Page 7 of Beachcomber Danger

Andrews shook his head again. Thaddeus picked up his glass and downed half the tequila in it.

“We don’t know,” Andrews said.

Shana asked, “Why didn’t the President cancel his trip?”

“Because he’s a stubborn SOB,” Thaddeus spoke up in a hoarse voice. He obviously wasn’t used to the good stuff. Or maybe he wasn’t used to downing shots of anything.

Andrews looked around now. “You’re sure this place is secure?”

Dane nodded. He had questions. His first one was why were two Secret Service agents so rattled about a terrorist assassination threat? It was their job to deal with this shit, wasn’t it? His mind spun the arithmetic to figure why one and one were not adding up to two when it came to him.

“An attempt was already made,” Dane said.

Andrews snapped his eyes at him, then turned stone-faced. Thaddeus Goodley smiled.

“Your reputation is well deserved, I see”

Shana snorted. “What’s the story?”

“It wasn’t exactly an attempt. More like a scare. Photos were taken of the First Lady that seemed impossible for an outsider to be able to take. They were sent to the President with demands and the threat of more trouble.”

“NSA doubled down on finding out what was going on and they found chatter from a cell in Massachusetts about a plan to attack on Martha’s Vineyard on the Fourth of July.”

“You’re sure these are related?”

“Hell yeah.” Thaddeus brought his glass to his lips again and, after a deep breath, drank the rest down. Andrews left his refill untouched.

“Now you need to locate the cell members and stop them.” Dane’s blood was on the move, flowing fast and picking up speed. He could feel it circulating round and round his system, pumping him up, distributing vast amounts of adrenaline to every cell in his body until he could feel it seeping from his pores.

Andrews nodded.

“And you need to keep a lid on this. I shouldn’t have to tell you this is top secret clearance, strictly need to know. That goes for every single last word I’m telling you. You may not disclose a single syllable. To anyone. That includes your friend Captain Colin Lynch.”

“And your so-called friend the Governor.” Goodley accompanied his comment with his signature snide twist of his mouth.

“We’ll disclose any information that needs disclosing, when we see fit.” Andrews spoke in a firm serious voice. The tequila had taken the edge off his voice.

“You mean when your bosses tell you.”

Andrews smiled. “Then we have an understanding.”

“We do.” Dane gave him a truce-smile back. It was the kind of smile that was halfway between sincere and sarcastic, as if he were crossing his fingers behind his back. He had the feeling Andrews knew that.

The issue was what would he do about it? Dane would find out sooner or later—hopefully later—and hopefully without dragging Shana into the mess. He needed to do his best to keep her clear of their ire. She needed to start playing the good cop.

Dane took a step closer to her.

“Time to go for that appointment at the church, sweetheart.”

Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but she covered her amusement and went along.

“That’s right. Father Donahue is a stickler for timeliness.”

She grabbed her bag from the dining room chair where she’d hung it. He could tell by the way she slung it on her shoulder that it held her Glock. That was good because his was in the kitchen drawer and there was no way he was going to shove past Goodley to take his gun out of the drawer to go visit a priest at a church.

He put an arm around Shana and led her through the back door out into the fresh ocean breeze. He took a deep breath and then spoke quietly before he got inside the Jeep.

“We’re going to see Cap, but we can’t talk and we’ll need to be sneaky.”

“They’re going to follow us?” She looked happy, like this was the most fun she’d had in a while. He supposed it was.

“It won’t be so much fun if we get caught.”

“We won’t,” she said and got inside the car.