Advance team reporting. We've got unusually high media traffic on the main approach route, Commander.

"Numbers?"

Two dozen vehicles. Head count's a hundred and rising.

Cam's expression hardened. Crowd control and close-range security outside the hospital were now the critical issues. She could draft the hospital security force as backup, but they weren't trained for this kind of maneuver and would likely prove to be more hindrance than help. The last thing she needed was an overeager hospital guard manhandling a reporter. She wanted to prevent an incident, not precipitate one.

The official French security personnel were already posted as perimeter protection, and she would not leave her borders exposed by pulling them off that detail. The elevator doors opened, and she and Blair stepped on.

"Roger that." She keyed her mic to a different frequency. "Mac."

Go ahead, Commander.

"Your vehicle will take the lead. Egret's will follow."

Roger that.

"Trouble?" Blair asked quietly.

"Nothing to worry about," Cam replied smoothly.

"Don't try that with me, Cameron."

Cam sighed. As they exited into the main lobby, Stark and Felicia moved in on either side, falling into step as Blair walked toward the front doors. "The media are out in force. We may need to adjust."

"Just get me through them."

"Absolutely."

Mac, Reynolds, and Fielding waited under the canopy on the sidewalk. As soon as Blair appeared, they turned and moved ahead of her so that she was ringed by agents.

Blair glanced at Cam. "What's with the close-range coverage?" She spoke quietly, so that Felicia and Stark did not hear.

"I forget," Cam murmured as the men fanned out by the side of the second Peugeot and she reached for the rear door handle, "that you know so much about what we do."

"You're stalling," Blair observed as Cam held the door and she slid with practiced ease into the vehicle.

Cam settled next to her while Stark got behind the wheel and Felicia took the front passenger seat. A pane of Plexiglas with a built-in speaker separated the passenger compartments. "The news release this morning introduces an unknown factor into our usual security protocol. Being out of the country amplifies that. I'm being cautious."

"You're always cautious." Blair smiled fondly and rested her hand once again on Cam's thigh. "I've come to expect that. One thing I've always felt with you is safe."

"Thank you." Briefly, Cam covered Blair's hand with her own and squeezed. "Of all the things I hope you feel because of me, that's one of the most important."

"I know., It isn't something I was looking for, and certainly not something I expected to find with another person."

"Then I'm truly honored." Cam gave an apologetic shrug. "I need to ignore you for a bit while I work."

Blair settled back, her face composed and her eyes distant. "I know. You go ahead. I'll see you later."

1549 16Aug01

The view through the high-powered scope was a few inches of sidewalk directly in front of the main entrance to the Institut. At the moment nothing showed between the crosshairs other than concrete. But in eleven minutes, a vehicle would slide to the curb and the first agent would step out. In the span of ten seconds, she would look first straight ahead and then left and right before finally swiveling to look back over the top of the vehicle to the buildings across the street. Unlike his predecessor, he would not allow a glint of sunlight on steel or twitch of nerves to give his position away. He would see her, but she would not see him. At that point, he would have a clear shot directly between her eyes.

By eleven seconds after arrival, the front doors would open, and the agent in the passenger seat would step to the end of the open rear door while the driver circled the vehicle to flank the lead agent.

At fifteen seconds, the primary target would emerge. Within twenty seconds, the tightly positioned group would begin moving, making his shot more difficult. That five-second span between her exit from the vehicle and her first step was his window of opportunity. More than enough time.

Cam opened a channel to the advance team. "Advance team— report."

It's a mess, Commander. You'll need to slow to under 10 kph just to get down the street to the entrance.

"What's the situation streetside?"

We've cordoned off the sidewalk, but it's a long approach. Time to full cover four minutes.

The original estimate had been two.

"Assessment?" She didn't like the fact that the motorcade would need to slow to a crawl for the length of the boulevard in front of the Institut. They'd make very good targets at that speed. She especially did not like that it would take twice as long as expected to get Egret into the building. Even with no specific intelligence indicating an elevated threat level, anything that forced her into a defensive position raised her suspicions. Ten seconds passed with no response. "Rogers—are we clear on current course or not?"

His hesitation only added to Cam's reservations. Phil Rogers had done advance work for the team before, and she found him thorough and astute. His eye-level read of the situation was critical, but ultimately only her assessment mattered.

I would categorize the situation as suboptimal but secure, Commander.

"Very well, Agent Rogers. Stand by."

Cam leaned forward and activated the global positioning system on the computer built into the partition between the front and rear seats. She worked the keyboard rapidly, zooming in on the Paris street map until she brought up the six square blocks surrounding their destination. When she entered a series of coordinates, three alternate routes outlined in red, yellow, and green appeared on the grid.

"If we sneak around the reporters," Blair said quietly, "it will look as if I'm afraid to confront the issue."

"You've already confronted the issue," Cam pointed out, her eyes still on the screen.

"I want to go in the front door as planned. I won't have it seem that I'm ashamed."

Cam opened another channel. "Mac, divert to Alt Route Yellow."

Roger that.

After repeating the same instructions to Stark, she contacted the advance team again. "ETA nine minutes—-switching to ARY. We'll use the emergency entrance on the south side."

Roger that.

"Cam—"

"I can't be concerned with appearances." Cam met Blair's irritated gaze unwaveringly. "I'm sorry."

"My father was right not to remove you from this post," Blair observed flatly. "Your involvement with me doesn't affect the way you do the job. I should've remembered that."

Cam wasn't certain if that was a criticism or not, but she didn't have time to consider it.

ETA five minutes.

The faint vibration at his hip produced no physical response. His heart rate did not accelerate, his blood pressure did not elevate, his finger did not move even a fraction of a millimeter on the trigger. Once again, without moving his face from its resting place against the rifle stock, he lifted the pager to eye level.

1556 16Aug01

Abort sequence two

He inched his head upward and watched emotionlessly as the armored ambulance rolled slowly down the lane toward the main street and wended through the haphazardly parked news vans until it disappeared from sight around the corner. Then he rested back on his heels and dispassionately disassembled his weapon. With careful precision, he repacked the main assembly into the bottom of his toolbox and stowed the various smaller mechanisms in his pockets in exactly the same order in which he had withdrawn them almost four hours earlier. Task completed, he turned his back to the wall and sat down on the roof, his legs stretched out in front of him.

He would wait three hours before making his way down the stairwell and out of the building. Then he would return to his two-room apartment, resume his unassuming life, and await further instructions. His orders might come that night or the next day or the next week. He could only hope that he would be given another critical role in the complex plan to send notice to the world that even the mightiest of superpowers was vulnerable to those with a clear and certain calling, and that the righteous would ultimately prevail. The sweat running into his eyes brought tears swimming to their surface, but he did not blink.

God Bless America.

CHAPTER NINE

" O ne in every eight women will develop breast cancer." Blair stood at the front of a large, well-appointed auditorium. It was designed to accommodate several hundred people in individual plush fabric chairs arranged in traditional tiered, semicircular rows, and it was full. Her audience consisted primarily of potential benefactors, with a smattering of hospital personnel. After touring the research and clinical wings, she'd spent the last twenty-five minutes discussing the disease that had killed her mother. "One woman dies of breast cancer every twelve minutes."

Cam stood eight feet away, slightly behind and to Blair's right. Stark occupied a similar post on the opposite side of the raised stage, near the entrance from the rear hallway. Mac and Felicia were at the back of the lecture hall flanking the main entrance. Two more agents stood guard in the lobby and others were posted outside at the hospital entrance and with the motorcade.

"We can do better with those numbers," Blair said with certainty, speaking without notes as she leaned toward the audience, her forearms stretched out on either side of the streamlined lectern, her fingers curled loosely over the forward edge. "With better diagnostic tools and more tumor-specific treatments, fewer women will die and more will live longer and more productively."

She stepped out from behind the podium and strode confidently to the center of the stage. Seeing this, Cam subtly shifted her position, concerned about Blair's exposure in the densely crowded room. Although everyone had been prescreened and IDs had been scrupulously checked, there had been no reasonable way to scan for weapons. That level of security, requiring portable metal detectors and handheld wands and a hell of a lot more people than she had at her disposal, was usually only feasible for the president and vice president. Blair was always vulnerable when in public, and that was the simple reality that Cam lived with and was forced to deal with. The only true protection for the first daughter was ensuring that those who guarded her were able to physically shield her in the event of an attack. That demanded that her security agents be close enough to position themselves between her and danger.

"The researchers here at the Institut Gustave-Roussy and those at similar institutions worldwide need our support—our financial support." Blair's voice was steady and strong as her eyes swept the room, pausing briefly on different individuals, making fleeting but powerful contact. "My mother was thirty-two years old when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was thirty-three when she died. It's heartbreaking that one so young should die, but death at any age from a disease that we might prevent is the true tragedy. Please, let's work together to eliminate breast cancer from the list of killers. Thank you."

Amidst applause and murmurs of assent, the president of the Institut approached with his hand extended and a deep smile. Blair turned to him with a gracious smile of her own. Her head throbbed and her throat was dry, but she needed to keep up the public facade just a few minutes longer.

"Thank you, Ms. Powell," he said as he shook her hand warmly. "We are honored by your presence here today and appreciate your support on behalf of our endeavors."

Cam listened with half a mind as the final speeches wound down. The greater part of her attention, however, was occupied with the details of her exit strategy, Blair had been extremely unhappy with the earlier diversion to the side entrance of the hospital. Cam knew her lover well enough to know that she would not consent to leave that way.

As the audience began to disperse and a crowd of attendees surged toward the stage for a private word with Blair, Cam moved closer still until she was only a few feet away. Stark mirrored her movements. Only someone watching very closely would have appreciated their actions. Blair spoke with members of the staff and potential donors for an additional twenty minutes, her smile never wavering, her words warm and engaging.

Cam had seen her at many public functions and knew her to be supremely adept at the social and political nuances required when interacting with everyone from heads of state to inner-city residents. Despite Blair's reluctance to engage in the politics of the White House, when called upon to represent her father's administration she was not only good at it, but she excelled. Cam also knew that these functions took a toll on Blair, particularly when they involved talking about something as personal and difficult as her mother's illness and death.