Target

He shrugged. “That’s what I have speech writers for. It’s their job to panic. Besides, we finalized the inaugural address last night. I don’t have a blessed thing to do today except go talk to a judge at two o’clock.”

“Well, you do have to look pretty and smile nicely for the cameras. Maybe have a little lunch. Go to a parade. Oh, and become President of the United States,” she retorted. Dang it! When was she going to learn to stop and think before she just blurted out the first thing that popped into her head?

He laughed aloud. “You make it sound like I’m taking some sort of monastic vow for the rest of my life. It’s not a prison sentence, you know.”

Every head in the room swiveled at the sound of his laughter. From the surprised expressions on people’s faces, she gathered it wasn’t a sound they’d heard much lately.

She grinned back at him, enjoying the sparring. “Monastic vows? I should hope not. A good-looking guy like you ought to—” She broke off sharply. Holy cow, she’d done it again. She felt heat creep up her cheeks in a telltale blush. The curse of her fair skin.

“Ought to what?” he asked wryly.

“Nothing, Mr. President-elect,” she mumbled. “Never mind.” She ventured a peek up from her crisply starched napkin. Yup. Grinning like the Cheshire Cat, he was.

“Call me Gabe.”

Uh, right. On a first name basis with the man who was about to be President.

The butler saved her. He served her a bowl of fresh strawberries just then, ladling clotted cream over the dewy red globes. She ordered an omelet stuffed with the works in a muted voice, while Gabe ordered French toast with extra syrup.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “You must think I’m a complete bumpkin.”

“Not at all,” he replied smoothly. “I think you’re charming.”

She smiled reluctantly. “I don’t deserve that, but thank you.”

His gaze met hers for a moment, but then slid away as the butler stepped between them to pour coffee. Whoa. That had been a definite spark of interest in his eyes. Of course, it wasn’t as if he was an old man or anything. For Heaven’s sake, he was only thirty-eight. Younger than Jack Kennedy by seven years when he took office. Business, Diana. Business.

“Uh, sir, I came here today because I believe your life may be in danger.”

Gabe’s fork paused for the barest instant before it continued its path to his mouth. He responded utterly casually, “Of course my life’s in danger. Do you have any idea how many enemies I inherit with this job? At any rate, let’s finish breakfast before we talk about anything serious.”

She frowned. For all the world, she’d swear he’d just blown her off. Except he looked her square in the eye and nodded reassuringly the moment the words left his mouth. Now what was that all about? But it wasn’t as if she was about to tell the next Commander-in-Chief he couldn’t eat his breakfast in peace. He didn’t want to talk with wagging ears around, maybe?

She studied him surreptitiously as she ate her fluffy omelet. Her bedroom wall didn’t do justice to him in the least. The pictures didn’t capture his energy, the sense of purpose that radiated from him. This was a man on a mission. Not that it was any surprise. Everyone knew about his past. His alcoholic father died in a fiery car crash when Gabe was eleven. Rumor persisted that the wreck had been a suicide to escape crushing gambling debts that were coming due. Gabe had stepped up to the plate and become the man of the house, working a paper route before school and mowing lawns after school to help support his devastated mother. In his spare time he’d still managed to get straight As and quarterback his high school football team to the State Championship. The All-American boy.

Their backgrounds weren’t so different. She’d lost her mother to a drug-induced haze, he’d lost his father to booze. Although where his old man had died, her mother had just languished in a clinical depression so deep and so irreversible she might as well have been dead. So how was it he came out of the experience as bright and shiny as a gold coin, while she came out of it running in the opposite direction from the very system that embraced him?

“That’s a pretty grave look on your face, Captain Lockworth. Am I going to have to solve world hunger for you after breakfast?”

One corner of her mouth lifted reluctantly into a smile. “Oh, that you could. And please, call me Diana.”

His gaze waxed serious for a moment. “I wish it were that easy to solve world hunger. But even the office of President can’t put a dent in that particular problem.” He wiped his mouth and laid the linen napkin down on the table beside his plate. “But maybe I can fix your problem.”

“Actually, I’m the one trying to fix your problem,” she replied.

One sable eyebrow lifted. “Indeed?” He got up from the table and came around to hold her chair for her, cutting off the butler who’d stepped forward to do the same service.

She took the hand he offered her and stood up. When was the last time somebody helped her up from breakfast in such gallant fashion? She thought about it for a second. That would be never. And there weren’t even any paparazzi or reporters around to justify the display. Was he actually one of those guys who did such things out of a natural impulse to do so?

He led her away from the table and over toward a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass windows that lent a panoramic view of Connecticut Avenue below. “Great view, isn’t it?” he said rather more loudly than necessary.

Not especially. It was just a gray street on a cold day with dirty cars hurrying by, along with a few pedestrians bundled up to their ears. “Uh, yeah. Great.”

Under his breath, he asked, “So who harbors this dark plot to assassinate me that you’re so worried about?”

She had no idea why they were practically whispering, but she mimicked his tone. “I’m convinced the Q-group rebels who tried to bomb Chicago O’Hare were not there just to make a statement about U.S. involvement in Berzhaan. I’m convinced that was a smoke screen to hide the real target of their attack—you.”

A pulse abruptly throbbed in Gabe’s temple and his eyes blazed. He put his hand on her elbow and reached for the sliding-glass door in front of them. With her peripheral vision, she caught the alarmed jump of the three Secret Service agents across the room. But then Gabe’s fingers closed on her arm in a painful vise that left her no choice but to step outside with him or have her arm wrenched out of its socket.

She stumbled to a stop as a biting wind swirled around them. Gabe pulled the door shut behind them and pointedly turned his back on the room behind them. Worried about lip-readers, maybe? He demanded, “How in the hell do you know the Q-group was out to kill me that day?”

She pivoted until her left shoulder touched his right shoulder, her back squarely to the room behind them. “I can explain that to you in more detail later. What’s important right now is that they’re going to try again. Today.”

Eavesdroppers and lip-readers forgotten, he turned to stare down at her in shock. He bit out a single terse command. “Start talking, lady.”

8:00 A.M.

She took a deep breath. “The database I use to gather and compare intel made a definitive match between the tactics used in Chicago by the Q-group cell there and an old assassination training scenario. Of a single target. One that’s surrounded by bodyguards and heavy security. And it was developed by the CIA.”

The full brunt of Gabe Monihan’s intelligence bored into her as his gaze went nearly black. “Do you have any proof that the CIA was behind the attempt on my life?” he bit out.

“None,” she replied quickly. “Nor am I making that allegation. However, as you probably know, Richard Dunst, an ex-CIA agent who’s been known to mess around in Berzhaani politics, was involved in the Q-group attacks last October. I think he may have trained the terrorists who attacked you. He’s a trained killer himself.”

Gabe’s gaze narrowed. “And?”

Perceptive guy. He assumed, accurately, that she had to have more news than that to have asked for five minutes of his time today of all days.

“And Dunst escaped from the detention facility at Bolling Air Force Base a little over an hour ago.”

“Jesus.” Gabe ran a distracted hand through his hair. “Does Owen Haas know this?”

“Who’s Owen Haas?”

“The agent-in-charge of my security detail.”

“Ah. Actually, I was expecting to speak to him this morning when I asked for a meeting. And no, he doesn’t know, yet. But I’ll be glad to tell him everything I know.”

Gabe stepped forward and grabbed the wrought-iron railing in front of him, gazing down at the street below.

“Sir, if you don’t mind my asking…” She hesitated to interrupt his intense concentration.

“Ask,” he ordered tersely.

“Do you have any idea why the Q-group might have tried to kill you last fall?”

He frowned. Shook his head. “None.”

She asked, “What’s your policy on Berzhaan? Have you said something specific that would inflame the Q-group?” She’d read everything she could get her hands on about Gabe’s stance on Berzhaan, and nothing she’d run across had struck her as inflammatory enough to cause the Q-group to come after him. If anything his policies promised to be significantly more to the Q-group’s liking than Whitlow’s had been.