herself to her feet. She looked up at Dunst.
His lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace of fury. He reached inside his coat and came out with a pistol in hand. She stared at the bore of the weapon. Too far to reach it. And there was nowhere to dodge it. The sloping wall crowded her on the right, and to her left was a drop of many stories to a marble floor. He’d better hit her heart, because with her last breath, she was going to take the bastard with her when she went.
She flung herself forward, into the coming shot, with the intent to grab Dunst and twist over the railing with him as she went down.
The shot rang out.
She felt nothing. No impact. No burning pain of supersonic lead ripping through her body.
As she flew through the air toward Dunst, a look of infinite surprise crossed his face.
And then she hit him, a bone-grinding impact of body on body. But instead of resisting her, he collapsed, going as limp as a rag doll beneath her. Instead of carrying them over the balcony, her roll to the left slammed them into the iron railing harmlessly.
Damn!
She blinked, focusing on Dunst’s face, inches from her own. His eyes were glassy. She smelled something metallic.
And then she noticed the neat, kidney-colored hole in the center of his forehead. He’d been shot? By whom?
She became aware of shouting around her. Male voices. Nearby. Adding to the chaos of sound floating up from below.
A hand landed on her shoulder from behind. Pulling her roughly away from Dunst. A pistol thrust past her nose, pointed in Dunst’s face. A foot hooked under Dunst’s shoulder, rolling him onto his side.
And she stared at the hand-size piece of skull ripped away from the back of his head. A spreading pool of blood and brain matter dripped through the iron grillwork floor. Dunst was dead.
She looked up numbly at the man beside her. Agent Tilman.
“You okay?” he bit out.
She blinked. Was she okay? She had no idea. “I guess so,” she mumbled. And then her brain kicked into gear again. Oh, God. Gabe! “That bastard shot Gabe!” she cried out.
Tilman’s jaw rippled with the same adrenaline-enhanced fury still roaring through her. “He better not have.”
“I’ve got to see him,” she declared. “Be with him in case…” She couldn’t finish the thought. He had to live. She leaped to her feet and took off running for the stairs, Tilman on her heels.
Somewhere in that interminable flight back down all those stairs, she started to breathe again. Vaguely she registered Tilman shouting into his radio behind her. Something about clearing a path and letting the two of them through. She raced past a dozen Secret Service agents and FBI men who plastered themselves against the walls of the narrow stairwells to get out of her way.
Finally, she reached the ground floor and ran for the Rotunda at full-tilt. She skidded out onto the marble floor.
A crowd of civilians were herded into one corner, filing out of the Rotunda toward the House chambers. Gun- toting men roved the space, and a cluster of news reporters chattered excitedly into microphones, huddled by the far wall. But then she spotted what she was searching for. A cluster of paramedics and Secret Service agents bending down over a prone form on the floor. Gabe.
She tore across the space between them and shoved through the mass of bodies.
And lurched to a halt as he grinned up at her jauntily.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said lightly.
She looked down. His shirt was open, revealing a bulletproof vest, which was also opened to reveal a four-inch purple spot low on his right side. She fell to her knees as Gabe sat up. Thank God he was all right. A cold wash of realization passed over her. When had this become so damned personal? For surely the sick-to-her-stomach, weak-kneed relief coursing through her was much more than professional concern.
“What in the hell were you doing out here?” she bit out.
“Owen almost had me out of here. I’m afraid I wasn’t going willingly. I had a feeling you were behind all the commotion.” He paused. “I was worried about you,” he confessed.
“I was too late,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
He smiled. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. It was your scream that caused Owen to dive on me. You saved my life. Again.”
A grim voice spoke from somewhere above her head. “I don’t mean to intrude, sir, but I need to talk to the lady. Now.”
She looked up.
Owen Haas loomed above them, his expression furious. He glared at her and gritted out from between clenched teeth, “Maybe you’d care to explain to me how you always happen to know exactly when and where these damned terrorists are going to attack. Are you their person on the inside?”
8:00 P.M.
D iana lurched. His words struck her like a fist in the face. “I beg your pardon?”
Gabe spoke up with quiet authority beside her. “Why don’t we take this conversation somewhere more private?”
She climbed painfully to her feet, the aches and pains of her fight with Dunst abruptly registering with her conscious mind. She felt as though she’d been run through a meat grinder. Maybe a little stretching and twisting was in order to work out a few of the kinks. Except then she tried it. Oww. So much for that idea. That jerk really got some good licks in on her before Tilman shot him.
A paramedic helped Gabe to his feet and a wall of Secret Service agents closed in around him as their charge went vertical. She caught the brief grimace on his face as he started buttoning up his shirt. Even through a bulletproof vest, a slug from a high-powered rifle could break a rib. He had to hurt at least as bad as she did right about now.
“This way,” Owen bit out.
“No. Wait,” Gabe ordered.
Owen’s head whipped around. “We need to get you to safety, sir.”
“We need to let the American people know I’m alive and unharmed,” Gabe countermanded quietly.
“This is a matter of your security,” Owen growled back with quiet intensity.
“This is a matter of national security,” Gabe replied impassively. “I insist. I’ll take responsibility for whatever happens to me.” He turned to face her and asked casually, “Could you tie my tie for me? I’m lousy at it without a mirror.”
She reached up, in minor shock, and retied the red silk tie around his neck. The act was intimate and felt extremely odd in this giant room with all these people standing around, watching. She felt naked. Exposed. Like her feelings for this guy were right out in the open for everyone to see.
Gabe watched her intently as she performed the service for him, his amber gaze never leaving her face. An unmistakable heat built between them, or maybe that was just the blush burning her cheeks. She tugged the knot into position under his chin and adjusted his collar slightly. He pulled his suit coat closed, and she smoothed the lapels. Dang. She couldn’t keep her hands off this guy, not even in front of a crowd of people in the Capitol Building of all places!
“There,” she murmured, “You look perfect.”
“It’s the makeup they made me wear for the cameras. I actually feel like I’m going to puke.”
“I can imagine. But you’re holding up great.”
He shrugged. “It’s not like I have any choice. This reminds me of something I heard Ronald Reagan say many years ago about being President. He said he couldn’t imagine anyone being a successful President without being an accomplished actor. I’m beginning to see what he meant.”
