the gray sweatshirt and pressed it against the soggy head cut. The fancy dress shoes were gone, so she rummaged around to find her Nikes. More familiarity, more personal comfort, the dawning realization that she must go find Lady Pat and Sir Jeff. Moving across the room was like navigating a maze, her path hampered by fallen chunks of wood and nails and shards of brick and glass. She worked toward the stone stairs.
A large wooden beam leaned at a diagonal across the doorway to the main floor, but the big door was gone. Sliding beneath the beam, Delara found herself in a wonderland of destruction, and stumbled into what had once been the grand dining hall. Not another soul was standing, and she rushed into the dark ruins, shouting as loudly as she could: “Pat! Jeff! Where are you?” To her left, several small fires gnawed at the rubble.
Moans and cries of pain were coming from various points of the big room, and in moments, security men from outside were charging into the area, the beams of their strong flashlights crossing like sabers. Someone shouted orders to put the fire out before it spread. Her hearing was returning.
Delara recalled the seating chart. Sir Jeff was to have been at the head of the table, but no one had yet taken their seats for the dinner, so he and Lady Pat were both likely still at the far end of the room. She headed that way. “Pat! Jeff! It’s Delara! I’m coming!!” Her foot slipped and she fell hard onto a body in a tuxedo. It did not have a head. She gagged in horror and someone grabbed her arm and lifted her up: a uniformed soldier with a flashlight. He saw her head wound and said, “You’re bleeding, luv. Let’s get you outside for some medical treatment.”
She shook him away. Pointed to a doorway on the left. “I’m all right, so tend to the others,” she said, her voice surprisingly strong, regaining the tone of certainty that she used to run this massive place. She pointed to a side door. “Go look in there. Prince Abdullah had just gone to the loo when the bomb hit. I am Sir Geoffrey Cornwell’s assistant and I need a torch.” The soldier handed her his own flashlight and ran to the bathroom, calling for others to help.
Delara worked her way over to the far wall and probed the shining point of the flashlight across piles of debris. The entire wall along the right edge of the room had collapsed, which brought down most of the ceiling with it. She recognized the dark brown tapestry that had depicted a royal hunting scene and had hung on the far wall. It had been thrown down like a blanket. She lifted an edge and shined the light beneath. The legs of a woman and the bottom of a torn navy blue organza gown were visible.
“Pat!” she screamed and turned back to the soldiers. “I need help here! I’ve found somebody!” Several men jumped through the rubble and knelt beside her, then peeled away the heavy tapestry and the debris holding it in place. With their bare hands, they dug deeper into the wreckage. Pat Cornwell was on her side and Sir Jeff lay diagonally across her midsection, having used the split-second of warning before the first explosion to throw them both beneath the edge of the heavy table and between two sturdy chairs. The soldiers rolled him onto his back and finished clearing the heavy load that pinned his wife. A medical officer wiped away the dirt and blood from their faces and felt for vital signs. “Two live ones here,” he called. “Bring some stretchers!”
Delara used her cotton sweatshirt to gently wipe Sir Jeff’s face, her fingers gingerly dislodging clumps of dirt from his mouth and nose. He began to cough, and his eyes flew open and he managed a panicked whisper: “Pat…”
Delara Tabrizi felt a jolt of happiness. He was coming back! She grabbed his hand and placed its palm on the arm of his wife, and let it rest there. “She’s right here beside us, sir, and the doctor says she’s still alive, too. Getting beneath the table saved both of you. You’re going to be okay.”
His eyes fluttered and he was about to fall unconscious again. “Delara?” he asked softly, and she leaned closer, tears in her eyes. “Delara,” he repeated, the voice just a bit stronger. He had to say something.
“Yes, sir. I’m right here. Don’t worry. I shall stay with you and Lady Pat.” She took his other hand in both of hers.
Geoffrey Cornwell shook his head, and looked into her eyes, then whispered, “Delara. Get Kyle. I need Kyle.”
6
WASHINGTON, D.C.
IT WAS THREE O’CLOCK in the afternoon. Sybelle Summers had been at work for half of her shift and had not yet come up with a new excuse to get out of her job. She was running out of reasons, and had been turned down by every boss she had, even the guy in the Oval Office. The president of the United States, Mark Tracy, was so tired of listening to her bitch that he had recently snapped that she had better get used to being his military assistant because she was going to be in the position for a while, so just shut the hell up. It was the most boring job she had ever had.
So she sat in an uncomfortable chair at a little desk just outside the Oval Office and stared at the black leather Halliburton suitcase beside her. The hefty Glock pistol dug into her hip, so she shifted it. The White House Military Office had wanted her to carry a prissy little Beretta, because it was easily hidden and therefore not as obvious when she was in public with the president. The Secret Service would take care of any real threats, she was told. Sybelle liked the Secret Service agents, but no guard detail was ever perfect, and if she ever had to shoot, she intended to blow a hole in any bastard stupid enough to try to steal the Nuclear Football.
Major Summers, of the U.S. Marine Corps, was one of five military officers, a single representative from each branch of the armed services, who worked in shifts to lug the Football around so that it was always available to the commander in chief. No one knew much about her beyond that she was beautiful and obviously competent. Her life had been studied in detail during the ultra-top-level Yankee White background investigation before she assumed the new job, but it seemed that everything in her personnel folder was stamped “Classified” or “Top Secret” or “Need To Know.” Top marks at the U.S. Naval Academy, the only woman ever to graduate from Marine Recon, and a bunch of decorations on her uniform that signified valor in combat, although the citations gave no clue as to when, what, where, and why.
Summers had a reputation as an up-and-comer and had come to the White House after being the operations officer of a black ops team known as Task Force Trident. The only time her personality emerged while she was on duty at the White House was when a senior officer from within the elite Spec Operations community came to see the president. Those really hard men always took time to say hello to Summers and joke about the fancy loop of braid on her right shoulder, teasing her about becoming a staff weenie and getting a death glare from the dark blue eyes in return.
“Can’t cut it in the field anymore, eh, Major?” one lieutenant general had quipped.
“Your pants are unzipped again, sir. Another senior moment?” she replied in her distinctive, quiet voice that was polite but carried a sense of menace, like the purr of a puma feasting happily on an elk.
The three-star automatically looked down at his pants. They both laughed. It was the kind of rude exchange that passed for respect among such warriors.
The weight of history and grandeur of the White House had weighed upon her on that first trip through the uniformed Secret Service cordon at the gates and then on the walk up the long driveway to the main entrance. After that, it became just another job. The suitcase stayed within arm’s reach because it contained everything the president needed to launch a nuclear strike, whether it might be a small tactical weapon or the final, full-blown, tear-the-roof-off attack. Summers was the unanimous choice if somebody had to be on call to help the president launch Armageddon. She would probably just lean over his shoulder, a gentle aura of perfume surrounding her, and casually coach him through the authentication codes and leaf through the pages in the folder that listed the deserving targets, printed in red. She would not flinch from such an awesome responsibility and since everybody was probably about to die anyway, she might throw in a few suggestions of her own and anybody on her personal shit list would be catching a nuke on the head.
Sybelle got along fine with the other staff members whose duties also put them in close proximity to the Oval Office, and a couple of agents of the Secret Service protective detail had even asked her out for a date. She always declined and the agents grumbled about the wasted personal life of such a beautiful woman. She stood five six, weighed no more than 125 and, since she was currently based in Washington, Sybelle’s black hair was trimmed at an upscale shop, short but flaring just a bit at the collar. She was frequently called upon by the White House Social Secretary to escort a single man at an evening event, but those relationships never left the grounds. Sybelle was
