Summer Games

For Karen Solem who has supported my writing in two very different fields appreciation

Summer of 1984

She looked like hell.

Sallow, blotchy skin, pale lips, red eyes, and stringy brown hair. The woman’s picture put the cherry on the cake of a day that had sucked from the instant a telephone call woke him up in a place halfway around the world.

But Robert Johnstone didn’t share his thoughts. He was, after all, talking to the woman’s father, who was also his boss. Justin Chandler-Smith IV—called Blue by those who knew him well enough—loved his family as much as he hated terrorists. It would take a stupid man to point out that the youngest of the Chandler-Smiths hadn’t inherited her parents’ good looks.

Johnstone was not a stupid man.

“How old is this picture?” he asked neutrally. It was an effort to keep his voice calm. He was still angry about being pulled off one project and dumped into the middle of another without any warning. So he looked at the passport-size photo and kept reminding himself that Blue wouldn’t have asked for him by name if it wasn’t important.

Whatever it was.

“Seven days, give or take,” Chandler-Smith said. “It’s Baby Lorraine’s Olympic ID photo.”

Johnstone’s ice-blue glance shifted from the photo to his boss. Other than the girl’s hazel eyes and a stubborn kind of chin, he didn’t see much resemblance between Lorraine Chandler-Smith and her very handsome, hard-edged, and distinguished father. Though Chandler-Smith had no title worth mentioning, he had much more power than ninety-nine percent of the uniforms marching around the Pentagon. More brains, too.

“Who else?” Johnstone asked, passing the picture back over the big desk.

“Captain Jon. Trainer, coach, ass chewer, mother hen.” Chandler-Smith pushed another photo over the desk. “He’s reliable.”

“Opinion or fact?”

“Fact. I had that man vetted all the way back to his great-grandfathers before I let Baby Lorraine train with him.”

A fleeting smile changed the impassive lines of Johnstone’s face. “I believe it.”

“These are Baby’s teammates, both long and short list.” Chandler-Smith began laying out laminated ID photos. He tapped each photo, reciting names and outstanding physical characteristics.

Johnstone didn’t interrupt. He simply sat with a predatory kind of stillness and memorized each face, each name, each fact that would help him to separate Olympic riders from Olympic terrorists.

“These are the stable help,” Chandler-Smith continued, laying out more photos. “Pay particular attention to the females.”

“Why? Do we have information on one of them?”

“No. But if anybody gets to Baby’s horse, it will be through the girls. That stud won’t tolerate men within kicking range.”

Johnstone’s black eyebrows rose. “Sounds dangerous.”

“Her stallion? Yes. Make no mistake about it. Without Baby nearby, Devlin’s Waterloo is as dangerous as a hand grenade with a loose pin.”

“I’m surprised you let her ride a rogue.”

“ ‘Let’ has nothing to do with it. Baby is as stubborn as I am.”

“And if you were any more proud of her,” Johnstone said dryly, “you would strut sitting down.”

Chandler-Smith laughed. “Guilty as charged. Baby has more brains and guts than most men I’ve worked with. Plenty of looks, too, but you’d never know it from that ID.”

Wisely, Johnstone said nothing. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder. Obviously Chandler-Smith looked at his youngest daughter with a blinding kind of love.

“You’ll be paired with Kentucky again,” Chandler-Smith continued. “He’ll guard the motor home when you’re not inside.”

Johnstone nodded. “He’s a good man.”

“He said the same about you.”

“What about Bonner?”

“He’s still undercover.” Chandler-Smith hesitated, then almost smiled at the ingrained reflex of secrecy. If he couldn’t trust the black-haired man sitting in front of the desk, Chandler-Smith was a dead man. Literally. “We’re hearing rumors . . .”

Though Johnstone didn’t move, he changed the same way a lion changes at the scent of game. “I’m listening.”

Chandler-Smith didn’t doubt it. The other man’s eyes burned with an intensity that would have made most people uneasy. It didn’t bother Chandler-Smith. He wouldn’t tolerate men around him unless they had the patience, intelligence, and concentration of a supreme predator.

“The man you call Barracuda has been making noises about killing me,” Chandler-Smith said calmly.

“He’s been doing that since you broke up his cozy little terrorist college in East Bumblefuck, Lebanon.”

“Actually, you were the one doing the shooting.”

“Shooters are a dime a dozen. Strategists aren’t.”

Johnstone was much more than a shooter, and no one knew it better than his boss. But Chandler-Smith didn’t argue the point any more than he tried to convince Johnstone to give up the field for a desk job. For the past eight years, Johnstone had turned down every promotion that had come his way. When asked why, he simply said, I’m no good at desks. If I ever get out, I’ll get all the way out.

Chandler-Smith knew that someday—if Johnstone survived—he would burn out. Everyone who stayed in the field did. But until that day came, he was the best agent Chandler-Smith had ever had.

“If you were Barracuda, how would you kill me?” Chandler-Smith asked.

“Do I want to live to tell the tale?”

“You must. I’m still alive.”

Johnstone smiled thinly. He knew better than most people just how impossible it was to protect against a terrorist who was willing to give his life to take a life. Fortunately, very few of them were. They wanted to kill and brag, not kill and die.

“I’d grab one of your daughters,” Johnstone said, “swap her for you, and kill you. Probably her, too.”

Chandler-Smith nodded. “That’s what I figured.”

“Question is, has Barracuda figured it?” Johnstone retorted. “And is he willing to take the risk?”

“The answer to the first question is yes. As for the second . . .” Chandler-Smith shrugged. “I’m betting he is. He dropped out of sight six days ago.”

“Not good,” Johnstone said succinctly.

“Tell me about it. Lorraine and the older girls are under lock and key, but Baby Lorraine is different.” He grimaced. “I can’t take her out of the game without taking her out of the Olympics. I won’t do that. Not on the evidence we have now.”

“You have an asset in Barracuda’s organization. Start twisting him.”

“I am.”

“Twist harder.”

“Bonner is working on it, up close and very, very personal. But until I get something solid, I won’t pull Baby out of the Summer Games. Hell, I’m not even sure I could. She’s an adult.”

“In that case she’ll listen to you, weigh the danger to herself, and withdraw.”

Chandler-Smith gave a crack of laughter. “She’s an event rider, not a bloody dressage artist. The kind of riding she does is more dangerous than getting on a brahma bull at a rodeo.”

“Then don’t watch her.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Barracuda has wanted you for years. There are two reasons he hasn’t gotten you. The first is that he doesn’t want to die. The second is that your movements have never—repeat, never—been predictable. If you insist on being there for Baby’s ride, he won’t have to go to the trouble of kidnapping her. You’ll be putting yourself right in his sniper scope.”

“That’s where you come in.”

“You’re taller than I am,” Johnstone said matter-of-factly. “I’d make a lousy shield.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not planning to pull a Charles DeGaulle and surround myself with taller men. But you have the best eye for evaluating attack-ambush terrain that I’ve ever seen. I want you to go to California, reconnoiter the Olympic sites at Santa Anita and San Diego, and choose the safest place for me to watch my daughter ride.”

“A motel room with a big TV. In London.”

“No. Not this time. Come hell or high water, I’m going to be at the Olympics for Baby.”

“Is it worth dying for?”

“It’s worth living for,” Chandler-Smith said simply. “I’ve missed too much of fatherhood, disappointed my kids too many times. Especially Baby. By the time she came along, most of my life required a security clearance for access. I owe the Olympics to her. I owe it to myself. I’m going.”

Johnstone knew his boss too well to argue. He looked at his watch, subtracted three hours for West Coast time, and stood up. “I’ll make plane reservations.”

“Don’t bother.” Chandler-Smith pulled out a fat brown envelope and tossed it on the desk. “Tickets, new ID, everything you need is here.”

“Who am I this time?”

“I didn’t look. Does it matter?”

“No. When will Kentucky arrive in California?”

“He already has.”

With a curt nod, Johnstone turned to leave.

“Robert?” Chandler-Smith said.

Johnstone turned back, and was treated to the rare sight of his boss’s genuine, warm smile.

“Shave, would you?” Chandler-Smith asked. “Even without the brown contacts, you still look like a Lebanese terrorist. Baby will take one look at you and run screaming.”

“She wouldn’t be the first.”

Rancho Santa Fe

Rancho Santa Fe’s tawny hills rolled gently up from the broad sand beaches of the Pacific Ocean. Many hills wore crowns of expensive houses whose windows and walls of glass were molten gold in the late-afternoon light. The cool salt smell of the sea mingled with the scent of wild grass cured by hot southern California days.

A riverbed that rarely held water twisted through dry hills and ravines, eucalyptus trees and granite outcroppings. Patches of the Fairbanks Ranch Country Club’s emerald golf course remained along the riverbed, making a startling contrast with the brown hillsides. Manmade obstacles of wood, rock, and water crisscrossed the riverbed and climbed the hills.

It was the obstacles, not the quiet beauty of the land, that held Raine Chandler-Smith’s attention.

Yesterday she had marched at the Los Angeles Coliseum, joining the colorful, uniformed ranks of athletes from around the world who had traveled thousands of miles to compete in the Summer Olympics. Yesterday she had been one among thousands surrounded by rippling multicolored flags and dazzling Hollywood-style ceremonies. Yesterday she had been enthralled, humbled, and excited to be part of a tradition that was as old as Western civilization.

Today Raine was alone.

Today she was measuring obstacles that had been created for the sole purpose of testing the skill, stamina, and trust that existed between herself and her horse. The three-day event was to riders what the pentathlon was to traditional athletes—the ultimate test.

Even while her eyes and mind traced the dangerous course, she breathed in deeply, savoring the strange scents of the land around her. Raised in Virginia and Europe, she found the dryness of a southern California summer both alien and compelling. The combination of odors was clean, haunting, older than civilization or man, as old as hills and sea and sunlight combined.

She looked over the countryside again, then stretched and shifted the weight of her knapsack. The water bottle inside gurgled companionably. When she walked forward, her camera’s long lens and binoculars knocked lightly against each other below her breasts. She took a few more steps, winced, and decided it was finally time to remove the pebble from her hiking shoe.

With a supple, easy movement she balanced on one foot while she removed one shoe and probed for the pebble that had been abusing her arch. She made a graceful line as she stood there like a beige flamingo at rest, but she would have been the last person to describe herself as graceful.

When she had been eleven years old and just becoming aware of herself as a woman, she was five feet, seven and three-quarters inches of angular female who despaired of ever being as at ease on the ground as she was on a horse’s back. Because the picture in her mirror never seemed to change, no matter what efforts she made to be more like her gorgeous older sisters, Raine had stopped looking in the mirror. Instead, she concentrated on the one thing she was good at, the thing she had been born to do.

She rode horses over jumps that were taller and much harder than she was.

At twenty-seven, Raine was lithe and gently curved. She had a woman’s smooth strength and the poise of a rider who regularly entered and won world-class competitions. Yet she still thought of herself as a little awkward and relentlessly average in looks. Medium brownish hair, medium brownish eyes, and medium brownish figure was the way she summed up herself when she thought about it.

Raine rarely thought about it anymore. She had spent too much of her youth trying to be as beautiful and as accomplished as her much older siblings. She had failed.

A gawky brown hen simply couldn’t compete with the pair of tawny swans who were her sisters. One of them was a partner in a powerful law firm and a senator’s wife. The other sister was a leading lady on Broadway. Her two older brothers were also successful. One was a diplomat and the other a neurosurgeon.

When Raine was five, she pleaded and demanded and persisted until her parents gave her riding lessons. After that, life became easier for the whole family. Riding was an elegant solution to the problem of what to do with Baby Lorraine. Or Raine, as she insisted on being called, as soon as she realized that her given name was “secondhand.”