneath her, as well. Three Secret Service agents plastered themselves on top of her and Gabe, acting as human shields for their charge. One of the men ordered tersely, “Don’t move, either of you. We’ll neutralize the threat before we try to get you inside. It’s too damn exposed out here to move you.”
As the seconds ticked by and no gunshots were forthcoming from across the street, she became more and more aware of the intimacy of her situation with Gabe. She was learning some fascinating things about the next President of the United States. He was in hard, athlete’s condition underneath his conservative suit. His body actually filled out the suit’s broad shoulders, not bulky pads. She also learned she fit against him perfectly, their legs intertwining as if they’d been lovers for years. And when she shifted her weight a little, his stomach contracted into a rock-hard washboard beneath her belly. Up close, his eyes could blaze brighter than the noonday sun, incinerating her from the inside out.
“Sorry about that,” she murmured.
His mouth curved up into a wry grin. “No need to apologize for reacting to what I assume was a threat to my life?”
She answered brightly, “Actually, I always throw myself at hot guys like this.”
His chest shook beneath hers, creating the most amazing sensation in her breasts, which were smashed against him in a blatantly sexual fashion.
One of the Secret Service agents growled, “Stay still, you two.”
