Long May She Reign (53 page)

He didn't look at all like a football player. “What position did you play?” she asked.

“Safety,” he said. “Tight end, once in a while, if they wanted me on the other side of the ball.”

Okay, he had the right build for that. “Did you play other sports?” she asked. Here at school, he was heavily into Ultimate Frisbee, and had spent the fall playing some pick-up rugby, too.

“In high school, you mean?” he asked, then nodded. “Baseball. Usually third base, sometimes outfield.”

Yeah, she could picture that, too. And—call her one-dimensional—but it increased his attractiveness immediately. It was hard to relate to people who didn't like sports, even though Beth fell strongly into that category, serving as a rare—and major—exception to the rule.

“Do your parents want you to major in political science?” he asked.

Since he couldn't ask her any athletic questions. “I think my father would prefer that I picked anything
but
that,” she said. Although he probably wouldn't mind at all if she went to law school. “And—” Hmmm. “You know, my mother and I have never really discussed it.”

He stared at her. “
Never?
”

Not a single conversation was coming to mind. Not since last spring, anyway. Which—he was right—was weird. “I don't think so,” she said. “I guess I mostly just pretend I'm going to major in English, and she pretends to believe me.”

There was no question that he found that bizarre, but she was glad he didn't say so.

“I used to think—” She paused. No, the original ending of that sentence would sound arrogant. “I, um, I took tennis pretty seriously. I was hoping—to give it a try.”

“Do you think you could have made it?” he asked.

Yes. Which didn't make it true. “Probably not,” she said. “I mean, before I—got hurt, I was mostly playing against men—” Because her game had progressed enough so that she had a hard time finding female players who could give her a genuinely competitive match— “and beating them pretty often, so—I don't know. Probably not.”

“But, you kind of think you could have,” he said.

Yeah. She very definitely kind of did.

31

THEY REALLY DIDN'T
get much work done, but it still seemed as though they had accomplished something. That they were no longer strangers to the same degree, maybe.

“Do I get to take you all the way up to your room?” he asked, when they were walking—very, very slowly, because her knee was so bad—to her dorm.

She nodded.

“Do I get to come inside for a while?” he asked.

She nodded, after only a very short hesitation.

“Cool,” he said, and held the door for her.

She caught a glimpse of Garth on one of the phones inside the main security room, which seemed odd, since he technically wasn't on duty, but he had been working on the security plans for spring break, which were fairly complicated. As far as she knew, all of the agents on her regular detail were going to be given at least a little time off, as well as going up to Beltsville for some of their never-ending training sessions, which meant that there would be replacement agents stationed on the campus, as well as following her around Washington. So, there had been a lot more briefings and meetings than usual during the past day or two, arranging the transition.

“Do we get to do some serious making-out?” Jack asked in the elevator.

She glanced over at him. “Define ‘serious.'”

“On your bed together, naked,” he said.

He could not be faulted for a lack of ambition. “How about on my bed together, fully dressed,” she said.

He grinned. “Okay. I can work with that.”

Yes, she'd had a feeling that such might be the case.

*   *   *

IT WAS LATE
when he left, and they were both in good moods.

And, okay, she had let him talk her, literally and figuratively, out of both her shirt, and her bra.

With really no argument whatsoever.

She didn't get much sleep—there seemed to be some extra activity going on out in the halls; looming midterms leading to dormwide insomnia, probably—but, when her alarm went off after what seemed like only about ten minutes, she still felt pretty cheerful.

Very cheerful, even.

It had, indeed, been serious making-out. More crucially, it had been
successful
making-out, despite the impediment of her brace and splint.

Totally
fun
making-out. And she hadn't had anything resembling fun since—it had been so long that she couldn't actually remember.

But, as nice as it would be to lie around ruminating about the details, she needed to get up, take a shower, double-check her psychology lab report, and maybe grab something to eat before class. She paused to check her email, and found one from Jack, which said, “
Same time, same place?
” and—to amuse herself—she wrote back, “
Wicked excellent
,” before logging off.

When she came out of her room, Jose was in the hall, right by her door—so close that she had to stop short to keep from bumping into him—
and
Ed was at the security desk.

Weird. “What's going on?” she asked.

“Just testing out some new procedures,” Jose said.

Well, okay. Whatever. She grinned at him. “So, my mother didn't jet off to other lands this morning without telling me?” Thereby unilaterally jacking up her protection.

He shook his head, giving her a slight smile back.

In the rush of people waiting their turns to get at the showers and head off to the dining hall or classes, she heard almost everyone else on the floor ask some type of “Did the President leave the country?” question, and receive the same “testing new procedures” response.

Ergo, they must be testing new procedures.

Jose rode down in the elevator with her, and when they got off, she saw Garth—who
absolutely
should not have still been on duty—talking to several agents she had never seen before, as well as Dave and Nellie and Casey and Brian, all of them crammed into the command post, along with what appeared to be a few police officers and FBI people, and she finally woke up enough to realize that there might actually be a problem.

So much for her nice, happy awakening, and hopes for a return to some version of a regular life.

She limped up to the doorway of the security room, and as soon as Garth saw her, he broke off whatever he had been about to tell the gathered agents, and said good morning to her, instead.

“New procedures?” she asked, stiffly.

Garth nodded.

Oh, like hell. She maneuvered her way into the room, agents practically scrambling over one another to let her by—and she saw that one of the police officers had a harnessed German shepherd close by her side.

Utterly and completely routine, no question.

Garth motioned for all of them to leave—which they appeared to be quite eager to do—and then, they were alone in the room.

“So,” she said.

He sighed, his eyes heavy with fatigue. “There was a spike in your threat level overnight, on some of the Web sites we keep under regular surveillance, as well as some direct communications, and we're adjusting your protection accordingly.”

Most of which, she'd figured out already. “Anything specific?” she asked.

“We're currently assessing that,” he said.

Translation: yes.

“As a precaution, your classes are going to be relocated temporarily, and we may also recommend that you return to Washington earlier than planned,” he said.

Relocated?
Oh, great. “Am I endangering anyone else?” she asked.

He hesitated. “Obviously, we're going to make every possible effort to ensure the safety of the entire campus.”

Another yes. God-damn it. And, with the cautious and rigid phraseology, he sounded as though he was parroting the exact party line, as, presumably, passed down from Mr. Gabler. Somehow, formal agent-speak sounder scarier coming out of a red-haired guy with freckles, whose mouth tended to turn up at the corners even when he was deadly serious.

Feeling very tired, she leaned back against the shelves where the security monitors were lined up. She scanned them, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary, beyond a few too many agents and law enforcement personnel, mingling among people hurrying off to class or the dining hall. “Do my parents know?”

He nodded. “The President received a full briefing within the last hour or so.”

That would have been nice news to hear, first thing in the morning. It was strange that she hadn't called yet, but maybe she was trying to get as many details as possible—and not seem overly alarmed, until she knew more about what was potentially going on.

“I know this must be frightening, Meg,” he said, “but I want to assure you that—”

She shook her head. “I'm not scared.” And she
wasn't
, really, since every day for months now had seemed like one more than she ever expected to have. The exact method and timing of whatever horrible thing was ultimately going to happen might be a surprise, but the
likelihood
of its happening had a specter of inevitability. “I just—I don't want anyone else to get caught up in it.”

“We're almost sure that this is because of all of the extra media exposure you've had during the past week,” Garth said. “But we want to go out of our way to be
over
prepared.”

Right. On the monitors, she could see that there was at least one other dog-handler team patrolling outside. “They planning to kidnap me, shoot me, blow me up, or what?” she asked.

Garth frowned. Mr. Gabler must not have given him clear instructions about how to answer such a direct question. “There've been a series of bomb threats, and one of them was chemical in nature.”

For an instant, she felt absolutely sick to her stomach, but her second thought was that, if she had to choose, chemical was probably preferable to biological or nuclear.

And her third thought was that, at some level, only the first reaction fell into the category of being rational.

But, the thing to do was go back up to her room and call her parents, and find out whether going home early—thereby skipping out of her midterms—would be the best way to protect everyone else at the school. Which needed to be her top priority.

“Hey, did the President go abroad or something?” Quentin asked her, wearing a thick blue Highland Park Giants hooded sweatshirt, as he swung out of the elevator on his crutches.

He was a good guy, and she wanted him to be safe—but she couldn't tell him the truth until she knew exactly what the truth
was
. Meg nodded. “She defected, yeah. There's going to be quite a scandal.”

He laughed, and headed outside, as she—and her new, very close shadow, Jose—got back on the elevator.

The drop-line was ringing when she walked into her room, and she picked it up to find—unsurprisingly—the President on the other end.

“I just talked to Garth,” Meg said. “So, I already know.”

Her mother sighed. “It's probably nothing, but obviously, your father and I are very concerned. I put Thomas on a plane, and they should be landing any time now.”

Mr. Gabler. Meg sat down on the edge of the bed, exhausted by the thought of having to deal with all of this. “Maybe it's just because I became
interesting
again, after, you know, the stuff with Susan. And so, all the nuts are coming out of the woodwork.”

“Probably,” her mother agreed. “But, I gather that there's a specificity to it that—” She sighed again. “Maybe it would be better if you came home today.”

But, probably not so good for her GPA—or her self-respect. “Is that really what you want me to do?” Meg asked.

“Your father's right here,” her mother said, after a pause, “and—well, it goes without saying that your safety is paramount to both of us.”

Okay, that meant that the President was torn—and the First Gentleman was not. “So, I should just cut and run,” Meg said. “While the whole campus up here is still at risk.”

There was a short silence. “Let me put him on for a minute,” her mother said.

The First Gentleman must be taking a
very
hard line on this.

They spoke for a while, and while her father was calm and supportive, there was no doubt that he wanted her to return to Washington right away—or sooner, if possible. Then, her mother came back on.

“He's not happy,” Meg said.

Her mother sighed.

“I'll wait until Mr. Gabler gets here and all,” Meg said, “but if I have to make a decision, I really want to speak to you privately, first.”

“Yes, I can see why that might be indicated,” her mother said, obliquely. “I'll make sure to arrange that.”

Good.

There wasn't much else to say, but the conversation limped on for another few minutes before they hung up with nothing whatsoever resolved.

Now what?

She couldn't think of anything to do, beyond making herself a cup of microwave coffee. Then, she sat down on the bed to drink it, and stare at one of her pictures of Vanessa.

There was a sharp knock on the door, and Susan came in without waiting for her to respond in any way.

“What's going on?” she asked. Demanded, really.

Naturally, Susan would be the one most likely to sense trouble—and to take immediate action. Meg sipped her coffee. “They're trying out new security procedures.”

Susan looked annoyed. “Give me a break.”

“That's the official word,” Meg said, and took another sip.

Susan checked her watch—she was probably on the verge of being late to some midterm or other—and then shook her head. “I used to live in New York, Meg, I
know
what credible terrorist threats look like.”