LITMIR.BIZ

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get in.

      She got in. If she fought now or tried to run she’d never even make it to the gate.

      Two minutes later they were off of White House property, driving down Pennsylvania Avenue. He’s taking me somewhere to do it. They’ll get rid of me elsewhere. Somewhere no one will ever find me.

      “You can just drop me off at the downtown Hilton,” she said casually.

      The Secret Service agent smiled coyly. “We’re the US government, Ms. Pavlo. We know where you’re staying.”

      She chuckled lightly, trying to keep the nervous edge out of her voice. “I’m sure. But I’m meeting a friend for dinner at the Hilton.”

      “Even so,” the agent replied, “the president’s orders were to take you back to your hotel, so that’s what I have to do. For security reasons.” He sighed then, as if he commiserated with her plight even though she was fairly certain he was going to kill her. “I’m sure you understand.”

      “Oh,” she said suddenly. “My things? My phone and my clutch?”

      “I have them.” Joe patted the breast pocket of his suit.

      After a long moment of silence Karina followed up with, “May I have them…?”

      “Of course,” he said brightly. “Just as soon as we arrive.”

      “I’d really like them back now,” she pressed.

      The agent smiled again, though he kept his eyes forward on the road. “We’ll be there in just a few minutes,” he said placidly, as if she were a petulant toddler. Karina very much doubted that he had her things in his jacket.

      She settled into her seat, or at least gave the appearance of doing so, trying to seem relaxed as the SUV eased to a stop at a red light. The Secret Service agent dug around in the center console for a pair of black sunglasses and put them on.

      The light turned green.

      The car in front of them started forward.

      The agent took his foot off the brake, pressed the gas.

      In one swift movement, Karina Pavlo pressed the release of her seat belt with one hand while shoving open her door with the other. She leapt out of the moving SUV, her heels hitting the asphalt. One of them broke. She lurched forward, hitting pavement with her elbows, rolling, and then staggered to her feet. She kicked both shoes off and sprinted down the street in her stockings.

      “What the hell?!” The Secret Service agent slammed the brake, threw the vehicle into park right there in the middle of the street. He didn’t bother shouting for her to come back, and he certainly didn’t just let her go—both indicators that she was absolutely right about her notion.

      Drivers honked and shouted as the agent leapt out of the car, but by that time she was more than half a block away, practically barefoot as her stockings tore, ignoring the occasional stone that stung the soles of her feet.

      She turned the corner sharply and darted down the first opening she saw, not even an alley but rather just a walkway between two storefronts. Then she made a left, running as fast as she could, glancing over her shoulder every now and then for the agent but not seeing him.

      As she came out on the next street, she spotted a yellow cab.

      The driver nearly spat his coffee, a Styrofoam cup to his lips, when she all but hurtled into his backseat and shouted, “Drive! Please drive!”

      “Jesus Christ, lady!” he scolded. “Scared the hell outta me…”

      “Someone is chasing me, please drive,” she pleaded.

      He frowned. “Who’s chasing you?” The irritating driver actually glanced around. “I don’t see anybody—”

      “Please just fucking drive!” she screeched at him.

      “Okay, okay!” The cabbie shifted and the taxi veered into traffic, eliciting a new fusillade of honks that would no doubt tip the agent off to her relative location.

      Sure enough, as she twisted in the seat to look out the rear windshield she saw the agent rounding the corner at a full sprint. He slowed to a trot, his eyes meeting hers. One of his hands briefly snaked into his jacket, but he seemed to think twice about pulling a gun in broad daylight and instead put a hand to his ear to radio someone.

      “Turn left here.” Karina directed the cabbie to make the turn, drive a few more blocks, take a right, and then she jumped out again as he shouted after her for payment. She ran down the block and did that three more times, jumping into cabs and out of them until she was halfway across DC in such a serpentine manner she was certain there was no way that Joe the Secret Service agent would find her.

      She caught her breath and smoothed her hair as she slowed to a brisk walk, keeping her head down and trying not to look frazzled. The most likely scenario was that the agent had gotten the cab’s license plate number and the unfortunate (though somewhat slow-witted) cabbie would be stopped, frisked, and background-checked to make sure he wasn’t part of some preconceived getaway plot.

      Karina ducked into a bookstore, hoping no one would notice she was shoeless. The store was quiet and the shelves were tall. She quickly navigated her way to the back, headed into a restroom, splashed water on her face, and struggled to keep herself from breaking down into heaving sobs.

      Her face was still sheet-white from the shock of it all. How quickly everything had gone wrong.

      “Bozhe moy,” she sighed heavily. My god. As the adrenaline wore off, the full gravity of her situation struck her. She had heard things that were never supposed to leave the White House basement. She had no identification. No phone. No money. Hell, she didn’t have shoes. She couldn’t go back to her hotel. Even showing her face in any public space where there might be a camera was risky.

      They were not going to stop pursuing her for what she knew.

      But she had the pearls in her ears. Karina absently touched her left earlobe, caressing the smooth stone there. She had the words that were spoken in the meeting—and in more than just her memory. She had proof of the dangerous knowledge that the American president, an alleged Democratic liberal who had earned the country’s admiration, was being puppeteered by the Russians.

      There in the ladies’ room of a downtown bookstore, Karina looked at herself in the mirror as she murmured desperately, “I’m going to need some help.”

      CHAPTER ONE

      Zero sat on the edge of the queen-sized bed and wrung his hands nervously in his lap. He’d been through this before, had seen it in his mind a thousand times. Yet here he was again.

      His two teenage daughters sat on the bed adjacent to his, a narrow aisle between them. They were in a room at the Plaza, an upscale hotel just outside of DC. They had decided to hole up there instead of going home in the wake of the assassination attempt on President Pierson’s life.

      “There’s something I need to tell you.”

      Maya was on the brink of seventeen. She had her father’s brown hair and facial features, and her mother’s sharp wit and biting sarcasm. She regarded him passively, with a shadow of trepidation over such a dramatically foreshadowing statement.

      “It’s not easy to say. But you deserve to know.”

      Sara was fourteen, still round-faced with youth, teetering at a conflicted age between clinging to childhood and burgeoning womanhood. She had inherited Kate’s blonde hair and expressive face. She looked more like her mother with every passing day, though at the moment she looked nervous.

      “It’s about your mother.”

      They had both been through so much, kidnapping and witnessing murders and staring down the barrel of a gun. They had stayed strong through it all. They deserved to know.

      And then he told them.

      He’d played it in his mind so many times before, but still the words were difficult to summon to his throat. They came slowly, like logs

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