Hostage Zero

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Brandy Giddings sat comfortably in the upholstered antique chair in the hallway, pretending not to notice the stares from the stern-faced Secret Service agents who stood in their assigned corners of the anteroom. She marveled at the way they could simultaneously project lethality and professional indifference. She wondered if The Look-easily recognizable by anyone with eyes-was specifically taught in the academy.

Did they even have an academy? she wondered. Surely they learned their craft somewhere, but she’d never heard mention of such a place. FBI Academy, yes-everybody knew that was in Quantico, Virginia, the place where Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster’s character in The Silence of the Lambs) received her orders-but a Secret Service Academy? Never heard of one.

Even a year and a half after her dream job had grown to become her oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-it job-a year and a half after American voters had voted an exciting newcomer into the White House-she still had to pinch herself from time to time.

She’d been all over the world, meeting the prime minister of England and the Pope in Rome, the premier of China, and the president of Russia, but through it all, nothing brought the same sense of awe and raw power as sitting right here in the West Wing of the White House. The very lack of pretense-the low ceilings and time-worn moldings-only added to the majesty of the place.

Brandy’s title was special assistant to the secretary of defense, but she knew what people thought. She listened to talk radio and knew that Denise Carpenter-“The Bitch of Washington, DC”-had christened her Defcon Bimbo. Those were just ugly words from the conservative queen of an ugly town. Harry Truman had said it best: If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.

Brandy Giddings didn’t care what people thought. Her boss, Secretary Jacques Leger, would be the first secretary of defense to stress peace over war, embrace inclusion over exclusion. And Brandy was part of it all. It was just too much to believe.

At twenty-eight, Brandy was blessed with the looks of someone ten years younger, and the body to go with them; but what would have been a blessing in Hollywood was a curse here in its East Coast sister city. Washington was the city of Birkenstocks and minimal makeup. “Look like a dyke or die,” as one of her fellow Georgetown grads had told her.

To hell with them. Looking hot had worked very well for Brandy, first landing her a spot on then-Senator Leger’s staff, and then propelling her into the E-Ring of the Pentagon, where the office accommodations put those of the White House to shame. While nothing trumped the greatness of the Oval, her boss’s digs were known throughout the world as the most opulent in the federal government.

Brandy’s was a job that led to Great Things. She commanded the attention of four-star generals and forty-year career bureaucrats, and it drove them all mad. As Secretary Leger’s right-hand lady for matters not directly related to national defense, she rarely waited more than ten minutes for her calls to be returned. With official cover from her boss, she traveled the world in tricked-out executive military jets that would make corporate titans blush.

Talk-show blabbers and late-night hosts could say whatever they wanted. None of their words could undo the reality of where she was and where they were not. When the history books were written, Brandy Giddings’s fingerprints would be there, if only through the victories of the man she served.

Note the lowercase S in “served.” There was no romance between Secretary Leger and her. Had he offered the opportunity it undoubtedly would have been different, especially during his senate years, but as it was, their mutual loyalty was built entirely of trust and hard work. As time progressed, she’d learned to accept that as best.

Today, as she waited in the narrow hallway outside of the Oval for the cabinet meeting to adjourn, Brandy scrolled absently through the e-mails in her BlackBerry, developing her strategy for breaking the bad news to the secretary. Their efforts to control the outcome of one very important matter had taken a bad turn, and it fell to her to keep the boss in the loop without propelling him over the edge. The roots of this particular matter reached back to the earliest days of his career.

When her electronic leash revealed that the news had not yet improved, she thrust it back into her purse and checked her watch again. Six-thirty. It hadn’t yet been eight hours since her previous seventeen-hour day had ended. For a job that delivered so many perks, the hours sucked.

The president had always prided himself in being an early riser, but in the three months since the New York Times had played up that element in the profile they’d done on him, he’d become maniacal about it. Of course, when you have the ultimate home office and you’re an early riser by nature, why not call 6:00 a.m. meetings? It’s not as if anyone’s going to say no.

Brandy sighed and recrossed her legs, this time daring to return the agent’s glance. If she didn’t want men to notice her body, she’d have long ago surrendered to her French fries jones. If she didn’t want them to drool on her boobs, she’d quit wearing push-up bras. It was becoming obvious that a recognizable love life would be the price paid for her patriotic zeal, so why not encourage a few stares from the Secret Service? There were far worse bed partners in this life than a hard-bodied man who lived for the opportunity to sacrifice his life for others.

Besides, you know what they say: Big hands, big feet, big…gun.

The door to the cabinet room opened, and her fantasy lover snapped back to attention. Brandy stood. As the lesser ranks of Washington royalty filed past-the secretaries of agriculture and interior departed the meeting first-Brandy might just as well have been invisible, and their studied indifference amused her. In the two-plus centuries of the republic, no one who held their positions had left so much as a dent on history. Ditto Transportation, Commerce, and, God help us, Health and Human Services. For them to have any self-respect at all, she figured, they felt compelled to pretend she wasn’t there. She almost felt sorry for them. How difficult it must be to be at the pinnacle of your career and know that you’ll be banished to obscurity.

“Cheer up,” Secretary Leger said as he powered into the anteroom. “Don’t think of it as early; think of it as a running start on the day.”

“I try, sir,” she said, forcing a smile. She hurried to catch up with the stride that never slowed.

He gave her a sideward glance. “Did you just call me sir? Sounds foreboding.”

As they approached the door that led to Executive Drive and the waiting limos, Brandy slipped into her proper place three feet behind the secretary, just in case any reporters had infiltrated this deep. A second rule of power in Washington was to never risk hogging the frame of a picture that was being shot of your boss.

While all cabinet secretaries got a car and a driver as part of their package of perks, only the secretary of state and SecDef got their own security details. Granted, SecDef’s was a small one-a driver and a shotgun rider, plus a single follow car-but it was enough to add to the mystique of the position. The shotgun rider was the man in charge, a thirty-something Army major in civilian clothes, and as Secretary Leger approached the right rear door of the town car, the major opened it for him and then closed it as soon as his butt hit the seat. On the opposite side, Brandy was left to fend for herself. A few weeks ago, during a conversation that Brandy had mistakenly thought was flirtatious, the major-his name was Binder-had made it clear that his duty to protect the secretary in no way extended to her. In fact, he’d emphasized his point by explaining that staffers like her were considered by bodyguards to be de facto human shields whose presence made it more difficult for an assassin to take a clear shot.

Once they were moving, Leger settled into his corner of the seat and crossed his legs. “Let me have the bad news,” he said.

Brandy’s jaw dropped.

Leger laughed. “Don’t fake surprise,” he said. “I can read you better than my wife. You’ve been guarding bad news since before the meeting.”

Brandy had a better poker face than people gave her credit for, but she could be transparent as glass when she wanted to. Bad news was always easier to deliver when it was asked for. “Our special operation hit a snag,” she said.

Leger’s ears turned red at the news, and his right eye squinted just a little. Apparently, it was not the bad news he’d been expecting.

“It turns out that the team didn’t completely follow the protocol. We just recently found out that one of the targets was killed on U.S. soil.”

Now Leger’s jaw twitched. “You mean the janitor? He died?”

Brandy shook her head. “No, I mean one of the targets.”

He closed his eyes and massaged his forehead with three fingers. “Which one?”

“Bravo,” she said. Notwithstanding the fact that the limo was sealed and checked daily for listening devices, neither of them felt comfortable speaking of these matters in plain English. It’d be different if they were planning an invasion, but as it was, this sort of business needed to be guarded with the utmost secrecy.

“Why am I just hearing about this now?” He asked the question through clenched teeth.

“I was hoping to be able to report on solid damage control.”

He looked at her like she was crazy. “Damage control? He’s dead, for God’s sake.”

This was the part she’d been dreading most. Her strategy all along was to just blurt it out and let the storm happen, so she said, “We’ve got people going out to pick up the body.”

Something happened behind his eyes. For an instant, she thought Secretary Leger might hit her. “ Pick up the body? Pick it up from where?”

Brandy chose her words carefully. “Because of the shooting, the team panicked a little. They knew that the police would go crazy, so they were in a hurry to get out. The pilot of the chopper told them that he couldn’t handle all the weight, so they took Bravo to the woods and shot him.”

Leger’s eyes grew huge, an expression of genuine horror. “Jesus.”

Brandy went on, “I didn’t find out about it until Viper called at three this morning. He swears there was no alternative. He told me where they’d stashed the body, and I’ve sent a team out to recover it.”

Leger scowled. “Viper called at three this morning? Twenty-four hours after the event?”

“Yes, sir. Apparently there was a communication breakdown.”

Secretary Leger stared at her, as if he wasn’t sure he understood the words. Then he shifted his gaze to the front of the limo, to the panel with the Defense Department shield that separated them from the security team. His face drooped.

Brandy said, “Sir, I assure you that this is under control. We knew going in that there were risks, but overall-”

“Brandy.” He turned his head and looked at her with an expression that defined exhaustion.

“Sir?”

“Shut up for a while, okay?”