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“I can see you sitting behind the Resolute Desk one day, can’t you?” Rebecca’s words haunted me as I stared at the desk. How many times had she said that to me over the years? Thinking back now, it was like she’d been trying to plant the seed in my head, hoping it’d grow. It never did, no matter how much she watered it.
Standing on the Presidential Seal, I fixed my attention on the yellow-gold curtains behind the desk. They were drawn together, hiding tonight’s full moon. “Where’d Secret Service take my dog?” I faced the only other man sharing the room with me.
Secretary Chandler’s bloodshot eyes, and the slight wrinkle to his chest-candy-covered uniform, were a strong indicator shit had hit the fan. My involvement was still not clear, and that bothered the fuck out of me. “On a walk. He’s fine, don’t worry.”
“Is Gray being summoned as well?” Considering Gray was a local, why hadn’t he beaten me to the White House?
The Secretary took a seat on one of the couches at the center of the room, positioning his ankle over his knee. “My son doesn’t know you’re here, so no, he’s not on his way.”
Not what I’d expected to hear. “And who does know I’m here?” I peered at the door Secret Service had snuck me in. Apparently this wasn’t a “front-door visit” situation.
“POTUS, of course. Myself.”
Fucking obviously. Too tempted to free some of the top buttons of my white dress shirt, which I’d opted for instead of going with all black, I shoved my hands into my pants pockets since this wasn’t the time to be casual.
“CIA Director Spenser, Secretary of State Mackenzie, and two others.”
Mackenzie’s name was a punch to the gut I didn’t want or need. “Is Secretary Mackenzie joining us tonight, too?”
He nodded. “But she’ll be in a bit later. She’s not privy to some things yet.”
“Like?” I arched a brow, knowing he wouldn’t answer. So, I went ahead and gave one for him. “Something go wrong with your team of covert operatives? The SEALs only a few people know work for you all? The same team I’m not supposed to know about but do.”
But if that was the case, that still didn’t explain my presence.
“No, they’re not in trouble,” was all he gave me.
“But someone is?” I lifted my hands from my pockets, hating I didn’t have one clue, not a fucking one, why the President would beckon me in the middle of the night to the executive West Wing.
The election was around the corner, but I wasn’t exactly on his speed dial for a last-minute campaign donation or a strategy session on how to increase his already record-high poll numbers.
“Something like that.” He began massaging his temples, but then jumped to his feet as the door opened.
Finally.
Waving off Secret Service and ordering them to close the door and leave us, the President wasted no time in cutting straight to me. Unlike the Secretary, he’d lost his suit jacket and tie at some point.
President Bennett’s handshake wasn’t what I’d been expecting, but he offered it to me anyway, and I accepted. “You a scotch man?”
“Sure.” I didn’t discriminate against whiskey. I liked all types. But the fact he knew I had a slight preference for scotch wasn’t shocking. Big Brother was always watching (when I let them, at least).
“Thought so.” He motioned to Secretary Chandler, a quiet request to get us drinks as he went over to the front of his desk, leaning against it, palms landing on each side of his body, eyes trained on the floor. The man was a dead ringer for the actor Denzel Washington. One of my favorite movies happened to be Man on Fire—not surprising given the plot. Fuck, if only the last five-plus years of my life had been fiction, too.
“Two nights ago, a research lab was hit,” the President began as I took my drink from Gray’s father. “And by hit, I mean half a billion in equipment was destroyed in an explosion, and multiple people were killed. It wasn’t an accident, and it was bullets that took out the people, not the blast.” He downed his drink and set aside the empty tumbler. “The thing is, we partnered with eleven other countries in a classified effort to work together on a cold fusion project. And now everyone is pointing fingers—blaming each other and playing the ‘who betrayed who’ game. We don’t know who our friends or our enemies are right now, and tensions between the countries are high.”
“Where do I fit in?” I took a moment to sip and savor the drink. Single malt. Probably Macallan from the taste. A good choice for delivering shit news.
“The hostile takeover of The Barclay Group was done by a shell company on behalf of the CIA,” Secretary Chandler spoke up, filling in the pieces I should’ve seen coming, but that news still managed to unearth a motherfucking chill down my spine. “The Agency knew you’d never sell Barclay Energy outright, and their researchers were the closest in the nation to making cold fusion a reality. We coordinated a deal with Pierce Quaid to make it appear like a hostile takeover situation so you wouldn’t, well, to be blunt, kill Quaid for losing the company.”
For the first time in a long damn time, I felt my heart grow wings, attempting to break free from its darkness. “Tell me it wasn’t the lab in Amsterdam.”
That one nod from POTUS had everything going dead quiet, and I turned away. The ringing in my ears came next, as if an IED had detonated nearby, screwing up my senses. This can’t be happening. I tore my hands through my hair. “The Secretary of State’s daughter”—I swallowed hard and faced them—“is she dead?” I was on the verge of falling to the floor, knowing a hole would open and take me to hell if they said Diana was gone.
“Diana wasn’t one of the ones recovered in the rubble. We believe she was taken, along with Pierce Quaid and several others,” Secretary Chandler said, and the phantom ringing in my ears abruptly stopped.
“We don’t know who did this, but there are a number of reasons they’d attack that lab. None of which are good.” The President closed the space between us. “All surveillance footage was destroyed before the explosion. I sent in my guys on Bravo Team to sweep the area last night and discreetly check the place out, but they came up empty. The lab was highly secure and in a remote area, so there was no other CCTV footage within a five-mile radius.”
Surveillance footage. “I need my laptop. Where’d Secret Service take my things? I had cameras installed at the lab. Ones no one would know about. Well-hidden. We may be able to see what happened before the explosion.”
