“Nonetheless, I’ll leave the job to you.”
The smile faded from his face. “This is a hell of a way to come into office. I start by killing a half dozen of the very citizens I’m supposed to be serving and protecting.”
She reached across the table and squeezed his hand sympathetically. “You didn’t kill anyone. A terrorist named Tito Albadian did. It’s not your fault.”
Gabe sighed. Eventually, the tight grasp his fingers had on hers loosened.
She had to do something to lighten the mood. To distract them both from the day’s events. She asked drolly, “So. How much longer are you going to be a slacker and dodge starting your new job? Honestly. Your first day of work and you’re already hours late. This won’t make a good impression on the taxpayers at all.”
Gabe smiled, a hint of gratitude in his twinkling eyes. “I’m scheduled to take the oath of office at 7:00 p.m. in the Capitol Building. We’re going to break into the evening television programming and do the deed without any advance announcements. Security around it will be insanely tight.” As her brows drew together in a frown, he added, “Really. I’ll be safe. In fact, why don’t you come to the inauguration and you can keep an eye on me yourself. I’ll put your name on the list of approved guests.”
She nodded. If all went well, she’d take him up on that invitation. But after the kind of day she’d had so far, she couldn’t predict if the next few hours would go well or not.
“Who all’s going to be there?” she asked.
“Key members of the government, mostly. A few handpicked guests and none of the public. The media will be there in force, of course. We need to make it clear that there’s been a smooth transition of power today, and live TV coverage will get that message out the most effectively.”
Crud. Seven o’clock? That didn’t give her much time to figure out what was niggling at the back of her brain so tantalizingly. Maybe if she ran it all through Oracle one more time, the computer would see what she could not.
She looked up, startled. Gabe stood beside her, holding a hand out to her. She took it silently, and he tugged her to her feet, standing intimately close to her.
He murmured, “Thank you for shouting that warning to Owen. And thank you for your persistence and courage. I’m not sure I’d be alive right now if it weren’t for you.”
Damned if she didn’t feel a blush stealing into her cheeks. “Uh, my pleasure,” she mumbled abashed.
Gabe chuckled. It was a sexy sound. Private. Personal. “I highly doubt it was pleasurable chasing down a terrorist single-handed,” he murmured.
She replied, “Well, I’d never have met you without the help of the Q-group.”
Another chuckle rumbled through Gabe. “I never thought I’d say this, but thank goodness for the Q-group, then.”
She grinned up at him. “May I quote you on that?”
He matched her broad smile. “Don’t you dare.”
Her humor faded. “Gabe, I’d love nothing more than to spend the rest of the day down here with you in your cozy little rabbit hole, but I need to do more research. I’ve got a really bad feeling about all this, but I can’t put my finger on what’s bugging me.”
He stared down at her intently for a moment before nodding. “Your intuitions have gotten you and me this far in one piece. Go track down whatever’s bothering you. And let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. But you stay safe. Okay?”
She reached up to touch his cheek with her fingertips. “Okay. You, too.”
“That’s a deal.”
But, as she donned the blindfold once more so Agent Tilman could take her back to the surface, and blackness descended upon her, she had a sinking feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy.
5:00 P.M.
S he dumped her cashmere coat on the couch and went directly to her computer the second she walked in her front door. She cranked up the Oracle database, praying the morning’s lockdown on the system had been lifted by now. The computer monitor blinked for a few seconds after she tried to sign in, and then the Oracle welcome screen flashed up before her. Thank goodness.
She went to the data-entry screen and typed as quickly as her fingers would go, throwing in everything that had happened to her today in as much detail as she could remember. Her hands ached by the time she finished, and daylight was fading from the living room. Night came early at this time of year.
She punched the command that started the Oracle database processing the new inputs. An analysis could take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours, depending on the complexity of the computations her entries triggered. She’d seen the logic algorithms for the database once, and had been blown away by them. Whoever’d invented this system was a bona fide genius.
She wandered into the kitchen to pour herself a cup of stale coffee from the pot she’d brewed so long ago this morning. At this point, she didn’t care if it tasted like battery acid. She was beat. And she suspected this day wasn’t over, yet.
To kill time while Oracle did its thing, she flipped on the television and was assaulted immediately by images of the day’s near miss on Gabe. She switched the channel quickly. She didn’t need a blow-by-blow replay of the horror she’d gone through. She lurched as the next channel flashed up a picture of one of the Q-group members her hacker buddies had tracked down that morning. She sat down in front of the TV to hear the whole report. Apparently ten of the fourteen suspects had already been apprehended, and a massive manhunt was underway for the remaining possible terrorists. An FBI spokesman said tips were coming in from all over the East Coast and the Bureau had confidence it would have its men in custody within a matter of hours.
Now she could only hope that she and her buddies had fingered the right guys. She shoved down the moment of doubt. She’d read these guys’ e-mails to each other for months, and there was no doubt in her mind that this was the cell that had planned today’s attack on Gabe.
Her computer beeped. She set down her mug and turned off the TV, hustling over to the computer. She sat down at the console eagerly to read the analysis. As shock paralyzed her mind, she skimmed faster and faster, catching key phrases as they leaped out at her.
…no significant correlations have been identified…random occurrences…day’s other events bear no relation to any threat to the Presidency…
This was a very different analysis from the one she’d seen in Oracle’s main database this morning. Even if the Q-group threat had been successfully neutralized, as sure as she was sitting here she was certain there was still someone out there gunning for Gabe. How could Oracle have reversed itself so radically like this in a matter of hours? Last night, Delphi personally had been convinced Gabe was in huge danger. That whoever was after him would not give up until he was dead. And now, everything was hunky-dory? What in the hell was going on?
She stared at the computer screen in dismay, her mental wheels spinning, until she became aware of a vague noise behind her. Someone was knocking on her front door. Insistently. She stood up, went to the front door and opened it numbly.
Her mother stood on the porch, shivering in the bitter chill.
“Come on in, Mom.”
“Hello to you, too,” her mother replied mildly. “Did I come at a bad time?”
“Actually, yes. I’m in the middle of a crisis.”
“What sort of crisis?”
Diana winced. Her mother only wanted to be part of Diana’s life and be the kind of parent Diana had deserved for all those empty years. And Diana wanted to let her, get to know her as an adult. But the timing sucked. Except…what was she going to do if her mother turned around and walked out this second? She didn’t have the foggiest idea what to do next. Even Oracle had given her nothing but a dead end.
“Can I get you something to drink, Mom?”
“No, thank you.” Her mother sat down on the sofa resolutely. “Tell me about your crisis.”
Even at the worst of her depression, Zoe Lockworth had always known when one of her girls was in trouble. It
