Executive Privilege

He laughed. “I thought pregnancy lowered a woman’s sex drive.”

“Then you don’t remember the last time I was pregnant. Now do something about my itch or I’ll go on TV and tell Barbara Walters you’re impotent.”

“What a bitch,” he whispered as he moved back far enough so he could pull down his pajama bottoms.

Chapter Eight

Jake Teeny had an exciting job that took him to the most exotic and dangerous places in the world, but he lived in a boring ranch house in the Maryland suburbs, preferring-he’d told Dana-a mundane, risk-free existence when he wasn’t braving the dangers of a war zone or enduring the extreme heat of Africa or bitter Arctic nights. Weekends when he was home, Jake puttered in his garden, watched the NBA and NFL, and lived the life suburban.

Dana parked down the street from Jake’s place as a precaution in case there was an APB out for her car. She was exhausted but she had work to do so she went into the kitchen and made a cup of instant coffee. She was carrying her mug downstairs to Jake’s office when her cell phone rang. Dana placed the mug on a step and answered it.

“What’s going on, Dana?” Andy Zipay asked. He sounded nervous.

“What do you mean?”

“My guy ran those plates. One of them belongs to Charlotte Walsh and another is registered to Monarch Electronics, an outfit in Landover, Maryland, but the third car is registered to the Secret Service. And that electronics firm is the type of place the Service would use as a cover for the cars they don’t use on protection details.”

Dana felt a chill. “Which license is for the Secret Service car?”

Zipay read back the license number of the dark blue Lincoln sedan that had been parked at the farmhouse. Now Dana knew why the man Charlotte Walsh had harangued looked familiar.

“Thanks, Zip,” she said automatically as her brain raced along to the only conclusion logic was suggesting.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re interested in the Secret Service?”

“You don’t want to know, okay?”

“Whatever you say, but this better not come back on me.”

“It won’t.”

Dana ended the call and made her way down the rest of the stairs as quickly as possible. She flipped on the light in Jake’s office and booted up his computer. While she waited, she glanced at the walls of the cramped room. They were covered by photos that had won awards or were Jake’s favorites. The photos were so striking they drew her eye even though she’d seen them several times: a naked child drinking water from a puddle on a war-torn street in Somalia, a terrified bride and groom moments after a suicide bomber struck at their wedding in Fallujah, a blind climber on the summit of Everest.

The computer beeped, signaling that it was ready to go to work. Dana swiveled back to the keyboard and typed in some commands. After downloading the images from her camera she burned a DVD for Perry to give to his client then she went through the pictures. She took a sip from her mug as she reviewed the shots from the Thai restaurant. The close-ups were good, and she only had to zoom in on a few to get better details. The shots at the mall were also good even though it had been dark and she had a clear picture of the license plate of the car that had taken Walsh to the farmhouse.

Her first shots at the farmhouse were okay, but the pictures she’d taken through the second-floor window hadn’t come out as well. Dana moved through the pictures quickly until she came to the photos she’d taken when Walsh stormed out of the farmhouse. When she got to the shot she’d taken just before she ran she leaned forward and squinted at the monitor. The mystery man was looking at the departing Ford, and his face was framed in the shot, but he was too far away to see clearly without enhancement. Dana zoomed in. The man’s features sharpened. She enlarged the shot some more and sat back in her chair, her heart beating rapidly. Dana had no doubt about the identity of the man Walsh had met at the farmhouse. President Farrington’s face was in the newspaper every day and on television every night. What had Perry gotten her into?

Dana tried to take a sip of her coffee but her hand shook and a wave of hot liquid slopped over onto her wrist and scalded her.

“Shit!”

She wiped her hand on her shirt and shook it to cool it off. She’d have a lot more to worry about than a burn if the people watching Farrington had her license number.

Dana stood up and started to pace. Could she get Perry to intercede for her? He was co

Another idea occurred to her as soon as she calmed down enough to think. Maybe she could work this fiasco to her advantage. If Christopher Farrington was having an affair with Charlotte Walsh the photographs she’d taken were worth a lot of money. Farrington was always spouting off about family values. Proof he was having sex with a teenager would send the media into a feeding frenzy. A tabloid like Exposed would give her a fortune for the shots. And there were the right-wing television stations. She bet they’d come across.

Of course, the money wouldn’t do her any good if she was in prison for attacking the guard or dead. Maybe she could use the pictures as a bargaining chip to stay out of jail or to get Farrington to leave her alone. Maybe she could get some money for them from Farrington and use the pictures as an insurance policy. Dana decided that she should put a copy of the photos in a safe place, maybe give them to a lawyer or lock them up in a safety-deposit box. But did she need a bargaining chip? She would if the Secret Service knew who she was, but she still wasn’t certain that they had her license number. There was only one way to find out. She’d have to go to her apartment and see if it was under surveillance. She couldn’t drive her car because it would be recognized. Jake’s Harley was available, but she didn’t want to get him in trouble. In the end, Dana decided to take the motorcycle.

Dana put a DVD with the photos and a cover letter in an envelope with Jake’s name on it and left it on his desk. Jake would know how to exploit the pictures if something happened to her. She addressed another envelope with a second copy of the DVD to a lawyer who’d given her legal advice when she was deciding whether to quit the force. She dropped the envelope for the lawyer in a mailbox on her way to her apartment, which was on the third floor of a three-story brick apartment house on Wisconsin Avenue, a short haul from the National Cathedral. The bottom floor was occupied by a Greek restaurant and the entrance was between the restaurant and a dry cleaner. Dana cruised by her building slowly, taking in both sides of the street. At this hour, there wasn’t much traffic and it should have been easy to spot a stakeout. As far as Dana could tell, the cars on both sides of her block were unoccupied and she didn’t see any suspicious-looking vans.

Dana waited on a side street for fifteen minutes before circling the block and cruising back on the opposite side of the street. Nothing she saw raised her ante