At Linda’s signal by the rear of the car, Dilya popped the hatchback. Thor took a sniff as the two Shelties strained to watch him, then Linda swung it closed.

  “It’s the training, not the language.”

  “Well, starting from near zero, Gaelic sounds like fun.”

  Dilya agreed that it could be. Except it would take far more than the day or so they were both in DC.

  Linda chatted for a moment with the hut guard, then returned to the car. “You armed?”

  Dilya shook her fighting knife loose from its wrist sheath and held it out. “Only my usual.”

  Linda nodded and waved it away and looked at Jimmy. “You?”

  “Uh. After Dilya, this is going to look kinda stupid.” He pulled out a Leatherman Multi-Tool.

  Linda shook her head. “I’m sorry. You don’t have the clearance to carry that inside the White House Grounds.”

  “How about if I carry it for him?”

  “It can’t ever be in his possession inside the grounds. When not on your person, it must remain locked in your registered weapons’ safe. If he’s found so much as cutting an apple with it, that would be bad.”

  “I’ll make sure.” Dilya took it and slipped it into her pocket.

  “But—”

  “Leave it, Jimmy. It took over a year for me to get clearance in the White House and another year to qualify for Yankee White, meaning I can be armed around the President. Even if he isn’t home right now.”

  They parked the car on West Executive Drive and headed for the West Lobby entrance.

  5

  “And you wonder why you scare everybody?” Jimmy asked Dilya as she led them deep into the White House. After the third turn, he wondered if he’d be able to find his own way out. Dilya then led him through about twenty more and a couple of staircases,.

  “No, but I sort of like being scary. Mom can be incredibly scary.”

  “Only because she’s the top sniper in the country and works on the national Hostage Rescue Team.”

  “Exactly,” Dilya sounded pleased. They descended two more flights, went up another, and back down the prior one. They ended up in a basement corridor somewhere deep in the White House. Tables and chairs were stacked along one side. A lump of rolled-up carpet lay on the other. In front of them, a metal door stood ajar.

  “Mechanical 043. What’s in here?”

  Dilya pushed the door open slowly but stayed at the threshold, looking in. “Nothing,” in a voice so sad it almost made him want to cry.

  “This is where she…?”

  Dilya nodded.

  Miss Watson’s office. He’d never been in here. It looked like a concrete cube with a couple of empty bookcases.

  Zackie slid between them into the room with Merle following. They circled the room sniffing, and her dog looked almost as sad as Dilya.

  He waited, but she didn’t move.

  When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he slapped his thigh to call the dogs back into the corridor. Then he swung the door closed and wrapped an arm around Dilya’s shoulders. She didn’t resist as he turned her away.

  Except…he had no idea where he was beyond a basement deep in the White House.

  Barely raising her finger from where her hands hung lax by her hips, Dilya pointed toward the staircase they’d descended. Through far fewer turns and only two sets of staircases, they reached a simple white door. She swung it open and stepped in.

  Now he was the one frozen at the threshold. In all the trips that the Chef’s Club had made to the White House after Dilya joined them, none of them had ever seen her bedroom. They’d talked about it once when she missed a meeting, but how she lived had remained a mystery.

  The room was smaller than his dorm room at MIT. A desk, dresser, and a wide closet. A small bathroom, a bookcase, and a twin bed. No posters on the wall. No TV or stereo. The only thing in the room that wasn’t white or wood was the bed quilt. It looked like a mad, multi-colored pointed star made up of rings of diamond shapes ranging across the color spectrum in decreasing wavelengths from violet to deepest red, with a background of the midnight sky.

  “I thought you quit. Why are we here?”

  “This is home. More than with my stepparents. They were still overseas on assignment when I came to the US. Geneviève insisted I live here. I was ten, though they thought I was thirteen. The only one who knows I quit is Anne. I doubt she’d tell anyone other than her husband. I haven’t even told Frank and Beat.”

  Jimmy tried to remember how to breathe. She referred to the former and present First Ladies by their first names. And, by her descriptions Frank and Beat were two of the scariest people on the planet…heck, in the solar system. They were the respective heads of the protection details for the former President and First Lady.

  Dilya crossed to a small safe and locked his Leatherman tool inside next to the big knife he’d seen the first time he’d met her in the White House kitchen. She’d faced down the head chef—not at knife point, but faced him down all the same. The main thing Jimmy recalled was how vicious the black-anodized steel had looked in her grasp and the absolute surety of how she’d handled it.

  That was the moment he’d fallen for her. He knew, in that instant, that he’d never meet anyone else like her. Back then, Jimmy had barely managed to gasp out Super cool. He had yet to decide if they were the dumbest first words ever said to a girl, but they’d been absolutely true. How little he’d known of the vast extent of Dilya’s super wicked über-coolness that was revealed over the next two days alone.

  There was very little of her in the room. Four pictures, no more. A tall blonde in a flight suit standing in front of a lethal looking helicopter. Next to it, one of her stepmom sprawled on the ground, sighting along a sniper rifle nearly as long as she was. Dilya and her stepparents on a big sailboat. And a copy of the one Chef’s Club photo they’d ever taken, the five of them grinning like idiots in Pauley’s Kitchen, one of the city’s best restaurants.

  “I have that photo too.” He pulled out his wallet. It was crumpled, with one end curled by the bend of the wallet and a big crease across the middle. It was the only one he carried a physical copy of other than his parents. He held it next to the one on Dilya’s dresser as if to prove their connection, at least to himself.

  Dilya said as little as usual but nodded her approval, as if it meant something to her as well. He tucked it away carefully. The group had always been important, but Dilya’s image was the reason he still carried it three years after they’d gone their separate ways to college.

  “We can get a couple hours sleep.”

  “Uh…” He eyed the bed. The few hours he’d managed in the car hadn’t begun to address the deficit and it was now two a.m.. He looked again. It was still only a twin, exactly as it had been when he’d first seen it a minute ago. The only other surface in the room big enough to sleep on was the floor.

  She kicked off her shoes and shed her jacket. “If they can do it, so can we.”

  Zackie and Merle had doggie piled together into the dog bed by the head of Dilya’s twin. Close enough that she could reach out and pet the dog without even raising her head from the pillow.

  “I, uh…” He caught her smiling at him. “Sorry, that constitutes the most coherent statement I can make about that offer.”

  “All I was suggesting is sleep. If I suggested more, how tongue-tied would you become?”

  “Super wicked über-tongue-tied.”

  She laughed. It was a bright sound that seemed to fill the room.

  He felt the smile pulling at his own lips.

  Then she sobered abruptly. “That first day in the kitchen? It was the first compliment I ever had from anyone in high school.”

  “Anyone?”

  “I don’t think a single teacher ever did either. No one noticed me outside of Chef’s Club.”

  “Sure they did. They were simply too scared to talk to you.”

  Dilya watched him with those green eyes until he couldn’t turn away. “Are you too scared?”

  “Might be.” But he shed his shoes and jacket and let her lead him to her bed.

  His face ended up in her hair on the pillow. She smelled of the mountaintop cold they’d found this morning in New Hampshire, and the warmth of the woman. Under the thick quilt, he dared greatly and tucked an arm around her waist.

  How could something so slender be a part of someone so strong?

  Where did that strength come from? So much more than he possessed himself.

  Her sense of absolute surety could account for it.

  Or perhaps it was raw nervous energy.

  Already half asleep, she pressed back against his chest, sighed once, and was out.

  He figured he was about to become a cliché and lie awake the rest of the night, morning, whatever, because it would be impossible to sleep with her in his arms.

  That thought lasted him less than three minutes.

  6

  “What are we doing here?” Jimmy’s voice held a distinct tone of panic.

  “I’m asking to meet the head of the Library of Congress.”

  “I know that. I get that we’re laying down some kind of trail. But now I’m thinking about who’s going to be following that trail and find us.”

  It was the we and us that was causing her trouble this morning—in many ways.

  She’d never woken in a man’s arms before. She hadn’t even managed a first kiss until college. And a tryst with a boy had never happened. There’d been as big a social bubble around her there as there’d been in high school—without the Chef’s Club to offer any respite.

  Returning to her duties at the White House directly after classes hadn’t helped either. The nights she stayed with her adoptive mom and dad offered an almost comic change. They all loved each other desperately, as their lives had more than once depended on each other. However, her parents' natural protectiveness meant she could descend into the womb of family, but no boy brought into that circle would stand a chance, so she never tried.

  Waking up in Jimmy’s arms, even fully clothed? She definitely wanted to try that again under other circumstances.

  “I thought you’d be visiting your dad.” She hadn’t expected Jimmy to insist he was coming with her.

  “Ha!” His sarcasm was all he offered in reply. He knew that she didn’t need his protection. If anything, it would be the other way around. She was the one trained by the Secret Service in self-defense and situational awareness.

  “Which means…what?”

  “I’m here for you, Dilya.”

  She wished she had time to think about that, but the head librarian had come out to the main floor of the Main Reading Room. They’d been waiting at the circular central desk beneath the library’s magnificent dome. When the library doors opened, they’d been first through the door. Only a few of the most eager researchers and tourists had arrived with them and were now finding places at the tiers of circular reading tables.

  There were so many things to show Jimmy here: a Gutenberg Bible, Thomas Jefferson’s personal library, the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence displayed on the second floor with Adams and Franklin’s edits. But there wasn’t time. Not with the long list of libraries Miss Watson had left her. Left them?

  To bring their dogs inside, Zackie wore her Service Dog vest and Merle a Service Dog in Training one she’d kept from Zackie’s early days. Merle fidgeted with excitement.

  “Miss Stevenson,” the librarian greeted her. He was a tall, hefty man with a broad smile and a deep voice wholly unbefitting her image of a librarian. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” His glance down at the White House badge she’d left dangling around her neck stated the only reason he’d agreed to see her.

  “I’m seeking any information you might have about Miss Watson.”

  “Miss Watson?” He attempted to look bland, but he lowered his voice and quickly scanned the room. No one appeared to be paying them any mind.

  “Yes.” Dilya was guessing at the intent of Miss Watson's message and therefore kept her voice normal. “Miss Watson went missing approximately seven days ago and I’m trying to find her. Do you have any information about that?”

  “Missing?” his voice now little more than a whisper.

  “Yes.”

  No longer able to hide his distress, he shook his head.

  She thanked him and turned to go.

  “Miss Stevenson?”

  Dilya turned to face him.

  “That is a name I would not bandy about so lightly. Where did you hear it?”

  “She’s been my mentor for the last eight years. I’m following her instructions.”

  To that, he had no answer as she turned and left him riveted in place.

  7

  Jimmy’s head was soon spinning.

  Next they’d visited the Law Library of Congress in the James Madison Memorial Building. The reading room there was thoroughly modern, with none of the grandeur of the Main Reading Room next door. It didn’t need it. It was the access point to a complete printed set of every document generated by the United States Supreme Court and that was grandeur enough.

  The map collection in the basement was staggering. He could happily get lost here and never emerge again. Dilya had managed to get them admitted past the front room; something about garnering the most attention.

  They entered archives that seemed to expand forever beneath the streets of DC. “Five million maps,” he barely managed to breathe it out.

  “Sixty thousand atlas, rare globes, three thousand 3D models of terrain, and so much more.” The librarian, a slight woman who had only recently taken on managing the collection, either didn’t know of Miss Watson or was better at hiding it than the previous two.

  “I’m definitely coming back here,” he told Dilya. “Just imagine what I could learn about Mount Washington.”

  “Why that spot in particular?” the librarian asked in her soft voice. She was the very model of a librarian.

  He pointed to the symbol on his sweatshirt. A simple mechanical gear and the words Cog Railway. “I’m learning to be a driver for them.”

  The librarian made quick use of a nearby terminal, then led them through the football field-sized area of tall metal cases, filled with big drawers to keep maps flat. Deep in the field, they dodged toward the sidelines. At a gray steel case exactly like every other around it, the librarian pulled on powder-free nitrile gloves and opened the third drawer down.

  She flipped through the maps and finally extracted one from deep in the stack. With great care, she spread it out on a nearby table, then stepped back for him to discover it himself.

  “It’s—” The words stuck in his throat.

  “Initial survey of and a detailed assessment regarding the proposed route for a cog railway along the trail earlier established by Mister Ethan Allen Crawford upon the southwest face of Mount Washington in Coos County in the State of New Hampshire,” Dilya read out. “It’s dated 1852. That’s one heck of a title.”

  Jimmy hadn’t seen anything like it. And he’d wager that no one on the Cog Railway had either.

  “If I can get a copy of this, it would make me immensely popular.” Jimmy wished he could touch it. Could feel the markings that Sylvester Marsh had made a hundred and seventy years ago as he’d hiked on Mount Washington and dreamed of opening the peak for everyone to enjoy with a cog-driven railroad. It connected Jimmy to the mountain more tightly, as if he was meant to be here in this moment.

  “Easily done.” The librarian rolled it carefully and carried it to the front area.

  Minutes later, they were back on the street with a full-sized copy rolled into a stout cardboard tube.

  “I’m sorry, Dilya. I’m know it was a delay, but this is incredible.”

  “You love it there, don’t you? In New Hampshire.”

  “I do!” Only after he said it did he wish he’d been less emphatic. It wouldn’t be any less true, but Dilya’s life lay here, in Washington DC, not in the New Hampshire woods.

  After that, she remained unusually silent, even by her standards. She only spoke during what was weirdly turning into routine at each successive library.

  At the Folger Library, she met briefly with the librarian overseeing the largest collection of Shakespeare works and references anywhere in the world. His reaction implied that if he had indeed ever heard of a Miss Watson that such hypothetical knowledge would regrettably be neither current nor useful.

  Dilya, sharing her close relationship with Miss Watson, did nothing to open that particular door any wider.

  Jimmy considered faking an interest, but he and his dad, even Mom before she was killed, were more The Bourne Identity sort of people than Much Ado About Nothing people. In the end he left well enough alone and followed Dilya once more onto the street.

  If she wasn’t going to break the silence, he would. “What are we doing, anyway? I still don’t understand her message. Visit a bunch of libraries then—”

  “My best guess is that we’re trying to attract attention. We’re bait.”

  “We’re what?” Jimmy twisted around to see if they were being followed.

  “Don’t!” Dilya grabbed his hand before he turned fully around. “No one has picked up our trail yet, but we have to keep trying.”

  “How do you know? Uh, never mind.” Because if anyone knew, it would be Dilya, not him.

  He focused forward as they headed west from the libraries and hit the National Mall. He pointed. “I was always more of a National Air and Space Museum sort than the places Miss Watson is leading us.”

  “I bet that you’ll like the next one.”

  She hadn’t let go of his hand, which only made it all the more confusing. There was no future that connected upstate New Hampshire and DC. Not that he planned to let go of her hand anytime soon.

  Halfway back to the White House, they passed the US Secret Service headquarters building. Except they didn’t pass it. At the far end, Dilya led him through one of the big glass doors into the interior.

 

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