States. She would never admit it out loud, but this wedding was as much about her as it was her daughter. It had to be perfect. And now security that rivaled a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly threatened to turn the whole thing into a circus.
For the last day and half Governors Island and its surrounding waters had become a spewing fountain of activity.
The two-hundred-and-ten-foot U.S. Coast Guard cutter Vigorous, bristling with a twenty-five-millimeter chain gun and fifty-caliber deck guns fore and aft, prowled the Buttermilk Channel between the island and Brooklyn, New York. The hundred-and-sixty-five-foot Algonquin class cutter Escanaba, down from Boston, lay just off Liberty Island. A half dozen orange and gray USCG fast-boats, each also armed with a fifty-caliber machine gun mounted on the foredeck, patrolled upper New York Harbor and the entrances to the East and Hudson Rivers. These vessels, along with as many NYPD patrol boats, enforced a two-thousand-foot mar-sec standoff, keeping any other boats away from Governors Island.
A virtual army of Secret Service, Department of State Diplomatic Security agents, and NYPD secured the concrete docks and dilapidated redbrick industrial buildings on the Brooklyn side. Three hundred more from the same agencies locked down Battery Park and the entire southern tip of Manhattan. The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel that ran underwater adjacent to the island, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, had been closed for the day. The Secret Service Uniform Division manned a series of checkpoints at the Governors Island Ferry dock, ready to double-check the guest list for those arriving by water. Each guest, no matter his or her rank or standing, would be required to pass through full-body scanners like those that caused all the brouhaha at airports. Heads of state would arrive by helicopter and would be exempt from such scrutiny, though their staff members would be scanned at the security checkpoint in the center of the island, under a large, circus-like tent set up in the wooded park beyond the helipad.
Spotters with binoculars watched from virtually every rooftop. A heavy thump of helicopters shook the bluebird-clear sky. Navy and Air Force fighters streaked overhead, rattling the floor-to-ceiling windows in the historic mansion. Nancy felt as if she was on the deck of an aircraft carrier rather than setting up the final details of her only daughter’s wedding. She’d have to call Bob and see if he couldn’t pull some vice presidential strings and quiet the sky down a few hundred decibels.
Nancy stepped out and leaned against one of the Doric pillars on the full-length front porch to rest. Jolene would arrive in four hours; guests would start showing up an hour after that. Oh, for a few minutes with her feet up before they all descended upon her. It was unladylike, but she scratched her back against the column, sure some of the flaking white paint had rubbed off on her red sweatshirt.
She caught Special Agent Doyle’s eye and gave him a grin. He stood post, ramrod straight in his dark suit, at the corner of the porch.
“Sorry, Jimmy,” she said, sliding up and down like a bear against a tree. “I really hate that you get to see me absent my good Southern manners.
“The United States Secret Service sees nothing-and everything,” he said, returning her grin. “But if it’s any consolation, Mrs. H., everyone scratches their itches.”
“For what it’s worth, Jimmy,” Nancy said, “I’m glad you’re the one assigned to this. Feels safer having you here.”
She looked up to see Amanda Deatherage standing on the brick walkway. Her mouth agape, she stared up at the sky.
“Are you all right, dear?” Nancy said. Her wedding assistant seemed to grow more agitated at each pass of the military jets.
The girl’s head snapped around as if she’d been slapped. “Yes… ma’am,” she stammered, a hint of something sullen in her eyes. Her hands trembled slightly as she wrapped blue and yellow ribbon around the black barrels of two heavy antique cannons on either side of the brick walkway.
Mrs. Hughes nodded warily, unconvinced. “Have the flowers arrived?”
Deatherage smoothed a large ribbon into a bow at the muzzle of a cannon. “They have,” she said. “I took care of them myself. I picked the best ones for the vice president and the president since he’ll be the guest of honor.”
“My daughter is the guest of honor.” Nancy Hughes glared. She was too exhausted to suffer the girl’s foolishness. Still, it wouldn’t do to make an enemy of her today. Nancy softened her tone. “You were correct to pick a good one for the president, dear.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Deatherage brightened. “I’ll take care of putting them on myself so they don’t get mixed up with the ones for the groomsmen.”
Agent Jimmy Doyle raised a brow, dark eyes flitting back and forth from Nancy to the girl.
“I want you to take care of the photographer tonight,” Nancy said, hoping to give the witless girl something to keep her mind occupied. “When President Clark comes through the receiving line, I’d like to capture that moment. Could you see to that?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” she said. “It would be my honor.” Deatherage gave her a long smile, then turned back to her duties.
What a strange girl, Nancy Hughes thought. She wouldn’t be staying on after the wedding. That was a certainty.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Manhattan Chinatown
“You should have let me kill the Cuban woman,” Beg said, walking briskly beside his boss. His mouth was set in a tight line as if he’d just eaten something unpleasant.
“She is hospitalized and helpless.” Dr. Badeeb held a glowing cigarette in front of him as if to ward off the press of people on teaming sidewalks of Canal Street. “Hardly a matter that requires someone of your skill. I have sent a competent man to take care of that problem.”
Beg ground his teeth like a predator deprived of a favorite piece of meat. He’d been looking forward to learning more about the lovely creature that was Veronica Garcia… before he killed her.
He suddenly found the crush of the city extremely annoying. Tourists jostled by, mouths agape at the sheer press of foreign humanity on American soil. Beg walked dutifully beside his employer, waving off the persistent Chinese women offering their knockoff goods with a whispered buzz of: “Handbag-handbag-DVD-DVD-handbag…” Finding them bothersome as blowflies, Beg had to press back the urge to kill all of them with one of the colorful pashmina scarves that hung by the dozens in every other tourist and T-shirt shop.
“I need you to strangle Li Huang,” the doctor went on, as if reading Beg’s thoughts and throwing him a bone. “The Pari School has been compromised. Who can say where the Americans will come with their questions? She knows far too much.”
Beg had expected the order to murder the doctor’s wife for some time. He found it interesting that Badeeb had prescribed the method for her death. Those details were customarily left up to Beg and the Mervi found himself a little put out by such micromanagement.
“Do you suppose they are aware of your plans?” Beg said, musing. “The Americans…”
“No one is aware of my complete plan,” the doctor grunted, drawing back his cigarette to take a drag before holding it out again. “Not even you. That said, Li Huang knows far more than she should know. I grew careless with her.”
“Of course I will do as you wish, Doctor.” Beg glanced at his watch as he walked. “I mean no disrespect, but I should have been the one to see to it Tara Doyle follows through with her mission.”
Badeeb stopped suddenly, causing the flowing crowd to pile up behind him like water caught on the back side of a dam, before pouring sullenly past on both sides. He glanced up at Beg, nodding.
“Perhaps,” he said. “But once she is in the air…” He shrugged. “There is a point when she is out of our control.”
The odor of garbage, car exhaust, and cigar smoke mixed with day-old fish and musky, overripe fruit. If Beg
