Lady Liberty (27 page)

Many politicians had earned that faith. Actually, most of them had. But many had not. Cap Marlowe toed the line. He had accomplished remarkable things that had required courage and grit, and he had pulled off some things that were blatantly down and dirty, like his personal campaign against Lady Liberty.

Cap combed the building, including Home Base’s command center—the one place in A-267 where Gregor did not have remote-viewing capability because Austin did not have access to the area to plant the system.

Twenty minutes later Cap stopped at the security checkpoint at the entrance to the inner hub. This station wasn’t manned. Human interaction was unnecessary. Few had the access to pass the manned checkpoint in the outer rim. Anyone inside the outer rim had already been screened.

Two machines were attached to the wall. Cap inserted his ID card into the left one, rested his chin on the pad, and then pressed his face against the flatbed scanner. Its sensors would read a print of his irises and only God and Austin Stone knew what else.

Inside, Captain Mendoza, a lean man with narrow eyes and a hawklike nose, sat behind the launch desk, facing
the board of controls. He and Cap exchanged a few words, then he passed the senator the log book.

“I need an activity report, too,” Cap said.

On the computer, Mendoza generated an activity report. Moments later it fed through the printer. The captain retrieved it without leaving his seat—a policy breach that violated two separate regulations—then passed the report to Cap.

He backed away, stood behind Mendoza, and visually scanned the inner hub. He glanced twice and then a third time at the steel-faced mail chute embedded in the wall. Fixing his gaze on the captain, Cap opened the chute, retrieved a clear cylinder, inserted something into it, and then returned the cylinder to the chute.

Captain Mendoza hadn’t noticed a thing.

Gregor grunted at the wily old senator’s audacity. His intentions were crystal clear. Plant the launch key inside the inner hub for someone else to find. This way Cap keeps his crimes secret and to himself. No one would know the key had been delivered to him or that he had kept it for months and failed to file the mandatory report. No one would know Cap was involved.

Clever maneuver, but predictable. The good senator wasn’t going to be able to deny his affiliation with Ballast so easily. Smiling to himself, Gregor lifted a clear plastic bubble shield on the control desk, exposing two buttons: a green one on the left and a red one on the right. He lightly rubbed the pad of a fingertip over the red button, holding a fixed gaze on the screen.

Cap stepped out of the inner hub and into the outer rim.

Gregor depressed the button.

An alarm inside A-267 emitted short, shrill bursts of sound. Red lights flashed throughout the outer rim.

The steel door between the inner hub and outer rim slid shut.

Between the outer rim and the elevator to the surface hangar, a sheet of metal slid down from the ceiling and locked into the floor, then six-inch-thick bolts slid into braces attached to the metal.

Cap stood in the middle of the outer rim, gape-jawed and spinning in a slow circle. “Gibson.” He shouted to be heard over the alarm’s deafening peal. “What in hell is happening?”

The young lieutenant paused running through the emergency-duties drill and tossed the senator a deer-caught-in-headlights look. “It’s a lockdown, sir.”

Cap let out an impatient grunt. “Well, how long is it going to last?”

Rushed and clearly irritated at the interruption, Gibson typed furiously at the computer terminal. “I don’t know, sir.”

“You mean this isn’t a systems test?”

“No, sir.” Gibson stopped cold. “It’s verified and confirmed. This is not a test.”

“What does it mean?”

Stark fear flooded Gibson’s eyes. “It means we’re under attack, sir.”

“By whom?”

“We don’t know.”

Gregor smiled. An unknown attacker… and Cap was already late for his appointment with Mr. Shottley The remote-viewing device planted in the senator’s office was once again proving to be a valuable asset. Odds looked good that he would confess quickly. For his sake, Gregor hoped so. When diabetes went neglected, diabetics faced stiff, unforgiving penalties. Potentially lethal penalties. And Gregor had no intention of reversing the lockdown until Cap confessed.

Something strange on the monitor caught Gregors eye. The inner hub was empty. Where the hell had Mendoza gone?

An uneasy feeling shimmied up Gregors back. In six months of monitoring, he had never—not once—seen the inner hub empty. Not until now. Mendoza would have to be dead to breach protocol.

Austin.

Had all hell broken loose in Florida, too? Gregor spoke into the lip mike. “ET, status report.”

“We’ve picked up two heat sources, sir. En route now.”

Patch was going to object; he had a soft spot for Liberty. Gregor spoke into the mike. “Under no conditions is she to leave the swamp.”

No response.

Gregor frowned. “Did you copy that, ET?”

“It’s a little crazy here,” Patch said. “Special forces are all over hell’s half acre, reining in the media and locals. At most, we’ve got half an hour on them.”

Clenching his teeth, Gregor persisted, asked again. “Did you copy, ET?”

Again, no response.

Gregor stood up, glared at the swamp monitor. “I said, under no circumstances is she to leave the swamp. Do you copy me, ET?”

“Yes, sir,” he said softly. “I copy you.”

Dropping back into his seat, Gregor muttered a curse. Wasn’t it enough that he had Austin and Cap to worry about as well as all of the forces of the United States? Now he had to demand compliance from Ballast members, too?

Worst of all, Gregor now had doubts that his own second-in-command would obey his orders. Hearing and acknowledging the mandate didn’t guarantee that Patch would execute Lady Liberty.

Are you being honest or sarcastic?

Are you saying you can’t tell?

Holding up the briefcase, Sybil slid underwater in the cold creek, hoping Westford knew what he was saying when he swore the thick, matted sawgrass at the shore meant the food chain had moved on. It was the rainy season, and fresh water ran down the rivers to the coast. The wildlife would follow it.

The water smelled more brackish than fresh to her, but she hadn’t seen one of those gator slides Westford had pointed out earlier, when he had warned her to watch out for cottonmouths and rattlesnakes. Both, evidently, thrived in the area. Yet minnows darted at her legs, and where there were minnows, there were those creatures Mother Nature had feeding on them. The thought alone raised a shudder.

The narrow creek wound to a bend and then disappeared
out of sight. To the north, small clumps of cypress stood in water. There the water had to be fresh. But West-ford still had insisted they drink only rainwater. Considering the deluge, that hadn’t been a problem. Fish were also plentiful, but sushi wasn’t on the menu, and that brought them back to the fire/smoke challenge so, with the exception of nibbling on berries and some kind of root that had all the sensory appeal of the chunks of bark, they’d fasted. That was fine with Sybil, too. She was hungry but too worried and anxious to eat without being sick.

Branches stretched over the rain-swelled rush of water like a canopy. Stones, fallen limbs, and heavy brush littered the shore. Cooled by all the rain, the water felt frigid against her bare skin, but she welcomed the feeling, and rubbed at her arms, washing away the quicksand grit.

Surfacing, she dragged her hands over her face and blew out a long-held breath. The briefcase thudded against her chest.

You need me.

Okay, I need you.

Are you being honest or sarcastic?

Are you saying you can’t tell?

Why was that exchange nagging at her? Why couldn’t she just forget about it? Forget about him?

Wait a second. Wait. How
could
she forget about Westford? The man had guarded her, protected her, and repeatedly risked his life for her. She was human; of course she couldn’t forget him. God help her if she could ever become so cold and callous and ungrateful.

But Gabby had to be wrong. Westford had taken the risks he’d taken for his veep, not for her. Hadn’t he taken a bullet for the previous veep?

He had. She rubbed at her right thigh, gently brushing the grit away from the catbrier scratches, then noticed the bruise at her ribs. Dark purple, sore to the touch, it cut a wide swathe from her side to the center of her stomach.

The jab from the limb in the quicksand pit. She had to think straight about Westford. No rationalizing or delusions or playing ostrich. Realistically, she was just another assignment, and he was only with her by David’s personal request. He had always been devoted to David but not to her. He had transferred to get away from her.

And his kisses? What about those?

Trauma-induced. Affirming life. Proximity.

True. All true. An empty ache hollowed her chest and she stiffened against it, fighting a dawning truth: She didn’t want to be just another assignment to Jonathan Westford. She wanted to be … more. And not just in her professional life, but in her private life.

In her private life?
Shocked still, Sybil stood in the water, the mushy bottom curling around her toes and heels. This couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t… be true. Good God, Austin had deceived her for fifteen years, and she had let him. Hadn’t she learned
anything
from that? How could she be feeling passion, desire, longing for any man? How could she even consider wanting a man in her life? Had she lost her mind?

Shaking, she splashed water onto her face, hoping it would clear her head. She was a woman on a political mission. Okay. Okay, so she was human. It was lust.

It’s not lust.

Of course it’s lust. And for anyone except her, lust was good. Great. Lust was acceptable. It was normal to feel physically attracted to Westford. By anyone’s standards, he was incredible, and she’d been without a man for a long time. But she couldn’t be attracted to him mentally or emotionally, and she sure as hell didn’t want to feel lust for him personally. She had a promise to David to keep. No, no lust. She was just affirming life, too. There had been a lot of shocks. Who wouldn’t seek someone strong to hold on to?

Feeling better about this, she shook off her fears about him, let go of them, and nearly smiled. How in the world
had she fancied herself falling in love with any man, even Westford? After Austin, it was ridiculous. Outrageous. Not to mention impossible.

Love?

Shockwaves rocketed through her, and she locked her knees to keep them from buckling, then splashed herself more. Oh, no. No. Love wasn’t logical. It wasn’t an option. Not to her. Not now. Not ever again. Lust was bad enough, but love? Love was just impossible.

You’re human, Sybil. Love is a human emotion. Why should it be impossible? Why should you be exempt?

She wasn’t. She had tried loving a man and had failed miserably. Balancing on one foot, she rubbed the grit from her calf. She refused to be an emotional idiot twice in one lifetime.

An emotional idiot? Since when does loving someone make you an idiot?

That comment brought her up short and she stilled to consider it. Good God, had she become that twisted? That cowardly? She tilted her head back, let her jaw fall loose, and stared up beyond the tall pines and ancient oaks to the dismal gray sky. What had happened to her out here—hormonal overload? Swamp fever? Something had happened in this hellhole. That or she’d left her sense in Geneva.

Stop rationalizing, Sybil. It’s cowardly After Austin, you began hiding—from him, from men, and from yourself.

Had she really? Moving through the water, she stepped ashore and retrieved her clothes. As she dipped them in the water and scrubbed out the gritty sludge, she relived her life from the moment Cap Marlowe had confronted her with his accusations of her ethics violations on Austin’s vasectomy Relived the shame and anger that she had been lied to and betrayed and duped for so long by a man who was supposed to love her. Relived the inferiority she had felt as a woman, the humiliation of Cap Marlowe—her nemesis, for God’s sake—knowing intimate
things about her private life she didn’t know. Her emotions had been strong then, and they were strong now. She had intentionally distanced herself from Austin.

But you distanced yourself from everyone else, too. Doesn’t the fact that you refuse to call Westford by his first name prove it?

His first name, for God’s sake. It was such a simple intimacy. What kind of person allows someone to put his life on the line for her time and again but keeps him at a distance by refusing to call him by his first name?

Finished rinsing her underwear, she put it on. The wet silk clung to her thighs like plaster. She had divorced Austin and had reclaimed some of her self-esteem, if not her personal confidence. At least she thought she had reclaimed her self-esteem. She eased her bra straps up on her shoulders. But in refusing to trust others and shielding herself from caring too much for anyone else ever again, had she really been protecting herself?