Cindy Dees: Target

She stared in horror. There it was. Her proof. This group was behind the assassination attempts on Gabe.

She thumbed through the pages again, noting names wherever she spotted them. Janelle Parsons. Al Smith. And then another name started popping up. At least she thought it was a name. Freedom One. Whoever this Freedom One person was, he or she was clearly the engine that drove formalizing S.A.F.E. from a loose association of individuals into a full-blown conspiracy.

But who was Freedom One?

She thumbed through page after page, but nowhere was an actual name ever attached to that mysterious entity. She read further. Whoever he or she was, Freedom One was definitely the leader of this motley crew of sickos. Orders came down to the rest of the group from Freedom One. The purse strings were controlled by Freedom One, and operations like the two Q-group attacks were largely planned by Freedom One.

She turned one of the sheets of paper over and began to write down on it every name she came across in the file. With a few exceptions it almost perfectly matched the list Oracle had given her. She ran across more names. Two in particular caught her attention. Richard Dunst and Tito Albadian. Bingo. Proof that her hypothesis had been correct. Both men were flunkies of S.A.F.E. and operating on that group’s orders.

And then a name she’d dreaded seeing started to pop up in documents dated just a few months ago. Joseph Lockworth.

She closed her eyes against the pain of a betrayal so deep, so close to her heart. She looked through the documents regarding him, but found no reference to any blackmail or coercion of her grandfather. Apparently, he’d approached someone in the group and expressed identical views to S.A.F.E.’s. Freedom One had dispatched several group members to approach him separately and see if he was S.A.F.E. material. It appeared Gramps had passed muster, because his name was included in all the most recent correspondence.

She jumped as her cell phone rang. She looked at the number on its face. Unknown Caller. She put it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hey there, Diana. It’s Sam.”

Wow. She had sure gotten loose fast. But then, Diana expected no less of an Athena Academy girl. “Hi, Sam. Are you okay? I’m so sorry about bonking you like that.”

“No problem. I walked into the blow on purpose.” Sam had let her knock her out on purpose? Aloud she gasped in shock. “Why?”

“You’re an Athena girl. We stick together. You had to have some absolutely dire need to get into Collin Scott’s office or you wouldn’t have come here at all. I thought I’d give you a chance to find what you were so sure you would. But, while we’re on the subject, would you care to tell me what it was you were looking for so desperately?”

“Have they assigned you to be the hostage negotiator here?” Diana asked dryly.

Sam answered equally dryly. “Something like that. I’m supposed to distract you while they figure out a way to get through that door.” Diana heard a squawk of voices in the background at that one. Apparently, the real hostage negotiators hadn’t wanted her to share that tidbit of information. Not that it took a rocket scientist to figure it out.

Sam commented, “You really did a number on the lock.”

“Thanks. It’s all that wholesome Athena Academy training, you know.”

Sam laughed. “So. Can you tell me why you did something this crazy?”

Diana sighed. No harm in being honest, now. And, she could stand to do a little stalling of her own. She glanced around the room and found exactly what she was looking for. A fax machine.

She tucked her cell phone between her shoulder and ear while she dialed up Oracle’s fax number. She started feeding documents from the S.A.F.E. file into the machine while she spoke to Sam.

“I found the file on S.A.F.E. It’s all here in front of me. These guys are certifiable. They follow the writings of Thomas Wolfe from some years back when he argued that the only way to defeat terror is with terror. He proposed that the U.S. can’t win that war unless we resort to lawless violence ourselves. I’ve identified about a dozen guys in S.A.F.E. at a first glance through these documents. Wanna hear their names? It’s a Who’s Who of high rollers and big dogs. I figure I need to tell someone before the yahoos with you bust in here and kill me.”

“Sure,” Sam said cautiously.

Diana kept feeding papers into the fax machine, but rattled off her list of names at the same time. She finished her recitation and Sam was silent for long seconds. Finally her classmate breathed, “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” Diana replied. “Do you think I’d be dumb enough to pull a suicide move like this if I weren’t certain of what I was going to find and that it was worth dying or going to jail over?”

She had about ten more pages to send to Oracle and Delphi. She needed to stall the crew outside just a few more seconds. Quickly, she asked Sam, “So, how many security thugs does a break-in to Collin Scott’s office rate?”

“A couple of dozen,” Sam answered.

Diana commented, “If I were the suspicious type, I might make note of who all responded to the break-in that weren’t strictly required to do so. Could be a second, lower layer of S.A.F.E. types. With four CIA agents known to be in the group, it would make sense that there are more where they came from in this spy palace.”

“A most interesting observation,” Sam said thoughtfully. “Duly noted.”

Five more pages to go. “Sam. Do me a favor. If I don’t make it out of this alive, tell Gabe Monihan thank you for me. For everything.”

“As in almost President Gabe Monihan?” Sam choked.

“Yup. Long story.” She fed the last sheet of paper into the fax machine. Thank God.

Sam murmured under her breath, as if she didn’t want the agents around her to hear what she said, “Diana, your grandfather is in the building. Said he wants to talk to you. But if he’s one of them…”

Diana whirled, dropping her cell phone as a panel of one of the bookcases slid open behind her. A concealed door!

A man’s silhouette loomed in the space.

And before she could dive for cover behind the desk, Joseph Lockworth stepped fully into the room.

T he file of S.A.F.E. documents crashed to the floor and Diana dropped into a defensive crouch. What a hell of an irony it would be if her own grandfather killed her.

He held his hands out carefully away from his sides. His empty hands.

She straightened cautiously but continued to stay light on the balls of her feet and at the ready. He might be silver haired and eighty years old, but she held no illusions about Gramps being an easy takedown. He’d been one of the toughest covert field agents in the entire OSS and its later iteration, the CIA.

Her grandfather said easily, “Hi, kiddo. How about we have that talk, now?”

She stared in surprise. “Now?”

“I think this is as good a time as any, don’t you?”

She laughed without humor. “I don’t have much else to do, I suppose, except go out there and die.”

He waved a casual hand at the door. “Don’t worry about that bunch. I can handle them.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And what’s your price for that little trick going to be?”

She started as her grandfather laughed heartily. “You’re good for an old man’s heart. A real chip off the old block, you are. Just like your mother.”

“My mother?”

He nodded. “You two are both stubborn and wild and opinionated, and maddeningly lovable.”

She had a hard time imagining her haunted, silent mother being any of those things. “I’ll take your word for it. I’ve never seen that side of my mother.”