Radclyffe - Price of Honor

:-) For me too.

Dusty stared at the screen for a while. She wasn’t sure she should answer. There wasn’t a question implied in what Viv just typed. What did she say now? She had to say something. She didn’t want to lose the tenuous connection between the two of them. Atlas says hello.

Two smiley faces returned. Tell Atlas hi back for me. Can’t wait to see you both later.

I’m off shift at four.

Dinner again?

On the train? Dusty heard someone call her name. She ignored it.

Anywhere.

Dining car. 5?

Perfect, Viv texted back. See you tonight.

Yes.

Dusty took a minute to collect her scattered thoughts. Viv had texted her. Been thinking about her. She said that. And Viv wanted to see her for dinner. She hadn’t imagined any of it. Maybe it was actually real.

“Yo, Nash! You planning on flying or walking?”

“On my way,” Dusty yelled to her shift supervisor. She stood, and Atlas rose with her. “Come on, boy. We’ve got to get to Chicago.”

*

Hooker drove toward the diner thinking about money. He was going to be early for the meeting, but that was fine. He wanted some time to consider his options. If the girl was leaving town and headed toward Colorado Springs, she’d have to take the money with her. She wasn’t going to open any kind of bank account or secure the funds electronically somehow. No, she’d have the cash with her.

Chances were she wouldn’t bring it in the vehicle when she met him. But it would be close by. Hotel room, probably. Maybe a locker at the bus station. He thought back to the look in her eyes when she’d said there was nothing he could do to make her tell him where it was. He didn’t have any experience torturing people, and the idea of torturing a woman turned his stomach. He didn’t think it would work with her and was just as glad. He was guaranteed ten grand. She’d come through with that. She looked like Graves, probably more than she knew. And she was likely her father’s daughter and righteously honorable too. No, she wouldn’t cheat him.

So he could take the money she offered him for providing a contact and that would be the end of it. He’d never see her again. He’d be ten grand richer. Russo would be unhappy that he couldn’t retrieve the $250,000, but that had been a gamble and not his decision to begin with. But two hundred thousand plus was hard to walk away from.

If he couldn’t intimidate her into telling him where it was, he had to blackmail her. He didn’t know her real name, and he couldn’t implicate her in the failed attack on the president without putting his own head in the noose. So what mattered to her? She definitely had plans—what he couldn’t tell, but if she was after explosives, she wanted to make a big statement. A threat to expose her might do the trick, especially if she was as fanatical as Graves and the rest of that bunch.

He pulled into the all-night diner with its sorry dented metal façade and empty parking lot and sat with the motor running to keep warm. Two pickup trucks were the only other vehicles. She wasn’t there yet, but he bet she’d be early too.

She was definitely her father’s daughter, he’d bet money on it. He laughed. He was doing just that.

*

Blair’s limo pulled across the tarmac toward Air Force One where a ring of Secret Service agents formed the inner perimeter, assuring that no unauthorized personnel approached the presidential plane. The backup Boeing 747 idled a few hundred yards down the runway in front of the third jet that would carry press and staff who could not be accommodated aboard Air Force One.

Blair glanced at Cam. “Are you ready?”

“You mean to play first daughter-in-law?” Cam grinned. “Can’t wait.”

Blair laughed and kissed her. “I know you hate it. I’m sorry. We’ll keep you out of the spotlight as much as we possibly can.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Cam kissed her as agents jumped out of the follow car and descended upon them. “I’m always happy at your side.”

“I love you,” Blair murmured just as Stark opened the door.

Cam followed Blair out as the rest of the detail closed in and they crossed toward the stairs at the front of the plane where the presidential suite was located. The rear doors led into the press section. Blair settled in the lounge area adjoining her father’s private quarters to wait for him. Lucinda would arrive with him, along with the president’s physician and the military aide who carried the briefcase with the nuclear codes.

“I imagine we’ll be reviewing his remarks,” Blair said.

Cam kissed her. “I’m going to talk to Stark for a while. I’m sure there will be schedule changes once Lucinda boards.”

“Undoubtedly.”

Cam made her way toward the rear of the forward section, nodding to the PPD shift agents and Blair’s detail. She settled into a seat next to Stark. “Anything new in the morning briefing?”

Stark shook her head. “No.”

Cam watched Blair rise to give her father a hug. The president looked rested and eager to start his first major offensive of his reelection campaign. Eight days on the road. “Sometimes the quiet bothers me more than anything else.”

“Me too.”

*

Viv never got over the excitement of flying on Air Force One. Climbing aboard the most elite aircraft in the world with the president of the United States was one of the premier perks of being part of the White House press pool. She never said it out loud, but every trip thrilled her. Of course, being a witness to history in the making was the greatest honor of all, and every time she boarded Air Force One she was humbled. The thrill was there today, just like always, but as she lined up with her colleagues for coffee and pastries at the small minibar in the rear of the press section, she couldn’t totally keep her mind on business.

I’m off shift at four.

She almost couldn’t believe she’d texted Dusty at oh-dark-thirty. That was so unlike her! She’d never been one to pursue a woman, not that she had anything against it, it was just that she’d never actually met anyone she’d wanted or needed to pursue. Most of the time an invitation would pop up seemingly out of nowhere for dinner or a show or some other kind of date when she hadn’t really been thinking about it—or the woman in question. She’d usually be pleased by the invitation and most of the time happy to accept. She wasn’t passive when it came to women, she just wasn’t looking.

She hadn’t been looking yesterday, either. But she couldn’t help but notice. Dusty was hard not to notice. Not just the way she looked, which was hot and sexy and even more so because she clearly didn’t have a clue just how hot and sexy she was. More than that, she was a mystery, not dark and foreboding and alienating, but captivating, like the glimmer of something beautiful encased in amber. Viv wanted to crack the smooth shell and free the secret.

“This ought to be fun, huh?” Brad Cooper, every inch the tall, dark, and handsome cliché with eyes so blue they ought to be outlawed, smiled at her sardonically. His tone said he thought the trip would be anything but a good time.

“Oh, hi, Brad.” Viv reluctantly deserted her musings about Dusty to be polite. Brad was one of the guys who treated her as a colleague and nothing more, for which she was thankful. She knew there were plenty of other females, attached and unattached, who were interested in catching his attention. Maybe that was why he enjoyed her company. He’d been on the beat a few years longer than her and been one of the more helpful reporters when she’d first joined. While everyone feigned collegiality on the surface, they were all competing for the best angle on the same story. After all, they were all being given the same sound bites from the presidential press office, they were all witnessing the same events, they were all reporting on the same timetable. What it had taken her some time to learn was that they were all secretly working their inside sources, hoping to get a jump on everyone else. She had yet to develop much leverage in that area, partly because of the nature of most of her features, but mostly because it just wasn’t her style.