Неизвестный: 06. Honor Under Siege

“I told you not to come out here,” Blair snapped. “Damn it, Cameron.” She hated it when Cam hurt. She hated feeling helpless under any circumstances, but it was worse when it was Cam and she couldn’t do anything. She picked up her pace. “Let’s get you inside. I’ll make some tea or something.”

“Tea?” Cam rasped, trying desperately not to laugh again.

Blair’s glower could not hide her smile. “Well, something.”

They climbed through the dunes toward the multi-level glass and wood house where they’d been staying for the past few weeks, the two Secret Service agents keeping pace behind them. Blair stiffened at the sight of a woman hurrying down to meet them.

“Hi, Paula,” she greeted her new chief of security. Paula Stark was an athletic, dark haired, dark-eyed woman close to her own age. She had proven herself capable of protecting Blair in dire circumstances more than once, and Blair trusted her. More than that, she cared for her. That kind of affection probably wasn’t wise; she was not supposed to form personal attachments to her security agents. But Blair never did anything simply because it was prudent. She spent more time with the four members of her first team than she did with anyone else in her life, and she couldn’t help but care about them. Just the same, she preferred not to see Paula right now. It could only mean one thing. Her brief respite had come to an end. “What’s up?”

“Your father wants to talk to you.” Paula nodded to Cam. “Commander.”

“Chief,” Cam said. Technically, she wasn’t the commander anymore, since she’d been replaced as Blair’s chief of security by

Stark, but she couldn’t seem to get any of the agents to stop calling her that. She wanted to ask if there was a problem, but she was trying to be respectful of Stark’s new position. Security chiefs were circumspect by nature and rarely shared any more information than necessary with anyone, including the protectees and their families. Especially with the protectees and their families. Part of a security agent’s job was to make the lives of those they guarded seem as normal as possible under the most abnormal of circumstances.

“Is my father all right?” Blair asked as they reached the rear deck of the house.

“I have no reason to think otherwise,” Stark said in her official voice. “Lucinda Washburn put the call through. She said there was no urgency, but the president would like to speak to you at your earliest convenience.”

Blair rolled her eyes. At your earliest convenience was Lucinda-speak for call immediately. Lucinda Washburn was President Andrew Powell’s chief of staff, as well as his lifelong friend and adviser. No one was closer to him, not even Blair. Lucinda had helped him win the governorship of Massachusetts, the vice presidency, and finally the presidency. She was an astute politician and managed far more than the day-to-day workings of the White House staff. If someone wanted the ear of the president, they needed to court Lucinda Washburn first.

“Lucinda wants something.” Blair glanced at Cam, who smiled ruefully. Lucinda did not make social calls. She also was not the president’s secretary, which meant that she probably had an agenda of her own. “Give me a few minutes to have a cup of coffee, Paula, and then I’ll call her back.”

“I’ll be in the command center.” Paula kept her voice neutral and her face expressionless. The makeshift command center was actually part of the first floor of the smaller guest house that sat partway between the main house and the beach. Her scaled-down security team stayed there when they were off shift. Right now there were only three other agents with her—Greg Wozinski, Patrice Hara, and Felicia Davis. There was also one other inhabitant, her FBI agent lover Renée Savard, who was recuperating from a bullet wound. She and Cam had sustained their injuries during the same action. “Please call me when you’re ready, and I’ll scramble a line for you.”

Blair halted with her hand on the handle of the back door and regarded Paula quizzically. “Is something wrong?”

“No ma’am.”

“Am I supposed to guess why you suddenly sound like an android?”

Paula smiled. “Sorry. I was asleep when the call came in and I haven’t had time to recharge my batteries. I’m running on auxiliary backup packs.”

“Ha ha. Come inside and have some coffee, then.”

Paula checked in with a quick glance at Cam, who signaled for her to follow them into the house.

“I’m going to grab a quick shower,” Cam said, heading in the direction of the staircase leading to the second floor. “Be right down.”

Blair led Paula through to the kitchen, while Patrice Hara took up a position just inside the rear door and Greg Wozinski walked through to the front of the house. “How’s Renée doing?” she asked casually as she began to assemble the morning coffee.

“Restless.” Paula settled into a chair at the rectangular oak table in the center of the room.

“Tell me about it.” Blair turned on the automatic coffee pot, put a kettle of water on for tea, and sat down next to her. “Renée is just like Cam—neither of them is happy unless they’re working.” She touched Paula’s wrist lightly. “You should understand that. You’re all the same, really.”

There had been a time when the slightest touch from Blair would have made Paula blush. She could not believe that eight months had passed since the few ill-advised hours she’d spent in the intimate company of the first daughter. The lapse was one of a potentially career destroying magnitude, and although she regretted her irresponsible behavior, she did not regret the private moments they had shared. Now, it seemed like the interlude had taken place in another lifetime, when she had been another woman. In the few scant months since then, she’d seen Cameron Roberts almost die, Blair narrowly escape assassination, and the nation that the entire world had considered unassailable become the victim of terrorism. She didn’t blush.

“I do understand. But the doctor said she needed another few days before she could start walking, and the inactivity is wearing on her.”

Blair knew the problem was more than just inactivity. Renée, along with many of the New York based FBI and Secret Service field agents, had been in the World Trade Center at the time the towers had been hit. She’d seen the devastation and horror firsthand. “It’s going to take some time, Paula. She’ll heal.”

Paula’s eyes revealed what she couldn’t say. Wouldn’t say, out of respect for her lover’s privacy. “I know.”

“She has the one thing she needs most of all,” Blair said gently. “You.”

“Oh, man,” Paula said softly. “I hope that’s enough.” She wished she could feel certain, but she feared that something in Renée’s soul had been irreparably broken and neither time nor love would heal it.

Blair stood. “Trust me, it is.” She set a mug of tea at an empty place for Cam. “I think right now the people we care about might be all that matter.”

“I…uh…how are you doing?” Paula asked as Blair poured their coffees.

Everyone knew how private Blair was, and it wasn’t really her place to ask personal questions. But since September 11, the world as they knew it was gone and some of the old rules no longer seemed to apply. Paula understood the necessity for viewing the subjects she protected as critically valuable individuals, while at the same time avoiding any kind of personal involvement, even friendship. But they’d all been through so much together that the usual professional detachment seemed impossible, especially when Blair had been the object of a nearly successful assassination attempt in her own heavily-fortified home. What was once considered inconceivable now fell within the realm of the probable. It could happen again, and Paula had to see that it didn’t.