Cam looked up at her and grinned. "That's probably all I'll need, too."


"Oh no, Commander," Blair said softly. "I want much more than that from you."


And then Blair took her slowly, with her mouth and her hands and her tender caresses, drawing the fire from her blood and the heat from her bones, igniting her nerves and scorching her senses, until all Cam knew was Blair and all she could do was cry out her name.


*****


They slept for an hour and awakened together, just on the other side of darkness. They lay side by side, hands clasped, their fingers entwined.


"What happens now?" Blair asked in the stillness.


Cam spoke quietly, her voice steady and calm. "At twenty-one hundred hours, Savard and I will leave for the rendezvous site. Thirty minutes later, Grant will walk out the front entrance and flag down a cab. Stark and Fielding will be in that cab. We're assuming that Loverboy may be watching here to assure himself that you are really going to meet him, and that you're coming alone as you said that you would. It's possible that he has someone else watching the building for him and relaying a message. Either way, it will look like you have once again slipped by us and are on your way to him."


"So how willhe get to the meeting site on time, if he's here when Grant leaves?"


"Lindsey Ryan speculates that he chose this site some time ago, and I agree. He was prepared when you agreed to meet him. He named that place and time almost immediately. It may have just been his fantasy that you would someday come to him, but Lindsey thinks he's actually been there, and may have already 'readied' it for you."


Blair shivered at the thought of someone creating these elaborate fantasies with her as the star. It made her feel as if someone had been touching her while she slept.


Cam slipped her arm around her shoulder and drew her near. "Blair, you don't need to hear all of this."


"No," Blair said quickly, her voice strong and determined. "I want to know. All of it."


Cam continued. "He'll either follow Grant to the site or use an alternate route to arrive before her. Since he's familiar with the area, we assume that he'll have planned a way into the arcade without detection. We'll already be in place when she arrives."


"But she's not really going to meet him, is she?" Blair asked worriedly.


"No," Cam said with certainty. "Doyle's team will have infrared heat seeking scopes that will pinpoint the location of any living thing bigger than a dumpster rat within a hundred yards of the meet site. They'll hone in on him and take him out. Grant's only role is to leave here as you and get out of the cab at the entrance to the amusement park. She's not going to actually enter the arcade."


"And you and Savard?" Blair asked quietly, her heart pounding.


Cam leaned up on elbow so that she could look into Blair's eyes. The room lights were off, but the streetlights outside the loft windows were enough for them to see each other. "We'll be there for ground support only, to assure that Grant is covered if any action takes place near her and to get her to the back up car which will be nearby. Escort duty only."


"Is that all of it, Cam?"


Cam held her gaze. "That's the plan, Blair. I won't tell you that unexpected things don't happen, but there will be a hundred agents right behind us and about that many State Police watching the perimeter. It's as solid as these things get."


Blair ran her hand through Cam's hair, then tightened her fingers in the thick strands, pulling Cam's head down close to her face. "I can't take anyone else leaving me."


"I won't," Cam vowed. "I swear."


"Well, that's reassuring," Blair whispered, "because I know your word is good."


Then, in the last moment left to them, they made their promises - simply and surely - with a kiss.




Chapter Thirty-Seven

At twenty minutes to midnight, Blair walked into the command center. She halted just inside the door, momentarily disoriented. The room was brightly lit yet eerily deserted. Monitors flickered with images that no one watched. Chairs stood askew in front of desks littered with coffee cups and food wrappers, as if abandoned in haste. Here and there a jacket or sweater lay forsaken on a counter. The atmosphere of control she was accustomed to had been replaced by a lingering sense of chaos that made her heart beat uneasily.


"Ms. Powell?" Lindsey Ryan said quietly as she approached with a cup of coffee in her hand.


Startled, Blair jumped. She turned toward the voice and smiled ruefully. "I couldn't wait upstairs."


Lindsey nodded sympathetically. "Would you like some coffee?"


Blair raised an eyebrow, struggling to get a grip on her nerves. "I don't suppose you know who made it, do you? I've had the coffee some of these people make, and it's an adventure I'm not up to at the moment."


"Actually, I just made it myself," Lindsey said with a laugh. "Mac and Felicia are both glued to the communication consoles, and they probably need it by now."


"I can imagine, " Blair murmured, thinking of the twenty-four restless, anxious hours she had spent with them waiting for Loverboy to contact her. She stepped further into the room and looked toward the far end where the communication equipment covered the entire wall and every surface within reach of the swivel chairs where Mac and Felicia Davis still sat. She was certain that they hadn't moved in days.


"I'll take your word that it's safe then," Blair said, indicating the coffee.


The two women walked back to the small alcove where the coffee machines and refrigerator were housed. Blair poured coffee, then raised the Styrofoam cup to her lips and sipped cautiously. Ryan was right, it wasn't bad. She settled her hips against the edge of the counter and regarded the redhead silently for a moment. Finally she asked, "Is there any word?"


Lindsey shook her head. "Not yet. Mac has a direct line to Commander Roberts, but all we know is that she and Savard are on site." She hesitated, then added carefully, "Ms. Powell, we can only get a small piece of the picture from here, and sometimes an incomplete picture is worse that no picture at all."


"You expect trouble?" Blair said worriedly, recognizing Ryan's delicate attempt to tell her to leave. She hadn't come down earlier because she didn't want to distract Cam right before the operation began. Instead, she had forced herself to sit in her kitchen and wait. She had watched the clock approach eleven, imagining Cam putting on her protective gear and strapping on her weapons. As every minute passed, her anxiety had grown. She had wanted so badly to see Cam again before she left. Just to say -- just to say what she hadn't said before.I love you.


Her throat dry, Blair asked again, "Is something wrong?"


"No," Lindsey said quickly. "But I've watched too many of these things not to know that sometimes what Ithought was happening wasn't really what happened at all. It can be nerve-wracking when you're helpless to do anything."


Blair laughed entirely without humor. "Agent Ryan, I doubt very much that anything will happen that I haven't already imagined. Believe me, knowing has got to be better than what I'm thinking. I won't get in anyone's way."


Ryan touched her arm briefly, a sympathetic gesture of understanding. "Come with me. We can wait this one out together."



*****



From her position atop an abandoned crane platform, Cam had a clear view of the entrance to the amusement park as well as the parking lot directly in front of the arched entryway. There were no functioning lights in the immediate vicinity, but the highway itself was not too far away and there was enough illumination from passing cars and the bright summer moon for her to see without night vision goggles. She could discern the outline of a few buildings - windows shattered and doors hanging from deteriorating hinges - surrounded by the skeletal remains of broken down amusement park rides. In the blue glow of moonlight it looked like a graveyard of prehistoric creatures.


Savard was on the ground directly below her, in shadows. Cam had reluctantly agreed with Doyle that Savard should take the point position. Cam was scanning multiple radio frequencies, but all she heard was the occasional query from Doyle confirming the position and readiness of the intercept teams. It was possible that their exchanges could be monitored, but she doubted that Loverboy had had time to lock onto their communication frequencies yet, even if he was in the area already. She checked her watch once again. Forty minutes had passed since Grant left Blair's building. She should be arriving any second.


*****


Ellen Grant looked out the window into the deserted parking lot as the cab slowed to a halt. Reaching for the door handle, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Thanks for the ride, guys."


She could not see Stark, who was slouched down so that she would not be visible through the windows to anyone watching their arrival, but her voice was unmistakable. "Any time. Just holler, Cinderella, and we'll bring your coach."


"Roger that," Grant said as she stepped out into the night.


The cab pulled away and Grant looked around, trying to get her bearings. Thirty feet to her left was the gateway to the amusement park but beyond that was only blackness. There was some construction equipment in the parking lot itself, but otherwise no sign of anyone.


A soft voice murmured in her ear, "We have you, Grant."


Her anxiety disappeared at the sound of Roberts' steady voice. "I copy."


"Proceed through the gates," Doyle's voice ordered. "You are clear to approach the rendezvous point."


Roberts' voice repeated the order, "Proceed through the gatesonly . Hold inside and give us a visual."


Grant spoke softly as she walked forward. "I can see into the arcade now," she informed them as she pushed wide the tall iron gates and stepped through. "There are pieces of equipment all over the place, most of them large enough to hide someone." She looked across the grounds for the building that Loverboy had designated as the place where they would meet. The refreshment stand sign hung askew over the boarded up door. "No sign of activity."


"We have no hit on the thermal sensors. There is no evidence of occupation," Cam advised her. "Advance slowly but do not - I repeat - do not enter the building."


Looking right and left, Grant moved forward, trying to ignore the cold stream of sweat that ran down between her shoulder blades underneath the heavy vest and pooled at the base of her spine. She was very aware of the fact that her head was unprotected, and that the body armor she wore could be pierced by ammunition available to anyone over the internet. She had to trust that Doyle and his technicians had done a thorough sweep of the surrounding buildings and grounds, because she was a sitting duck. She pushed the thought from her mind and concentrated on the still, quiet night around her.


Nothing.


If it weren't for Cameron Roberts' voice in her ear, she might have thought she had awakened from a dream in an uninhabited world. She couldn't remember ever having felt so alone.


*****


"Anything?" Doyle barked at one of the men next to him who was searching the field below with night vision glasses and thermal sensing equipment. They had set up on top of a warehouse just beyond the amusement park. From there Doyle could direct all the action.


"Nothing except the decoy," one grunted as he slowly panned the area. "Not even a stray cat."


"Somebody should radio the State boys and tell them that their perimeter is too close," someone else remarked. "I can see movement and we've got State Troopers almost on top of our people."


Doyle laughed derisively. "They're just looking for a little piece of the glory. It must get pretty boring riding around in those bubble cars stopping speeders all day."