So that explained how Gramps had gotten to the CIA building minutes after she broke into Scott’s office. She leaned forward and squeezed her mother’s hand. “Thanks. That means a lot to me.”
Her mother’s startled gaze met hers and tears abruptly filled her mother’s eyes. The lady never had been slow on the uptake. Zoe saw her overture for what it was. And dang it if her own eyes didn’t start to fill with tears, too. Twenty-five years without a mother. And now she finally had one who’d worry over her and fight her battles beside her. The lonely little girl inside her was feeling better by the minute. As though she was growing up.
“I’d do anything for you, you know,” her mother whispered. “I love you so much, sweetheart.”
“I love you, too, Mom.” That was the first time she could ever remember saying that. And it felt good. Really good. As if her heart was opening up and blooming like a big, bright, overblown sunflower.
She sniffed surreptitiously and said as briskly as she could manage under the circumstances, “We have a lot of catching up to do once this whole mess is taken care of. Gramps tells me you were quite a hellion in your day. I want to hear all about it.”
Zoe gave her a watery smile. “No way am I telling you everything. I wouldn’t want to give you any crazy ideas.”
One of the other people spoke up. “As if breaking into CIA headquarters wasn’t crazy enough.”
Diana’s head whipped up. She knew that voice. Allison Gracelyn, daughter of one of the Athena Academy’s founders, Senator Marion Gracelyn. When that eminent lady passed away several years ago, Marion’s son, Adam, took her place on the Athena Academy’s board of directors, and Allison had become a consultant to that same board. What in the world was she doing here?
Diana glanced at the other occupants of the car, now that she could make out their faces. Allison’s father, Judge Adam Gracelyn, another Athena Academy board member. Beyond him was a gray-haired man she’d never met, but who could only be Charles Forsythe, the billionaire who helped fund the formation of the Athena Academy. His portrait in the front lobby of the school was of a younger man with thick, dark hair, but the patrician features and burning intelligence in those dark eyes left no doubt as to his identity.
The last man wore a military uniform. She gaped as he leaned forward slightly and came into clear view farther down the long bench seat from Forsythe. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff himself, General Bart Snyder. What the heck was he doing with this bunch? Everyone else had a strong connection to the Athena Academy that her grandfather had also helped found. But why was Snyder along for this little joyride?
The limousine pulled out of the CIA building’s parking lot, sailing past the armed guard patrolling the gates on high alert. Looking for her, no doubt. She managed not to slink lower in her seat-the windows were blacked out, after all-but it was a struggle not to dive for the floor and hide her face.
Her grandfather broke the silence that descended over the vehicle as it accelerated into the night. “Diana, I think you are familiar with, if not acquainted with, everyone in the car, are you not?”
Yikes. That was his business voice. “Yes, sir,” she replied crisply, putting on her military professional voice, as well.
Gramps turned to the vehicle’s other occupants. “Our girl, Diana, was kind enough to retrieve a very interesting dossier for us this evening. It’s the classified S.A.F.E. folder out of Collin Scott’s office.”
Without exception, everyone in the car lurched at that news, and there were general exclamations of surprise and, if she wasn’t mistaken, pleasure. And why was it, exactly, that he would mention something so sensitive in this car full of government outsiders with no security clearances, with the exception of General Snyder, of course?
Allison Gracelyn spoke up. “Diana, have you had a chance to look through the file, yet?”
“I’ve glanced at it,” she replied cautiously.
“Are there names?” Allison sounded tense. Urgent.
Diana nodded. “All except the leader of the whole conspiracy. That person is only referred to as Freedom One in the various documents. It may have been above Scott’s pay grade to know who that person is.”
“And is there evidence to tie S.A.F.E. to the assassination attempts on Monihan?” Allison asked tersely, leaning forward intently in her seat.
Diana’s gaze whipped over to her grandfather in no little surprise. How in the world did a consultant for a girl’s prep school know about that possible connection? He nodded his permission to answer the question, a tacit endorsement of Allison’s right to ask it.
Nonetheless, Diana replied to the woman carefully, “I’m afraid that’s a matter of national security. I’m not aware of your need to know that particular information, so please forgive me if I decline to answer the question.”
General Snyder chuckled. “I’m authorizing you to answer the question, Captain.”
She nodded crisply at her boss. General Snyder might be way up the chain of command from her, but he was certainly able to give her that authorization to answer the question.
She looked down the length of the limo’s interior at Allison. “Yes, there is direct evidence linking S.A.F.E. to the assassination attempts on Gabe Monihan. There’s a planning document in the file outlining the details of the attempt to kill him last October. There are also records of funds transfers to Tito Albadian. And it’s clear that Freedom One planned the bombing earlier this afternoon. There are payments to and correspondence with Richard Dunst. There can be no doubt that he worked directly for S.A.F.E. and was poised to be the backup assassin if the Q-group attack at the inaugural parade failed.”
Allison sat back in her seat with a grim, but satisfied, look on her face.
Forsythe spoke up from the other side of the car. “They’ll crack. If we bring in all the people we do know about and interrogate them hard enough, someone will give up the identity of this Freedom One character.”
Diana retorted, “Yes, but will it be in time to save Gabe’s life?”
Her grandfather replied cryptically, “That’s what we’re on our way to find out, now.”
Judge Gracelyn, Allison’s father and husband to the woman whose brainchild the Athena Academy was, commented, “It’s only fitting that you be with us after you saved Gabe’s life twice today.”
Now what did that mean? She was damned confused, here. And this wasn’t exactly the kind of crowd with whom she could just blurt out a demand to know what in the hell was going on. “Where are we going?” she asked carefully.
“You’ll see soon enough,” her grandfather answered.
Great. Now they were all grinning at each other as if they had some hilarious joke between them that she wasn’t part of. Or maybe was the brunt of. She crossed her arms with a huff and leaned back in her seat. The grins got even wider, dammit!
Pointedly, she turned her gaze to the window and stared outside as the limousine wound through the northwest streets of downtown Washington, D.C. After the day she’d had, she severely didn’t feel like dealing with anybody laughing at her right now.
Her grandfather asked the group in general, “Anyone have any guesses as to who this Freedom One person is?”
Allison Gracelyn said wryly, “That is the question of the hour, is it not?”
When no one else spoke up, Diana said into the silence, “Whoever it is has to be extremely highly placed in the government and work close to the office of the President.”
“Why do you say that?” Allison asked.
“Freedom One knew about the second inauguration attempt for Gabe today at the Capitol Building. Admittedly, a fairly wide circle of people were aware of that ceremony, but it still was far from public knowledge. Yet, Freedom One had the details in enough time to send Richard Dunst over to the Capitol Building to kill Gabe.”
Allison nodded her agreement with the analysis.
The atmosphere in the car grew noticeably more tense as everyone jumped to the next logical conclusion. And whoever that person was, he or she was still on the loose. And potentially still capable of ordering another assassination attempt on Gabe Monihan.
The same sense of impending doom that had filled her all day surged anew. Her worry for Gabe was a tangible thing, swirling within the limousine’s interior to join the controlled panic now filling the enclosed space.
The limousine decelerated smoothly. Diana looked outside, curious to see where they were going. She gaped as the vehicle made a left turn into a driveway famous the world over. They were at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The White House.
