They locked him up in the basement, in a steel cage
enclosure normally housing the Rottweilers that guarded
Congressman Wharton's D.C. mansion. Undercover agent Troy
Hill struggled against the plastic cuff that trapped his
hands behind him, careful so the guard outside the cage
wouldn't notice as he shifted on the cold cement floor.
Step one: Get his hands free.
Step two: Deal with the two-inch wide metal chain and the
padlock that kept the door secured.
The sooner he escaped the better. He knew too much, enough
so that his captors couldn't afford to let him live.
Next time they came for him, it wouldn't be for another
brutal interrogation. They knew now that they couldn't
impress him with pain. Next time they came, they would be
coming to kill him.
The guard, a six foot ten massive ex-football-player type,
cursed as he restarted the game he'd been playing on his
phone. He adjusted his large frame on the barstool,
engrossed in hitting the right buttons with his oversized
thumbs.
Troy didn't plan on going up against him, not with the
cracked ribs, the busted knuckles on his right hand, and
the swollen kneecap that had met with a baseball bat
repeatedly during his questioning. Much better to hedge his
bets and go for the weakest link.
Which meant the female. She had the least amount of weight
and muscles among the three guards who switched out every
two hours. She'd be on guard duty next. Troy stretched his
legs, warming up his muscles, getting ready.
She hadn't been there when the others had beaten him. On
her previous shift, she'd brought him extra food and water.
Seemed nice enoughβanother weakness he might be able to
exploit. She was tall and lean, dark hair in a tight bun at
her nape, the clearest green eyes he'd ever seen.
And something behind those eyes... A wall. Or maybe more
than one, a whole defense system. Her muscles had been
tense. Not a temporary thing. Her body language⦠He knew
people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, who
walked like that, watched like that, always on the edge, on
the ball of their feet as if they were ready at a moment's
notice either to lunge into a fight, or flee.
Among the three guards, she'd be the easiest one to rattle.
But she wouldn't be a pushover. He would have to kill her
to get away.
His conscience pinged.
He silenced it and focused on the cursed plastic cuff once
again.
* * *
Claire Montgomery stood at attention in Congressman
Wharton's office with half of his security detail. The six
guys were all at least a head taller than she, with more
muscles than a body builder, uniform tough-guy looks on
their chiseled faces. Prime male specimens, yet she
couldn't relate to them, let alone feel attracted to them.
She couldn't see whatever it was they had that so
titillated the maids.
Standing next to them, she felt like she was in some photo
in an activity book for kids. Which one of these things is
least like the others?
They were a well-oiled team, with her being the recent
hire, the outsider. The photo op. Seemed suspicious that on
her first day on the job last week, the Congressman just
happened to walk around the grounds during her shift,
started a chat with her, and the press had happened to be
there to record everything.
CONGRESSMAN WHARTON BELIEVES IN HIRING RETURNING VETS, the
headlines read the next day, above a picture of the man
smiling benevolently at her.
He loomed now behind his desk, ready to dismiss the team.
In light of the intruder, they'd been discussing various
security upgrades to avoid something like this happening
again. He'd called the meeting, his last one for today. He
often worked in the middle of the night, and nobody seemed
to think it strange.
"I think we should call the police, sir," she blurted her
opinion. They should have called the cops the second they'd
caught the intruder hours ago.
She hated that she'd been on break when the man had been
apprehended. She'd only found out about him when everyone
around her started running. Her earpiece must be acting up
again, because she didn't even hear the alert.
The Congressman's aide, standing on his right, flashed her
an annoyed look for speaking out of turn. "The FBI is on
their way. They're going to take him in. If we call the
local police, the media will be alerted. They monitor the
police channels. We want to keep this under wraps."
"I don't want this in the news," the Congressman cut in,
wearing his best vote-winner smile, disarming and trust-
inspiring at the same time. "An attack on me will either
paint me as a victim, or a man hated enough for assassins
to be stalking him. Not the image I'm trying for just when
I'm announcing my bid for presidency."
Everything had a political angle here, probably even the
choice of what color socks the Congressman put on in the
morning. Since she desperately needed the job, she just had
to learn to live with that. "Yes, sir."
Wharton's gaze moved from man to man. "I want you to find
out how he got in and make sure this doesn't happen again."
"Yes, sir," they said in unison, then backed out of the
room, each going to their station.
She swung by the security office, grabbed a new headset
then headed straight to the basement room where they held
the intruder.
Her personal cell phone buzzed. She glanced at the display,
and flipped the phone open immediately. "Is everything
okay, mom?"
"I wish you would come home." The words were spoken in the
tone of a long-suffering martyr.
"Mom, it's midnight." Claire rubbed the bridge of her nose
as she walked. "We've talked about this."
"You know how bad stress is for my health." Her mother
switched to accusation right on schedule.
"Then don't stress over it."
"You're sick, too, you know. You should have never taken
that job. You should be home recuperating. You shouldn't
take any job, period." She paused before she
added, "Hector's been asking about you."
"As soon as I'm ready to be a trophy wife, you'll be first
to know." Hector Merrick was one of her father's business
associates, a man twenty years her senior.
"Don't use that mocking tone on me. I'm your mother."
"Sorry." She swiped a bottle of water from the pantry as
she walked through what had been the servants' quarters
when the sprawling Washington D.C. mansion had been built
over a hundred years ago.
"I want the best for you, you know. You should have never
joined the Army. Good Lord, with your height and those
check bonesβ"
"Mom!" She couldn't deal with another lecture on her wasted
life.
"Well, they broke you then spit you out. You're very lucky
that Hector is interested at all, with your sort of sordid
history. Not many men would consider a burned-out soldier,
for heaven's sake, who deliberately involved herself in all
that unpleasantness, to be the mother of his children."
And Hector was only interested because he fancied taking
over after her father retired. But pointing that out to her
mother would have been useless. "I have to go, mom. My
shift is starting."
"You don't have to work. I don't understand you, Claire."
"I'll call you later." She hung up the phone and drew a
deep breath before she plodded down the stairs.
She liked having a job. The job kept her sane. The job kept
her alive, saving her from having to go back under her
parents' roof where her mother would have auctioned her off
to the highest bidder. The job made her feel productive.
Made her feel normal, even if she was anything but, even if
she hadn't slept more than two hours at a stretch since
she'd returned from Afghanistan.
She pushed the door open.
"About time." Jason slid off the barstool without looking
at the man in the cage.
But she did, and blinked hard at the blood. "What happened
to him?"
"Asked to use the bathroom. Tripped over his own shoelaces
on the way back in." He shrugged. "Wiped the cement floor
with his face."
"You could have cleaned him up."
"He refused first aid."
She could believe that. The man's steel gray eyes, cold and
calculating, watched her without emotionβa possible
assassin, or domestic terrorist.
She'd just spent two consecutive tours of duty fighting
foreign enemies. Frankly, she thought people like him
inside the U.S. should appreciate their hard-won freedom
and stop being jackasses.
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