Honor Bound

Mac held out the phone, a puzzled expression on his face, and said, "Commander? Egret wishes to speak to you."

Cam was bent over one of the nearby desks, replaying a segment of videotape taken in Central Park during Blair's speech. She was specifically studying the crowd in the general vicinity of Marcy Coleman, searching for a slim, 25 to 30-year-old white male, approximately five ten, a hundred and fifty pounds. That was the description Dr. Coleman had given them of the man who had handed her the envelope for Blair Powell.

"I'll take it over here," Cam said immediately, surprised and concerned. Blair rarely contacted her for anything official.

She reached for the receiver, the only indication of her disquiet a faint line between her brows. "Yes?"

"Cameron, can you come up here please?"

There was hollowness in her tone that set Cam's heart racing with anxiety. "Right away. Are you -"

"I'm all right," Blair said hurriedly, but there was a faint tremor in her voice.

"I'm on my way," Cam said, dropping the receiver into the cradle. She headed swiftly toward the door, instructing Mac as she walked, "I want a voice check with all agents. Verify that all agents are at their posts and that they have nothing out of the ordinary to report."

Mac straightened and immediately turned to the monitors, simultaneously activating his transmitter. "Yes, ma'am," he said sharply.

Cam didn't hear his reply because she was already through the door and in the hallway, keying the elevator to Blair's penthouse. Thirty seconds later she was at Blair's door. When the door swung open, Blair was standing just inside, waiting, her face pale. Cam took Blair's shoulders in both her hands and looked intently into her face. "What is it?"

Blair managed a smile, but the smile was faint and her blue eyes were deeply troubled. She extended a white envelope toward Cam. "This came in the mail."

Cam took it and studied the front. Blair's name and address were affixed with a common bulk-mailing label. It looked perfectly ordinary. The return address was for a well-known charity organization.

"I thought it was about a fundraiser," Blair said quietly.

Cam looked inside and the muscles in her stomach tightened. "Have you touched it?"

Blair nodded. "Yes, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking-"

Cam shook her head. "It doesn't matter. He's never left prints before. Still, we have to go through the motions."

She looked around for something with which to tease out the white rectangle. Blair handed her a large paper clip and she hooked it over the corner of the photograph and slid it out.

Cam silently regarded the image of Diane Bleeker standing in front of her Upper East Side apartment building with a sense of fury and dread. There was a familiar red circle with an x through it drawn centered over her chest. Cam turned over the Polaroid and saw another mailing label affixed to the back. Typed on it were the words:Meet me or she's next

Cam placed the photograph back into the envelope and slipped it into her inside jacket pocket. Then she walked directly to the wallphone in Blair's kitchen and rapidly punched in a series of numbers.

"Give me SAC Doyle immediately, please. This is Commander Cameron Roberts, Secret Service." She looked at Blair as she waited, smiling faintly as if to say it would be all right. Then, she said brusquely into the receiver, "Doyle, this is Roberts. I need you to send a team to Diane Bleeker's apartment at 88th and 5thAvenue ASAP. She's his next possible target. I'll fill you in at Command Central."

Blair said quietly when Cam hung up, "Thank you. I know you probably didn't enjoy making that call."

Cam shrugged dismissively. "The problems between Doyle and me don't matter. Diane does."

"Something has to be done, Cam," Blair said urgently, pacing in agitation. "I can't stand this any longer."

"Blair," Cam began gently, walking back to her, her face filled with concern. "I know how hard this must be for you."

Blair shook her head impatiently. She didn't want sympathy - she wasn't the one being shot at or blown up. "I don't care what it takes, Cam. I don't care what I need to do. I need this to be over."

Cam put her arms around her, pulling her close and holding her tightly. "Soon. I promise. It will be over soon."

Blair did not resist the embrace, but she said stubbornly, her body stiff with fear and frustration, "I'm okay."

"I know you are," Cam murmured, resting her cheek against Blair's hair. "This is for me."

Blair relented, because she needed the comfort of her. She slipped her arms under Cam's jacket, sliding her hands up her back, pressing her face to Cam's shoulder. Her hands met the leather harness of Cam's shoulder holster, and she shuddered briefly. There had been too much loss and it was draining her spirit.

Cam ran her hand lightly up and down Blair's back, caressing her softly. "The FBI are on their way to Diane's now. She'll be safe."

"Who will be next?" Blair said, her voice muffled against Cam's body. "Will it be one of you? Will it be Marcy Coleman - or some poor random person who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? I can't just stand by and watch it happen. I've got to do something."

Cam's stomach knotted, but she smoothed her hand gently over Blair's hair and pressed her lips to her forehead. "It isn't going to be anyone. We'll stop him. I need you to trust me, Blair."

Blair said nothing, and Cam's heart pounded with sudden alarm. "Blair, please promise me that you won't do anything without discussing it with me. I need you to do that. Please."

Blair leaned back in the circle of Cam's arms and studied her face. There was something close to panic in Cam's eyes. Blair had never seen her look that way before. "Cam-" she whispered, slipping her hand to the back of her neck, stroking her. "Hey."

"I can't lose you," Cam rasped, her throat tight with the anguish, the edges of her mind still raw with old memories.

Her haunted expression tore at Blair's heart. She sighed, and ran her fingers lightly over Cam's cheek. She could no more hurt her than she could stop loving her. "I promise. Just do something, please."

Cam kissed her, a kiss of thanks and tender possession. When she lifted her lips away, she whispered, "I will."

*

Cameron walked into the conference room at Command Central and nodded to Patrick Doyle. As had become the custom, the FBI were lined up on one side of the table, and her team on the other. She and Doyle faced off once again from opposite ends.

"We have to assume an action from Loverboy is imminent," Doyle said immediately, his preemptive attempt to take charge glaringly obvious.

Unperturbed by his attitude, Cam nodded her agreement as she sat down. She'd played these interagency power games before. "What's the status at Diane Bleeker's apartment building?"

"Our team and the bomb squad are there now," Doyle informed her. "She's been moved temporarily to a secure location."

Cam's face showed no sign of it, but she relaxed as some of her inner tension dissipated. One disaster averted. "I talked to Lindsey Ryan at Quantico and brought her up to date," Cam began. "She believes that this is a real threat, and if he can't access his primary target - Egret, or his designated substitute - Diane Bleeker, then he may choose someone else out of frustration or anger."

She looked around the table, and she knew that she didn't need to repeat what Lindsey Ryan had already told them. Any of them could be next. "Egret will remain sequestered here for the immediate future. She's agreed to postpone her plans for San Francisco, but we only have a two and a half week window until Paris. Then she is going to have to travel, and she'll be visible again."

Vulnerable is what she meant.

Doyle waved a hand in dismissal. "It's unreasonable to keep her out of sight indefinitely," he said, carefully avoiding the suggestion that Blair's visibility was one sure way to draw out their UNSUB. Unconsciously he rubbed the fading abrasion on his neck. "On the other hand, offering Loverboy a meet is the best way to get him out in the open."

Cam saw both Mac and Stark stiffen, and she knew one or both of them was about to vehemently protest. She raised her left hand an inch off the table and both of them settled back in their chairs, their faces set and angry. Cam stared at Patrick Doyle and said very evenly, her voice completely controlled, "Special Agent in Charge Doyle, I am certain that you are not suggesting that we use the President's daughter as bait for a proven psychopathic killer."

Doyle's jaw bunched, and he answered stiffly, "Of course not."

"Then we needn't pursue that line of thought any further," Cam responded, struggling to control her anger. "Egret continues to receive regular email from him. He is using hacked IP numbers and routing messages through random computers so he is still not traceable. As was previously decided, there has been no attempt to block his messages, because it's our only means of judging his state of mind and potentially predicting his moves."

"Well, that's been a royal failure," Doyle remarked harshly.

Cam ignored him and continued. "Agent Ryan suggests that we communicate with him via email, as Egret, in an attempt to get more information about his plans. This seems logical. An agent with computer and electronics expertise will be joining my team later today. She can begin the exchange after Loverboy's next contact."

There was an uncomfortable silence as everyone realized that this new agent would be a replacement for Jeremy Finch.

Doyle broke the silence as he said with a smug smile. "I talked with the Director on the way here. He agrees with me that we need to be more proactive if we're going to resolve this situation."

Cam didn't move an inch although every muscle became rigid. "Meaning?"

"We're planning on initiating contact, just as you suggested, Roberts," Doyle stated with an unmistakable note of condescension. "But we're not interested indialoguing . We're going to set up a meet."

"A decoy operation?" Mac exclaimed in surprise. "This guy is a bomber. You can't send someone in undercover when she might be walking into a bomb."

"We assessed the risk to be acceptable," Doyle said brusquely. Straightening a pile of folders in front of him, he added, "We expect it will take several days to put things in place. We're bringing in our own person to establish electronic contact with him."

"It's a risky operation, Doyle," Cam said quietly. "There are other avenues we can pursue first."

"We've all waited long enough," Doyle said. He looked pointedly at Cam, his expression accusatory. "Too long."

Cam knew that she had very little to say about an FBI operation. It wasn't what she would've done, but her primary concern was Blair's security, and she admitted to herself reluctantly that the FBI were well within their rights to attempt apprehension their own way.

She pushed back her chair, having registered her dissent. That was all she could do. "I'd appreciate it if you kept us informed of the timetable. In the meantime, I'm going to have my team continue analyzing the videos and photos from the park."

This time, Doyle couldn't hide his triumphant grin.

"No problem there, Roberts. You'll be informed since we're going to be using one of your agents to work the decoy."

Cam placed both hands flat on the table and leaned forward, her body coiled with tension as if she might spring from her chair. Her voice was low, dangerously low, when she said, "No, Doyle, you are not. My agents are Secret Service agents. They arenot decoys for the FBI."

Doyle shrugged. "It's already been cleared. We need someone with firsthand knowledge of Egret in case we get into a situation where a verbal exchange with the UNSUB is necessary. I can't brief a new agent on the kinds of things he might ask. The decoy needs to be one of yours."

For a minute, Cam couldn't think through her fury. Doyle had gone behind her back and essentially conscripted one of her agents for a potentially lethal mission. She stood, struggling to maintain her composure. None of them had had much sleep in the last seventy-two hours, and she was riding the thin edge of control. She had lost one man already. She was not going to lose another. "This is not going to happen, Doyle."

"It's not up to you," Doyle said, rising also. "It's been approved and your agent has already accepted the assignment."

Cam glanced quickly at Stark, who shook her head almost imperceptibly. Clearly, she knew nothing of Doyle's plan.

"This meeting is over," Cam snapped as she turned and walked out the door. Another second and she would have had her hands on his throat again.